So far, it appears that there was little or no communion according to Babylonian belief between the dead and the living, except at the family sacramental meal held after the funeral. Only the vexed and neglected soul of the unburied or the unhallowed dead returned to disturb the living. And perhaps at times the Babylonians, as the Israelites, resorted to “necromancy,” the evocation of the dead by spells, so as to question them concerning the future. One evidence of this is the passage in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero is able to evoke the spectre of his friend Eabani and question it. This was probably suggested by an actual practice, which is attested by such priestly titles as “he who leads up the dead,” “he who questions the dead.”[214.2] In ancient Greece we have the further evidence, which is lacking in the Babylonian record, of actual νεκυομαντεῖα or shrines where the dead were {215} consulted, and some of these may have descended from the pre-Homeric period; for the evocation of ghosts seems to have been specially practised in Arcadia, where so much primitive lore survived. As regards the higher eschatology, it would seem that the Babylonian of the earlier period had not advanced even as far as the Homeric, possibly the pre-Homeric, Greek. For even in Homer’s picture of Hades and the after-life[215.1] there already is found this important trait--certain notorious sinners are punished, certain privileged persons like Menelaos may be wafted to blessedness; while in Hesiod the idea is outspoken that many of the righteous and distinguished men of the past enjoy a blessed lot hereafter.[215.2] Moreover, this important dogma of posthumous punishments and rewards is not confined to the world of mythic fancy in the Homeric epic, to personages such as Tantalos, Tityos, Menelaos: the average man in the Homeric period might not hope for happiness after death; but if Homer is his spokesman he could fear special punishment, and the threat of it was already a moral force. There are two striking passages in the _Iliad_, of which the importance for our present question is often ignored: in iii. 278 there is reference to the two divinities whom, with Aristarchus, we must interpret as Hades and Persephone, who punish oath-breakers after death: in xix. 259 the same function of executing judgment in the nether world upon the souls of the perjured is ascribed to the Erinyes: the context in both passages {216} suggests that the poet is giving voice to a common popular belief. And in regard to posthumous happiness, early Greece may have believed more than Homer reports. For who can determine how early this eschatologic hope came into the Eleusinian mysteries?