Travels in Hades: Conceptions on the hereafter in Greek-Roman texts, images and objects

Abstract

Greek-Roman antiquity created multiple conceptions on life after death. In close analogy to the world on this side, ideas of the other side - frightening, consoling or accepting - could transpose a Utopia of justice or desires of everlasting happiness. There was no closed, exclusive theological concept. Most of our information comes from very different sources: literature, -philosophical and epigraphical texts, pictures on grave monuments, profane objects, and from artefacts in the context of burial rites. Taking into account the diverse media functions, the disparate intentions and the purpose of the sources, an attempt is made in this contribution to give a cultural-historical image - however brief and incomplete - of the ancient ideas on the hereafter by using objects from burial rites.