argue has given rise to the idea of the shades below, and to those
fears which you seem, not without reason, to despise; for as our bodies
fall to the ground, and are covered with earth (_humus_), from whence
we derive the expression to be interred (_humari_), that has occasioned
men to imagine that the dead continue, during the remainder of their
existence, under ground; which opinion has drawn after it many errors,
which the poets have increased; for the theatre, being frequented by a
large crowd, among which are women and children, is wont to be greatly
affected on hearing such pompous verses as these,

Lo! here I am, who scarce could gain this place,
Through stony mountains and a dreary waste;
Through cliffs, whose sharpen'd stones tremendous hung,
Where dreadful darkness spread itself around.

And the error prevailed so much, though indeed at present it seems to
me to be removed, that although men knew that the bodies of the dead
had been burned, yet they conceived such things to be done in the
infernal regions as could not be executed or imagined without a body;
for they could not conceive how disembodied souls could exist; and,
therefore, they looked out for some shape or figure. This was the
origin of all that account of the dead in Homer. This was the idea that
caused my friend Appius to frame his Necromancy; and this is how there
got about that idea of the lake of Avernus, in my neighborhood,

From whence the souls of undistinguish'd shape,
Clad in thick shade, rush from the open gate
Of Acheron, vain phantoms of the dead.

And they must needs have these appearances speak, which is not possible