The wise and orderly soul is conscious of her situation and follows in the path; but the soul which desires the body, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her attendant genius, and when she arrives at the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds, or been concerned in foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of these, and the works of brothers in crime-from that soul everyone flees and turns away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation; as every pure and just soul which has passed through life in the company and under the guidance of the gods has also her own proper home.
Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is indeed in nature and extent very unlike the notions of geographers, as I believe on the authority of one who shall be nameless.
What do you mean, Socrates?
said Simmias.
I have myself heard many descriptions of the earth, but I do not know in what you are putting your faith, and I should like to know.
Well, Simmias, replied Socrates, the recital of a tale does not, I think, require the art of Glaucus; and I know not that the art of Glaucus could prove the truth of my tale, which I myself should never be able to prove, and even if I could, I fear, Simmias, that my life would come to an end before the argument was completed.
I may describe to you, however, the form and regions of the earth according to my conception of them.
That, said Simmias, will be enough.
Well, then, he said, my conviction is that the earth is a round body in the center of the heavens, and therefore has no need of air or any similar force as a support, but is kept there and hindered from falling or inclining any way by the equability of the surrounding heaven and by her own equipoise.
For that which, being in equipoise, is in the center of that which is equably diffused, will not incline any way in any degree, but will always remain in the same state and not deviate.
And this is my first notion.
Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias.
Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that we who dwell in the region extending from the river Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles, along the borders of the sea, are just like ants or frogs about a marsh, and inhabit a small portion only, and that many others dwell in many like places.
For I should say that in all parts of the earth there are hollows of various forms and sizes, into which the water and the mist and the air collect; and that the true earth is pure and in the pure heaven, in which also are the stars-that is the heaven which is commonly spoken of as the ether, of which this is but the sediment collecting in the hollows of the earth.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
Soul movements are guided by gods and the equability of heaven maintains the earth's position.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Impure souls are described as wandering in extremity of evil until fulfilled times allow their return to proper habitation.
The passage explicitly describes the soul's journey after death, including arrival at gathering places and separation from companions. [quarantine-w4: funerary_navigation x platonism — see rellm data/quarantine/dossiers.jsonl]
Guided passage of the soul through afterlife realms.
The passage details the soul's arrival at gathering places, flight from companions, and being borne to her fitting habitation by certain times. [quarantine-w4: psychopomp_journey x platonism — see rellm data/quarantine/dossiers.jsonl]