severe laws, but from a firm persuasion that death was not so entire a
destruction as wholly to abolish and destroy everything, but rather a
kind of transmigration, as it were, and change of life, which was, in
the case of illustrious men and women, usually a guide to heaven, while
in that of others it was still confined to the earth, but in such a
manner as still to exist. From this, and the sentiments of the Romans,

In heaven Romulus with Gods now lives,

as Ennius saith, agreeing with the common belief; hence, too, Hercules
is considered so great and propitious a God among the Greeks, and from
them he was introduced among us, and his worship has extended even to
the very ocean itself. This is how it was that Bacchus was deified, the
offspring of Semele; and from the same illustrious fame we receive
Castor and Pollux as Gods, who are reported not only to have helped the
Romans to victory in their battles, but to have been the messengers of
their success. What shall we say of Ino, the daughter of Cadmus? Is she
not called Leucothea by the Greeks, and Matuta by us? Nay, more; is not
the whole of heaven (not to dwell on particulars) almost filled with
the offspring of men?

Should I attempt to search into antiquity, and produce from thence what
the Greek writers have asserted, it would appear that even those who
are called their principal Gods were taken from among men up into
heaven.

XIII. Examine the sepulchres of those which are shown in Greece;
recollect, for you have been initiated, what lessons are taught in the
mysteries; then will you perceive how extensive this doctrine is. But
they who were not acquainted with natural philosophy (for it did not