(Cover artwork by Maaira Khan)
PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS
WE ARE BUT DUST AND SHADOW
Exploring Death and the Afterlife in Classical Antiquity
Death and its mysteries have remained a fascinating topic throughout the ages. This edition explores the ancient religion, law, literature, mythology and history surrounding this macabre, yet eerily beautiful theme.
Life, Death and the world beyond...
No hero exemplifies the human preoccupation with death than Achilles. Knowing that his participation in the Trojan war and the immortal glory (kleos aphthitōn) that comes with it are going to exact the ultimate price, his withdrawal from the fighting at having his prize (geras) taken by Agamemnon presents a real crisis that cuts at the heart of what it means to be a hero and what his sacrifice will be for. The loss of Briseis represents a loss of honour (timē) which to Achilles would render the loss of his life meaningless: ‘hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man who says one thing and does another’. Hints that the fear of death and the need for a hero’s death to mean something litter the second half of the Iliad, with Thetis’ concerns for her son’s mortality and the deaths of Patroclus and Hector presaging Achilles’ own demise. Most poignantly, in Book 23 of the Iliad, after a visitation from Patroclus’ ghost who enjoins him to inter him in the same urn as him, Achilles makes his peace with death, acknowledging the fruitlessness of the dedication of his uncut hair to the river-god Spercheus he finally cuts off a lock to lay on the bier with those of his comrades.
There is no glorious afterlife in the Homeric tradition. In the Odyssey, the spirits of the dead are seen, cravenly thirsting for sacrificial blood, empty husks slowly forgetting their former lives. Achilles’ appearance again underscores the grim fate of those who have died, proclaiming that he would ‘rather be a slave among the living than king of all in Hades’. Achilles’ existential dread at the beginning of Western literature is itself an echo as Gilgamesh in an epic written a millennium earlier similarly goes through a similar process of grieving for his friend Enkidu, fearing his own demise and finally accepting his fate after visiting the only person to have achieved immortality the Noah-esque figure Utnapishtim. This tale from ancient Babylon would likely have been known to King Hammurabi, whose lawcode is discussed by Alhena in this blog, and is one of the earliest written texts, let alone sets of laws, in the world and really exemplifies the antiquity and universality of these traditions.
The Classical vision of the underworld evolved over time, with different doctrines and ideas entering the tradition of the underworld. Heroes like Hercules and Orpheus travel to the underworld, a journey parodied by the adventure of Dionysus in Aristophanes’ Frogs in his search for a decent poet, show the heroic endeavour of attempting to return from ‘the other side’ and the perils death entails for gods and mortals alike (see also the immortality achieved by the Dioscuri in Chelsea’s article). By contrast, in the tale of Oedipus (see the retellings by Amani and Veeva) whose children are the products of incest and who cannot bear the thought of facing the father he killed or the mother who committed suicide, Oedipus opts to blind himself so he cannot look on any of his crimes. Of course, this is only a temporary solution and it is his refusal to be interred on the land of either of his warring sons that leads to both their deaths and the forbidding of Polyneices’ burial a punishment which Elizabeth observes is reserved for the very worst criminals. By Virgil’s time, the underworld has a clearer geography with an entry point at Cumae and different places where fates await the sinful, while the virtuous await reincarnation in Elyisum (see Maaira’s article), while still maintaining the Odyssean overtones as Aeneas meets characters he regrets losing (see Maaira’s translation). This would influence the subsequent discourses with the likes of Dante overtly taking his cue from Virgil by having him as his guide through the circles of Hell in the Inferno and subsequent writers (see Veeva’s article on literature), philosophers and even religions (see Nishka’s article on Raëlism) have continued this most timeless of themes.
Death was a part of life in the Ancient world where diseases like the great Justinian plague (see Elizabeth’s article) could cut down swathes of the population, wars like Alexander the Great’s conquests (see Anoushka’s article) came at a terrible price and rulers, states or even the whims of the people held the power of life and death over their members (see Izzy’s article) and, as the cautionary tale of Damocles or the assassination of Julius Caesar (see Ilakiyaa’s article) testify, even the positions of rulers were precarious. However, the rituals that people had around death maintained a strong connection between the living and their ancestors. The ancients believed that necromantic magic could be used to speak with the deceased (cf. the story of the Sagae Thessalae), but on a more ordinary level the offerings they left at tombs, the goods they gave their relatives to accompany them and the ancestral portraits paraded at funerals suggests a desire to maintain the links between the living and the dead.
'Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox
Bruma recurrit iners.
Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae ;
Nos ubi decidimus,
Quo pater Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
Pulvis et umbra sumus.'
(Horace: Odes IV.7)
Fruitful Autumn has poured out fruit; and soon
Fruitless Winter returns.
Yet the moons are fast to make good their heavenly losses;
We, when we have fallen to
Where good Aeneas and wealthy Tullus, and Ancus have,
Are but dust and shadow.
Artwork
The Fall of Troy, Maaira Khan (London)
Fallen Achilles, Isabel Smale (London)
Fun and Games!
The Emperor wielded immense power as the ultimate authority for policy and decisions, (thus retaining rights to declare war, ratify treaties and negotiate with foreign leaders) and as a central religious figure (known as a Pontifex Maximus). However his position was far from secure; he ruled in conjunction with powerful organisations -not least the Senate and Praetorian Guard- and faced both domestic and external threats. Indeed, throughout the Roman empire’s bloody timeline, many emperors met untimely deaths; at the hands of a rival, on the Senate’s orders or even by close family…
The wordsearch below includes murdered emperors up to 293, at which point, thanks to Diocletian, rule was split between two emperors and seems to become even more messy! Suicides & unknown cause of death are omitted
Micro-histories of life and death: Try and match them up!
How well do you know emperors of the early imperial period?
Puzzles by Elizabeth Dean (London)
Crossword!
Across:
1. Queen of the Underworld
2. Personified spirit of non-violent death
3. The home of the blessed souls
4. One of the three furies
5. Cerberus was the offspring of ____ and Typhon
6. River of wailing in the underworld
7. King ___ trapped Thanatos in Tartarus with chains
Down:
1. Killer of Medusa
2. His fight with Zeus caused death in the world
3. Another word for furies
4. The principal river of the Greek underworld
5. The ferryman of Hades
6. God who brought forth violent death to mortals
7. River of forgetfulness
8. Goddess that symbolises the mist of death
Crossword by Amani Venkataram (London)
Reading Recommendations
Homer's Odyssey, Book 11
Odysseus speaks to the souls of the departed.
Virgil's Aeneid, Book 6
Aeneas ventures to the underworld and meets his fallen comrades.
House of Names, Colm Tóibin
The death and devastation of Aeschylus' Oresteia, but in a new, frenzied light.
Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, Tom Holland
A non-fiction documenting the Roman Republic, and the assassination that changed the course of Roman history.
The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
The poignant tale of the legendary duo of the Trojan War, Achilles and Patroclus.
A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes
The untold story of the Trojan women during the years following the fall of Troy.
Memes!!
Solutions to puzzles
