I speak of
those in power. What are the poet's views but to be ennobled after
death? What else is the object of these lines,

Behold old Ennius here, who erst
Thy fathers' great exploits rehearsed?

He is challenging the reward of glory from those men whose ancestors he
himself had ennobled by his poetry. And in the same spirit he says, in
another passage,

Let none with tears my funeral grace, for I
Claim from my works an immortality.

Why do I mention poets? The very mechanics are desirous of fame after
death. Why did Phidias include a likeness of himself in the shield of
Minerva, when he was not allowed to inscribe his name on it? What do
our philosophers think on the subject? Do not they put their names to
those very books which they write on the contempt of glory? If, then,
universal consent is the voice of nature, and if it is the general
opinion everywhere that those who have quitted this life are still
interested in something, we also must subscribe to that opinion. And if
we think that men of the greatest abilities and virtues see most
clearly into the power of nature, because they themselves are her most
perfect work, it is very probable that, as every great man is
especially anxious to benefit posterity, there is something of which he
himself will be sensible after death.

XVI. But as we are led by nature to think there are Gods, and as we
discover, by reason, of what description they are, so, by the consent
of all nations, we are induced to believe that our souls survive; but
where their habitation is, and of what character they eventually are,
must be learned from reason. The want of any certain reason on which to
argue has given rise to the idea of the shades below, and to those
fears which you seem, not without reason, to despise; for as our bodies
fall to the ground, and are covered with earth (_humus_), from whence
we derive the expression to be interred (_humari_), that has occasioned
men to imagine that the dead continue, during the remainder of their
existence, under ground; which opinion has drawn after it many errors,
which the poets have increased; for the theatre, being frequented by a
large crowd, among which are women and children, is wont to be greatly
affected on hearing such pompous verses as these,

Lo! here I am, who scarce could gain this place,
Through stony mountains and a dreary waste;
Through cliffs, whose sharpen'd stones tremendous hung,
Whe