[23\6: That is, in the time of still vital religion and in the circles which still retained an unspoilt feeling for it. Apart from these it is true that the allegorical interpretation of myths was already familiar in antiquity, and in learned circles the gods and the stories of the gods were transformed and disintegrated ~eis pneu/mata kai\ rheu/mata kai\ spo/rous kai\ aro/tous kai\ pa/thê gê=s kai\ metabola\s hôrô=n~ as Plutarch complains, _Is. et O._ 66, p. 377 D. These allegorical interpreters from Anaxagoras and Metrodoros onwards are the real ancestors of our modern "nature" mythologists. No one doubts, however, that from their interpretations nothing can be learnt except what the real sense of Greek belief in the gods certainly was _not_. It is worth noticing that Prodikos, because he said that ~hê/lion kai\ selê/nên kai\ potamou\s kai\ leimô=nas kai\ karpou\s kai\ pa=n to\ toioutô=des~ were the real essence of the Greek gods, was looked upon as one of the ~a/theoi~ (S.E., _M._ 9, 51-2 = B 5 Diels). Quam tandem religionem reliquit? asks the Greek whom Cicero is reproducing in _ND._ i, 118, with reference to this ancient prophet of Greek "nature-religion".--For the ancient allegorists Persephone, too, is nothing but ~to\ dia\ tô=n karpô=n phero/menon pneu=ma~ (so Kleanthes: Plu. as above). Acc. to Varro Persephone "means" fecunditatem seminum, {234} carried off by Orcus on the occasion of some crop-failure, etc. (Aug., _CD._ vii, 20). In Porph. ap. Eus., _PE._ 3, 11, 7-9. we actually have the very interpretation which has been recently restored to so much favour--that ~Ko/rê~ is nothing else but a (feminine) personification of ~ko/ros~ = young plant, shoot.] [24\6: A hint of such an explanation occurs in Sallustius, _de Dis_ iv, ~kata\ tê\n enanti/an isêmeri/an~ (i.e. the autumnal) ~hê tê=s Ko/rês harpagê\ **muthologei=tai gene/sthai; ho\ dê\ ka/thodo/s hesti tô=n psuchô=n~ (from the standpoint of this Neoplatonist at any rate the analogy might be carried through). So, too, Sopater ~diai/r. zêt.~ in Walz, _Rh. Gr._ viii, 115, 3, speaks of ~to\ tê=s psuchê=s pro\s to\ thei=on suggene/s~ as if it were confirmed in the (Eleusinian) mysteries.] [25\6: It may be mentioned here by anticipation that a real doctrine of the indestructibility of the human soul was first traditionally attributed in antiquity to the Greek philosophers such as Thales or to the _theosophoi_ such as Pherekydes (and Pythagoras too). In what sense this can be regarded as true we shall learn in the course of our inquiry. The mysteries of Eleusis, from which many modern critics would like to derive the belief in immortality among the Greeks, are mentioned by no ancient authority as among the sources of that belief or of such a doctrine. In which they were quite right.] [26\6: Soph. _fr._ 753 N. [791 P.] ~hôs tri\s o/lbioi kei=noi brotô=n, hoi\ tau=ta derchthe/ntes te/lê mo/lôs' es Ha/idou; toi=sde ga\r mo/nois ekei= zê=n e/sti, toi=s d' a/lloisi pa/nt' ekei= kaka/~.]