“And will not then the immortal armies scorn The world’s poor routed leavings? or will they Who fail’d under the heat of this life’s day Support the fervours of the heavenly morn? No! The energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun, And he who flagg’d not in earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing—only he, His soul well-knit and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.” * * * * * But this proud doctrine vowed to final destruction the mass of humble men, the multitude of the miserable, that is to say, those who, because they endured most in this world, must most aspire to seek in another the happiness which was here denied them and the retribution which should repair the injustice of their earthly lot. This doctrine of the immortality of the few made low station in life a misfortune which was prolonged beyond the grave. To the immense company of the wretched, who suffered without consolation, the religions of the East brought a “better hope,” the assurance that by certain secret rites the mystic, whatever his rank, whether senator or slave, might obtain salvation. The virtue of the liturgical ceremonies made him equal to the immortals (ἀπαθανατίζειν). This was the secret of the rapid spread of these exotic cults in the Latin world. Every day the stars disappear beneath the horizon to reappear in the east on the morrow; every month a new moon succeeds the moon whose light has waned; every year the sun is reborn to new strength after his fires have died away; every winter vegetation withers to bloom again in the spring. The gods of nature—Attis, Osiris, Adonis—also rose again after they had been slain; the gods of the stars resumed their glowing ardour after darkness had overwhelmed them. Their essential quality was to be for ever “living” or “unconquered” (_invicti_). Their career was a perpetual triumph over death. The struggle implied was, under the influence of dualism, recognised to be an unceasing battle between two powers disputing possession of the world. Thus the mystic who had become god, who had part in the divine energy, also acquired the power to conquer death. Oriental religions looked upon earthly existence as a fight from which the just man issued victorious. Immortality was a triumph won over the powers of evil, of which the most implacable was death. The souls of the elect were crowned like athletes and soldiers; their wreath was the “crown of life,” often represented on funeral monuments.[272] The Greeks sometimes, and the Etruscans frequently, had personified death as a horrible monster who frightened those whom he approached. But the idea of making death into the adversary of mankind, from whose empire pious and strong souls might escape, spread only with the reception of the Oriental beliefs.