Pleading for Hell: Postulates, Fantasies, and the Senselessness of Punishment

Author(s): Walter Burkert

Source: Numen, Vol. 56, No. 2/3, THE USES OF HELL (2009), pp. 141-160
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27793787
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 NVMEN
BRILL Numen 56 (2009) 141-160 www.brill.nl/nu

Pleading forHell:
Postulates, Fantasies, and the Senselessness of
Punishment

Walter Burkert
Wildsbergstrasse 8, 8610 Uster, Switzerland
waiter__burkert@bluewin. ch

Abstract
If the ideal of justice includes effectivepunishment of offenders,an extension into
afterlife must be postulated. This still involves all the questionable aspects and para
doxes of punishment that make rational and difficult.
enlightened argumentation
A historical of ancient tentatives at hell lore shows diverse
survey starting points and
interests. There is a in Sumerian. When
just germ of such speculations hell fire first

appears in it goes with the fear of magic from the dead; in Zoroastrian
Egypt, together
ism and Judaism it is partisan interest which makes the adherents of the wrong religion
destined for hell. In Greece we find various ethical and poetical motifs interfering,
to a
from the powerful yet enigmatic images in the Odyssey general proclamation
of
in the to Demeter. The most and horrible of
punishments Hymn graphic descriptions
like hell are finally found in Plato, whose sources ? besides Homer
? can
something
be postulated but not identified.

Keywords
problem of punishment,Sumerian hell, Plato'smyths,Nekyia, Sisyphos

to a
Injustice hurts; punish makes happy. This is result of modern brain
research (deQuervain and Fehr 2004). It is no surprise: most individuals
will know the revolting experience of crime performed and the deep emo
tional satisfaction at the execution of justice, even ifmodern sensitivity
will warn against unlimited enjoyment in such a case. In ancient Rome,
executions were transferred to the arena to become public festivals.1 A

1} Seneca the pleasure of viewing in the arena

protested against punishment {Epist. 7.5):

? KoninUijke BrillNV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/156852709X404955

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 142 W BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160

or
well-known saying is, was, Strafe mu? sein, punishment must
German
be. Punishment seems to be the very embodiment of
justice. Greek
diken didonai, "to give justice," just means "to be punished." And since
there are spectacular crimes which do not meet with punishment in our
world, the quest for satisfaction results in postulating post-mortem pun
ishment. Punishment must be, that is, hell must be, hell as a place of

punishment: kolasterion is the Greek term;2 in modern Greek, hell is

comes in
just kolasis. This right from the Gospel: Jesus, Matthew 25:46

proclaims that sinners "will go away into eternal punishment."3

Still, whatever brain research may suggest, rational reflection brings
out the even the "crime" of
problems, the senselessness, punishment
1968).4 The idea and of seems to be
(Menninger practice punishment
neither "natural" nor ubiquitous in human societies. Europeans stated
with how certain societies seemed not to know
surprise "primitive"
about responsibility and punishment. Eskimo
personal children are
never not even scolded
punished, by their parents. Apes do practice
certain forms of casual revenge, but they do not react to crimes such as
cannibalism within the own group (see Burkert 1994:10-12). The cur
rent situation in ourWestern world is somewhat schizophrenic: in con
trast to theMiddle a taboo word,
Ages, punishment has nearly become
and the acts are hidden from the public. The death penalty is absent
as are
from Europe, corporal punishments. Corporal punishment of
children, an unquestioned reality of earlier centuries with Biblical rein
forcement (Prov 23:13-14), has practically been abolished. But on the
other side, there is consent that crimes against humanity, Nazi
general
crimes, cases of genocide cannot be forgiven nor forgotten. There are
new international courts for and condemnation of those
prosecution

even if the culprit "deserved to suffer this: what did you deserve that you view it?"

(Aen. 6.608-14) does not admit about Tartarus: "Don't ask!"

Virgil curiosity
2) etc.
Lucian, Ver. hist. 2.30,
E.g.
3)This is themain Christian textabout hell
(25:31-46): "the eternal fireprepared
for thedevil and his angels" (25:41); "weepingand gnashing of teeth"25:30, etc.; cf.
Matt 13:42; Mark Rev 19:20: "a sea of fire, burning with sulphur." A differ
9:43.48.;
ent concept in
appears the parable of poor Lazarus and the rich man, who after death
finds himself "in Hades, amidst the tortures" (Luke 16:23?24); it has a in a
parallel
demotic text (Lichtheim 1980:139-41).
4) A to
first discussion of the problems of punishment is attributed Protagoras by
Plato, Prot. 324a-c.

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 W Burken INumen 56 (2009) 141-160 143

guilty of such crimes. There still is general consent, respected by politi

cians: punishment must be.
But how does punishment make sense? Ifwe follow the indications
of the ancient Greek vocabulary,5 we encounter two contrasting aspects
in two Greek word families commonly used in this context, poine and
timoria. Poine is basically recompensation, "paying back,"
making amends
for damage incurred.6 This is absolutely reasonable, but quite question
able under the rigorous idea of justice: the procedure turns into some
form of bargaining. Timoria, on the other side, means to
"guard the
honour" of some is violated by misconduct.7
authority which This
seems closer to an ideal of ? it is the favourite
justice word used by
Plato (Saunders 1991). Yet even if such authority were undisputed,
how does punishment, which normally means to inflict discomfort,

pain, and death, which is and turn into honour, honour

ugly repulsive,
of a monarch, a state, or even a
god? It is a common postulate that

punishment should "fit the crime"; how can it do that? There are
few who defend a simple lex talionis, which means to double the dam

age. But as one begins to invent more and more severe measures to
to the result is frightening: the
correspond rising stages of misconduct,
worst atrocities have been not
perpetrated by criminals, but through
acts of justice. The non in ancient times was crucifixion, which
plus ultra
kept a person dying for severaldays (Ducrey 1971; Hengel 1977; see
Foucault 1975). Of course it has been proclaimed all the time that
are to deter
punishments possible culprits, and this has been widely

5) The term kolazein is basically, its relations to hell, an opti

general notwithstanding
mistic Itmeans like "to trim," "to prune," "to cut away" excessive
metaphor: something
putting the image of the before the executioner. See also Plato,
growth, gardener
Prot. 325d. For theword zemia,which I take to be a dialect formof demia used at
see Burkert 1994:16-17.
Olympia,
6) Poine comes from Indo-European stock and goes together with the verb tinein,
clearly
teisasthai; this means like "to pay" and "to make in a pre-monetary
something pay,"
system.You may compensate even forkillingbypoine {Iliad9.632-34; 18.497; this is
forbidden in theHebrew Bible: Num 35:31-34). Apoina linguisticallyis an intensifi
cation ofpoine {Iliad 1.13 ff.; 24.137). Latin poena, punire? hence French lapeine,
to ? are loanwords to
which have their meanings
English punish changed downright
"punishment."
7)
Tima-woros, the one who "guards
honour." This need not be
"just"
in a moral sense.

It can be done by
a demonstration of violence.

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 144 W Burkert/Numen 56(2009) 141-160

means that to its essentials, is terror.

accepted.8 It still justice, stripped
Itmight seem rational tomake culprits disappear by imprisonment or
?
capital punishment lest they could harm society had such methods
not been used too often terrorist regimes.
by downright
An serves to
optimistic view holds that appropriate punishment
"make better" the culprit. In semi-modern times kolasteria were turned
into institutions of "correction." Even corporal punishment has been
defended under such heading.9 More modern terms are re-education
a
and re-socialization. This idea is pursued to absolute absurdity already
in Plato's Gorgias (AT6%. ff.): If, Socrates argues, punishment means

"healing of malice" (478d), every evil-doer ought to hasten to the judge

to find such remediesforhismoral illness(480ab).
If defence of punishment is threatened by absurdity, none of the
common
justifications holds for that virtual theatre of punishment which
constitutes hell, the kolasterion in the Beyond. If this is a place of "eter
nal" suffering, there is no possible recompensation to be made, nor any
are "incurable" (aniatoi),
"making better" by education. Great sinners
in the terms of Plato; punishment is "eternal" in the resounding men
ace of the
Gospel. One might introduce temporarily limited forms of
even in hell, as Plutarch is prone to do;10 Christians, in the
punishment
wake of Virgil, invented Purgatory, which has been given up again by
Protestants.11 If there is any "guarding of honour" through hell, it is not
one hesitates to or at the infernal
edifying; imagine gods god present
scenes dominated in hell is as absolute as it is
by devils. Punishment
senseless. There remains terror and some uncanny pleasure.
Even if the intention of hell is to deter possible culprits, this is
rarewitnesses, from Er the
impeded by lack of publicity. Writers supply
to Aeneas. Both Plato and Virgil are anxious to
Pamphylian Virgil's
introduce some
public declaration: Plato (Resp. 616a) has fiery demons
seizing theworst criminals, and "towhomever was there they indicated

8)
Already inPlato, Prot. 324b.
9) inHerondas on
Proverb 2.101: he will be better"; (kathaireiri)
"flogged "purification"
in this sense, see Burkert 1996:127 n.99; the saying "to beat the hell out of him" recalls
Christian exorcism.
10)
Plut. De Sera 567F: Nero, in hell, is relieved from his well-deserved sufferings
because of the good he has done for Greece.
n) See Le Goff
1981;Merkt 2005; Verg.Aen. 6.736-47.

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 W BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160 145

for what cause were to be thrown into the Tarta

they dragged along,
ros." Virgil makes the criminals inTartarus cry out: "Learn justice, by
this warning, and not to despise the gods" (Aen. 6.629). But who will
hear this? To notice such proclamations, we have to trust poetry, or
sacred scripture.
Ideas about the afterlife are anything but uniform, and they are sub
to One
ject ongoing modifications. of the oldest documents about
afterlife is the Sumerian text was
Bilgames and theNetherworld, which
later, inAkkadian translation, added to the Gilgamesh epic as tablet XII.
The Sumerian original is now available in the edition ofA. R. George,12
who mentions some 62 manuscripts. The textwas perpetuated inMes

opotamian school tradition. Enkidu, coming up from theNetherworld,

is questioned by his friend about the conditions in the other place. The

message is desperate: "you will sit down and weep." The dominant
mood is sheer realism: the dead are "lying in themud," as the corpse is
into clay." Still, to Enkidu, the situation becomes
"turning according
more and more comfortable with the number of children leftbehind
by
a dead person. But what is
especially interesting is that in the further
enumeration of special cases within theNetherworld the various manu

scripts have different additions.13 Writers have been elaborating on

these themes. The standard Gilgamesh epic has discarded these addi
tions. There is speculative curiosity: "Did you see the man who was
? His ghost is not there, his smoke went up to the
burnt to death?
heavens."14 One small group of manuscripts mentions faults commit
ted by the living which have their consequences in the Beyond.15 "Did

you see theman who did not respect theword of his mother and father?"
He "drinks water measured in a scale, and he never gets
enough." This
in a way seems to foreshadow Tantalus. Second, "the man afflicted by
the curse of his mother and father": he "is deprived of an heir, his ghost
? a funeral cult. Third, "the
still roams" evidently because he lacks
man who made name of his one who cheated
light of the god," or, "the

12)
Gilgamesh II 743-777, inGeorge 2003. See Katz 2003.
13)
Gilgamesh II 763-71 and 774-77, inGeorge 2003; manuscripts a to qq.
14) t 2, This
Manuscript George 2003, 2:776. speculation may underlie the strange
verses about Heracles in the which were controversial in
Odyssey (11.602-3), already
antiquity (seeHeubeck andHoekstra 1989:114).
15)
Manuscripts l.m.n, George 2003, 2:776.

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 146 W BurkertINumen 56(2009) 141-160

a swore an oath":16 he "eats bitter bread, drinks bitter water/'

god and
seem to be one
These comparatively mild consequences; might still speak
?
of incipient hell. Breaking oaths and doing violence to parents in
? are still the standard sins of those lying
Greek epiorkoi and patraloiai
in themire inAristophanes' Frogs}7
For the Egyptians the concern about afterlife and the care of the dead
are central. Characteristic is the idea of a judgment of the dead, Anubis

weighing the heart of the deceased against the feather of truth on a

in these texts do their best to guarantee a pros
big scale.18 The formulas
perous outcome, a successful journey through the Beyond in thewake
of the sun god. But Egyptian texts and pictures also present various
tortures of the dead, as Erich (1968)
H?llenvorstellungen, Hornung
has called them.What is especially impressive: sinners are being cooked
in on a fire? this use of hell-fire has somehow entered Euro
huge pots
pean folklore, down to Grimms' Kinder- und Hausm?rchenP Still
seem to be motivated
less from that pleasure of witnessing
Egyptians
punishment than from the fear of magic that could be wrought by the
mischievous dead: these should be invalidated, nay utterly destroyed in
?
the Beyond which is the very opposite of "eternal punishment."
A third voice in the dialogue of ancient civilizations isZoroastrianism.
cannot to the Avestan texts, but it is usually
We give certain dates
assumed that they mainly go back to Achaemenid times (see, in gen
eral, Stausberg 2002). For this religion the distinction between correct
and wrong worship is all-important: it is the one great decision between
ash a and drug that matters. A prominent Avestan text is the so-called
Hadoxt Nask,which describes the destiny of the soul after death
Strict to
(Piras 2000). dualism prevails: the faithful soul will be escorted
heaven, but the evil one, in the third after death, ismet with a
night
more in our world;
stinking wind from north, stinking than anything
and as he or she starts to move, she plunges down into "infinite dark
ness." The late Pahlavi texts, of the 9th century ad, have more graphic

16)
Manuscript 1 line 1,George 2003, 2:776, plus manuscript v line 1, ib. 777; there
the line that contains the answer is destroyed.
17)
See at n. 27.
18)Suffice it to referto
Hornung 1972, 1979.
19) see H.-J.
No. 100, "Des Teufels Uther in desM?rch
ru?iger Bruder"; Enzyklop?die
ensVI [Berlin 1990], 1191-96 s.v. "H?llenheizer."

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 W BurkertINumen 56(2009) 141-160 147

details. The Bundahisn describes the narrow bridge which the soul has
to pass, and behold, the evil one falls down to hell, where she or he will

experience all kinds of evil. In the Pahlavi book ofArdai Viraz, the hero
is led both through heaven and through hell, towitness fantastic pun
ishmentsfor special crimes (Widengren 1961:179, 231-42). This hell
is quite similar to that of Christians orMuslims.
Some hints at the Jewish contribution: a hell of firemakes its appear
ance not in the canonical Bible, but inHellenistic Judaism, especially
in the Ethiopie Enoch.20 Also in theQumran texts, the Rule of the Com
ones to "the darkness of eternal fire" (1QS 2.8).21
munity consigns the evil
This also means "everlasting destruction" (1QS 2.15). From the name
a to Jerusalem, geenna has been derived as
of g?-Hinnom, valley close
a name for hell; it occurs in the New Testament and has later passed
into Islam.22
In Greek literature, the Beyond as a place of punishment is fully
elaborated in themyths of Plato. Itwas the Platonic texts thatwere read
to come. Probably Christian hell would
again and again in the centuries
be therewithout Plato, but Christian Platonism did its best to reinforce
such beliefs. Three of his texts have become classics, three variations, in
in focus the judgment
Gorgiasy Phaedo, and the Republic. Gorgias puts
?
of the dead, naming Minos, Aiakos and Rhadamanthys (523e) they
appear in iconography too.23 It is Rhadamanthys (526b) who destines
the souls either for the Isles of the Blest or for Tartaros, that "jail of
a "fortress" the
punishment and justice" (523b), (phroura 525a), where
?
soul will arrive to "to suffer the fitting sufferings" the uncanny, immea
surable chasm called Tartaros inHesiod (Theog. 720-25) has acquired a
more concrete function. Punishment means either to "become better"

20)90.26-27: "I saw... an opening in themidst of the earth, full of fire_Those

were to court, and were into
guilty, and
found thrown
sheep, blinded by sin, brought
the abyss of fire, and they were burning." Cf. 10.6, 10.13, 18.11-16, 21, 22, 54;
similar is "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his Matt 25:41, see n.3.
angels"
21) esh two
olamim-y "dark fire" is an invention to combine
terrifying ideas; cf. 4.13,

5.134.
22)
Jeremias 1933. The word is avoided by Hellenists such as Philo und Josephus,
mentions "eternal punishment" Ant. 18.14; Bell. 2.163, 3.375; cf.
although Josephus
"the judgment of geenna" Matt 23:33; Quran S. 38:55-58.
23) in addition, comes
See LIMCs.v. Aiakos 1-3, Minos, Rhadamanthys; Triptolemos
in, possibly from Eleusinian influence: Schwarz 1987:160?63; Plat. Apol. 4la.

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 148 W. BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160

or to become a
warning example, according to the distinction between
"curable" and "incurable" defects; the criminals "are suffering the great
est, themost painful, themost terrible sufferings for all the time, in fact
as a show and a
hung up examples in the jail of Hades, warning for the
who will come there" (525c). This makes the first full and com
unjust
more detail, but hardly
plete Greek description of hell. Dante could give
aggravate the concept.24
The Phaedo (110b?114c) has more to say on cosmology than on hell,
with a strange system of subterranean tunnels and rivers, four of which
form a system, Okeanos, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon and Styx, which is
also called Kokytos (112e-113c). This is elaborating on the Odyssey.

Among the dead arriving there, the middle class, so to say, get to the
Acherousian Sea, whereas the "incurable" ones are thrown right down
into Tartaros; sinners who have committed grievous yet curable faults,
are swept out of Tartaros
including murderers and patraloiai, again by
?
the two rivers patraloiai by Pyriphlegethon, murderers by Kokytos;
at the central island,
arriving again they cry for forgiveness; if those
whom they have wronged agree, theywill get out of thewhirlpool. This

requirement of "forgiveness" corresponds to real ifold-fashioned law.25

Pure souls, by contrast, and philosophical souls in particular have noth
to fear; there remains for them.
ing "good hope"
Most elaborate is themyth at theend of theRepublic (6l4b-6l5d),
presenting themessage of Er the Pamphylian who had been killed but
came back to life.This Er tells of a "demoniac"
place of judgment, with
two
openings (chasmatd) both in heaven and in earth, through which
the souls, after judgment, disappear and come back; they pass to the
"meadow," where they narrate to each other thewonders of heaven and
the infernal sufferings. "Whatever acts of injustice they have commit
ted, for all of these they give tenfold retribution... they get tenfold pains
for every single instance" (615b); notable among the special crimes listed
here are civic offences such as treason against a city or an army? Plato
iswriting a work on the "State" ? but also the enslavement of free
persons; patraloiai (cf. Plat. Leg. 881a), suicide, are mentioned
impiety

24)See also
[Plato]Axiochus 371e-f: the guiltydead are licked bywild beasts, burnt
permanently with torches by avenging demons, "tortured by every kind of torment
and worn out by eternal punishments."
25) see Stroud
aidesasthai of all relatives in the Laws of Drakon, 1968.

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 W BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160 149

in passing (615c), and there is an allusion to some

special fate of those
who died as littlechildren{ahoroi,615c). Ifanyof theverybad criminals
? ?
try to escape by the rivers the paradigm isArdiaios the tyrant the
chasmawill suddenlyyellwith alarm, "andwild men, burningwith fire
as was to be seen, took
through and through, position, as they noticed
the cry, and they grasped those and led them away; as toArdiaios and
others, they bound them hands and feet, and even their head, they threw
them down and stripped off their skin, they dragged them on, man
on the shrubs
gling them by the road; and they indicated to those pass
was for, and that were to be thrown
ing by what this they being led
down into Tartarus." It is in this passage that an especially impressive

phantasm of hell appears: those demoniac "men burning with fire through
and through," whom we would not hesitate to call devils, while further
details are evidently taken from real executions, such as the painful "drag

ging along" which still preceded execution in earlymodern times.

Plato refers to current mythoi about Hades, which indicate "that
whoever does wrong here must be punished there' (Resp. 330d). For
some time itwas taken for was
granted that Plato following "Orphic"
sources; thiswould mean the postulation of at least one poem ascribed
to
Orpheus inwhich the putative author, on account of his own katho
dos experience while searching for Eurydice, described theNetherworld
inmore detail, with more system, ifwith less poetry than theHomeric

Odyssey; the putative author would especially have distinguished several

classes among the dead, including the ahoroi, and special punishments
for special offences. We must admit that we know next to nothing
about such a poem;26 we must reckon with the creative originality of
Plato thewriter, who was great in developing his own inventions. Still,
theway he skips the themesofpatraloiai and of ahoroi in theRepublic
indicates that there were other, earlier elaborations known to him and
to his readers; these not just poetry but texts under
probably might be
curses and
lying the teletai, initiations, containing blessings.
A strange guide to the beyond isAristophanes in his Frogs, 405 bc.

Aristophanes introduces a chorus of mystai, evidently Eleusinian mystai,

26) For seeWilamowitz

See Graf 1974. the critical position against "Orphism" 1931?

32, 2:182-204; Thomas 1938; Linforth 1941; Dodds 1951:147-49. The Orphic the
ogony quoted in the Derveni papyrus has no indication of underworld punishments,
nor do the
gold plates.

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 150 W. BurkertINumen 56(2009) 141-160

not mean that all the details which Aristo

praising Iakchos; this does
phanes mentions
must be "Eleusinian"; theremay rather be some kind
of popular background. Heracles, who should know, describes the lake
to be crossed
by Charon's boat (138-44), and then a great mass of mud
{borboros) and "ever-flowing excrement"; it is there that the evildoers
are to a guest, who misused and cheated a
lying, those who did wrong
boy, who beat their
own mother or father, or who committed perjury
more thanwhat Enkidu, in those
(145-50; cf.274-75). This isslightly
additions poem, had to report; hospitality is a basic
to the Sumerian
item of morality guarded by Zeus.27 The "mud" inwhich one lies has its
more
precedent in theMesopotamian "clay," but becomes repulsive than
in Enkidusreport, having changed from a physical reality to an instru
ment of as a threat to amyetoi also
punishment. Borboros ismentioned
in Plato (Phaed. 69c).
Pindar elaborates the theme of transmigration, with a short allusion
to the (Ol. 2.67). Plato too
sufferings of evildoers in the Netherworld
includes transmigration in the great canvas of his Republic. Transmigra
tion could a kolasterion, without hell:
implement punishment without
in his Laws (870d), describes as the
Plato, teaching of specialists of teletai
that people, when they return to this life, necessarily have to pay the
"natural" retribution, which means "to sufferwhat one has done him
self, to end his lifewith such a fate," wrought by some other person.
Aristotle quotes "to sufferwhat one has done" as the justice (dikaion) of

Rhadamanthys (EN 1132b25), no doubt inhis functionas judgeof the

dead. The gold plates have allusions tometempsychosis, and to "having

paid penalty (poine) for unrighteous deeds" (6 Graf-Johnston); "the

initiate is free from
poine," another tablet claims (27 Graf-Johnston);
this could be understood along the lines of Rhadamanthys' principle. If
Pindar, Plato and others still have additional punishments in Hades
besides metempsychosis, this comes from a different strain of tradition
and imagination.
Some can be traced. to the old col
Pythagorean elements According
lection of akousmata, thunder exists to threaten "those inTartaros, to
make them afraid" (Arist. An. post. 94b33; see Burkert 1972:166-92).

27)
Cf. the curses" Luc. Dea an
"Buzygian Syria 12-13. "Cheating boys" may well be
?
pun it is not sex that is The Netherworld itself has various
Aristophanean punished.
terrible monsters that may torture a body, Ran. 472-77.

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 W BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160 151

This does not tellwho are those down inTartaros, but itmakes
exactly
a common and frequent event an admonition of what is
ubiquitous
on there. to from
going According Hieronymus, Pythagoras reported,
his own katabasis, about various punishments in the Netherworld
= on the other hand the
(Hieronymus fr.42 Wehrli Diog. Laert. 8.21);
men have come into life for the sake of
gloomy gnome that punishment,
and hence theyshould be punished (Iambi.Vit. Pyth. 85), would fita
metempsychosis system even without an otherworld kolasterion.
The earliest general statement of infernal punishments inGreek litera
ture occurs, in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
surprisingly enough,
(about 600?); this passage has often been overlooked.28 Hades is speak
to of the Netherworld, about the honours that
ing Persephone, queen
will be her due (367-69): "forevildoers therewill be punishment all
day long, those who do not appease your heart with sacrifices, perform
are not informed
ing pure rituals, paying appropriate gifts."We by
other testimonies about "appropriate gifts" for Persephone, nor did
she have special sanctuaries.29 One might think of a reference to the
the role of Triptolemos as one of the
Eleusinian mysteries; judges of the
dead (note 23) might go with this.Yet in the hymn themysteries
are introduced a
only in later passage (473-82); there the threat to non
initiates is expressed with utmost restraint: they have "not a similar
fate" as compared to the blessed initiates. Plato (Resp. 378a) criticizes
the Eleusinian initiation for being too cheap: just one pig. He would
have had reason to criticize more severely that bargaining of tisiswhich
is in the hymn: Hades is giving advice how to evade justice
suggested
?
by paying "appropriate gifts" which calls tomind those "beggars and
whom Plato treatswith scorn
soothsayers" (Resp. 364b).
We finally arrive at "Homer," where we meet with two kinds of evi
dence: casual mentions of theErinyes in the Iliad, and the great descrip
tion of the Netherworld, theNekyia in the Odyssey. Erinys has a long
and dark prehistory.30 Since Homer, Erinyes are the embodiment of
curses; "we are called Ami? state in [Eum. 417)
they bluntly Aeschylus

28) It is not mentioned in Rohde's see the in

long and inconclusive discussion
Psyche;
Richardson 1974:270-75.
29) There are no less verses in Pindar about
enigmatic (fr. 133) Persephone "accepting
the poine for ancient grief."
30) It in the in Linear B.
occurs, singular,

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 152 W Burkert/Numen 56 (2009) 141-160

with that their pursuit will not stop even in

the solemn declaration
Hades (Eum. 339-40). The Erinyes react to curses especially of father
and mother; this concerns Oedipus, Phoinix, Meleagros.31 The oath
ceremony of the third book of the Iliad includes an invocation to "you
who, beneath the earth, take revenge on men {tinyntai) who commit

perjury" (3.278-79); in a similar way Agamemnon, swearing his oath,

invokes Zeus, Earth, Helios "and Erinyes, [and] who beneath the earth
take revenge on men, whoever commits perjury" (19.259?60).32
In
other words, patraloiai and are the victims of
epiorkoi principal Erinyes,
which connects with Enkidu as well as with Aristophanes' parody.
The Nekyia of theOdyssey has no Erinyes, but some famous "sinners"
are a
who suffering "grievous pain." Poetry though has created problem
of its own: the dead are deprived of power and even of consciousness
(am?nena), they cannot even make conversation unless they have drunk
fresh blood from Odysseus'sacrifice. In consequence, any punishment
of the dead should be excluded, just as interventions of the dead in the
life of the living. Yet in the second part of theNekyia, after the so-called
intermezzo, this principle appears to be given up: Odysseus to
speaks
Achilles, and Aias, and he sees other notable dwellers of
Agamemnon,
the Beyond.33 Wilamowitz to delete the whole passage from
proposed
565 to 631 as an "Orphic interpolation," which he would assign to the
6th century.34 Others would defend the integrity of the book. The evi
dence for an Orphic underworld ismeagre. And the relevant passage

may be more "Homeric" than normally perceived.

It belongs to the most famous pieces of Homer. Three are seen by

Odysseus who "have strong pains": Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus.

a is on the earth while two vultures are
Tityus, giant, lying devouring
his liver, "for he injured Leto, the glorious spouse of Zeus, when she

31) TZ. names are not yet

9.454, 9.571; Od. 2.135, 11.280. Individual for the
Erinyes
given inHesiod, but currentsinceVirgil (AllektoMegaira Teisiphone).
32) Some in this verse to the
interpreters hold that "beneath the earth" is just
referring
home of the Erinyes, while punishment will strike living men; see the discussion in
Edwards 1991:265-66.
33) a
Porphyry, in his book Peri Stygos (ed. Castelletti), proposes geographical solution:

Acheron, he claims, separates two the realm of consciousness, where Tanta

provinces,
los, Sisyphos, Minos and Herakles dwell, and the realm of unconsciousness.
34)
Wilamowitz 1884:199-226 (verses565-631), followingKirchhofF 1879:231-33
(verses565-627); not athetized inRohde 1898, 1:61-64; cf.Heubeck 1989:111.

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 W Burkert/
Numen 56 (2009) 141-160 153

was to
going Pytho through Panopeus, place of beautiful dances"
(11.580-81) This refers to some tale about Leto and Delphi, probably

involving baby Apollo. So much is clear: there was sexual offence, and
ismade to fit the crime.35 Few will a chance
punishment anyhow have
to repeat the sin of
Tityus.
It is different with the other two, and only they have risen to prover
bial status: Tantalus and Sisyphus. We all can visualize Tantalus, stand
water which reaches to the chin of the thirsty man, but
ing in the
as he moves; and there are the branches with luxurious fruit
disappears
above his head that jerk out of reach whenever he tries to grasp them.
And we see Sisyphos incessantly pushing up the stone which predict
come down are on our mind.
ably will again. These pictures impressed
In the "reception" of the Odyssey, Tityus has practically disappeared, but
Tantalus and Sisyphus have remained prominent. To Sisyphus has been
a famous essay
dedicated by Albert Camus.
These men are normally called "sinners" inEnglish, even if this sounds
like a Christian intrusion (Heubeck 1989:112); the German term is

B??er, repentants, recalling even more drastically a Christian institution,

text of the
penitence, Bu?e. But what is strange in the Odyssey is that
there is no mention of any "sin"; no further explanation or comment is
two men have committed. Some daimon makes
given about what these
?
the water dry up in front of Tantalus (587), and a certain Krataiis
?
another obscure demon, mother of Skylla (12.124) gives the push
to the stone of or
Sisyphus. But the fault of either Tantalus Sisyphus
remains in the dark. There is no verdict, no sentence; Minos is not con
cerned with Sisyphus, Rhadamanthys is absent. If means
punishment
the duality of delinquency and consequence, with pertinent explanation
and public proclamation, what happens to Tantalus and Sisyphus can
not be termed punishment. They are definitely not repentants; theywill
not "become better." There is no comment on their actions: they are not
as "sinners." no doubt, but
introduced They suffer, apparently without
a cause. For contrast, see Plato as he out Archelaos or Ardiaios, with
picks
clear pronouncement of their crimes (Gorg. 525d; Resp. 615e).
are of course to
Commentators ready provide the missing stories,
to assert that these stories must have been
and they tend "generally

The liver is commonly to be the organ of irrational desire and lust.

thought

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 154 W Burkert/Numen 56 (2009) 141-160

known" (Heubeck 1989:112-13). An essay by Christiane Sourvinou

Inwood with the title "Crime and Punishment" (1986) tries to supply
the proper context in detail. Of course there are such stories about both
Tantalus and Sisyphus in later sources, written by authors who know
the Odyssey, and for a public who knows the Odyssey too; they occur
in variants, and it is unclear as to how far they contain anything pre
Homeric or are to fit the famous text.
just made up
Sisyphus ismentioned in the Iliad as the cleverest (kerdistos) of men
(Iliad 6.153); we may believe Alcaeus (fr. 38) that he tried to escape
death. This however can hardly be called a crime, even if itwould dis
turb the order of theworld. Itwas an attempt at the impossible, matched
to finish the "toil" allotted to him inHades. It is
by the impossibility
to make addi
interesting that the pictorial tradition finds it necessary
tions to theHomeric text.A relief from Foce del Sele has a small figure,
a demon on the neck of vase a
sitting Sisyphus; Apulian paintings, in
more and more banal way, have an at
explicit Erinys hitting Sisyphus
?
with a powerful whip36 the forced labour of a slave; none of this is
inHomer.
As toTantalus, he is involved in various strands of Greek mythology,
from Asia Minor to toMycenae. One remarkable testimony
Olympia
is the of an "Return of theAtreidai" (AtreidonKathodos):37
fragment epic
Tantalus, living in the company of the gods, is granted a wish from
Zeus. He wishes to live like the gods. Thereupon Zeus provides an
abundance of food but makes a stone hang over his head so thatTantalos,
for fear of the stone, can never touch his food. Now some version of
Atreidon Kathodos was to the poet of our
clearly known Odyssey, who
makes Orestes a model and contrasts the "graceful song
forTelemachus
of Penelope" with the "loathsome song of Klytaimnestra" (Od. 1.298-300,
cf. 1.35-43; 24.196-202). Pindar, too, has the stone above Tantalus'
head, who is thus "astray of happiness" (Ol. 1.57). Thus there is a dis
tinct possibility that the comes from an
suffering ofTantalus epic poem
that is older than our and may still have been known to Pindar.
Odyssey
Euripides has the stone too (Or. 4-10). He makes the fault of Tantalus

36)Foce del Sele: LIMC

Sisyphos no. 26; Apulian underworld vases: LIMC Poine
nos. 1-3 = Sisyphos nos. 22-24.
37) =
Usually identifiedwith theNostoi: Ath. 281b Nostoi X Allen, 4 Bernab?; not
mentioned inHeubeck 1989, but inWilamowitz-Moellendorf 1884:156-57, 201.

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 W Burkert/Numen 56 (2009) 141-160 155

"not controlling his tongue"; Pindar says itwas stealing nectar and
ambrosia from the gods' table, which keeps to the theme of eating and
crime of Tantalus which
drinking. The really terrible and grotesque
Pindar knows and discards (OL 1.26-53), the cannibalistic feast pre
sented to the Olympian gods,
seems not to be used to motivate the
We may conclude that the poet of our has left
Odyssean "pain." Odyssey
out the very instrument of
punishment, the stone, and made the sheer
of and an
impossibility drinking eating ever-lasting process.
Neither Sisyphus nor Tantalus are paradigms of justice in the sense
of crime and punishment, cause and consequence. It is the enchanting
force of theHomeric text that it does not need the complements
really
adduced by sedulous interpreters. What catches the attention, what
remains unforgettable, is just the process in itself, futility in endless

repetition: the paradigm of senselessness. Note that Pyriphlegethon,

the river that together with Kokytos flows into Acheron (Od. 10.513),
has nothing to do with hellfire, even if later interpreters, and definitely
the Christians, did understand it in this way.38 No, Pyriphlegethon,

Kokytos and Acheron, fire together with "wailing" and "grief," charac
terize the funeral: the pyre burning, the laments, and themourning. In
Hades even the trees lose their fruit (Od. 12.410): no growing, no
hope.
Note also the abysmal resignationof Achilles (11.489-91) and the
silenceofAjax (11.564): nothing is to be expectedor to be regained in
Hades. in thisway the verses about Tantalus and Sisyphus are not
Seen
accounts drawn from some other source, but an
just incomplete origi
nal characterization of the Beyond: not the automatism of crime and
not the terror of justice, but senselessness. The Greek term
punishment,
ismataioponia.
Indeed we find such a picture elaborated in another set of images
which seem to go back to the 6th century: carrying water in a leaky
vessel, plaiting a rope which is eaten up by a donkey. This, side by side
with Tantalus and Sisyphus, adds to the paradigm of mataioponia. The
evidence is somewhat fragmentary: a lost painting, some vase pictures,
and a text of Plato's. The earlier group of evidence is icon
complicated
ographie: Pausanias describes the underworld painting by Polygnotos

38) see also Damascius, In Phaed. II ? 145Westerink. Contra Rohde

Clem. Str. 5.91.2;

1898, 1:54,with referencetoApollodorus FGrHistAll F 102 and SchoL Od. 12.514.

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 156 W BurkertINumen 56(2009) 141-160

at
Delphi (Paus. 10.28-31).39 There are two females in the picture car
water in broken sherds, and the inscription says they are "not
rying
? elsewhere in the
initiated" (10.31.9) probably it read AMYHTOI;
a
picture there is big pithos, and various people, old and young, male
and female, carrying water; an old woman pours her water from a bro
ken hydria into the pithos. Sisyphus and Tantalus are on either side of
the scene (10.31.11). This ismultiplied mataioponia in theNetherworld,
and Tantalus, with the catchword AMYHTOI.
supplementing Sisyphus
Pausanias says he thinks these water-carriers are
people who disregard
a man inscribed OKNOX,
the Eleusinian mysteries. He further describes
"Hesitation," who is a rope of rush which is eaten away by
plaiting
his donkey (10.29.1); the "rope of Oknos," Pausanias adds, is prover
bial in Ionia.40
there are blackfigure vases, three so far,with correspond
In addition
one from Athens, one from Palermo, one inMunich,
ing pictures,
dated 530 to 500 bc; thus they are one or two generations earlier than
any possible date for Polygnotus'painting.41They show a bigpithos
the scene; theMunich vase has eidola, small persons with
dominating
wings, climbingup thepithos to pour out theirjugs; Sisyphushas his
vase has more
place, and his toil, besides. The Palermo personnel, males
and females, occupied with their water jugs, while a big donkey is

kneelingdown besides thepithos.This should be Oknos' donkey,but

the action of the man in front of the donkey is not that clear; other
variants of the motif have been tried by interpreters. Diodorus (1.97)
asserts that there was a ritual at Akanthos near where both
Memphis
water-pouring and rope-plaiting were ritually enacted. Perhaps that is
too nice to be true.42
a
Anyhow this is message, going beyond Homer's Nekyia, about mys
teries and their importance for afterlife, a warning to AMYHTOI. The
main text to the same is Plato, Gorgias (493a-d).43
literary referring

39)Dated
470/440, seeZ/MCAmyetoi.
40) Kratinos
Cf. fr. 367 Kassel-Austin; Wilamowitz 1884:202; Graf 1974:188-94;
Keuls 1974:36-37.
41)LIMC
Amyetoi 1/2/3;Cook 1914-40, 3:400.
42) The even in a Demotic
donkey eating the rope appears tale about the Netherworld,

probably deriving from theGreek: Lichtheim 1980:141.

43) Cf. Dodds See also Philetairos
1951:225; Burkert 1972:248 n.48. fr.17 Kassel-Austin.

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 W. BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160 157

Socratesis retelling, he says, the allegory of a myth somebody has taught

him; themyth is due, he suggests, to some "gifted man," possibly from
Sicily or Italy (493a). The myth tells that inHades AMYHTOI are
a ? a double
carrying water with sieves into leaky pithos futility. The
teacher of Socrates has presented an allegorical interpretation: uncon
trolled lust ismisery, the endless toil of a leaky soul; Socrates uses this
to refute the amoral desires of Kallikles. The original "myth," stripped
of this interpretation, evidently has the same message about themysteries
as those pictures: do not miss mystery initiation through "hesitation."
a telet?, a word associated with t?los "end, fulfil
Mystery initiation is
ment";44 ifmissed, this cannot be made good afterwards. Hades, where
no fruits grow, means futility. The mataioponia of AMYHTOI is not
in the normal sense; no crime has been committed, there
punishment
was a fatal omission. Only mystai will pursue their glorious way in
just
the beyond.45
The basis for the Gorgias passage as well as for the pictures must have
been a 6th century text advertising mysteries. Should we assign it to
asWilamowitz to a poem about
Orpheus telling his katabasis, thought,
the katabasis ofHeracles, or just to Eleusinian priests?Heracles was declared
a mystes of Eleusis, as attested already in a poem by Pindar (fr. 346b).46
Pausanias associates the pictures of Polygnotus with Eleusis. The Hymn
toDemeter, which concentrates on Eleusis, refers to punishments in the
becomes one of the judges of the dead.
Beyond.47 Eleusinian Triptolemos
Note that the first real Telesterion at Eleusis, the big closed hall to hold
all the mystai during the secret ceremonies, was built at the end of the
? this is controver
6th century, by Peisistratids or by early democracy
sial.48Mataioponia or else actual seem to be two different
punishments
but consistency is not to be expected in this field. Even
concepts,49

44) Telet? occurs in the gold plates and in Plato, Resp. 365a.
45) verse of the no. 1. Mystery used also
Last Hipponion text, Graf-Johnston priests
the menace of "lying in the mud," Plat. Phaed. 69c.
46)Heracles in "I succeeded (in the exploits in theNetherworld)
Euripides,HF613:
I
because had seen theorgies themystaC For pictureswith the initiationofHeracles
of
see ThesCRA II nos. 25, 29, 34/5, 37.
47) Seeatn.28.
48)Cf. ThesCRA II 94.
49) Plato mentions in the mud," but also the vague threat that "for those who do
"lying
not sacrifice terrible things are waiting," Resp. 365a.

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 158 W BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160

Eleusis was not a could

dogmatically organized church; Eumolpids
we can
develop individual teachings. So hardly decide what should be
called Pythagorean, or Orphic, or Eleusinian in thismessage. Let us be
content to state that we meet with a
cautionary myth used by certain
mystery priests since the 6th century that states, instead of fantastic
toTantalus and Sisy
punishments, the endless futility inHades, parallel
to a shadow in the back
phus. Tityus, in Polygnotus painting, is reduced
come to an end.
ground: his punishment, Pausanias insists (10.29.3), has
Hades of senselessness or Hades of punishment, mataioponia or else
kolasterion ? whatever our sympathies, punishments came back and
were identified with the
finally prevailed. The water-carriers inHades
Danaids, at least since the 3rd century.50 The Danaids killed their bride

grooms in the bridal chamber. There is a cause, there is punishment, a

warning against murderous females. The idea of crime and punishment
has won out as
against
a "Homeric"
tendency
to sketch senselessness as
endlessness.51 This may have been a special Homeric invention: tomake
death, with unabated seriousness, an infinite process without hope, still
free from a torturer's fantasies.

50)Keuls
1974;Rohde 1898, 1:326-29; oldest text:[?ht.]Axiochus37lc. Rohde claimed
that the watercarrying motif with the Danaids: are to arrange
originated they trying
theirown nuptial bathwhich theyhave missed in life.The evidencewe have speaks
against this sequence of the versions: In the standard myth the Danaids get married
after all to Argive (Pind. whereas the early vases as well as
partners Py. 9.112-16),
have both males and females involved: AMYHTOI, not Danaids. Whether
Polygnotus
already theDanaid trilogyofAeschylus had thepunishment inHades we do not know.
51)Another
graphic addition to afterlife
punishments is Ixion (Hixion in a 5th century
LIMCIxion no. 2; earliest about 500, LIMCno. 1); Aeschylus
painting, vase-painting
Ixion (fr.89-93) and Eumenides 424-27; Pindar Py. 2.21-48 (475?). Ixion commits
the murder of a kinsman, achieves then tries to make
purification by Zeus himself, but
love toHera; he coupleswith a cloud which gives birth toKentauros (a pun: kentein
auran stinginga cloud). For
punishment Ixion isfetteredto a big rotating
wheel, flying
is crime and
"everywhere" through the air. This punishment, amplakiai pherepoinoi
(Pind. Py. 2.30), even "eternal (Diod. 4.69.5), with Kratos and Bia doing
punishment"
theirjob, andwith amessage (Pind.Py. 2.21), possiblyon thebackgroundof rituals
with
necans 206 n.l 1) in combination a realistic
rolling wheels (Burkert, Homo with instru
ment of torture(Anakreon388; Antiphon 1.20;Aristoph.Pax 432; Andoc.Myst. 43); in
the old evidence, this wheel is not bound to Hades, but rotates "everywhere."

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 W BurkertINumen 56 (2009) 141-160 159

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