empty images of mortal men;[1] to be king of their myriad clans is worse than to be a serf on earth; and if Hercules is better off it is not because he is in Elysian fields, but because only his image (εἴδωλον) dwells in the cheerless Shadow-land, "while he himself with the immortal gods enjoys the feast and lovely-ankled Youth." The gathering-place of the clans, with its pale reflection of the life then known, has not yet been separated into the torture-place of the Evil and the paradise of the Good, though Minos, holding his golden sceptre, sits like any earth-king giving his inspired commands to the dead (θεμιστέυων νέκυσσιν), "while those around seek decisions (δίκας) of the king."
So far the Greek conception of a future state was not greatly in advance of the Hebrew Sheôl. But the break-up of clan ties and the progress of individualism were to bring out the need of such sanctions for personal morality as the future state can create. In truth, the Heaven and Hell conceptions were to develop in parallel lines with the development of social life. In the poems of Pindar the punishments and rewards of a future state are no longer confined to dæmons and demi-gods; plain human personality is to suffer for the evil it has wrought, or to enjoy a paradise of holiness which is neither the abode of the gods nor confined to translated heroes like Hercules. In a famous passage of Pindar's second Olympian ode we have an evidence of this ethical progress worth quoting in full.[2] "But if one possesses wealth aright he knows the future lot, that reckless souls of men who died on earth pay straightway their wehrgelds' (ποινάς),[3] for one
