neglecting her
from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had
only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in
dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but
of their own evil together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the
soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil
except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul
when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but
nurture and education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly
to injure the departed, at the very beginning of his journey thither.

For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom
he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are
gathered together, whence after judgment has been given they pass into
the world below, following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them
from this world to the other: and when they have there received their
due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after
many revolutions of ages. Now this way to the other world is not, as
Aeschylus says in the Telephus, a single and straight path--if that were
so no guide would be needed, for no one could miss it; but there are
many partings of the road, and windings, as I infer from the rites and
sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three
ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul follows in the straight
path and is conscious of her surroundings; but the soul which desires
the body, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering
about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles
and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her
attendant genius, and when she arrives at the place where the other
souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds, whether
foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of these, and the
works of brothers in crime--from that soul every one flees and turns
away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she
wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and
when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting
habitation; as every pure and just soul which has passed through life in
the company and under the guidance of the gods has also her own proper
home.

Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is