[178\5: Xen., _Cyr._ 8, 7, 17 ff.: ~ou ga\r dê/pou tou=to/ ge saphô=s dokei=te eide/nai hôs oude/n eimi egô\ e/ti, epeida\n tou= anthrôpi/nou bi/ou teleutê/sô; oude\ ga\r nu=n toi tê/n g' emê\n psuchê\n heôra=te . . . ta\s de\ tô=n a/dika patho/ntôn psucha\s ou/pô katenoê/sate, hoi/ous me\n pho/bous toi=s miaipho/nois emba/llousin, hoi/ous de\ palamnai/ous~ (which means first the criminal and then, as here, the punishing spirit that avenges the criminal deed, exactly like ~prostro/paios, alitê/rios, ala/stôr, mia/stôr~: see Zacher, _Dissert. phil. Halens._ iii, 232 ff.) ~toi=s anosi/ois epipe/mpousi? toi=s de\ phthime/nois ta\s tima\s diame/nein e/ti a\n dokei=te, ei mêdeno\s autô=n hai psuchai\ ku/riai ê=san? ou/toi e/gôge, ô= pai=des, oude\ **tou=to pô/pote epei/sthên, hôs hê psuchê/, he/ôs me\n a\n en thnêtô=| sô/mati ê=|, zê=|, ho/tan de\ tou/tou apallagê=|, te/thnêken~. Then follow other popular arguments for the belief in the continued existence of the soul after its separation from the body.] {{217}} CHAPTER VI THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES The cult of the dead, thus pursued in unhampered freedom, preserved and encouraged certain ideas of the life of the soul after death; of the soul as a conscious and powerful being which though separated from the body has not been parted for ever from the scene of its earthly existence. To the Greeks such ideas had become strange and unfamiliar--strange, at least, to the Ionian Greeks of the Homeric age. But from such a cult no dogmatic or distinctly outlined picture of the life of the departed soul could have been deduced, nor ever was deduced. Everything in this connexion dealt with the relation of the dead to the living. Families by means of sacrifice and religious acts sought to nourish the souls of their own dead. But the cult was in itself chiefly precautionary (apotropaic) in character, and as a consequence men preferred rather to avoid investigation into the nature and condition of the dead themselves, except in so far as they came into the life of the living. This is the point at which the cult of the souls and belief in the existence of souls stopped short among many of the so-called "savage" peoples who have no history. Nor can there be much doubt that it had reached this stage of development in Greece, too, before the time of Homer; though temporarily overshadowed, it continued to exist for it was rooted firmly in the united life of the family and its traditional practices.