The tale of Periander, as related by Herodotus, would have been known to Alexander. It concerns our subject’s career, greatly, as he was said to have been born on the night a temple in Asia burned. As well, Alexander devoted enormous energy to the restoration of looted temples and pillaged tomb treasures. These were not just stores of community value, but earthly guest houses dedicated to the use of specific otherworldly powers. Alexander would be subjected to as much black magic directed against him as Shaka did in the Transvaal and Dessalaines did in Haiti. That the dead be put to rest decently, was a central theme in Xenophon’s Anabasis, as well as Alexander’s.

Periander, Tyrant of Corinth, sent a messenger to an oracle on the river Acheron to consult with the ghost of his dead wife, Melissa. Melissa answered, “she was chill,” having been buried without clothing, and refused his request until he had all of the women, free and slave, in Corinth wear their best clothes to temple, be stripped naked, and have the clothes burnt for her. This idea of a spouse as an advance team member or mentor in the afterlife was common to Antiquity, possibly reflecting ancient animistic faiths, in Alexander’s mind, reflecting an actual, overarching Reality.

In Late Antiquity, Athenodorus, visited Athens. He was a philosopher, and therefor a man of extreme upper class and possessed of numerous slaves. He was the same class of person as the authors of the New Testament, except that he was Arуan rather than a Greek-educated Hebrew. There was a vacant house for rent due to a haunting. The philosopher took this as a challenge to his rational will, and set out to confront this lesser aspect of Eternity, armed only with his education:

“When night came he commanded his servants to make his bed in the outer part of the house. He took his writing tablets, his writing wire, and a candle, and sent his servants into the inner part of the house. He set out to write, lest, his mind be unoccupied…”

The occupation of Athendorus’ mind with active thought as a ward against evil might recommend a course of action to social media addicts of today. The young philosopher was confronted by a ghost who wished his help. Being led to the courtyard of the house by the ghost, Athenodorus saw the phantom vanish into the ground. He placed herbs and leaves there as a promisary offering and went to “the rulers of the city,” indicating an oligarchic social structure, the very structure Arrian was a member of as Archon of Athens. Here the bones of a man were found wrapped and tied in chains, just as the ghost had been seen in chains, moving gravely, and making rattling noises. The bones were “solemnly” buried and the haunting abated.

This odd tale depicts Late Antiquity as a heavily bound slave matrix, as it was, and as it was in Alexander’s earlier time.

Thespesius of Soli, being a contemporary of Plutarch, was a contemporary of the early Christians, as well as their neighbor, traveling about Greece and Asiatic Greece. He was the son of an evil man who had poisoned and killed his own guests in order to gain their gold. He was a wastrel, squandering that ill-gotten fortune. Then, when he was broke, he became a grifter, with no trick too low to gain back his money and status. Thespesius was “lewd,” “wicked,” engaged in illegal acts, famed for his unjust dealings and cheating. He must have had considerable political power.

He sent to the oracle at Amphilocus asking if his remaining life would be better than what he had lived. He was informed that he would have a better life after he had died. He soon fell from a high place and had the wind knocked from him. There were no broken limbs but no sure signs of life. Three days later, as he was being lowered into the grave, he awakened.

He related to his friends that when he fell he felt like a pilot being thrown from the helm of a ship into the sea. Slowly emerging into an ether filled with stars of enormous magnitude as his soul was shot forth as if upon a chariot of light. He saw various other souls, most of whom he did not know, rising into heaven as bubbles, with souls bursting forth in degrees from the bubbles in the likeness of men and women. Some souls shot forth with purpose on high, some spun in agitation, and some heavily sunk. Some made sounds like soldiers in war, others festive. The other souls did not seem to recognize him, his apparently a messenger journey like that of Er.

Most of the souls were crowded together in herds of despair. One drew aside, an elder kinsman, who saluted the visitor and named him Thespesius. He protested that his name was Aridaeus. He was corrected by the elder, who informed him he held a knew enlightened name, which he would carry back into the world of men.

Here we are treated to more structure of the afterlife. Though this account is from 450 years after Alexander, it is similar to Hesiod’s Shield of Herakles. There is academic doubt that Hesiod composed the version we have. But it was done in his name, and very possibly by a poet of Plato or Alexander’s time. In Hesiod’s Works and Days much attention is paid to Justice, Daughter of Time-holder and Necessity. [1]

The highest place at Judgment was held by Adrastea, daughter of [Jove] God and Necessity. Once she has cast judgment, the application of divine justice is administered by three Furies appropriate to the crime:

1.) Poine, ‘Speedy Punishment,’ who disciplines minor offenders while still in the body.

2.) Dike, “Justice,” also a daughter of Zeus, administers the universal penitentiary of souls.

3.) Erinnys is woe incarnate, administering the doleful torments earned by the most wicked men.

The judges of Heaven all seem to be daughters of God, as Hesiod so named Dike. Thespesius has given an account that varies with that of Er, but overlaps with strong congruence. We might structure the court of heaven, being held beneath the throne of Necessity as consisting of:

Adrastea

Lachesis

Clotho

Atropos

Poine

Dike

Erinnys

The Prophet

     

Both Er and Thespesius described other actors present in advisory roles.

The cartography of the afterlife as related by Plutarch, include such details as the hues of souls:

black = avarice & fraud

red = cruelty & blood lust

blue = attached to pleasures of life

purple = envy

clear = the souls native luster

Numerous teachings on the cartography of the afterlife follow. Thespesius’ journey concludes with a sorceress beguiling his soul in the afterlife, and his being rescued by another female power, “...he thought whirled away by a strong and violent wind and forced as it were through a pipe. And so, lighting again into his own body, he awoke and found himself on the brink of his own grave.”

In our story of Alexander and of his Agrianes, there must be some occasion of out of body experience, what with tens of thousands of casualties and even a Yogi walking alive onto his own funeral pyre.

0.) Note that Ovid named the furies “Night’s three snake-haired sisters.”

1.) In this reader’s view, Genesis is congruent with the notion of God as outside of Time, interacting with the necessary aspects of life within Time. See the creation of sea life, specifically.

2.) Native American sacred color schemes are very similar.