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The Underworld

The earliest Ancient Greek poetry features descriptions of the Underworld. Also known as Hades, this was the destination for souls after the death of the physical body. The soul – a wispy and insubstantial image of the deceased – would emerge from the corpse and flit away on its next journey, often guided by messenger god and psychopomp Hermes. The Underworld was a physical place located across the stream of Ocean, just beyond the farthest reaches of the known world.

After the soul reached the entrance of the Underworld, it then needed to cross the River Styx. The ferryman Charon transported souls for a fee: a coin called an obol was placed with the corpse during the funeral preparations by the family or comrades of the deceased to pay for their safe passage. Without it, the soul could be trapped on the banks of the river forever on the other side, the soul passed by the three-headed guard dog Cerberus to enter the gates to the Underworld proper. Cerberus was friendly to the arriving souls – wagging his tail and encouraging them to pet him – but would attack ferociously if any souls tried to escape.

In the earliest accounts, most souls end up in the Asphodel Meadows. They pass a gloomy eternity here, mingling with each other and reflecting on their former lives. A select few were permitted into the Elysian Fields where they enjoyed eternal rewards and comfort among the blessed, while the worst wrongdoers were sent to Tartarus for never-ending punishment. As time went on, the concept of judgement became more prominent. Three judges called Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus reviewed each soul as it arrived to determine where it would spend eternity. The Elysian Fields became more attainable for everyday mortals, as long as they had lived morally good lives and fulfilled their civic and social duties.

White-ground lekythos (c.450BC). Hermes guides a departed spirit towards the ferryman Charon.

The images above are from the Met Museum's open access / public domain resources.

Reincarnation

Not all Ancient Greek accounts of the afterlife viewed the Underworld as the final destination. The early philosopher – and famous triangle enthusiast – Pythagoras, was reportedly the first to introduce the concept of reincarnation to the Greeks. According to him, the soul was immortal and could be reborn into any living creature. Another philosopher called Empedocles claimed that he remembered all of his past lives: he had been not only a young man and a girl but also a leaping fish, a bird, and even a bush. For Empedocles, reincarnation was part of a continuous cycle of improvement which could end, for the best souls, in their transformation into gods.

At the end of the Republic, Plato tells the story of Er, a soldier who died but came back to life 12 days later. During this time, Er’s soul had journeyed with many others to a sacred spot where they underwent initial judgement: good souls were sent upwards through a chasm in the sky to a place of enjoyment, while bad souls were sent downwards through a chasm in the ground to a place of punishment. After the souls had spent their allotted time there, all but the most wicked re-emerged and continued their journey. Eventually they arrived at a vast cosmological machine – the Spindle of Necessity – where they were instructed to choose their next life from a wide selection of possibilities spread out before them. Each soul later drank from the waters of forgetfulness to erase the memory of their former lives before being reborn into their new body.

Atomic dispersal

However, some philosophers firmly believed that these stories about the Underworld did more harm than good. Epicurus identified fear of death as the primary cause of unhappiness in mortals. He argued that we should not worry about death because when it happens, we will no longer exist. According to him, no part of us – including the soul – could survive the death of the body. And if nothing can survive, then there is no need for an Underworld.

These beliefs were based on Epicurus’ atomism. For him, everything in the cosmos was composed of microscopic indivisible particles called atoms (atomos is the Ancient Greek word for ‘uncuttable’) and void. These atoms come together in different combinations – like tiny building blocks – to form everything we perceive in the world around us. When the physical body dies, our soul also perishes because it cannot exist without the body. And so, the atoms which made us are dispersed back into the universe to be made into something new – a kind of cosmic recycling that should bring comfort rather than fear.