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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 49

52.1 · Philo’s story of a Scythian horn

From the same work. Since our discussion concerns the water of Styx, I wish to make known to you another account of it. Philo of Heraclea, in his work To Nymphis, On Marvels, says that among the Scythians asses are born with horns, and that these horns can withstand this water. He says that Sopatrus brought such a horn to Alexander the Macedonian, that it was dedicated at Delphi, and that the following was inscribed upon it:¹⁶⁵¹

52.2 · The dedicatory epigram

To you, Paean, Alexander the Macedonian dedicated this horn of a Scythian ass, a thing of wondrous power. It was not overcome by the untainted current of Lousian Styx, but bore the water’s might.¹⁶⁵²

53.1 · Porphyry: Homer’s ordering of souls

From the same work. Let this suffice concerning the gods. Next, after examining how Homer ordered the souls in Hades and describing those who are punished, we may connect our discussion with Styx, whom we have understood Homer to appoint for the punishment of daimons that do wrong.¹⁶⁵³

53.2 · Three regions for immortal souls

For, having filled all things with gods and assigned their kingdoms by region, Homer also supposed there to be three regions for souls, which he held to be immortal. One is the earthly region, this inhabited world where animals and human beings live. Another, beside Ocean, is set apart for the just: he calls it the Elysian Plain and says that people are sent there while still alive. He makes this clear in the case of Menelaus, saying:¹⁶⁵⁴

53.3 · Menelaus and the Elysian Plain

For you, Menelaus nurtured by Zeus, it is not ordained to die in horse-pasturing Argos and meet your doom. The immortals will send you to the Elysian Plain, to earth’s boundaries, where fair-haired Rhadamanthys dwells. There human beings have the easiest life: no snow, no great winter storm, and never rain; Ocean always sends up breezes of the clear-blowing West Wind, to refresh ⟨human beings⟩.¹⁶⁵⁵

53.4 · Burial and the crossing of Acheron

These, then, have their bodies with them too. He speaks of a third region, the one in Hades, which he supposed to belong to souls released from this body. They go at once to Hades, but the souls of the unburied remain outside Acheron, among Persephone’s groves and meadow, prevented from crossing within. Those of the buried pass inside, unless they deserve punishment; otherwise, even if their bodies are buried, they are likewise excluded from the interior.¹⁶⁵⁶

53.5 · Memory on the outer bank

The souls outside retain memory of the lives they have lived; those crossing the river forget, having relinquished their thoughts about human affairs. For this reason the places of punishment for the unjust are outside: their punishments come through thought and the memory of their lives.¹⁶⁵⁷

53.6 · Punishment through fearful images

For they receive images of the terrible deeds they committed in life and are punished: their wrongdoing stands before them in thought and exacts punishment through the penalties assigned to their wrongs. Thus some souls imagine that they carry stones and are punished by being crushed; others receive images of everlasting thirst and hunger; others of something else they shuddered at in mortal life.¹⁶⁵⁸

53.7 · Minos and release from suffering

For there is also a judge dwelling outside the river, Minos, who punishes in proportion to the offenses. To some he assigns the region outside the river for their penalty; others he permits to cross the river, which, through forgetfulness, provides souls with rest from their unending woes.¹⁶⁵⁹

53.8 · Heracles as a punisher

Heracles too, dwelling outside, punishes the unjust by producing fearful images of himself striking and shooting arrows. Just as he defended himself while alive, so in Hades he resists those deserving punishment. For he too belongs among those who punish, not among those punished, as Aristarchus thought.¹⁶⁶⁰

53.9 · Tiresias and the other souls

Among those inside the river, deprived of human reasoning, Tiresias alone retains this too. The others recognize one another through a distinctive understanding they possess in Hades, but no longer recognize human beings. Nor would they speak about human affairs to people still alive unless they partook of the vapor of blood and thereby recovered understanding of human matters. Those outside understand these things even without drinking blood, possessing the condition of recognition of mortal things that drinking blood produces in souls.¹⁶⁶¹

53.10 · Blood and understanding

Tiresias does have reasoning about human affairs, but even he does not prophesy what is destined for the living before drinking the blood. For Homer too thinks, [as most of those after him also supposed], that human understanding of mortal things resides in blood. Many after him confirm this by showing that blood, overheated by fever and bile, causes derangement and loss of understanding.¹⁶⁶²

53.11 · Empedocles on thought and heart-blood

Empedocles too appears to speak of blood as an instrument of understanding:

Nourished in seas of blood that rushes back, where especially thought revolves for human beings; for humans, blood around the heart is thought.¹⁶⁶³

53.12 · The order of souls beyond the river

Among the souls dwelling beyond the river, women are stationed first (by “first” I mean ⟨those⟩ nearest the ones outside); the souls of men are furthest within, and beyond them are the gods around Hades. For this reason women are sent first, then men, and among these the honored ones last.¹⁶⁶⁴

53.13 · The cosmic gods and their ruler

This, then, is how he has ordered human affairs. He supposed the cosmic gods, whose classes we have enumerated, not to be entirely free from passions, calling them ⟨gods⟩ according to ancient usage [whose classes we have set out]. In his account there is a great daimon, whom he calls Zeus, acting as a kind of ruler over those extending as far as heaven.¹⁶⁶⁵

1651.The new extract remains from Porphyry, now reporting Philo of Heraclea. Nymphis is the person addressed in the cited title, distinct from the nymphs of the preceding title. Diapherein is understood as withstanding or bearing the water, in light of the following epigram. The horned asses and dedication are a reported marvel; the excerpt alone does not independently authenticate the object or inscription.

1652.Paean is the divine addressee, understood here as Apollo at Delphi. Daimonion suggests something marvelous or charged with divine power. “Untainted” follows achrantōi, the printed correction noted in the apparatus. The adjective Lousian is retained as a local epithet rather than replaced by a more familiar place-name. Ēnoreē literally evokes manly force or prowess; “might” preserves its personification of the water. Excerpt 52 ends with these four verses.

1653.The heading continues Porphyry’s On the Styx. The first-person plural belongs to Porphyry’s exposition. His arrangement of souls, rivers, and divine punishments is an interpretation of Homer; the following quotations serve as his evidence. Daimons are divine or intermediate beings, not necessarily evil spirits. The decimal suffixes are modern comparison divisions.

1654.“Filled” follows plērōsas, the printed reading, rather than an alternative involving allotment. The three regions are the living world, Elysium, and Hades; the third will be introduced after the quotation. The assertion that Homer regards souls as immortal is Porphyry’s claim. Ocean is the named mythic boundary in the account.

1655.Homer, Odyssey 4.561-568, as quoted here. The final word is supplied from the Homeric text and remains marked. The printed genitive pneiontos describes the West Wind; the apparatus records a different construction in Homer. English carries the sense across the final two verse lines. Elysium’s mild climate is part of the promised destination, and Porphyry emphasizes that Menelaus goes there alive.

1656.“These” refers to those sent to Elysium. Porphyry now divides Hades itself by the river Acheron: burial permits entry, but deserved punishment can still prevent it. “Outside” and “inside” describe the two sides of the river within his interpretive geography. The compressed sequence of infinitives is rendered as a continuous report of Homer’s supposed teaching.

1657.The placement of the punishments is now explained psychologically. Logismos here concerns thought about earthly experience, while mnēmē is its retained memory. The Greek construction around “forget” is compressed; English understands what is forgotten from the preceding reference to the lives the souls have lived. The text does not name this river Lethe.

1658.Phantasiai are presentations or images in the soul. Porphyry interprets the traditional burdens, hunger, and thirst through these images; this does not make the suffering unreal within his account. The wrongdoing is personified as present to thought and administering its own corresponding punishment.

1659.Minos supplies a judicial framework for the preceding account of memory and punishment. The relative pronoun most naturally refers to the river, whose crossing gives rest through forgetfulness. The juxtaposition of “unending” woes and permission to cross remains; the passage does not provide a timetable for release.

1660.Porphyry explicitly contests an interpretation attributed to Aristarchus. The infinitive timōreisthai is taken here in the active middle sense of exacting punishment, as its object “the unjust” and the final contrast require. The change of construction around amynomenou is smoothed in English. No independent account of Aristarchus’s reasoning survives within this extract.

1661.The text distinguishes recognition among the dead from recognition of the living. It also moves between partaking of blood’s vapor and drinking blood; both expressions are retained. The phrase “condition of recognition” follows the difficult katastasin construction provisionally. Tiresias retains human reasoning as an exception, but the next sentence limits what he can foretell before drinking.

1662.The bracketed repetition is rejected in Wachsmuth’s text and remains visibly bracketed in English. The claim about blood is Porphyry’s reading of Homer, supported here by an ancient physiological explanation. “Overheated” follows the printed correction hyperthermanthen. The passage distinguishes retention of human reasoning from the ability to prophesy for the living.

1663.Wachsmuth cites Empedocles, verses 327-329 in Stein. The first line begins with a feminine participle whose noun is not expressed in this quotation; the apparatus relates it to the heart. English retains the fragmentary opening rather than inserting an unmarked noun. Antithorontos, “rushing back,” and kyklisketai, “revolves,” follow the printed corrections.

1664.The supplied article is rendered “those.” “First” describes proximity to the outer bank before it describes the order in which souls are sent to appear. The hierarchy of women, men, and gods belongs to Porphyry’s interpretation and is stated directly. The purpose and sender of these appearances become explicit in excerpt 54.

1665.The supplied “gods” and the rejected repetition remain marked. The long Greek construction resumes in the next unit; English closes a sentence here for readability. “Not entirely free from passions” preserves the qualification: these cosmic gods can undergo affection and emotion. Zeus is called a great daimon within this account, without implying an evil being.