Death was an evil, not a release.

Even in their Elysium, their favourite heroes seem to enjoy but a frigid and unenviable immortality.

Yet this saddening prospect of the grave rather served to exhilarate life, and stimulate to glory:--"Make the most of existence," say their early poets, "for soon comes the dreary Hades!" And placed beneath a delightful climate, and endowed with a vivacious and cheerful temperament, they yielded readily to the precept.

Their religion was eminently glad and joyous; even the stern Spartans lost their austerity in their sacred rites, simple and manly though they were--and the gayer Athenians passed existence in an almost perpetual circle of festivals and holydays.
This uncertainty of posthumous happiness contributed also to the desire of earthly fame.

For below at least, their heroes taught them, immortality was not impossible.