Chapter 36

§ XXII. When I had said thus much I was silent, but Olympicus smiled and said, "We do not praise you, lest we should seem to forget your promised story, as though what you had advanced was adequate proof enough, but we will give our opinion when we have heard it." Then I began as follows. "Thespesius of Soli, an intimate friend of that Protogenes[865] who lived in this city with us for some time, had been very profligate during the early part of his life, and had quickly run through his property, and for some time owing to his straits had given himself up to bad practices, when repenting of his old ways, and following the pursuit of riches, he resembled those profligate husbands that pay no attention to their wives while they live with them, but get rid of them, and then, after they have married other men, do all they can wickedly to seduce them. Abstaining then from nothing dishonourable that could bring either enjoyment or gain, in no long time he got together no great amount of property, but a very great reputation for villainy. But what most damaged his character was the answer he received from the oracle of Amphilochus.[866] For he sent it seems a messenger to consult the god whether he would live the rest of his life better, and the answer was he would do better after his death. And indeed this happened in a sense not long after. For he fell headlong down from a great height, and though he had received no wound nor even a blow, the fall did for him, but three days after (just as he was about to be buried) he recovered. He soon picked up his strength again, and went home, and so changed his manner of life that people would hardly credit it. For the Cilicians say that they know nobody who was in those days more fairdealing in business, or more devout to the deity, or more disagreeable to his enemies, or more faithful to his friends; insomuch that all who had any dealings with him desired to hear the reason of this change, not thinking that so great a reformation of character could have proceeded from chance, and their idea was correct, as his narrative to Protogenes and others of his great friends showed. For he told them that, when his soul left the body, the change he first underwent was as if he were a pilot thrown violently into the sea out of a ship. Then raising himself up a little, he thought he recovered the power of breathing again altogether, and looked round him in every direction, as if one eye of the soul was open. But he saw none of the things he had ever seen before, but stars enormous in size and at immense distance from one another, sending forth a wonderful and intense brightness of colour, so that the soul was borne along and moved about everywhere quickly and easily, like a ship is fair weather. But omitting most of the sights he saw, he said that the souls of the dead mounted into the air, which yielded to them and formed fiery bubbles, and then, when each bubble quietly broke, they assumed human forms, light in weight but with different kinds of motion, for some leapt about with wonderful agility and darted straight upwards, while others like spindles flitted round all together in a circle, some in an upward direction, some in a downward, with mixed and confused motion, hardly stopping at all, or only after a very long time. As to most of these he was ignorant who they were, but he saw two or three that he knew, and tried to approach them and talk with them, but they would not listen to him, and did not seem to be in their right minds, but out of their senses and distraught, avoiding every sight and touch, and at first turned round and round alone, but afterwards meeting many other souls whirling round and in the same condition as themselves, they moved about promiscuously with no particular object in view, and uttered inarticulate sounds, like yells, mixed with wailing and terror. Other souls in the upper part of the air seemed joyful, and frequently approached one another in a friendly way, and avoided those troubled souls, and seemed to mark their displeasure by keeping themselves to themselves, and their joy and delight by extension and expansion. At last he said he saw the soul of a relation, that he thought he knew but was not quite sure, as he died when he was a boy, which came up to him and said to him, "Welcome, Thespesius." And he wondering, and saying that his name was not Thespesius but Aridæus, the soul replied, "That was your old name, but henceforth it will be Thespesius. For assuredly you are not dead, but by the will of the gods are come here with your intellect, for the rest of your soul you have left in the body like an anchor; and as a proof of what I say both now and hereafter notice that the souls of the dead have no shadow and do not move their eyelids." Thespesius, on hearing these words, pulled himself somewhat more together again, and began to use his reason, and looking more closely he noticed that an indistinct and shadow-like line was suspended over him, while the others shone all round and were transparent, but were not all alike; for some were like the full-moon at its brightest, throwing out one smooth even and continuous colour, others had spots or light marks here and there, while others were quite variegated and strange to the sight, with black spots like snakes, while others again had dim scratches.

Then the kinsman of Thespesius (for there is nothing to prevent our calling the souls by the name of the persons), pointed out everything, and told him that Adrastea, the daughter of Necessity and Zeus, was placed in the highest position to punish all crimes, and no criminal was either so great or so small as to be able to escape her either by fraud or violence. But, as there were three kinds of punishment, each had its own officer and administering functionary. "For speedy Vengeance undertakes the punishment of those that are to be corrected at once in the body and through their bodies, and she mildly passes by many offences that only need expiation; but if the cure of vice demands further pains, then the deity hands over such criminals after death to Justice, and those whom Justice rejects as altogether incurable, Erinnys (the third and fiercest of Adrastea's officers), pursues as they are fleeing and wandering about in various directions, and with pitiless severity utterly undoes them all, and thrusts them down to a place not to be seen or spoken about. And, of all these punishments, that which is administered in this life by Vengeance is most like those in use among the barbarians. For as among the Persians they pluck off and scourge the garments and tiaras of those that are to be punished, while the offenders weep and beg them to cease, so most punishments by fine or bodily chastisement have no sharp touch, nor do they reach vice itself, but are only for show and sentiment. And whoever goes from this world to that incorrigible and impure, Justice takes him aside, naked as he is in soul, and unable to veil or hide or conceal his villainy, but descried all round and in all points by everybody, and shows him first to his good parents, if such they were, to let them see what a wretch he is and how unworthy of his ancestors; but if they were wicked too, seeing them punished and himself being seen by them, he is chastised for a long time till he is purged of each of his bad propensities by sufferings and pains, which as much exceed in magnitude and intensity all sufferings in the flesh, as what is real is more vivid than a dream. But the scars and marks of the stripes for each bad propensity are more visible in some than in others. Observe also, he continued, the different and various colours of the souls. That dark dirty-brown colour is the pigment of illiberality and covetousness, and the blood-red the sign of cruelty and savageness, and where the blue is there sensuality and love of pleasure are not easily eradicated, and that violet and livid colour marks malice and envy, like the dark liquid ejected by the cuttle fish. For as during life vice produces these colours by the soul being acted upon by passions and reacting upon the body, so here it is the end of purification and correction when they are toned down, and the soul becomes altogether bright and one colour. But as long as these colours remain, there are relapses of the passions accompanied by palpitation and throbbing of the heart, in some faint and soon suppressed, in others more violent and lasting. And some of these souls by being again and again corrected recover their proper disposition and condition, while others again by their violent ignorance and excessive love of pleasure[867] are carried into the bodies of animals; for one by weakness of reasoning power, and slowness of contemplation, is impelled by the practical element in him to generation, while another, lacking an instrument to satisfy his licentiousness, desires to gratify his passions immediately, and to get that gratification through the medium of the body; for here there is no real fruition, but only an imperfect shadow and dream of incomplete pleasure."

After he had said this, Thespesius' kinsman hurried him at great speed through immense space, as it seemed to him, though he travelled as easily and straight as if he were carried on the wings of the sun's rays. At last he got to an extensive and bottomless abyss, where his strength left him, as he found was the case with the other souls there: for keeping together and making swoops, like birds, they flitted all round the abyss, but did not venture to pass over it. To internal view it resembled the caverns of Bacchus, being beautiful throughout[868] with trees and green foliage and flowers of all kinds, and it breathed a soft and gentle air, laden with scents marvellously pleasant, and producing the effect that wine does on those who are topers; for the souls were elevated by its fragrance, and gay and blithe with one another: and the whole spot was full of mirth and laughter, and such songs as emanate from gaiety and enjoyment. And Thespesius' kinsman told him that this was the way Dionysus went up to heaven by, and by which he afterwards took up Semele, and it was called the place of Oblivion. But he would not let Thespesius stay there, much as he wished, but forcibly dragged him away, instructing and telling him that the intellect was melted and moistened by pleasure, and that the irrational and corporeal element being watered and made flesh stirs up the memory of the body, from which comes a yearning and strong desire for generation, so called from being an inclination to the earth,[869] when the soul is weighed down with moisture.

Next Thespesius travelled as far in another direction, and seemed to see a great crater into which several rivers emptied themselves, one whiter than the foam of the sea or snow, another like the purple of the rainbow, and others of various hues whose brightness was apparent at some distance, but when he got nearer the air became thinner and the colours grew dim, and the crater lost all its gay colours but white. And he saw three genii sitting together in a triangular position, mixing the rivers together in certain proportions. Then the guide of Thespesius' soul told him, that Orpheus got as far as here, when he came in quest of the soul of his wife,[870] and from not exactly remembering what he had seen spread a false report among mankind, that the oracle at Delphi was common to Apollo and Night, though Apollo had no communion with Night: but this, pursued the guide, is an oracle common to Night and the Moon, that utters forth its oracular knowledge in no particular part of the world, nor has it any particular seat, but wanders about everywhere in men's dreams and visions. Hence, as you see, dreams receive and disseminate a mixture[871] of simple truth with deceit and error. But the oracle of Apollo you do not know, nor can you see it, for the earthiness of the soul does not suffer it to soar upwards, but keeps it down in dependence on the body. And taking him nearer his guide tried to show him the light from the tripod, which, as he said, shone as far as Parnassus through the bosom of Themis, but though he desired to see it he could not for its brightness, but as he passed by he heard the shrill voice of a woman speaking in verse several things, among others, he thought, telling the time of his death. That, said the genius, was the voice of the Sibyl, who sang about the future as she was being borne about in the Orb of the moon. Though desirous then to hear more, he was conveyed into another direction by the violent motion of the moon, as if he had been in the eddies of a whirlpool, so that he heard very little more, only a prophecy about Mt. Vesuvius and that Dicæarchia[872] would be destroyed by fire, and a short piece about the Emperor then reigning,[873] that "though he was good he would lose his empire through sickness."

After this Thespesius and his guide turned to see those that were undergoing punishment. And at first they saw only distressing and pitiable sights, but after that, Thespesius, little expecting it, found himself among his friends and acquaintances and kinsfolk who were being punished, and undergoing dreadful sufferings and hideous and bitter tortures, and who wept and wailed to him. And at last he descried his father coming up out of a certain gulf covered with marks and scars, stretching out his hands, and not allowed to keep silence, but compelled by those that presided over his torture to confess that he had been an accursed wretch and poisoned some strangers that had gold, and during his lifetime had escaped the detection of everybody; but had been found out here, and his guilt brought home to him, for which he had already suffered much, and was being dragged on to suffer more. So great was his consternation and fear that he did not dare to intercede or beg for his father's release, but wishing to turn and flee he could no longer see his gentle and kind guide, but he was thrust forward by some persons horrible to look at, as if some dire necessity compelled him to go through with the business, and saw that the shades of those that had been notorious criminals and punished in their life-time were not so severely tortured here or like the others, but had an incomplete[874] though toilsome punishment for their irrational passions.[875] Whereas those who under the mask and show of virtue had lived all their lives in undetected vice were forced by their torturers with labour and pain to turn their souls inside out, unnaturally wriggling and writhing about, like the sea-scolopendras who, when they have swallowed the hook, turn themselves inside out; but some of them their torturers flayed and crimped so as to show their various inward vices which were only skinned over, which were deep in their soul the principal part of man. And he said he saw other souls, like snakes two or three or even more twined together, devouring one another in malignity and malevolence for what they had suffered or done in life. He said also that there were several lakes running parallel, one of boiling gold, another most cold of lead, another hard of iron, and several demons were standing by, like smiths, who lowered down and drew up by turns with instruments the souls of those whose criminality lay in insatiable cupidity. For when they were red-hot and transparent through their bath in the lake of gold, the demons thrust them into the lake of lead and dipped them in that; and when they got congealed in it and hard as hail, they dipped them into the lake of iron, and there they became wonderfully black, and broken and crushed by the hardness of the iron, and changed their appearance, and after that they were dipped again in the lake of gold, after suffering, he said, dreadful agony in all these changes of torment. But he said those souls suffered most piteously of all that, when they seemed to have escaped justice, were arrested again, and these were those whose crimes had been visited on their children or descendants. For whenever one of these latter happened to come up, he fell into a rage and cried out, and showed the marks of what he had suffered, and upbraided and pursued the soul of the parent, that wished to fly and hide himself but could not. For quickly did the ministers of torture pursue them, and hurry them back again to Justice,[876] wailing all the while on account of their fore-knowledge of what their punishment would be. And to some of them he said many of their posterity clung at once, and just like bees or bats stuck to them, and squeaked and gibbered[877] in their rage at the memory of what they had suffered owing to them. Last of all he saw the souls of those that were to come into the world a second time, forcibly moulded and transformed into various kinds of animals by artificers appointed for the very purpose with instruments and blows, who broke off all the limbs of some, and only wrenched off some of others, and polished others down or annihilated them altogether, to fit them for other habits and modes of life. Among them he saw the soul of Nero tortured in other ways, and pierced with red-hot nails. And the artificers having taken it in hand and converted it into the semblance of a Pindaric viper, which gets its way to life by gnawing through its mother's womb, a great light, he said, suddenly shone, and a voice came out of the light, ordering them to change it into something milder, so they devised of it the animal that croaks about lakes and marshes, for he had been punished sufficiently for his crimes, and now deserved some favour at the hands of the gods, for he had freed Greece, the noblest nation of his subjects and the best-beloved of the gods.[878] So much did Thespesius behold, but as he intended to return a horrible dread came upon him. For a woman, marvellous in appearance and size, took hold of him and said to him, "Come here that you may the better remember everything you have seen." And she was about to strike him with a red-hot iron pin, such as the encaustic painters use,[879] when another woman prevented her; and he was suddenly sucked up, as through[880] a pipe, by a strong and violent wind, and lit upon his own body, and woke up and found that he was close to his tomb.

[806] In the temple at Delphi, the scene of the discussion, as we see later on, §§ vii. xii.

[807] Reading [Greek: edokei] with Reiske.

[808] Euripides, "Orestes," 420. Cf. "Ion," 1615.

[809] Thucydides, iii. 38.

[810] See the circumstances in Pausanias, iv. 17 and 22.

[811] Compare Petronius, "Satyricon," 44: "Dii pedes lanatos habent." Compare also "Tibullus," i. 9. 4: "Sera tamen tacitis Poena venit pedibus."

[812] Reading [Greek: maliota] (for [Greek: molis]) with Wyttenbach.

[813] An allusion to the proverb [Greek: Opse Theôu aleousi myloi, aleousi de lepta]. See Erasmus, "Adagia," p. 1864.

[814] Cf. Plato, "Republic," 472 A.

[815] See Note, "On Abundance of Friends," § ii.

[816] Reading [Greek: ei gar].

[817] Or _a world_.

[818] See above, § ii.

[819] Quoted also in "On restraining Anger," § ii.

[820] It seems necessary to read either [Greek: porizein] with Mez, or [Greek: horizein] with Wyttenbach.

[821] Compare Aristophanes, "Vespæ," 438.

[822] See Pausanias, viii. 27.

[823] Pindar.

[824] Homer, "Iliad," xv. 641, 642.

[825] See Thucydides, i. 127.

[826] See Pausanias, v. 17; viii. 24; ix. 41; x. 29.

[827] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 266.

[828] Ibid. 265. Compare Pausanias, ii. 9; Ovid, A. A. i. 655, 656.

[829] "Significat martyres Christianos, in tunica molesta fumantes."--_Reiske._

[830] Like the sword of Damocles. See Horace, "Odes," iii. 1. 17, 21.

[831] See also Pausanias, iii. 17.

[832] Surely [Greek: an anatrepoi] must be read.

[833] Compare "On Curiosity," § x.

[834] The reading is very doubtful. I adopt [Greek: hêdonês men euthus kenên charin, elpidos erêmon euriskousi.]

[835] Euripides, "Ino."

[836] See Herodotus, vi. 86; Juvenal, xiii, 199-207.

[837] The company are in the temple at Delphi, be it remembered.

[838] Called Iadmon in Herodotus, ii. 134, where this story is also told.

[839] Wyttenbach suggests Daulis.

[840] To Xerxes.

[841] The allusion is to the well-known story of Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus, who is supposed to have dwelt in the island of Sicily, where Agathocles was tyrant.

[842] See Pausanias, viii. 14.

[843] Two were to be sent for 1,000 continuous years. So the Oracle.

[844] See Pausanias ix. 30; Herodotus, v. 6.

[845] See Pausanias, vii. 27; Athenæus, 372 A.

[846] A former king of Thebes. See Pausanias, ix. 5.

[847] Called Daiphantes, Pausanias, x. 1.

[848] Reading [Greek: apistois] with Xylander.

[849] The famous plague. See Thucydides, ii. 47-54.

[850] The allusion is to the circumstances mentioned in § xii.

[851] "Videtur idem cum _sorita_ esse."--_Reiske._

[852] Compare our author, "De EI a pud Delphos," § xviii. See also Seneca, "Epist.," lviii. p. 483; and Plato, "Cratylus," 402 A.

[853] Sons of Dionysius.

[854] Sons of Cassander.

[855] "Iliad" vi. 146-149.

[856] Compare Plato, "Phædrus," 276 B. These gardens of Adonis were what we might call flowerpot gardens. See Erasmus, "Adagia."

[857] [Greek: euthys] seems the best reading, [Greek: aei] is flat.

[858] Apollo.

[859] See § xii.

[860] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 735, 736.

[861] Compare the French Proverb, "L'occasion fait le larron." And Juvenal's "Nemo repente fuit turpissimus."

[862] So Reiske very ingeniously.

[863] A rather far-fetched pedigree.

[864] See Pansanias, viii. 11; ix. 5, 10. See also Ovid, "Metamorphoses," Book iii. 100-130.

[865] Compare "On Love," § ii.

[866] At Mallus, in Cilicia. See Pausanias, i. 34.

[867] Reading [Greek: philêdonias ischys] with Reiske.

[868] Reading [Greek: diapepoikilmenon on] with Wyttenbach.

[869] A paronomasia on [Greek: genesis] as if [Greek: epi gên neusis]. We cannot English it.

[870] Eurydice.

[871] "[Greek: mignymenon], Turn, et Bong.," _Reiske._ Surely the right reading.

[872] Latin Puteoli.

[873] Vespasian. See Suetonius, "Vespasian," ch. 24, as to the particulars of his death.

[874] The reading is very doubtful. I have followed Wyttenbach in reading [Greek: tribomenên tribên atelê].

[875] Such as that of the Danaides. So Wyttenbach.

[876] Adopting the arrangement of Wyttenbach.

[877] Compare Homer, "Odyssey," xxiv. 5-10.

[878] See Pausanias, vii. 17, for a sneaking kindness for Nero.

[879] See Athenæus, 687 B.

[880] Reading [Greek: dia] with Reiske.

AGAINST BORROWING MONEY.

§ I. Plato in his Laws[881] does not permit neighbours to use one another's water, unless they have first dug for themselves as far as the clay, and reached ground that is unsuitable for a well. For clay, having a rich and compact nature, absorbs the water it receives, and does not let it pass through. But he allows people that cannot make a well of their own to use their neighbour's water, for the law ought to relieve necessity. Ought there not also to be a law about money, that people should not borrow of others, nor go to other people's sources of income, until they have first examined their own resources at home, and collected, as by drops, what is necessary for their use? But nowadays from luxury and effeminacy and lavish expenditure people do not use their own resources, though they have them, but borrow from others at great interest without necessity. And what proves this very clearly is the fact that people do not lend money to the needy, but only to those who, wanting an immediate supply, bring a witness and adequate security for their credit, so that they can be in no actual necessity of borrowing.[882]