n a boy, a maiden, a star, a bird, a mute fish in the
depths of the sea."

Iarchas, the Brahman chieftain, said to the great Apollonius:

"In bygone ages thou wert Ganga, the famous monarch, and, at a later
date, captain of an Egyptian vessel."[133]

The Emperor Julian said that he had been Alexander the Great.[134]
Proclus affirmed that he had been Nichomachus the Pythagorean.[135]

The works of Plato are full of the idea of rebirth, and if the
scattered fragments of the teaching are gathered together and
illumined with the torch of theosophy, a very satisfactory _ensemble_
will be the result.

Souls are older than bodies, he says in _Phaedo_; they are ever being
born again from _Hades_ and returning to life on earth; each man has
his daimon,[136] who follows him throughout his existences, and at
death takes him to the lower world[137] for Judgment.[138] Many souls
enter Acheron,[139] and, after a longer or shorter period, return to
earth to be incarnated in new bodies. Unpardonable sins fling the soul
into Tartarus.[140]

"Know that if you become worse you will go to the worse souls, or if
better to the better, and in every succession of life and death you
will do and suffer what like may fitly suffer at the hands of
like...."[141]

According to Plato, the period between two incarnations is about a
thousand years.[142] Man has reminiscences of his past lives that are
more or less distinct; they are manifested rather by an intuitive
impression than by a definite memory, but they form part of the
individual,[143] and at times influence him strongly. "Innate ideas"
are only one aspect of memory, often it is impossible to explain them
by heredity, education, or environment; they are attainments of the
past, the store which the soul takes with it through its incarnations,
which it adds to during each sojourn in heaven.

There can be no doubt that Plato would appear to have taught
metempsychosis, _i.e._, the possibility of a human soul passing into
the body of an animal:

"Men who have followed after gluttony and wantonness and drunkenness,
and have had no thought of avoiding them, would pass into asses and
animals of that sort. And those who have chosen the portion of
injustice and tyranny and violence will pass into wolves or hawks or
kites, and there is no difficulty in assigning to all of them places
according to their several natures and propensities."[144]

Under the heading of _Neoplatonism_, we shall sh