In this Ingersoll Lecture of 1918, the Harvard Latinist surveys the beliefs about the soul and the afterlife current in the early Roman Empire. He covers popular hopes and doubts recorded on tombstones, the philosophical schools, Orphism, the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter and Persephone and the oriental cults that promised their initiates salvation.
A brief, lucid guide for anyone curious about the world into which Christianity’s hope of resurrection came. Download the free EPUB.