The Myth of Er is an eschatological legend that concludes Plato's The Republic (10.614-10.621). The story includes an account of the cosmos and the afterlife that for many centuries greatly influenced religious, philosophical and scientific thought.
The story begins as a man named Er (Greek: Ἤρ, gen.: Ἠρός; son of Ἀρμένιος - Armenios from Pamphylia) dies in battle. When the bodies of those who died in the battle are collected, ten days after his death, Er remains undecomposed. Two days later he revives when on his funeral-pyre and tells of his journey in the afterlife, including an account of reincarnation and the celestial spheres of the astral plane. The tale introduces the idea that moral people are rewarded and immoral people punished after death.
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