There can be two different ways of looking at the afterlife in ancient Greece according to Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. The first form is very simple. It is memory based. A particular individual is remembered through visions of them just living their life. Edmonds calls this memory survival. It can be personal and involve a relative who has passed. In this case, the family member is imagined in their natural habitat, doing family activities and habits with the goal of maintaining a relationship with them. The family just wants to remember the person as they were, enjoying life. A community can also choose to preserve the memory of one of their own. This can be done with rituals, monuments and stories.
“The Greek poetic traditions, especially the epics, provide a means of preserving memories of important heroes (real or imagined) within communities. This imperishable fame remains one of the most significant forms of afterlife survival in the Greek tradition.'There were more complicated ideas about the afterlife that were not memory based. “More elaborate visions of the afterlife may arise from systematic thinkers who envision the afterlife as part of the larger nature of a world that includes both the living and the dead.” These types of thinkers viewed the afterlife as more complex than just a memory. They viewed the afterlife as having a link or connection to the real world. This relationship would depend on the context of the visions. For example, Plato saw an afterlife that is unseen while the real world, full of living people is visible. Aristophanes, a comedy writer, saw the afterlife almost as a parody or inverse of the real world. In his eyes familiar social structures were flipped upside down.Tombs in ancient Greece were extraordinarily important. They were made masterfully with an incredible attention to detail. “Ancient Greeks generally assumed that the dead retained some sentience in their afterlife, and that their reciprocal relations of care and respect with the living persisted.” The well being of family tombs were a sort of indicator of social status.
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If the family sufficiently performed funeral rituals and tended to the tomb, they were viewed as a proper family. It was very important to have a positive relationship with those who have passed on. It was also believed that if a family did these rituals improperly or disrespected the dead there would be unforeseen consequences. This could include disease, madness, drought or any other bad will. However, if they did everything properly, satisfied dead could bring good fortune to a family. This appeared in texts such as the Odyssey. When Odysseus travels to the underworld, he performs sacrifices to the dead before he enters. He then promises to perform rituals when he gets back home to Ithaca. Greeks at that time would see the rituals as an attempt to be in good standing with the dead and perhaps receive some good will. Citizens who gave back to their community were in turn honored after death. The Spartan general Brasidas, had his tomb turned into a hero shrine where annual festivals were held. These festivals involved sacrifices and athletic games. Brasidas had led the Spartans to victory against the Athlenians and was being rewarded in death. Festivals were used as ways to maintain relationships with those who have passed on. Interestingly, there was little thought about what the dead’s existence in the afterlife was. Harmodios, a tyrant slayer, was imagined to live on the Isles of the Blessed. However, there was little to no evidence about the actual conditions of the island or who else might be there.
All that mattered was honoring the dead properly would bring them good fortune. Even though rituals were a very popular way to honor someone, the best way was through an epic poem. Being immortalized in a poem was high sought after. The upper class aristocrats competed for honor in games and war. Pindar, a poet, would provide the winners of the Panhellenic games such immortality. The Panhellenic games were four separate sports festivals held in Greece. Homeric epics emphasize memory survival the most. Poetic immortality is seen as more valuable than everything else that can be desired in life. In the Iliad, the hero Achilles choses a short and immortal life rather than dying old and forgotten. Many Homeric heroes choose to be remembered rather than live. Homer often describes the afterlife in his poems as undesirable, not a place someone would want to go to after death. Even heroes did not look forward to this. Achilles describes the ghosts he meets in the underworld as worn out. Homer describes the afterlife like this for a reason. He wanted to portray the idea that a hero’s life is where they can have the greatest impact while in death they are nothing. A hero should try and fight to gain glory in this life, because that is all he will be remembered for in the next life. In the Iliad, Achilles does just this, dying a short and memorable life.
The Odyssey frames this quite differently. Here, death is a choice of immortalities. Kalypso, the goddess, offers immortality to Odysseus when he is at her island. “Odysseus rejects the immortality offered by Kalypso because, whatever its attractions, it would result in his own story, his poetic immortality, becoming lost.” If he had lived forever, no-one would know who he was. Famously, Odysseus travels to the underworld while still alive. This journey shows exactly how powerful epic memory was. Odysseus meets famous greek heroes, such as Achilles, who have a terrible existence in the afterlife. However, they are all remembered through the epic poems of the time. Even though Homeric poems describe the afterlife as dreary, there were other interpretations. Outside of the specific passages that were referenced earlier, the afterlife is presented as livelier, more uplifting. The afterlife contains the same social status as in the real world. People who had done everything right and earned the favor of the gods would still enjoy those benefits, while those who have angered the gods would have a generally worse time. “In this vision, the dead were imagined to have feelings and emotions, memories of their lives in the sun, and the ability to know of and even interfere in the world of the living.” All of the elaborate rituals that have been mentioned are thought to have been liked by the dead, and been appealing to them. This livelier afterlife is also the default version outside of the epics, in cults and rituals.
The Greeks viewed the afterlife as a reflection of life. The Odyssey describes this version of the underworld well. Orion, the hunter, continues to hunt, King Minos continues to judge lawsuits. Edmonds notes that the fact that the dead are continuing to engage in legal disputes best shows the underworld's reflection of the real world. One of the most practical ways of showing the afterlife was through vase paintings. These paintings would often depict the dead playing games such as pessoi or dice. Pindar, an ancient greek lyric poet, showed the dead doing activities such as gymnastics and playing the lyre. As stated earlier the living world’s social structures stayed in place in the afterlife, so the high class aristocrats were shown doing things aristocrats might have done while they lived. This is the default version of the afterlife and requires the least changing of memories, as one would be remembering someone doing what they actually did. When someone is famous but has accomplished nothing more this is what he or she receives. They are important enough to be remembered, but nothing more. In many texts, the afterlife and normal life is sealed off. There is a barrier or obstacle that prevents the living from communicating with the dead. An example of these barriers can be the rivers of the underworld: Acheron, Pyriphelgethon, Kokytos and Styx.
Patroclus, a friend of Achilles, notably tells Achilles that he cannot cross the river to the underworld until his body has received a proper burial. In many stories, Charon is depicted as the ferryman bringing the dead across the river Styx to their new lives. Many ancient graves were found with coins to be used as payment for the ferryman to ensure their arrival in the underworld. Besides the rivers, the gates of Hades and Cerberus, a multi-headed dog are other barriers blocking humans from the underworld. These barriers and obstacles separate life from death, dividing the real world and the afterlife into two different concepts. This proper burial was very important. Besides the fact that the dead could not pass over through the gates of Hades, it was believed they would haunt the living if not buried properly. This shows the Greeks strong belief in the power of the dead. The dead still had influence over the living, making them perform rituals perfectly to avoid being haunted. Continuing on the idea that the underworld and real world were sealed off is the idea that the living and dead could converse, but not touch each other. Repeatedly in epic poems such as the Iliad and Odyssey, heroes such as Achilles, Odyesseus and Agamemnon fail to embrace and physically touch a loved one. Achilles requests the spirit of Patroclus to “stand close to me, holding each other for only a little while and take satisfaction from the pain of mourning. … And he [Achilles] reached out his hands to him, but he could not grab him.” Wanting to be with a deceased loved one is a concept that has persevered over centuries, and was just as prevalent in ancient Greek culture. Homer may have decided to include these moments in his epic poems to show how Greeks were trying to understand death better at that time.Greeks stressed that the afterlife was not just a continuation of life but a new place meant for justice. People who have done good things would be rewarded and those who have done wrong would be punished. Heroes would often be sent to the Isles of the Blessed to enjoy their afterlife while sinners would be placed in the pit of Tartaros to suffer.
There is much evidence on the separation of the dead. Gold tablets could be found at grave sites and there were Athenian drinking songs that described the Isles of the Blessed. A bad afterlife was usually associated with darkness and md, while happy afterlives were associated with light and air. The Isles of the Blessed had great weather, sunlight, cool breezes, flowers and meadows, cool running water. Living a good afterlife was imagined to be done by participating in activities the nobles would participate in. Pindae would describe the dead riding and hunting as well as the most popular activity, the symposium. Lots of art found at burial sites depicted the person on a couch, drinking and often with a woman at the foot of the couch. “ The best afterlife is often imagined as an everlasting festival, one of the best experiences of life.” This vision was common among Greeks because of the widespread depictions and evidence of this reality. Plato was able to provide some of the most powerful images of the afterlife. He would describe the afterlife in his dialogues. “Plato carefully manipulates traditional motifs to provide images of the afterlife that not only correlate with and illustrate the philosophical discussions in a particular dialogue, but also set out a vision that coheres with his ideas of life and the order of the cosmos.” He took traditional images and merged them with philosophy to create views of the afterlife that last for years. One of Plato’s main themes is the role of self-examination and reflection. This is especially shown in Phaedo, which shows how someone can get in trouble if they rely just on what they see instead of using their mind. The myth of Er, written in Plato’s Republic, uses traditional images of the judgement of a soul as well as some different ideas such as reincarnation to show how important self-examination is. Here the process of determining where one goes after death is described through multiple judgements.
The first judgement of the soul is based on the life that person lived and will either send them to a thousand years of bliss or torment. Socrates would have dismissed this judgement as “an insufficient defence of the true value of philosophic justice.” After that thousand years is up there is a second judgement. This time, the soul is sentenced based on its ability of self-examination and if they are able to accurately judge themselves, which was one of Plato’s main concepts. Plato himself wrote in the Republic, “The soul with the first choice, having lived a basically good life in a good city, never developed the ability to correct itself and so tragically chooses wrongly, taking the life of a tyrant with unlimited power, doomed to eat his own children and other typical misfortunes of tyrants.” Someone who has never had to deal with the consequences of misfortunes is destined to mistake power for happiness and this leads to their eventual downfall in reincarnation. The one thing that surprises readers of the Republic, is Socrates’ ideas that the soul is immortal. It was typical in those times to imagine that a soul might continue on after death, being punished or rewarded. It was entirely out of the norm to think that souls are immortal.
The gods themselves were immortal so how could a human soul be so as well. “Plato makes use of images and ideas from his philosophical predecessors speculating about the nature of the soul and the cosmos just as much as he uses ideas from the mythic tradition, reshaping them all and weaving them into his own imaginings of the afterlife to serve his own philosophical agenda.” The images of the greek afterlife heavily vary from remembering the dead as they acted in life to a view of the afterlife that had complex philosophical ideals. However they all use the same familiar elements. Geographic features such as the river Styx, the Elysian Field and the pit of Tartaros along with Cerberus, the mythical beast, and Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, appear in many different authors' works, such as Homer and Plato.
Over time, all of these features were mashed together or ignored completely and no one single version of the afterlife was accepted. Within the poetic tradition, poetic immortality, a mainstay of Homeric poems was very influential. Although a lively afterlife was a widespread idea at the time, not just restricted to high society. In the end, how the afterlife was viewed by Greeks, depended on the Greek describing it. Memory survival would be used by individuals, families and communities to imagine how their deceased were living post-mortem. The afterlife was one of the most complex aspects of Greek culture with thousands of different interpretations, but these variations did not make it any less important.
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