PLUTARCH. PATROCLEAS, his son-in-law. TIMON, his brother. OLYMPICHUS.
The scene is the portico of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The
tract is dedicated to a certain Quintus, whose name seems to
indicate that he was a Roman, but of whom nothing definite is known.
When Epicurus had thus spoken, O Quintus, and before any one had
replied, he went hurriedly away, as we were now at the end of the porch.
We stood for some time in speechless wonder at the strange conduct of
the man and looking at one another, then turned back to resume our walk.
Thereupon Patrocleas first broke the silence: “Pray, what shall we do?”
said he, “Shall we drop the inquiry, or shall we answer the arguments of
the speaker who is not present as if he were?” “It would not be fitting
to leave the dart he discharged, as he departed, sticking in the wound.
Brasidas, as we are told, drew the shaft from his body, and with the
same weapon slew the man who had hit him. It is not worth our while, of
course, to defend ourselves against all those who assail us with
ill-grounded or fallacious arguments, but it will suffice us if we cast
them from us before they become firmly fixed in our minds.” “What was
there then,” said I, “in what he said that most impressed you? For many
things and without any order, one here, another there, the man kept
charging against Providence, with anger and vituperation at the same
time.”
2. Hereupon Patrocleas said: “The tardiness and delay of the Deity in
punishing the wicked seems to me a matter of special importance; and
now, by the arguments that have been advanced, I have been led anew and,
as it were, a stranger, to the question; but long ago I was offended
when I read in Euripides,
‘He procrastinates, and this is the manner of the Deity.’ Yet God ought,
least of all things, to be slack towards the wicked, as they are neither
slack nor dilatory about doing evil, but are impelled by their
unrestrained passions to acts of injustice. And in truth, the
retribution, which Thucydides says follows close upon the commission of
a crime, forthwith bars the way for those who usually prosper in
successful villainy. For there is no debt like overdue justice that
makes him who has been wronged so faint-hearted and discouraged, while
it emboldens the wicked man in his audacity and violence; but the
punishments that follow close upon the commission of crimes are
restraints upon those who are meditating wrongs against others, and
there is the greatest consolation in this for those who have suffered
injustice. So, then, the remark of Bias often troubles me when I reflect
upon it; for he said, according to report, to a certain reprobate, that
he did not fear lest he might not suffer the punishment of his misdeeds,
but only that he might not himself (Bias) live to see it. What profit
was it to the Messenians, who were long since dead, that Aristokrates
was punished for betraying them at the battle of Taphros, when the
matter remained undiscovered for more than twenty years, during which
time he had been king of the Arcadians, though he was finally detected
and punished, when they were no longer alive? Or what consolation was it
to the Orchomenians who had lost children and friends and kinsmen
through the treason of Lykiscus, that he was seized a long time
afterwards by a disease which gradually ate up his body?—this man who
was always dipping his feet into the river to wet them and calling down
a curse upon himself, praying that he might rot if he had betrayed and
wronged them. And the casting forth of the bodies of the accursed from
Athens and their transportation beyond the boundaries was an act that
not even the children of those who had been slain were permitted to
behold. Wherefore, Euripides inappropriately uses these lines to deter
men from the commission of crime, ‘Fear not lest injustice overtake thee
and smite thee down, unjust man; but in silence and with slow step it
will overtake the wicked when the time is ripe.’ For verily, no other
consideration but just such as these, the bad will naturally use to
encourage themselves and take as pledges of security in villainy, on the
ground that wrong-doing brings forth early and evident fruit, while the
penalty comes late, and long after the satisfaction (that arises from
success in crime).”
3. When Patrocleas had concluded his remarks, Olympichus spoke up and
said, “To what great absurdities do the delays and postponements of the
Deity in such matters lead! Because this tardiness destroys faith in
Providence, and the fact that retribution does not closely follow each
particular act of wrong-doing but is later, thus making room for chance,
men, by calling it a misfortune, not a penalty, are they in any wise
bettered? Even though they may be grieved at what has befallen them, do
they feel regret at what they have done? For just as the immediate
stroke of the whip or the spur laid quickly to the horse that makes a
false step or stumbles brings it to a sense of duty, but all the
subsequent jerking and tugging at the reins and shouting seem rather to
be done for some other reason than correction, because they produce pain
but not betterment; so vice, if lashed and beaten for each act of
villainy committed, would speedily become repentant and humble and
fearful of God who beholds men’s acts and sufferings, if He did not
postpone justice. And justice that according to Euripides procrastinates
and with slow pace overtakes the wicked, seems more like an affair of
chance than of Providence, because there is about it so much
uncertainty, delay and lack of system. The result is that I do not see
what use there is in the saying that the mills of the gods grind late,
both because they obscure justice and take away the fear of evil-doing.”
4. Thereupon in reply to these remarks and while I was still absorbed in
reflection, Timon said: “Shall I now add to the discussion the climax of
my own perplexity or shall I pass it over until after the disposal of
the main argument?” “What is the use,” said I, “of sending along a third
wave to wash away the subject-matter, if it be found impossible to
refute and invalidate the first objection? First, then, beginning, as we
say, at the ingle-side and with the caution of the philosophers of the
Academy in regard to the divinity, let us beware of assuming that we
know just what to say on this subject. In truth, an affair of more
serious moment is the consideration of supernal and divine things, for
us who are human beings, than when one who has no ear for music
discusses this art, or when one who has never served in the army
discourses on military affairs; because, though ignorant of the plan of
the artificer, we assume to be able to fathom his designs from what we
suppose to be probable and fitting. It is not hard for one unacquainted
with the healing art to comprehend the reasoning of a physician as to
why he did not sooner perform a certain amputation rather than later, or
why he ordered a bath yesterday and not to-day; in respect to God, on
the other hand, it is not easy for a mortal to say any thing positive
except that, knowing best the proper occasion for curing a man of his
vices, He administers to each person chastisements as medicaments, but
not equally severe in all cases nor at one and the same time. For that
the healing art when applied to the soul is called right and
righteousness and is the greatest of all arts, Pindar in addition to
thousands of others, affirms, when he calls God the ruler and custodian
of the whole universe, the ‘master builder,’ for the reason that He is
the guardian of justice according to which it shall be determined when
and how and to what degree every wicked man is to be punished. And of
this art Plato says that Minos the son of Jove was a student, as it is
not possible to properly dispense justice, or to recognize what is just
unless one has learned and acquired a knowledge of the same. Not even
the laws that men enact have always their clear and plain justification
and some enactments even seem at first sight ridiculous. For instance,
in Lacedaemon, the ephors, immediately upon taking office, issue an
edict that no one is to wear a mustache and that the laws are to be
obeyed in order that none may feel their severity. The Romans inflict a
slight blow with a twig upon those whom they intend to emancipate; and
when they make a will they bequeath their property to some persons as
their heirs, but sell it to others,—which seems to be absurd. But most
absurd one would think the law of Solon to be to the effect that he
shall be deprived of civil rights, who, when there are parties and
factions in the state, take sides with neither. In short, one could name
many anomalies in law, if he did not know the intentions of the
law-maker, and did not understand the reason for every single part of
the decrees that have been issued. What wonder is it then, if, when it
is so hard to see through human purposes, that it is not easy to say
with respect to the gods for what reason they punish some transgressors
later, others sooner.
5. These things are no excuse for shunning an investigation, but a plea
for indulgence, so that the discussion, looking as it were, toward a
harbor and port of refuge, may move forward with the greater confidence,
in the midst of perplexities. Then consider first this fact, that
according to Plato, God having placed Himself in the midst of all that
is enchantingly fair, as a sort of model, gives to human worth, which is
in some measure an image of Himself, an exemplar which all are to follow
so far as they are able. For the universe, being in its natural state
devoid of order, began to change and to be transformed into a cosmos
when it participated in, and became assimilated to, the divine idea and
virtue. This same man also says that nature kindles in us the germ of
vision so that by beholding the heavenly bodies borne along in their
courses, and by admiration of the same, the soul becomes habituated to
take pleasure in and to love what is orderly and systematically
arranged, but that it hates all disorderly and uncontrolled passion, and
shuns the purposeless and hit-or-miss as being the origin of all vice
and discord. It is impossible for man, by his very nature, to have a
completer enjoyment of God than when seeking and earnestly striving
after virtue by imitating everything that is good and noble. For this
reason also God punishes the wicked in due time and with deliberation;
not because He is Himself afraid of making a mistake by chastising any
one too soon or because He might repent of it, but in order to remove
from us what is brutal and hasty in the infliction of punishment, and to
teach us not to chastise in anger nor when greatly excited and
indignant, ‘rage o’erleaps the bounds of reason’; as if, in order to
satisfy our hunger or quench our thirst we rushed upon those who have
done us an injury, but imitating His goodness and long-suffering and
taking time as our adviser, that gives least room for repentance, we
should proceed to inflict punishments in accordance with justice. For,
as Socrates said, it is less mischievous to drink murky water,
heedlessly, than when one is in a perturbed state of mind and under the
influence of anger and has lost the power of self-control before the
mind has become calm and clear, to vent one’s wrath on the person of a
kinsman or friend. For vengeance does not belong close upon the inquiry,
as Thucydides says, but is most in place when as far from it as
possible. Since anger, according to Melanthius ‘commits terrible deeds
when it has displaced self-control’; so, likewise, reason does what is
just and fitting when it has put aside anger and excitement. Further
also, men are made humane by the example of others when they learn, for
instance, that Plato, after raising his staff to strike his slave,
remained standing for a long time, as he himself says, in this way
chastening his anger. And Archytas, on learning that his servants were
negligent and disorderly in his fields, but noticing that he was greatly
angered and incensed at them, did nothing but remark as he walked away,
‘You are lucky that I am very wroth at you.’ If, therefore, the reported
sayings of men, treasured up for us, deter us from harshness and the
violence resulting from passion; much more does it become us, as we look
upon God who lacks nothing and who knows no repentance for any deed, yet
postpones punishment to the future and bides His time, to be on our
guard in such matters. We ought also to look upon mildness and
long-suffering as the divine part of the virtue which God Himself
exemplifies (in His dealings with men), and to remember that few are
made better by swift chastisement, but that many are profited and
admonished by tardiness in punishing.
6. In the second place, let us remember that punishments among men,
having regard solely to the infliction of injuries to others, cease with
the malefactor and go no further; therefore, like a barking dog they
(the penalties) cling to the heels of the transgression and follow up
actions closely. But God, as seems reasonable, discerns the passions of
the diseased soul upon which He wishes to visit punishment, whether in
any way, perchance, it may turn to repentance, and He gives time for
amendment to those whose vices are not ineradicable and incurable. For,
knowing (as He does) what portion of virtue souls going forth from Him
to be born, carry with them, and how strong and ineffaceable is the
nobleness implanted in them, and that virtue yields to vice contrary to
its nature because corrupted by food and evil communications, and that
some, after undergoing a cure, again resume their former nature, He does
not inflict upon all a penalty equally severe. But him who is
incorrigible He removes forthwith from life and cuts off, because
constant association with wickedness is very harmful to others, and in
the highest degree harmful to the soul itself. On the contrary, to those
who from ignorance of the good rather than from a predilection for evil
and to whom it is only second nature to go astray, He gives time for
repentance. But if they remain obdurate He visits these also with
punishment, for, of course, He has no fear lest they may escape Him.
Consider also what transformations have taken place in the character of
men and in their life; for which reason also this change and character
(ἦθος) is called a turning (τρόπος) as habit (ἔθος) for the most part
shapes it and by laying hold of it controls it. I think, therefore, that
the ancients represented Kecrops dual in form (a combination of man and
dragon), not as some say, because, after he had been an excellent king
he became a cruel and ruthless tyrant, but for the opposite reason,
namely, that after having been unjust and merciless he turned out to be
gentle and kindly, when he had got into power. If this is not certain,
we know, at least, that Gelo and Hiero, both Sicilians, and Peisistratus
the son of Hippokrates, all men who had put themselves at the head of
affairs by base methods, used their power for the furtherance of
virtuous ends; and though they had attained power illegally, they
nevertheless became just and popular rulers. They promoted good order
and the cultivation of the soil; made temperate and industrious citizens
out of men who had been gossipers and idlers; and Gelo, after fighting
bravely and defeating the Carthaginians in a great battle, would not
make the peace with them which they sued for until they had pledged
themselves to cease from sacrificing their children to Kronos. In
Megalopolis, Lydiades was a usurper; but when at the height of his power
a change came over him and, having conceived a loathing for iniquity, he
gave a constitution to the citizens, then in a battle with the enemies
of his country met a glorious death. If some one had slain the usurper
Miltiades in the Chersonesus, or had prosecuted Kimon for incest with
his sister, or had driven Themistocles from the city by an indictment,
when he was indulging in drunken revelries and insulting people in the
market place, as was afterwards done with Alkibiades, would we not have
lost the heroes of Marathon, of the Eurymedon and fair Artemisium,
‘where the sons of the Athenians laid the glorious corner-stone of
liberty?’ Men cast in a large mold neither do anything in a small way,
nor do the vehemence and energy of their titanic natures suffer them to
be inactive; but they are tossed to and fro like a ship on the waves
until they settle down into a fixed and well-grounded character. Just as
a person who was ignorant of agriculture would not take a fancy to land,
if he saw it overgrown with weeds and brambles, full of wild animals,
running water and marshes; while to one who has learned to discriminate
and to judge, these very things show the strength and goodness of the
soil; so men cast in a large mold commit irregularities and follies—men
whose volcanic and vehement natures we cannot endure, and think they
ought to be cut off or kept in check. But the better judge, he who in
spite of these things discerns innate worth and nobility, waits until
age and maturity become the co-workers of reason and virtue, when nature
shall bring forth her proper fruit.”
7. “So much, then, on this point. And do you not think certain of the
Greeks have done wisely in adopting the Egyptian law that forbids the
execution of a woman condemned to death during pregnancy, until after
her delivery?” “Most assuredly,” they said. “If then,” said I, “a person
is big, not with a child, but with a deed or a secret project which he
may in the course of time bring into the world and put into execution,
or if he might disclose some hidden crime, or be the author of some
judicious counsel or the discoverer of some useful invention, would it
not be better to await a seasonable time for removing him (than to do it
prematurely)? To me at least it seems so,” I said. “And to us also,”
replied Patrocleas. “Very good,” said I. “Now consider that if Dionysius
had been punished at the beginning of his usurped power, no Greek would
have settled in Sicily, though it had been laid waste by the
Carthaginians; nor would Greeks have settled in Apollonia or in
Anaktorium or in the peninsula of Leukadia, if Periander had not
received his punishment a long time after (his accession to power). And
I believe also that the day of reckoning for Kasander was postponed in
order that Thebes might be rebuilt. Of the mercenaries that had assisted
in plundering the temple here the greater part accompanied Timoleon on
an expedition to Sicily where they conquered the Carthaginians and
overthrew the tyrants; then the miserable wretches died a miserable
death. There is no doubt that the Deity sometimes employs certain men
after the manner of public executioners, to be the avengers of other
villains, then destroys them as I think He does most tyrants. For just
as the gall of the hyena and the beestings (or rennet) of the seal and
other parts of repulsive animals have a property that is useful for the
cure of diseases, so God inflicts on some persons who need a drastic
remedy and chastisement, a stern and hard tyrant; nor does He release
them from their grievous and melancholy state until He has cured their
disease and purified them. Such a medicine was Phalaris to the
Akragantines, and to the Romans, Marius. To the Sikyonians also the god
declared explicitly that their city needed a scourge for taking away
from the Kleonians the boy Teletias, crowned in the Pythian games, as
their own fellow-citizen, and putting him to death. So, sure enough,
when Orthagoras had become tyrant of Sikyon, and after him Myron and
Kleisthenes, he and his successors made an end of their lasciviousness;
the Kleonians, however, not receiving such curative treatment, sank into
insignificance. You know that Homer somewhere says, ‘From him, a far
baser father, was born a son better in all manner of excellence’; yet
that son of Kopreus performed no brilliant or even noteworthy exploit.
But the descendants of Sisyphus and of Autolycus and of Phlegyas were
conspicuous for the deeds and virtues of great kings. Pericles of
Athens, also sprang from a house on which rested a curse; while in Rome,
Pompey the Great was the son of Strabo whose corpse the Roman people, in
their hatred, cast out and trampled under foot. Why should it then be
thought strange, if, just as the husbandman does not dig up the thorns
lest he destroy the asparagus, and the Lydians do not burn the shrub
until they have gathered the gum from it; so God should in like manner
delay to extirpate the evil and corrupt root of an illustrious and
kingly house until the proper fruit has grown from it? It was better for
the Phokians to lose the countless herds of kine and horses belonging to
Iphitus, as also that much gold and silver should be taken from Delphi,
than not to have had Ulysses or Asklepias born among them, or the other
distinguished and noble-minded men whose ancestors had been evil-doers
and reprobates.
8. Do you not think it better that retribution should come in due season
and in a fitting way, than immediately and all at once? As, for
instance, in the case of Kalippus, who, supposed to be the friend of
Dion, killed him with the same sword with which he was afterward
dispatched by his friends; and that of Mitias the Argive who had been
slain in a tumult and whose brazen statue in the market-place fell on
the slayer of Mitias during a dramatic performance and killed him. And
the stories of Bessus, the Paeonian, and of Aristo the Oetaean, the
leaders of the mercenaries, you, of course, know, Patrocleas.” “I do
not,” said he, “but I would like to hear them.” “Aristo,” I said,
“having taken away the ornaments of Eriphyle lying here (in this
temple), with the permission of the authorities, presented them to his
wife; but his son, angered at his mother from some cause, set the house
on fire and burned up all who were in it. And Bessus, as the story goes,
having killed his own father, was not found out for a long time, but
finally, going to a banquet with some friends and happening to strike a
nest of young swallows with his spear, knocked it down and killed the
fledglings. When those who were present said, as was natural, ‘Man, what
possessed you to do such an ill-omened deed?’ he replied, ‘Have they not
this long time been falsely accusing me and crying out against me for
killing my father’? The astonished company reported the remark to the
king, and after the case had been investigated Bessus received his just
deserts.”
9. “We say these things,” I continued, “on the assumption that there is
a postponement of punishment for the wicked; on the other hand, it is
proper to hear what Hesiod says, who does not think with Plato that
punishment is a pain which follows injustice, but that it is something
of equal age with it; that it springs from the same root and place, for
he says,
‘Evil counsel is most hurtful to him who has given it,’ and,
‘He who lays plots for another, lays a plot against himself.’
The cantharis, you know, is said to contain within itself the antidote
(for the pain it inflicts), and villainy, by engendering within itself
both pain and punishment, pays the penalty for evil-doing, not at a
subsequent time, but in the outrage itself. Every malefactor who is
punished by the infliction of pain on his body bears his own cross, and
vice wreaks upon itself, out of itself, its own vengeance, because it is
in a sense a creator of the woes of life that it brings into existence,
together with the accompanying disgrace, many sorrows, fears and violent
passions and regrets and unceasing restlessness. Some people are in no
wise different from children, who, on seeing malefactors in the theaters
often clad in gilded and purple garments, crowned and dancing about, are
delighted and admire them as fortunate mortals, until they are seen
goaded and scourged, while the fire breaks forth from their splendid and
costly attire. For many of the wicked are the owners of fine mansions,
and, as they hold magistracies and other responsible positions, no one
is aware that they are undergoing punishment until they are put to death
or hurled from rocks. This, one ought not to call punishment, but the
consummation and fulfilment of punishment. For as Herodicus of
Selymbria, who had been attacked by consumption, an incurable disease,
was the first to combine gymnastics with the healing art, and of whom
Plato says, that (in so doing) he protracted his own death, and that of
all who were similarly diseased; so malefactors who are seen to have
escaped immediate punishment, expiate their crimes by a longer, not by a
shorter penalty; nor after a longer time but during a longer time; they
are not punished after they have grown old, but they grow old during
their punishment. And I say _a long time_ with reference to ourselves,
for to the gods the span of human life is nothing,—now, but not thirty
years ago is the same as to say, that in the evening, but not in the
morning, the malefactor, is to be tortured or hanged, especially since
man is shut up in this life just as in a prison from which there is no
migration to another place or escape, but which in the meanwhile allows
time for many enjoyments and the transaction of business, the bestowing
and receiving of honors and favors, and for diversions; just as persons
in prison are allowed to play at dice or draughts, though the noose is
all the while dangling above their heads.
10. Moreover, what reason is there for saying that those who lie in
prison under sentence of death do not receive their punishment until
they are decapitated? or that he who has drunk the hemlock-juice, but is
still walking about waiting for the heaviness to get into his legs,
until he is seized by anaesthesia and the rigor of death, (has not
received his?) If we regard the consummation of the punishment as the
punishment itself, we overlook the intervening sufferings and fears, as
well as the apprehension and regret with which every evil-doer is
harassed. Is not this just as if we were to say of the fish that has
swallowed the hook, that it is not caught until we see it broiled or cut
up by the cooks? Every one who has committed a crime is firmly held by
justice and has then and there fastened within himself, like a bait the
sweet morsel of iniquity. Having an avenging conscience in his breast,
‘Like a frantic tunny he spins round in the sea.’ For the well-known
reckless audacity and over-confidence of vice is active and ardent until
the evil deed has been done; then the passion subsiding like a wind,
sinks down weak and cowed under the weight of fears and superstitions;
so that it is entirely in accordance with the event and the truth that
Stesichorus attributes a dream to Klytemnestra in about these words:
‘She thought a dragon with gory head approached her, and from it
Pleisthenades came forth.’ For visions by night and apparitions by day
and oracles and celestial portents and whatever other phenomenon is
regarded as caused by the direct interposition of God, cause anxieties
and fears to persons who have a guilty conscience. For example, it is
said, that Apollodorus once in a dream saw himself flayed by the
Scythians, then boiled, and heard his heart speaking from the caldron
and saying, ‘I am the cause of all this’; and that at another time he
saw his daughters all ablaze, their bodies encircled with flame, running
about him. Hipparchus also, the son of Peisistratus, a little before his
death saw Aphrodite flinging blood in his face from a kind of basin; and
the favorites of Ptolemy the Thunderer, saw him summoned before a
tribunal by Seleucus where vultures and wolves were the judges,
distributing many pieces of flesh among his enemies. Pausanias,
likewise, having caused a free maiden to be brought by force from
Byzantium in order to pass the night with her, but when she was come,
owing to some perturbation of mind and suspicion, had her put to
death—this maiden he frequently saw in a dream calling to him, ‘Hasten
to judgment; assuredly lust brings sorrow on men.’ As the apparition did
not cease to haunt him, it is said that he set sail for the oracle of
the dead at Heracleia where he called up the ghost of the damsel by
expiatory rites and libations. Appearing before him, she said that he
would be freed from his troubles when he came to Lacedaemon; but as soon
as he arrived there he died.
11. If then the soul has no sensation after death, and dissolution is
the end of all rewards and punishments, one might rather say that the
divinity deals kindly and indulgently with the wicked who are speedily
chastised and die. For if we were to assert nothing more than that as
long as they live and during the present existence no evil befalls the
bad, but that when vice is exposed and is seen to be a fruitless and
barren thing, that it brings nothing good or worth an effort, in spite
of many severe agonies of mind—the recognition of these facts renders
life an uneasy one. A case in point is the story told of Lysimachus that
under stress of thirst he gave up his body and his dominions to the
Getae, but that when he had got into their hands and received a draught
he cried out, ‘Shame on my baseness for depriving myself of such a
kingdom for so short-lived a pleasure.’ Yet it is exceedingly difficult
to resist the needs of our physical nature; but when a man, either for
the sake of money or from avidity for political honors or influence,
commits a lawless and wicked act, and when, after the thirst and madness
of his passion have been allayed, he finds, in the course of time, that
the ignominy and the bitter sorrow for his crimes remain behind, and
that villainy has been neither advantageous nor necessary nor
profitable, must not the thought, so servile and mean, often occur to
him, that for empty glory or fleeting enjoyment he has trampled under
foot the dearest and highest rights of mankind, only to fill his life
with shame and confusion. For as Simonides jestingly said, that he
always found the chest he kept for money full and the one he kept for
gratitude empty; so wicked men, when they examine their own evil hearts,
discover that for the sake of a pleasure which directly proves to be an
empty one, they find them void of hope but full of sorrows and pain,
unpleasant memories, and anxiety for the future, but big with distrust
of the present. Just as we hear Ino crying out in the theater when
filled with regret for what she had done, ‘Dear women, how can I again
dwell in the house of Athamas? Would that I had done none of the deeds I
committed!’ So the soul of every villain ought to consider well and
reflect how it may rid itself of the memory of its iniquities and
exorcise a bad conscience, undergo a process of purification and live
life over again. When the bad is deliberately preferred, it shows a lack
of confidence and firmness and strength and stability—unless, forsooth,
we admit that evil-doers are a class of sages. Wherever there exists an
uncontrollable love of money and pleasure, and insatiable avarice
coupled with malice or a bad character, there you will find also, if you
look closely, latent superstitions and an aversion to labor and fear of
death and sudden gusts of passion and an eagerness to be talked about
joined to a penchant for boasting. Such men fear those who censure them
and are afraid of those who praise them as persons who have been wronged
by deception; they are particularly hostile to the wicked because they
freely praise those who have the reputation of being virtuous. For that
which hardens men in vice is like the brittleness in poor iron and is
easily shivered. Whence it comes that as they, in the course of time,
gain a deeper insight into the nature of things, are weighed down with
sorrow and become morose and abhor their own past life. It surely cannot
be but that a bad man who has restored a trust, or become surety for a
friend, or who from a love of glory or fame has given and contributed
something to his country, will forthwith regret what he has done,
because he is unstable in his ways and fickle in his purpose; sometimes
persons of this kind, even when applauded in the theaters, groan
inwardly because the love of money has supplanted the love of glory; nor
can it be that those who have sacrificed men for the attainment of
sovereignty or to carry out a conspiracy, as did Apollodorus, or who
have taken away money from their friends, as did Glaucus, do not repent,
nor hate themselves, and do not feel regret for what they have done. I,
for my part, do not believe, if I may say so, that there is need of any
god or man to punish the impious, but that their life, ruined and made
uneasy by vice, is fully sufficient.”
12. “Consider, however,” I said, “whether we are not examining the
argument at greater length than its importance demands.” To this Timon
replied, “It may be, in view of what is yet to come and of what has been
omitted. For I shall now bring up as a sort of reserve the final
difficulty, since we have in a measure worked our way through those that
preceded. What Euripides alleges against the gods when he boldly charges
them with turning ‘the transgressions of the parents over to their
children,’ this, believe me, we also tacitly impute to them as an
injustice. For, if those who have committed offenses have themselves
expiated them, there is no further need of punishing those who have
committed none, since it is not just to punish a second time for the
same crime those who are innocent; or if through negligence they have
failed to punish the real criminals, and long after visit the penalty
upon the innocent, they do not justly make up for their tardiness by
injustice. Something of this kind is told of Aesop who, it is said, came
here (to Delphi) with gold from Crœsus in order to make a magnificent
oblation to the god and to distribute to each of the Delphians four
minae; but some difficulty arising, as it seems, and he having got into
a quarrel with the parties here, performed the sacrifice but sent the
money back to Sardis, alleging that the men were not worthy to receive
it; thereupon they trumped up a charge of temple-robbery against him and
put him to death by hurling him from the rock called Hyampeia. For this
the god is said to have become incensed at them and to have sent a
famine upon the land, together with all manner of strange diseases; so
that they went around to the Hellenic festivals proclaiming and making
known everywhere that whoever wished might wreak vengeance upon them for
the wrong they had done to Aesop. In the third generation came one
Iadmon, a man in no way related to Aesop, but a descendant of those who
had bought him in Samos; and to this man, having in some way made
satisfaction (for the wrong done to Aesop), the Delphians were released
from their calamities. After that date also, they say, the punishment of
temple-robbery was transferred to Nauplia from Hyampeia. Those who are
great admirers of Alexander, of which number we also are, do not commend
him for destroying the city of the Branchidae and putting them all to
death, without distinction of age or sex, because their forefathers had
betrayed the temple at Miletus. Agathocles, too, the usurper of
Syracuse, mockingly told the Corcyreans, in answer to the question why
he had laid waste their island, ‘That it most assuredly was because
their fathers had kindly received Ulysses.’ To the people of Ithaca he
likewise replied when they expostulated with him because his soldiers
carried off their sheep, ‘Your king also came to us and even blinded the
shepherd.’ And is not Apollo even more unreasonable if he is destroying
the present generation of Pheneatae by blocking up the barathrum and
inundating their entire territory, because a thousand years ago, as they
say, Hercules carried off the prophetic tripod and took it to Pheneus?
or when he foretold to the Sybarites a release from their ills, whenever
they had appeased the anger of the Leucadian Hera, by a demolition three
times repeated? And in truth, it is not long since the Lacedaemonians
ceased to send virgins to Troy ‘who without upper garments and with bare
feet, like slaves, at early dawn swept around the altar of Athena,
without the wimple, even though old age bore heavy upon them,’ on
account of the lasciviousness of Ajax. Where, pray, is the logic or
justice of these things? We do not approve the custom of the Thracians,
who even at the present day tattoo their wives for the purpose of
avenging Orpheus, nor that of the barbarians along the Po for wearing
black garments in token of mourning for Pentheus, as they say. And it
would have been still more ridiculous, I think, if the men who lived at
the time when Phaethon perished had not concerned themselves about him,
but those who were born five or ten generations after his death had
begun to change their garments for his sake and to put on mourning.
Nevertheless this is merely silly and has nothing pernicious or
irremediable about it. But with what reason does the anger of the gods
sometimes suddenly disappear like certain rivers, only to break out
afterwards against others in order to plunge them into the direst
misfortunes?”
13. As soon as he ceased, I, fearing lest he might again proceed anew to
more and greater absurdities, spoke up and asked him: “Very well, but do
you accept all these things as true?” To which he replied, “Even if not
all, but only some of them are true, do you not think the question
presents the same difficulty?” “Perhaps,” said I, “and yet when persons
are suffering from a high fever, the same or nearly the same heat
remains whether they have on them one or more garments; nevertheless it
affords some relief (to the patient) to remove what is superfluous.
Still, if you do not wish to go on, we will let this matter pass; at any
rate, these stories look like fables and inventions; remember, however,
the festival of Theoxenia, recently celebrated, and the honorable place
the heralds assign to the descendants of Pindar; how imposing and
delightful the ceremony appeared to you. Who would not, I said, be
charmed with the bestowal of this honor, so entirely in harmony with the
spirit of Greek antiquity, unless his ‘black heart had been forged with
cold flame,’ to use one of Pindar’s own expressions? Then I forbear to
mention, I said, a proclamation similar to this in Sparta called, After
the Lesbian Bard, in honor and memory of Terpander the Ancient, for the
argument is the same. And you too, descendants of Opheltas, forsooth,
claim somewhat more consideration than others among the Boeotians and at
the hands of the Phokians because of Diophantus; besides, you were
present and were the first to support me when I upheld the traditional
honor of Herakles and the right to wear a crown which the Lycormae and
the Satilaiae laid claim to; for I said it was altogether proper that
the descendants of Herakles should enjoy unimpaired honors and benefits
for services which he had rendered to the Greeks, but for which he had
not himself received adequate recognition and requital.” “You have
recalled to my mind a noble contest,” he said, “and one well worthy of a
philosopher.” “Retract, then, my friend,” said I, “this serious charge,
and do not take it ill if the descendants of wicked or base men are
sometimes punished; or cease to speak with approval of the honors
conferred upon those who are of noble ancestry. For it is incumbent upon
us, if we are to requite to their descendants, the services of their
forefathers, as a matter of consistency not to think that punishment
ought to cease or be discontinued at once after the crime, but that it
ought to run along with it and render a recompense corresponding to it.
He who is pleased to see the family Kimon honored at Athens, but feels
sore and aggrieved when the descendants of Lachares or Aristo are
expelled, is very weak and inconsistent; or rather, he is captious and
hypercritical as regards the deity: for he finds fault if the
grand-children of a wicked and unjust man seem to meet with good
fortune, and he finds fault again, if the offspring of the vicious are
cut off and blotted out. He blames God equally whether the children of a
good man or a bad man fare ill.”
14. “Let these things,” I said, “serve you as a sort of bulwark against
those over hasty and carping critics; but let us take up again, as one
may say, the beginning of the thread of this obscure problem concerning
the Deity, with its many windings and ramifications, and let us follow
them up with care but without fear, to what is probable as well as what
is reasonable; this at least is clear and well established, that even in
those things which we ourselves do, we cannot always give the reason.
For example, why do we direct the children of those who have died of
consumption or dropsy to sit with both feet in the water until the
corpse is buried? for it is believed that in this way the disease will
not pass to them or come near them. Again, for what reason does a whole
herd of goats stand still if one of their number gets eryngo in its
mouth, until the herdsman comes up and takes it out? And there are other
forces in nature that interact among each other and pass back and forth
with incredible swiftness through a great extent of space. Yet we are
surprised at intervals of time, but not those of space. With all that,
it is more wonderful if Athens is infected with a disease that had its
origin in Ethiopia and of which Pericles died and from which Thucydides
suffered than if the penalty for the crimes committed by the Delphians
or Sybarites should be carried down to and visited upon their children.
The forces of nature have certain connections, and inter-relations with
each other extending from their farthest endings to their very
beginnings, the cause of which, though unknown by us, silently produce
their proper effects.
15. And, in truth, the wrath of the gods, when it falls upon a whole
city, has its justification. For a city is a unit and an entirety, just
like an animal, that does not lose its identity with the passing of the
years, nor is transformed from one thing into something different in the
course of time, but is always affected by like feelings and has a
character peculiar to itself. It merits all the praise and all the blame
for what it has done in its sovereign capacity, so long as the community
which makes it one and binds it together preserves its unity. To make
one city, in the course of time, consist of many cities, or rather, of a
countless number, is like dividing one man into many because he is now
older, but was formerly younger, and still earlier, a stripling. This is
altogether like the well-known argument of Epicharmus, the so-called
increasing syllogism, much used by the Sophists, that the man who had
incurred a debt some time ago does not owe it now as he has become
another man, and that he who was invited to a banquet yesterday comes
to-day an unbidden guest because he is another person. Advancing age
produces greater changes in each one of us than in the general character
of cities. Any one would recognize Athens if he saw it thirty years ago;
the customs of to-day, the motions, the sports, the occupations, the
likes and dislikes of the people are precisely the same they were in
former times; but a man whom a relative or a friend might chance to meet
after an interval of time, he would scarcely recognize, and the change
of character easily seen in every remark and occupation and in the
feelings and habits have, even for those who are about us all the time,
something strange and striking by their novelty. Nevertheless a man is
regarded as one person from his birth to his death; and in like manner
we think it right that the city, which remains the same, ought to be
held responsible for the transgressions of its former citizens with the
same show of reason that it shares in their glory and prestige;
otherwise we shall, without being aware of it, cast everything into the
river of Heracleitus into which he says nothing goes twice because
nature keeps all things in motion and changes their form.
16. If then a city is a unit and a continuous thing, the same is
undoubtedly true of the family that springs from one and the same
beginning and engenders a certain power and a natural bond of sympathy
between all its members. That which is begotten is not as if it were the
handiwork of an artisan, separate from him who begets, for it is
something that proceeds out of him, not something framed by him;
consequently it possesses and bears within itself some portion of its
original that may rightfully be chastised or honored. If I were not
afraid I should be thought to be jesting I would say that the statue of
Kasander has suffered a greater wrong at the hands of the Athenians when
it was melted down, and the body of Dionysius when after death it was
carried beyond their boundary by the Syracusans, than their descendants
in paying the penalty for the deeds of these men. For in a statue of
Kasander there was no part of him, and the soul of Dionysius had left
the dead body long previously; but in the case of Nysaeus and of
Apollokrates and of Antipater and of Philip and of all other persons in
like manner who are the children of vicious parents, nature has
implanted this predominant principle and it is ever present with them;
is not dormant or inoperative, but they live in it and are nurtured by
it; with them it abides and it directs their actions. It is not cruel or
unreasonable if the children of these men share their destiny. All
things considered, here, as in the healing art, what is advantageous is
just, and he would make himself ridiculous who should affirm that in
diseases of the hip-joint it was wrong to cauterize the thumb, and in
the case of an ulcerated liver, to make an incision in the belly, and to
anoint the tips of the horns of cattle if their hoofs are soft. So in
the matter of punishments; he who thinks anything else is just than what
will cure vice, and is scandalized if the healing is affected on one
party for the sake of another,—like the opening of a vein to relieve the
eyes—evidently sees no farther than what is plain to the senses. He does
not take into account that even a schoolmaster, when he punishes one
pupil also corrects others, and that a general who decimates his army
punishes all his soldiers. Likewise, certain qualities, good as well as
bad, are transmitted not only from one body to another, but even more
readily from one soul to another. For in the one case it seems
reasonable that the same conditions should also produce the same change,
while in the other, the soul impelled by motives and impulses is
naturally inclined by boldness or timidity to become worse or better.”
17. While I was yet speaking, Olympichus interrupting me, said, “You
seem, in your discourse, to proceed on a weighty assumption, namely, the
continued existence of the soul.” “You will surely grant this,” I
replied, “or rather, have granted it, for my argument has proceeded from
the beginning on the hypothesis that God distributes to us all rewards
and punishments according to our deserts.”
Hereupon he replied, “Do you then think it follows of necessity, from
the fact that because the gods observe all our actions, and apportion
rewards and punishments, that souls are either altogether incorruptible,
or that they continue to exist for some time after death?” “My good
friends,” said I, “God is not impatient, or so occupied with trifles,
that if there were not something of the divinity in us, something at
least in a measure similar to Himself, but if, like unto leaves, as
Homer says, we are altogether transitory, and doomed to perish in a
little while, He would treat us with so much consideration—like those
women who plant the gardens of Adonis in fragments of pottery and bestow
pains on them—cherishing those ephemeral souls of ours, that dwell in a
frail body, and when they are sprung up have no firm root in life, but
are forever extinguished by any sudden calamity. But if you are agreed,
let us pass over the other gods and let us consider ours here (in
Delphi), whether you think, if he were aware that the souls of those who
have passed from life, forthwith dissolve into nothing, like clouds or
smoke, as soon as they leave the body, he would have instituted so many
ceremonies for the dead, and would still require large gifts and honors
for the deceased, merely to impose upon and delude the credulous. For my
part, I could never give up (my faith in) the immortality of the soul
unless some one should again, like another Herakles, take away the
tripod of the Pythia, and eradicate and destroy the oracle. So long as
even in our day many such oracular responses are rendered, as they say
were given to Korax the Naxian, it is impious to assert that the soul
can die.” Here Patrocleas asked, “What was the response and who was this
Korax? for to me both the name and the circumstance are unknown.” “Not
at all,” said I, “but I am to blame for using a cognomen instead of a
name. The man who slew Archilochus in battle was called Kalondas, as you
know; but he bore the eponym, Korax. Repelled at first by the Pythia for
killing a devotee of the Muses, he next had recourse to prayers and
humble supplications in order to secure his restoration to favor, then
was commanded to repair to the habitation of Tettix, in order to appease
the soul of Archilochus. This was at Taenarus, for thither, they say,
Tettix the Cretan came with his fleet, founded a city and settled near
an oracle of the dead. In like manner, also, an oracle came to the
Spartans, bidding them conciliate the soul of Pausanias, persons who
could evoke the dead having been sent for to Italy; these, after
offering sacrifice, conjured up the ghost of the dead man in the temple.
18. This, then is one argument which establishes the providence of God
and at the same time the immortality of the soul, and it is not possible
to reject the one and accept the other. Now if the soul survives after
the death of the body, it is also quite reasonable that it shares the
rewards and punishments (of the latter). For in this life it is engaged
in a contest, like an athlete, and when the contest is ended it receives
its deserts. To the rewards and punishments meted out when existing
there by itself (separate from the body) for the deeds of the previous
life, the living attach no importance; they are concealed from our
knowledge, and discredited. But those that are transmitted to children
and through successive generations, being plainly evident to all who
live here, turn many bad men from their ways and hold them in check.
There is no more grievous chastisement, and none that reaches more to
the quick, than for men to see their descendants in misfortune on their
account; and when the soul of an impious and unjust man beholds, after
death, not statues overturned and honors annulled, but children and
friends and his own household overwhelmed with calamities and paying the
penalty for crimes that he has himself committed,—there is no one who
would again be unjust, or who would yield to his unbridled passion, for
the honors of Zeus. I have also a story to tell that I recently heard,
but I hesitate to do so lest you think it a fable, I will therefore keep
to what is probable. “By no means,” said Olympichus, “but repeat it
entire.” When the others also joined in the request, I said, “Permit me
to repeat what is probable in the story and afterward, if you like, we
will take up the fable, granting, of course, that it is a fable.”
19. Now Bion says for a god to punish the children of bad men would be
more ridiculous than if a physician were to administer medicine to the
son or grandson, for the disease of the grandfather, or the father. In
one respect the conditions are unlike, in another they are alike, or
similar. Administering medicine to one man for the disease of another
does not, it is true, cure the patient, and a person who is suffering
from a disease of the eyes, or a fever, does not get better when he sees
another annointed or having a plaster put on him; but the punishments of
the wicked make it evident to all men that it is the purpose of
wisely-directed justice to restrain some by the correction of others. In
what respect the comparison made by Bion is pertinent to the inquiry, he
himself failed to notice; for suppose, now, a man falls sick of a
painful but by no means incurable disease, then gives himself up to
intemperance and effeminate habits, and dies; and suppose, again, that
his son does not have the same disease but only a predisposition to
it,—would not a physician, or a trainer, or even a careful master, on
learning this fact, put him on a frugal diet, and keep him from dainties
and pastry, from drink and women, and by enjoining the continuous use of
remedies and the exercise of the body in gymnastics, scatter and
eradicate the little germ of a big disorder, before it had reached the
serious stage? Forsooth, do not we admonish those who are born of
diseased fathers or mothers, to take heed to themselves, and to be on
their guard against neglecting themselves, and forthwith to expel the
inbred evil while its germ is yet undeveloped, and thus take the danger
by the forelock? “Most assuredly,” said they. “Then,” replied I, “we are
not doing an absurd but a necessary thing; not something ridiculous but
something useful, when we recommend to the children of epileptics and
hypochondriacs and gouty persons, physical exercise and wholesome diet
and medicaments, not because they are sick, but to the end that they may
not become sick. The body that is born of an unsound body does not need
chastisement but medical treatment and good regimen. If anybody calls
the interdiction of pleasures and the imposition of toil and labor,
punishment, he does so because he is inept and effeminate, and no
attention need be paid to him. Shall we say, then, that a body born of
an unsound body is worthy of care and attention, but the congenital
seeds of vice that germinate and spring up in the young character, we
are to let alone and wait and dally, until the evil passions break forth
openly,—‘show forth the malignant fruit of the heart,’ as Pindar says?
20. Of a truth, in this matter is the Deity any wiser than Hesiod when
he exhorts and advises us ‘Not when returned from the sorrowful burial,
to propagate the race, but after the feast of the immortals?’ on the
ground that not only vice and virtue, but sorrow and joy and all
qualities, are transferred to the offspring in procreation; that at such
a time men should be jocund and in good spirits and merry. But it does
not follow, according to Hesiod, nor is it the work of human wisdom, but
of God, to see through and understand similarities and differences of
human nature, before they have led to great crimes and are thus made
plain to all men. For while the cubs of bears and the whelps of wolves
and monkeys immediately disclose their inborn nature because there is
nothing to conceal or disguise it, the natural disposition of man
conforms to customs and opinions and laws, and thus frequently puts a
mask on what is evil and imitates the good. In this way it altogether
expunges or eradicates the inborn taint of vice, or hides it for a long
time by cunningly disguising itself under the cloak of virtue; inasmuch
as we hardly take note of any particular act of villainy, unless it
falls upon us or strikes us; or, rather, we are for the most part
accustomed to regard men as bad only when they do a bad deed, licentious
when they indulge their lusts, and cowards when they run away. This is
doing as if we believed scorpions had a sting only when they strike, and
serpents were poisonous only when they bite,—a foolish notion, verily!
The man who proves to be a villain does not become so just at the moment
he is found out, but he had in him from his birth the germs of iniquity,
the thief merely seizing the opportunity or using his power to steal,
and the tyrant to override the law. But God, depend upon it, is not
ignorant of the inclinations and nature of any man because He looks to
the soul rather than the body; He does not wait to punish deeds of
violence, until they are done with the hands, or impurity until it is
uttered with the tongue, or lasciviousness until it is committed with
the sexual organs. He does not take vengeance on the evil-doer from any
wrong he has himself suffered, neither is He incensed at the robber,
because he has been roughly handled, nor does He hate the adulterer
because of the disgrace; yet, for the sake of betterment, He often
punishes the adulterer and the miser and the unjust man, thus cutting
off vice, as if it were an epilepsy, before it becomes firmly rooted.
21. A little while ago we expressed our ill-will at the late and tardy
punishment of the wicked; now we find fault because in some cases, even
before they perpetrate any evil deed, God checks the natural bent and
disposition of men, though we are aware that the future is often worse
and more to be feared than the past, and what is dormant than what is
apparent. We are not able to fathom the reasons why it is sometimes
better to let men commit crimes and sometimes better to anticipate them
while they are merely deliberating and contriving; just as some
medicines are not adapted to certain patients, though helpful to others
who are not actually sick, and yet in a worse condition than the former.
For this reason the gods do not ‘turn all the transgressions of the
parents upon their offspring,’ but if a virtuous son is begotten by a
wicked father, as it were, a sound man, by one who is diseased, he
averts the penalty from the house, the offspring of one being, so to
speak, adopted into another. But it is fitting that a young man who
conforms himself to the likeness of a corrupt family should also share
the chastisement of its villainies as a debt incurred by inheritance.
Antigonus was not punished on account of Demetrius, any more than the
heroes of the olden time, Phyleus and Nestor, for the sake of Augeas and
Neleus; since these men, though sprung from wicked fathers, were
themselves good men. But those who cherish and take naturally to the
baseness that is born in them must also expect to be pursued to the end
by that justice which the likeness of vice demands. For just as warts
and livid spots and freckles that fathers sometimes have, are not on
their sons, but afterwards reappear on the grandsons, and
granddaughters; and a certain Greek woman who had given birth to a black
child for which she was charged with adultery until she proved that she
was descended from an Ethiopian in the fourth generation; and one of the
sons of Pytho of Nisibis, who recently died, and who was said to be
sprung from the Sparti, was born with the print of a spear on his
body—in which case the family likeness reappeared and came to the
surface as out of the deep, after such a long space of time,—so in like
manner the character and passions of the soul are often concealed in the
first generations and remain unknown, but some time afterward and in
other persons nature springs up and asserts its power, either for virtue
or vice.”
22. When he had spoken thus he held his peace, whereupon Olympichus
said with a smile, “We do not give you our approval lest we shall seem
to excuse you from telling the story, on the ground that the case has
been sufficiently proved; but we shall only then render our verdict
when we have heard that.” In this wise I accordingly began:
“Thespesius of Soli, a kinsman and friend of the Protagenes who spent
some time here with us, having passed the first part of his life in
great dissoluteness, and having speedily squandered all his patrimony,
now pressed by the exigencies of his situation, for some time led a
vicious life; besides repenting of his bad management, he also sought
in every way to recover what he had lost, and acted just like those
libertines who care nothing for their wives so long as they are in
possession of them, but after they are divorced and married to other
men, basely try to corrupt them. Accordingly, by holding aloof from no
act of meanness that brought either gratification or gain, he acquired
in a short time not only very great possessions, but also the
reputation of being a thorough scoundrel. Above all, an oracle brought
from Amphilochus gave him a bad name; for having asked the god through
a messenger, as we are told, whether he would lead a better life in
the future, the answer came back that it would be better with him
after he was dead. And in a measure this turned out to be true, not
long after. For happening to fall on his head from a height he lay
like one dead from the shock alone, for he had received no wound, and
on the third day was already carried forth for burial. Then all at
once recovering strength and coming to himself, he showed a most
astonishing change in his manner of life; for the Cilicians know of no
man of his time more just in dealings between man and man, none more
reverent toward the gods, none more dreaded by his enemies, or more
faithful to his friends. Consequently all who knew him were eager to
hear the cause of this transformation, as they thought such an
alteration of character could not be a mere matter of chance—which was
in fact the case, as he himself related to Protagenes and other
equally intimate friends. For when he lost consciousness,—(literally,
when his rational soul left his body)—he at first experienced about
the same sensation as the result of the change that a pilot would feel
who should be hurled from a ship into the deep; afterwards, having
recovered a little, he thought he had entirely regained his breath and
was able to see on every side with his soul opened as if it were all
one eye. Yet he beheld none of the former things, but the objects he
recognized were stars of immense magnitude at immeasurable distances
from one another, and a radiance proceeding from them, surprising in
its brilliancy and color, in which his soul moved about with facility
just as a man in a calm moves a ship in any direction, easily and
quickly. Though he omitted most of what he saw, he said that the souls
of the dead, rising from below, made flame-like bubbles as they
displaced the air before them; then, as each bubble noiselessly burst,
the souls came forth, human in form but of a smaller size. Their
movements, however, were not alike, for some started forth with
surprising fleetness and darted straight up, while others whirled
round in a circle just like spindles, and whisking, now upward, now
downward, with a kind of confused and aimless motion, they came to
rest only after a long time and with great difficulty. Respecting most
of the souls, however, he was in ignorance as to who they were; but
recognizing two or three of his acquaintances, he tried to approach
and address them, yet they neither heard him nor were in their right
mind, but beside themselves and dazed, trying to avoid all notice and
intercourse, moving aimlessly about, at first alone by themselves,
then encountering many who were in a like condition, they joined
themselves to these, and, tossed about in a disorderly manner in all
directions, they uttered unintelligible cries that sounded like
mingled screams of lamentation and fear. Others, again, were seen at
the very summit of the upper air, radiant with joy, frequently
approaching each other with signs of affection, but avoiding the
disorderly ones and testifying their aversion, as he thought, by
drawing themselves together, but their delight and satisfaction, by
expanding and extending themselves. Here, he said, he recognized the
soul of one of his kinsmen, though not quite distinctly, for he had
died when yet very young; but drawing near it saluted him with, ‘Hail,
Thespesius!’ When he, in surprise, rejoined that his name was not
Thespesius, but Aridaeus. ‘Formerly, it is true,’ replied the spirit,
‘that was thy name, but henceforth it is Thespesius (the Divine). For
thou didst not die, but through the interposition of God art come
hither in the full possession of thy faculties; the other part of thy
soul thou hast left behind in thy body, as it were an anchor; and let
this be a token to thee both, now, and henceforth, that the souls of
the departed neither cast a shadow nor move the eyelids.’ On hearing
this, Thespesius, who had by this time somewhat recovered
consciousness, looked and beheld a kind of faint line about himself,
while the rest were completely encircled with a radiance and
diaphanous, though not all in the same manner, for some, like the moon
in her brightest splendor, had a uniformly smooth and even color,
while others were marked with a kind of spots or faint weals; others
again were all variegated and strange to look upon; while still others
were marked with livid fleckings like vipers, and some even showed
slight scarifications. The kinsman of Thespesius explained these
things in detail (for there is nothing to hinder us from calling the
souls of men by the name they themselves bore during life) by reciting
that Adrastea, the daughter of Necessity and Zeus, had been placed in
the highest seat as the avenger of all crimes, and that there is no
wicked man so powerful or so insignificant as to be able, either by
craft or by force, to escape her. Three attendants wait upon her to
each of whom has been assigned a different mode of inflicting
punishment: those who are to be chastised while yet in the body and by
means of the body, swift Poena (Punishment) seizes, though in a rather
mild way that still leaves behind many things needing expiation; those
whose cure is a matter of greater difficulty on account of their
vices, the daemon hands over, after death, to Dike (Justice), while
those that Dike gives up as entirely incorrigible, the third and most
terrible of the attendants of Adrastea, Erinys (the Fury), pursues,
and after hounding them as they rush about trying to escape her in one
way or another, she puts them all out of sight in a pitiless and awful
way by thrusting them into a nameless and invisible abyss. Of the
other punishments, said he, that inflicted by Poena in this life is
like those of the non-Greeks. For as among the Persians the clothes
and tiaras of those who are undergoing chastisement are pulled off and
they are scourged, while the culprits beg with tears that their
castigation may be ended; so the punishments suffered in body or
estate are no severe affliction, nor do they touch vice itself, but
are chiefly for appearance sake and for the outward sense. But him who
comes hither from there, unpunished and unpurged, Dike seizes and
exposes his soul in all its nakedness, and there is no place where it
can hide or go into concealment or cover up its baseness, but it is
completely seen on all sides and by everybody. At first Dike shows
this soul to honest parents, if such he had, or to ancestors, as a
detestable creature and unworthy (of such ancestry); but if they were
likewise wicked, he sees them undergoing chastisement, while he is in
turn beheld by them receiving his deserts and expiating, for a long
time, each of his evil passions with pains and torments which as far
exceed in sharpness those endured in the flesh as the reality exceeds
in distinctness the mere vision (before you). The stripes and weals
for each of the passions remain on some a longer, on others a shorter
time.” ‘Observe also,’ said he, ‘the variegated and party-colored
appearance of the souls; the darkish and filthy hue is the mark of
fraud and avarice, while the blood-red and flame-colored indicates
cruelty and ugliness of temper; where the soul has a bluish color, a
lack of self-control as against lust has not been wholly eradicated
from it; inherent malevolence combined with envy give out the violet
color and festering appearance underneath, just as the cuttle-fish
sets free its black fluid. For yonder (in the world), vice, when the
soul is changed by its passions and changes the body, occasions a
variety of colors, but here (in the realm of departed spirits) there
is an end of purification and punishment, and when the passions are
purged out, the soul recovers entirely its native luster and uniform
color. Until this takes place, paroxysms of passion break forth,
causing relapses and heart-throbs, in some cases faint and easily
recovered from, in others exceedingly violent. Some of the souls,
after undergoing repeated castigations resume their natural character
and disposition; others again are carried away into the bodies of
animals by the force and power of ignorance and the innate love of
sensual gratification; for, owing to the weakness of the reasoning
faculty and a disinclination to discursive thought, one is impelled by
its active principle to procreation, while another, though lacking an
instrument of sensual gratification, yet longs to satisfy its desires
with worldly pleasures and to attain its ends by means of the body,
for in this place there is only a kind of imperfect shadow and vision
of joys that can have no reality.’ When the spirit had thus spoken, it
conducted him (Thespesius) swiftly through boundless space, as he
thought, easily and without deviation, borne up by the beams of light
as if on wings, until he came to a wide and deep chasm where the power
that supported him gave way; he saw, too, that the other souls had a
like experience at that place, for these, crowding together like
birds, and darting downward, flew about the chasm,—for they dared not
venture to pass directly across it—which he saw was decorated within
like the grottoes of Bacchus, with shrubbery and plants and with all
sorts of green twigs bearing flowers; it also sent forth a gentle and
agreeable breeze which was singularly pleasant and which produced the
same effect that wine does on those who are addicted to it, for the
souls that inhaled these fragrant odors were in ecstasies of joy and
embraced one another. All around this place there was revelry and
laughter, together with every kind of enjoyment and merry-making. He
said that here Dionysus had ascended and had afterwards fetched up
Semele and that it was called the place of Forgetfulness (Lethe).
Here, too, Thespesius desired to tarry, but his conductor would not
allow it, and hurried him forcibly away, at the same time telling him
that the rational soul is melted and dissolved under the influence of
pleasure, but that the irrational and carnal part, moistened and
clothed in flesh, revives the memory of the body, and as a result of
this reminiscense, a desire and a concupiscence that incites to
procreation; for which reason it is called an _inclination toward the
earth_ because the soul is weighed down with moisture. Passing next
over another way of equal extent, he thought he saw a huge goblet into
which streams flowed, of which one was of a whiter color than the foam
of the sea or snow; another, purple like the iris; while others again
showed, from afar, different hues, each of which shone with its own
particular luster, yet when he came near, the ambient air became more
and more rarified, the colors became fainter, and the goblet lost its
brilliant tints, except the white. Here he saw three supernatural
beings (daemons) sitting by one another in the form of a triangle,
mixing together the streams with certain measures. The conductor of
the soul of Thespesius said that to this point Orpheus had advanced
when he was following after the soul of his wife, but because his
memory partly failed him he brought back to men an incorrect account
when he said that the oracle at Delphi was the common property of
Apollo and Night, when in sooth, there is nothing in common between
Apollo and Night. ‘But this oracle,’ the spirit said, ‘is common to
night and the moon; it gives response nowhere upon the earth and has
no fixed abode, but roams about everywhere among men, in dreams and
apparitions; and emanating from it, as thou seest, dreams mixed up
with the plain and simple truth, spread abroad trickery and fraud. But
that of Apollo thou didst not see,’ it said, ‘nor wilt thou be able to
see it, for the earthly part of the soul neither strives toward what
is higher nor does it release (the spiritual part), but it tends
downward as long as it is joined to the body.’ At the same time the
spirit leading him (Thespesius) nearer tried to show him the light
issuing from the tripod which, as he said, passed through the bosom of
Themis and reached as far as Parnassus. Though greatly desiring to see
it, he was not able to do so because of its brilliancy; but as he
passed by he heard the shrill voice of a woman chanting in verse some
other things, and the time of his death, as he thought. The
supernatural being (daemon) said it was the Sibyl, and that she
foretold future events as she was whirled about on the face of the
moon. Though wishing to hear more, he was carried round to the
opposite side by the rotary motion of the moon and caught but a few
words; among which was the prediction about Mount Vesuvius and the
impending destruction of Dicaearchea by fire, and a verse about the
reigning emperor, thus:
‘Though he is good, disease shall end his reign.’ Next in order they
turned to look upon those who were undergoing punishments. From the very
first they beheld nothing but repulsive and pitiable sights; then
Thespesius quite unexpectedly came upon kindred and acquaintances and
former companions who were in terrible sufferings and undergoing
horrible torments and pains, and who besought him with loud lamentations
to have pity on them. Finally, he recognized his own father coming up
from a kind of abyss, all covered with marks and wounds, stretching out
his hands to him; nor did those who directed his castigations suffer him
to hold his peace, but they compelled him to confess that he had been
guilty of a base crime against some guests, for their gold, by taking
them off with poison, and that, though the deed was unknown to everybody
in the world above, it was known to those below. (He also said) that he
had already undergone some torments, but was being dragged away to
suffer others. Smitten with fear and horror he durst not offer
supplications and intercessions for his father; but wanting to turn
about and flee, he no longer saw his kind and familiar guide, and felt
himself urged forward by other beings horrible to look upon, by whom he
was compelled to pass among and behold the chastisements of others of
his acquaintances who had openly led a wicked life, though the shade of
those who had been punished in the world was less grievously tormented
than the rest, and not in the same way, as they were merely condemned to
severe toil for the irrational nature and the passions. On the other
hand, those who had worn the garb and assumed the name of virtue, but
had in secret led corrupt lives, were forced by other tormentors, with
severe exertion and great pain, to turn the inner parts of the soul
outward; which action being so contrary to their nature, they performed
it with wrigglings and contortions like those made by the marine
scolopendra when they have swallowed the hook; some, their tormentors
flayed and laid open in order to show how corrupt and flecked they were,
and that their iniquity had its root in the reason which is the noblest
part of the soul. Other souls, he also said, he observed coiled about
each other by twos and threes and even more, gnawing one another on the
score of old grudges for the deeds of malice they had suffered or
committed in life. And he noticed further, some lakes alongside of each
other, one of which was of seething gold, another of exceeding cold
lead, and still another of hard iron; that over these stood certain
demons who in turn, like smiths, seized with tongs the souls of those
who had been guilty of insatiable greed and avarice, drawing them out
and thrusting them in. When they had become heated through and
diaphanous in the gold from the effects of the burning, they were
plunged into the sea of lead; having become congealed here and hard as
hailstones, they were next thrust into the lake of iron, where they
turned completely black, and were then twisted round and round because
of their hard-heartedness, and rubbed together until they lost all
semblance of their former selves. They were then put once more into the
lake of gold to undergo, as he said, awful torments by the change. But
he said those endured the keenest anguish, who, supposing they had been
released by Justice (Dike) were seized anew: these were the souls of
those for whose transgressions their descendants or children had to pay
the penalty. For whenever one of these arrived and encountered the
other, he fell upon the shade in great wrath, uttering loud cries and
showing the marks of what he had endured, at the same time execrating
and pursuing it while it endeavored to flee away and hide itself, yet
could not. For swiftly did the avengers of justice pursue such, dragging
them back again amid loud lamentations because they foreknew their
impending doom. To some of the souls, he said, many of their descendants
at the same time attached themselves like bees or bats, uttering shrill
cries and falling into transports of rage at the recollection of what
they had endured for their sakes; and last of all he saw the souls of
those who were undergoing the preparation for a second birth by a forced
transformation into all sorts of animals, and by metempsychosis at the
hands of those who were appointed to the task. These, by the use of
certain tools, and with blows, hammered together entire members, turned
others round, scraped down or removed others entirely in order to adapt
them to different modes of life, among which also appeared the soul of
Nero that had already undergone the other castigations, and had been
transfixed with red-hot nails. When the workmen had begun to prepare the
figure of a Pindaric viper, in which it was destined to live after it
had been conceived and had eaten its way out of its mother, he said that
a great light appeared and a voice came out of the light commanding that
it be transformed into some more gentle creature and made over into an
animal that is wont to chant around marshes and ponds, as he had already
expiated his crimes, and some consideration was due him at the hands of
the gods for freeing Greece, the land in which dwelt the best and most
god-favored of his subjects. Thus far now Thespesius was an eyewitness;
but when he was about to turn back, he got into the utmost perplexity
through fright; for a woman, imposing by her stature and beauty, taking
hold of him, said, ‘Pray come hither, my friend, in order that you may
the better remember everything’ (you have seen). And as she was about to
apply to him a little red-hot iron rod such as the painters in encaustic
are wont to use, another woman interfered. But he himself was carried
away all at once by a sudden and very violent gust of wind, as if blown
through a tube, and so lighting again in his own body, he was restored
to life, as it were, on the very brink of the grave.”