ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315828060/49546f0e-ce84-4e70-9b40-7107f16ee305/content/ufig_l_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>UCIAN is of interest to us because his account suggests a blending of old Syrian beliefs with those of Classical Greece and Rome, and because he has undoubtedly influenced some of the monkish writers of the Middle Ages. Many of the greatest mediæval writers on the fate of the soul after death seem, however, to ignore Lucian and to draw their inspiration mainly from Virgil, who in his turn was undoubtedly influenced by the traditions of Greece and, more especially, of Homer. It must not be forgotten that Virgil was one of the few Classical authors who was never lost sight of by mediæval scholars, although in their hands he appears rather as a master of magic, and the reputed author of many ghost stories, than as the great Poet of the Golden Age of Roman literature. For all that, it is not Virgil the Magician, but Virgil the writer of the Æneid who inspired Dante, and others who, like him, wrote on the subject of the after-life. For these reasons the beliefs of the Greeks and Romans are of considerable importance to us in this study since they are a definite link in the chain which connects certain high degrees current in the West to-day with a long forgotten past, wherein our ancestors evolved ideas concerning the Underworld very similar to those still taught in the Hung Ritual.
