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Whether apocryphal or not, this passage takes us deep within the Roman psyche, and explains an extraordinary fact: when the spirits of the deceased behaved propitiously, they were called lares, but when their actions were malevolent, they were termed larvae (Servius ad Aen. 3.63). Clearly, the Romans were profoundly impressed by this dual capacity of their ancestors for benevolent and malevolent behavior.
The term larva is also used to characterize a broader group of evil spirits, which we may loosely translate as "ghosts". These spirits were compelled to wander (Apul. de deo Soc. 15), and thereby to suffer perpetual hunger and thirst, for the most part because they had been denied proper burial. Thus in one of Plautus' comedies, the Mostellaria, a house is haunted by the ghost of a man murdered and buried secretly therein (lines 499-504). Self-evidently, this was the worst of all possible fates, and it accounts for Plato's recommendation that murderers not only be executed but also denied burial (Leg. 9.874b). This actually happened to the notorious emperor Caligula, with the interesting result that, until his remains received proper burial, his ghost haunted the house in which he had been slain, and eventually caused it to be consumed in a fire (Suet. Calig. 59).
The prevailing Roman vision of the afterlife may, then, be summarized in the following terms: the individual has a soul that at death normally takes up permanent residence in the grave, where it is to be the venerated object of a cult centred on periodic sacrifices of food and drink. This spirit has a continuing capacity to intervene in human affairs, and normally does so for benevolent purposes; if it suffers neglect, however, it may punish severely those responsible for its well-being. In so doing, it passes into the larger category of evil spirits, which avenge their own tortured condition by haunting the living.
The popular Chinese conception of the afterlife
More than a century has now passed since the Reverend Justus Doolittle observed that people in Foochow believe each individual to be blessed with three souls, which separate at the moment of death, and undergo quite different fates. One
127
Whether apocryphal or not, this passage takes us deep within the Roman psyche, and explains an extraordinary fact: when the spirits of the deceased behaved propitiously, they were called lares, but when their actions were malevolent, they were termed larvae (Servius ad Aen, 3.63). Clearly, the Romans were pro- foundly impressed by this dual capacity of their ancestors for benevolent and malevolent behavior.
The term larva is also used to characterize a broader group of evil spirits, which we may loosely translate as "ghosts". These spirits were compelled to wander (Apul. de deo Soc. 15), and thereby to suffer perpetual hunger and thirst, for the most part because they had been denied proper burial. Thus in one of Plautus' comedies, the Mostellaria, a house is haunted by the ghost of a man murdered and buried secretly therein (lines 499- 504). Self-evidently, this was the worst of all possible fates, and it accounts for Plato's recommendation that murderers not only be executed but also denied burial (Leg. 9.874b). This actually happened to the notorious emperor Caligula, with the interesting result that, until his remains received proper burial, his ghost haunted the house in which he had been slain, and eventually caused it to be consumed in a fire (Suet, Calig. 59).
The prevailing Roman vision of the afterlife may, then, be summarized in the following terms: the individual has a soul that at death normally takes up permanent residence in the grave, where it is to be the venerated object of a cult centred on periodic sacrifices of food and drink. This spirit has a continuing capacity to intervene in human affairs, and normally does so for benevolent purposes; if it suffers neglect, however, it may punish severely those responsible for its well-being. In so doing, it passes into the larger category of evil spirits, which avenge their own tortured condition by haunting the living.
The popular Chinese conception of the afterlife
More than a century has now passed since the Reverend Justus Doolittle observed that people in Foochow believe each individual to be blessed with three souls, which separate at the moment of death, and undergo quite different fates. One
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