that the other should attain apotheosis, because in
such case they must be forever separated."7 One would be in
Olympus, the other in Hades. The belief that any, even a favored
few, could ever obtain this blessing, was of quite limited
development, and probably sprang from the esoteric recesses of the
Mysteries. To call a human soul a god is not so bold a speech as
it may seem. Plotinus says. "Whoever has wisdom and true virtue in
soul itself differs but little from superior beings, in this alone
being inferior to them, that he is in body. Such an one, dying,
may therefore properly say, with Empedocles, 'Farewell! a god
immortal now am I.'"

The expiring Vespasian exclaimed, "I shall soon be a god."8 Mure
says that the doctrine of apotheosis belonged to the Graco
Pelasgic race through all their history.9 Seneca severely
satirizes the ceremony, and the popular belief which upheld it, in
an elaborate lampoon called Apocolocyntosis, or the reception of
Claudius among the pumpkins. The broad travesty of

6 The Suppliants, l. 533.

7 Nicomachean Ethics, lib. viii. cap. 7.

8 Suetonius, cap. xxiii.

9 Hist. Greek Literature, vol. i. ch. 2, sect. 5.

Deification exhibited in Pumpkinification obviously measures the
distance from the honest credulity of one class and period to the
keen infidelity of another.

One of the most important passages in Greek literature, in
whatever aspect viewed, is composed of the writings of the great
Theban lyrist. Let us see what representation is there made of the
fate of man in the unseen world. The ethical perception, profound
feeling, and searching mind of Pindar could not allow him to
remain satisfied with the undiscriminating views of the future
state prevalent in his time. Upon such a man the problem of death
must weigh as a conscious burden, and his reflections would
naturally lead him to improved conclusions. Accordingly, we find
him representing the Blessed Isles not as the haven of a few
favorites of the gods, but as the reward of virtue; and the
punishments of the wicked, too, are not dependent on fickle
inclinations, but are decreed by immutable right. He does not
describe the common multitude of the dead, leading a dark sad
existence, like phantoms in a dream: his references to death and
Hades seem cheerful in comparison with those of many other ancient
Greek authors. Dionysius the Rhetorician, speaking of his
Threnes, dirges sung at funerals, says, "Simonides lamented t