Chapter 1 - Just Deserts in the Ancient Pagan Afterlife

Summary

The dominant feature of the Greco-Roman afterlife was the idea that justice would be served after death. This chapter outlines the manifestations of that idea of justice in a range of forms from the positive vision of eternal existence in the Elysian Fields to the negative images of criminals suffering tortures without end or relief. Many of the essential concepts of pagan eschatological thought emerged in philosophical and literary texts written in Greek. Elite Roman authors of the late Republic and imperial periods appropriated these ideas to send a strongly moralised message in terms of rewards and punishments in the afterlife. Central texts include Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis and Virgil’s Aeneid Book 6 along with Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Statius’ Thebaid. The treatment of the afterlife in these works paved the way for Christianity’s shift from the elite focus of the classical world to include any and everyone in the scope of just deserts after death.