According to some ancient texts, including the myth that concluded Plato’s Republic, the choice between reward and punishment depended on the individual’s conduct during life; other texts, including the Hymn and a fragment of Pindar, promised that by undertaking special rites while alive, anyone might win postmortem rewards—perhaps even an afterlife that included sunlight, feasting, and beautiful surroundings, similar to the paradisical existence promised to heroes in earlier works.
