Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/20

 6 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY ous places, e.g. at Cichyrus in Thesprotia, Pheneus in Arcadia, on the promontory Taenarmi) in Laconia, and at Lake Avernus near Cumae. Charon, too, carried no- body back over the Styx. (The divinities that rule in the lower world are discussed in 100-103.) 8. Upon another conception, of later origin, rests the idea of Elysium, the field of arrival, or of those that have gone over (cf. r}vOa), which was supposed to be at the western boundary of the earth, 011 Oceanus, not in the lower world. For, without the necessity of first suffering death, many of the heroes and heroines espe- cially dear to the gods, begotten from mortals, or other- wise nearly allied to divine beings, were carried off to this abode, there to enjoy a blessed, godlike life of pleasure. With the later poets the ' Isles of the Blessed ' take the place of this. But not until after the fifth century B.C., with the growth of a belief in a retributive justice, was there developed the idea of a tribunal of the dead. According to this idea an abode either in Elysium, the home of the blessed, or in Tartarus, the gloomy place of punishment, the deepest abyss of the lower world, is assigned to the dead by Minos, Khada- manthus, and Aeacus, the decision in each case depending on the character of the life lived on earth. 9. Among the Romans, in later times, the souls of the dead were commonly designated by the flattering term Manes, i.e. ' the Pure/ ' the Good,' or were called, in general, inferi, ' those of the nether world.' Each family worshiped especially the spirits of its own ancestors, as the del Inferum parentum, or the del parentes or patrii. Very strictly, too, did they preserve a conscien- tious observance of all the precepts applying to solemn