Pythagorus (2010)
“A childhood in a prosperous agrarian family that was also involved in the mercantile world centred in Samos, with its temple of Hera, had placed Pythagoras at a crossroads of different beliefs about life after death. If there was an orthodox view of the afterlife and immortality in the ancient Greek world, it was that reflected in Homer’s epics and later in the official cults of the cities and in much of the great literature. A human soul, or psyche, survived after death, but this survival was not an attractive one. For the Homeric heroes, the true ‘self’ was the body, and the good life was closely tied with it. What good was survival in a form that could not enjoy feasting, combat, human love, sex, comradeship? Death was separation from these, leaving the soul in a weak, witless state – a shadow, a dream, smoke, a twittering bat. Only the gods had a better sort of immortality, but not in the sense that they survived death, for they never died. Furthermore, they jealously guarded thei...r immortality.MoreLess
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