Part 6

There were also lakes lying side by side, one of boiling gold, one of lead intensely cold, another of rough iron; and certain daemons, like metal-workers, with their instruments took up and thrust in the souls of those who had been guilty through greed and cupidity. When in the gold they had become fiery and transparent by burning, these daemons plunged them into the lake of lead; and when they had there become frozen like hail, they were transferred to the lake of iron. There they were made horribly black, and were so fractured and bruised by the hardness of the iron, as to look like different beings; and then in this deformed condition they were carried again to the lake of gold, enduring intense torment in these successive transportations. But those suffered most horribly of all who thought that they had been at length released from the hands of justice, yet who were again apprehended for fresh punishment. These were they the punishment of whose guilt passed on to some of their children or descendants. When one of these comes and meets them, he falls upon them with anger, and cries out against them, showing the tokens of his sufferings, reviling and pursuing the souls that long to escape and hide, yet are unable so to do; for the ministers of justice run after them to subject them to fresh chastisement, and push them on, while they from the beginning lament bitterly, well knowing the punishment that awaits them. He said too that some, indeed many, of the souls of the descendants of bad men clustered together, sustained in this posture like bees or bats, and venting in shrieks their indignation at the remembrance of what they had suffered on account of their parents or ancestors.

Last of all, he saw the souls destined to a second birth, by main force, bent and transformed into all sorts of beasts by artificers who fashioned them by appropriate tools and by blows as upon an anvil, compressing all their parts, reversing some, planing down some, and utterly destroying some, so as to fit them for habits and modes of life other than human. Among these appeared the soul of Nero, having already endured other torments, and now pierced with red-hot nails. The artificers had taken this soul in hand, and given it the form of Pindar’s viper,[73:1] a form in which the creature after being conceived eats its way to life through its mother’s bowels; when, as Thespesius said, a light suddenly shone forth, and from the light came a voice commanding that he should be transformed into another more gentle brute,—one of those croaking creatures that burrow about swamps and ponds;[73:2] for though he had been punished for his wrong-doings, yet something of mercy was due to him from the gods, because he had emancipated the Greeks,[74:1] of all his subjects the best race and dearest to the gods.

Thus far Thespesius saw; but when he was about to return to the earth, he was in utter desperation through terror. For a certain woman, of marvellous form and stature, laying hold of him, said, “Come hither, that you may remember these things the better,” and she was about to strike him with a red-hot wand such as the encaustic painters use, when another woman prevented her. Then he, as if suddenly forced through a tube by an intensely strong and powerful wind, alighted on his own body, and awoke hard by his own tomb.

FOOTNOTES:

[1:1] A name probably chosen for this retreating collocutor because the dialogue is anti-Epicurean in its dogmas and its spirit, and the supposed arguments to be refuted were therefore such as an Epicurean would have urged. Epicurus denied the Divine Providence, and maintained that the gods did not concern themselves with human affairs.

[1:2] Some commentators suppose this to be the second part of a dialogue, of which the first part is lost. But it is more probable that the reader is, for dramatic effect, introduced into the midst of a prepared scene. This was not an uncommon device in the philosophical dialogues that have come down to us from early time. Plato, Cicero, and Lucian furnish instances of it, and two other of Plutarch’s dialogues begin in a similar way. _Cinius_ is a name that occurs nowhere else. A purely conjectural emendation of a single letter would give us the better known name, _Quintus_. The scene of this dialogue is the temple of Apollo at Delphi,—the temple in which Plutarch officiated as priest.

[2:1] Plutarch’s son-in-law.

[2:2] Plutarch’s brother.

[2:3] The figure by which arguments are called spears or javelins, and are said to be hurled when uttered—in itself not unnatural—occurs frequently in the ancient classics. Indeed, the most authentic derivation of the Latin _dicere_, _to speak_, is from the Greek δικεῖν, _to hurl_. The French word _trait_ offers an analogy in point.

[2:4] Brasidas, the most distinguished Spartan general, and the leader of the Spartan forces, in the earlier part of the Peloponnesian war, was slain near Amphipolis, at the moment of victory. Cleon, the Athenian general, was killed at the same time. The incident referred to in the text has no record in history; but a scholiast on Aristophanes says that Cleon and Brasidas killed each other, referring probably to the tradition that they both were killed by Cleon’s spear.

[3:1] A verse from the _Orestes_,—the reply of Orestes when asked whether Apollo would give him no assistance in his troubles.

[3:2] In a speech of Cleon in favor of the slaughter of the men and the enslavement of the women and children of Mytilene, for the attempt to release themselves from the sway of the Athenians.

[4:1] One of the seven wise men of Greece, as also of the smaller number of four to whom alone the possession of pre-eminent wisdom was ascribed by some authorities. He is said to have been the author of the selfish maxim, that one should love his friends as if he were at some future time going to hate them.

[4:2] Aristocrates, king of Orchomenus in Arcadia, joined the Messenians in war against Sparta, and was bribed by the Lacedaemonians to betray his allies in the battle of Taphrus. Many years afterward, his treachery became known, and he was stoned to death by his own subjects.

[4:3] There is no historical vestige of this transaction, or of the king implicated in it. The scene of the story was probably Orchomenus in Boeotia, and Plutarch, as a Boeotian, would naturally have been familiar with chapters of local history too remote in time or too insignificant to have left any permanent record.

[5:1] Probably, if not Lyciscus, those implicated with him in his crime took refuge in Athens, and many years afterward, at some crisis which created superstitious alarm, their bodies were disinterred and transported beyond the limits of the state,—a not unusual mode of lustration in the early time.

[5:2] This is from a lost tragedy.

[6:1] This name occurs as that of an interlocutor in one of the Symposiacs.

[7:1] The reference here is, undoubtedly, to an hexameter verse from some unknown poet, quoted by Sextus Empiricus in the third century:—

Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτά.

“The mills of the gods grind late, but they grind fine.”

[7:2] Αὐτὸν, evidently meaning Plutarch.

[7:3] I doubt whether there is reference here to every third wave as having a fuller flow. Timon, though inclined at the outset to the other side, is represented as so affected by the arguments of Patrocleas and Olympicus that he is prepared to make a third speech against the Divine Providence, yet is willing to yield place to his brother; and the speech which Plutarch supersedes is the third wave.

[8:1] In some poem not now extant.

[9:1] We have evidence from other sources that the Spartans were accustomed to shave the upper lip, and in Sparta custom and law were identical.

[9:2] Slaves might be manumitted in Rome by having their names inscribed on the roll of taxable citizens with permission of their masters, in which case they must have been possessed of some _peculium_,—property of their own earning or given them by their masters. They might also be made free by will. But the oldest mode of manumission is that here referred to. The slave was brought before the magistrate, whose lictor laid a rod or wand on his head, after which ceremony the master pronounced him free.

[9:3] In this, which was one of several modes in which wills were made in Rome, the testator made a fictitious sale of his property to a friend, who received his instructions as to the disposal of it. The person thus made the purchaser filled very much the place that with us is held by the executor of a will.

[10:1] Solon’s theory was, that neutrality in a disturbed condition of the state indicated either indifference to the public well-being or the most sordid selfishness; while sedition might be sometimes justifiable, and at the worst was not inconsistent with honesty of purpose.

[10:2] The “harbor or refuge” is man’s inevitable ignorance of Divine things, which is often a sufficient answer for doubts or objections which man cannot solve or refute.

[11:1] From an unknown poet.

[12:1] A tragedian, of whom only a few fragments are preserved.

[12:2] This whole section looks almost like a paraphrase of St. Paul’s exhortation: “Be ye kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God [for Christ’s sake] hath forgiven you. _Be ye_ therefore _followers of God_, as dear children; and walk in love.”

[14:1] Τρόπος, from τρέπειν, _to turn_. Our phrase _turn of mind_ virtually denotes a change, i. e. a direction of mind not native or normal.

[14:2] Ἦθος, _habit_. Habits are not native, but always imply a change from a previous state in which they had not begun to be.

[14:3] A man in the upper part of his body; in the lower, a dragon.

[14:4] Gelon first obtained the sovereignty of Gela in Sicily, by setting aside the minor sons of the late king, of whom he had been appointed guardian. He subsequently availed himself of dissensions in Syracuse, to obtain the sovereignty of that city, which rose to great prosperity and wealth under his reign.

[14:5] Hieron was the brother and successor of Gelon, who left an infant son. Some accounts say that he assumed the sovereignty in his nephew’s name, and retained it as in his own right. He was tyrannical in his rule, but was successful in war, and was distinguished for his patronage of literature and of learned men. Aeschylus and Pindar were among his invited and permanent guests.

[15:1] Peisistratus obtained supreme power in Athens no less than three times, and always by intrigue and violence. But his administration was wise and beneficent. He enriched Athens with several of the most costly and tasteful public edifices. He was a liberal patron of letters. He settled the poor of the city in the outlying districts of Attica, and laid the foundation for the agricultural prosperity of the state.

[15:2] This treaty could have had only a temporary effect; for at a subsequent period we read of two hundred children being burned at the shrine of Cronus in Carthage, as a propitiatory sacrifice when a successor of Gelon appeared in arms before the city. In the Hebrew Scriptures we learn that this particular form of human sacrifice was largely practised by the Canaanites,—the stock of which the Phoenicians who settled Carthage were an offshoot.

[15:3] Lydiades rose from an obscure condition to a despotic sovereignty over Megalopolis, and probably with little scruple as to the means of elevation; but, becoming convinced that it was for the interest of the city to join the Achaean league as a free state, he abdicated the crown, and was chosen commander of the forces of the republic thus constituted. He died in battle.

[16:1] We are reminded here of the stanza in Byron’s song:—

“The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom’s best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades. O that the present hour might send Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind.”

[16:2] Elpinice, whose first husband was Cimon, was his father’s daughter; but they had different mothers. In the earlier ages, for obvious reasons, kindred was reckoned only on the mother’s side, and the intermarriage of the children of the same father and different mothers was legal, and not unusual. We find traces of the lawfulness of such marriages in Hebrew history as late as the time of David. Cimon’s marriage was probably lawful; but public sentiment had then advanced so far as to render such a union discreditable, if not absolutely infamous. It is worthy of remark here that the Greek names for _brother_ and _sister_, ἀδελφός and ἀδελφή, in their derivation and original use denote a relation on the mother’s side alone.

[16:3] The stories that have come down to us of the riotous living, recklessness, and debauchery of Themistocles as a young man almost transcend belief. It is related of him that he was once drawn in a carriage through the thronged market-place by four shameless women harnessed like horses.

[17:1] Ἀρτεμίσιον, Artemisium. The first naval battle between the Grecian forces and Xerxes was fought off Artemisium. Themistocles commanded the Athenian portion of the fleet, and the splendid victory was ascribed, in great part, to his skill and prowess.

[17:2] From Pindar,—commemorative of this battle.

[18:1] Before Dionysius the elder obtained the undisputed sovereignty of Syracuse, Sicily had been devastated by the Carthaginians, and several of its chief cities destroyed. In the first year of his reign, the Carthaginian general, after a successful campaign, offered him terms of peace, solely because his own army had suffered severely from pestilence. But in subsequent wars Dionysius repeatedly defeated the Carthaginians, and, whatever his demerits, he raised his kingdom to a high degree of prosperity, and rendered it attractive to the emigrants whom the over-peopled Greek cities were constantly sending to every region where Greek enterprise, genius, and skill could hope for recognition and reward.

[19:1] Periander was the tyrant of Corinth in the seventh century before Christ. His history is obscure; but the traditions with regard to him relate many acts of violence and cruelty, and also very great misfortunes, and his domestic life was overshadowed equally by crime and by misery. The three places named in this sentence were early Corinthian colonies, and they may have been settled by Periander’s enterprise, or may have been places of refuge from his caprice and oppression.

[19:2] The island of Leucadia was a peninsula in Homer’s time, and was probably still so when the Corinthian colony was established.

[19:3] Alexander destroyed Thebes; twenty years afterward Cassander rebuilt it. Plutarch very probably refers to the tradition that Cassander poisoned Alexander. Not that he was free from other undoubted crimes; for his whole life was marked by sporadic acts of violence. He cannot be said to have received any specific punishment; but he was kept in perpetual harassment by the quarrels among the successors of Alexander.

[19:4] That is, this temple of Delphi, the scene of the dialogue.

[20:1] In the Phocian war two Phocian leaders with their associates seized the treasure deposited in the temple at Delphi, and used it to hire foreign mercenaries. Those concerned in the robbery were wandering as outlaws in Peloponnesus, when Timoleon enlisted them for service in Sicily against the Carthaginians. They contributed largely to his success; but after their dispersion most of them encountered such disasters as were regarded as the normal penalty of sacrilege.

[20:2] So little is really known about Phalaris that he is almost a mythical personage. His name, however, will always remain associated with his brazen bull, and his trying his first experiment with it by roasting in it its inventor, who certainly best deserved the doom.

[20:3] The readers of Roman history may doubt the medicinal virtue of Marius, who certainly served as a seton on the body politic.

[21:1] History throws no light on this specific crime; but the Sicyonians had the reputation of being a licentious and otherwise vicious people. The curative process under Orthagoras and the dynasty that he founded lasted a full century.

[21:2] Of Cleonae we know very little except that it was, and now is not. Near its site is a hamlet of half a dozen houses that bears the name of Clenes. Nemea, where the Nemean games were held, was in its territory.

[21:3] One of his maternal ancestors had been cursed, and banished from Athens, a century and a half before his birth, for an insurrectionary enterprise.

[21:4] He was killed by lightning, which the people regarded as a retributive bolt from heaven. He deserved hatred, Cicero says, for his cruelty, treachery, and avarice.

[22:1] One tradition makes Odysseus the son of Sisyphus, and only the step-son of Laertes, who, however, married Anticleia before her son was born. Autolycus was the father of Anticleia, and it was he that stole the cattle of Iphitus.

[22:2] Aesculapius in Grecian fable was the son of Apollo by Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas, who, in what might seem righteous indignation against the wanton god, set fire to his Delphian temple, having of course first ravaged it.

[23:1] Dion obtained supreme power in Syracuse, though not the title of King, on the expulsion of Dionysius the younger. Callippus, his professed friend, was the leader of the band of malcontents that killed Dion, although he did not kill him with his own hand, perhaps shrinking from the act of murder on account of an oath which, when under suspicion, he had sworn at the altar of Persephone, that he would remain faithful to his friend. His aim was the place which Dion had held. It was his but a little while, and then, after a series of misfortunes and wanderings, he was killed at Rhegium with the same weapon that had been employed in the murder of Dion.

[23:2] Eriphyle received a golden necklace as a reward for betraying her husband Amphiaraus, who secreted himself to avoid going to the Theban war in which it was predicted that he should perish. His son Alcmaeon avenged his father by killing his mother, and then made of the necklace a sacred deposit in the temple at Delphi. Aristo was the commander of one of the bands of mercenaries hired by the pillage of the temple.

[23:3] The Phocian leaders who committed this sacrilege.

[23:4] In this temple.

[24:1] The Spanish fly, which was used for medicinal purposes in very early times, as it is now.

[25:1] Such spectacles—never, so far as we know, witnessed in Greece—were not uncommon in Rome. Christians were thus exhibited and murdered on the stage in the sight of admiring and applauding multitudes; and we have no reason to doubt that other reputed malefactors were similarly dealt with. This treatise may have been written after Plutarch had been in Rome; at any rate, Roman customs were well known throughout the empire.

[27:1] Agamemnon, the husband of Clytemnestra, whom she murdered on his return from Troy, was the son of Pleisthenes. Stesichorus wrote a tragedy entitled _Orestes_, from which, undoubtedly, these verses are taken.

[28:1] Apollodorus, king of the small state of Cassandreia, was regarded as having been unsurpassed in tyranny, cruelty, and debauchery. The mention of his daughters in this vision makes it probable that he was guilty of some horrible outrage of violence or lust of which they were the victims.

[28:2] The crime or type of depravity of which Hipparchus was guilty can be inferred only from the vision here reported.

[28:3] Ptolemy Ceraunus was the eldest son of Ptolemy Soter; but, on account of his violent passions and moral obliquity, his father designated a younger son as his successor. Ceraunus then emigrated to Macedonia, became intimate with Seleucus, murdered him treacherously, and himself assumed the sovereignty; but in less than a year he was defeated by the Gauls who then first invaded that region, was taken prisoner, and was put to death with the utmost barbarity.

[28:4] Plutarch tells this story with fuller details in his life of Cimon. The Pausanias referred to is the Spartan viceroy and general of that name. Byzantium, which had been a stronghold of the Persians, was held by the Lacedaemonians, under Pausanias, at the time of the retreat of the Ten Thousand.

[29:1] The rites differ; but the belief in necromancy has undergone no essential change from the days of the witch of Endor to the present time, and there have probably been in every age, as now, ceremonies which have brought credulous men and women into imagined communion with departed spirits. The history of necromancy shows many resemblances, and still more analogies, in different countries, ages, and degrees of culture.

[30:1] One of Alexander’s generals, and after Alexander’s death king of Thrace.

[30:2] Simonides is said to have been the first poet who eulogized the subjects of his verse from mercenary motives. As his panegyrics had great poetical merit, and were much sought and well paid for, yet with few expressions of gratitude, he was wont to say that his chest of money was full, the chest designed for thanks empty.

[31:1] These verses are probably from a lost tragedy of Euripides. The myths about Ino are various, and mutually inconsistent. According to some she killed, according to others she endeavored to kill, the children of her husband, Athamas, by a former wife. Still others charge her with the murder of her own son or sons. She at length leaped into the sea, and emerged a goddess, under the name of Leucothea,—certainly a better name in heaven than she could have borne on earth.

[32:1] Apollodorus is said to have bound his associates in some movement for his own aggrandizement by bringing them together at a festival, and at its close giving them evidence that they had been feeding on human victims.

[33:1] Glaucus, a Lacedaemonian, had a high reputation for integrity, and on the ground of it received from a foreigner a deposit of a large sum of money. When the owner’s sons claimed the deposit, he disclaimed all knowledge of it. But a threat of the Delphian oracle led him to make restitution afterward. Nevertheless the threat took effect, and he and his whole family perished.

[33:2] In this section Timon seems to cite indiscriminately the cases of delayed or protracted punishment by men which are confessedly foolish or wicked, and alleged instances of delayed punishment on the part of the gods. The _gravamen_ of the objection is, “How can that be just or right for the gods to do, which when men do they encounter either ridicule or condemnation?”

[34:1] That Aesop was killed by the Delphians for the cause here stated there seems to be no doubt; nor yet that Idmon, a descendant of the man of the same name who had owned and emancipated Aesop, received a large sum of money from the Delphians by way of expiation for their crime, to which they had probably in the mean time ascribed every bad harvest and every epidemic. It must be remembered that, before the rotation of crops became the habit of agriculturists, bad harvests were very frequent, and that, in the absence of sanitary rules and precautions, dangerous epidemics prevailed at short intervals in all the cities of the old world. It was not unnatural that these calamities should have been regarded as retributive judgments where a gross crime had been committed.

[34:2] A _mina_ was about the metallic equivalent of twenty dollars, but of course with a much larger purchasing power.