Hermes. By all means; for he raises them ever above his forehead, stretching himself upwards-why, I don't know. ---What's this? Do you, indeed, weep, vile scum! and grow cowardly in face of death? Embark, now, immediately.

Menippus. One thing—the heaviest of all—he is keeping under his arm-pits.

Hermes. What is it, Menippus ?

Menippus. Fawning flattery, Hermes, which has much served him in his life.

Philosopher. Do you too, then, Menippus, put off your freedom, and assurance, and unconcern, and self-satisfaction,' and ridicule. Indeed, you are the only one of us all to laugh.

Hermes. Don't do anything of the kind: on the contrary, retain them, for they are light and very portable, and serviceable for the passage. And the orator, you there, off with that so enormous a quantity of words and verbiage, and antitheses, and nice balancing of clauses, and periods, and barbarisms, and the rest of the heavy trappings of your orations.

Orator. Well, see, I am stripping myself of them.

Hermes. It's well. So loose the cables; let us haul up the gangway, let the anchors be weighed, unfurl the sail; take the helm, ferryman. May we have a prosperous voyage! What are you groaning and lamenting about, fools; and you philosopher, in particular, who just now have had your beard chopped off?

Philosopher. Because, Hermes, I used to think that the soul was immortal.

Menippus. He lies; for other matters obviously afflict

him.

Hermes. What sort ?

Menippus. That no longer he will partake of costly dinners, nor go out at night without anyone's knowing it, with his head enveloped in his cloak, and go the round of the public stews; and, from an early hour in the morning, take the fees of the youths for lessons in philosophy, deceiving them all the while. It is this that afflicts him.

To yεvvatov. Properly, "well bred" (yevva). Here rightly translated by Wieland by zuversichtlichkeit. (Jacob.)

Philosopher. Why, you, Menippus, are you not grieved at being dead?

Menippus. How? I, who hurried to death without anyone's summons ? 1 But, while we are chattering, is that not some cry I hear as if of people shouting from Earth?

Hermes. Yes, Menippus, not from one region only; but those who have met together in conclave, with pleased looks, are all laughing at the death of Lampichus, while his wife is seized hold of by the women, and her infants likewise, young and tender as they are, are being assailed by the boys with quantities of stones; and others are applauding Diophantus, the orator, at Sicyon, who is declaiming funeral eulogies over Kraton here—and, by heaven, the mother of Damasias, with wailing, is now leading off the dirge for him with the women. But as for you, friend Menippus, no one sheds a tear over you, and you lie all alone in perfect peace.

Menippus. By no means so; you will shortly hear the dogs howling most piteously over me; and the crows flapping with their wings, when they collect together to bury me.

Hermes. You are a fine fellow, Menippus.-Well, since we have made the passage (addressing the passengers), do you pack off to the judge's tribunal, proceeding by that straight road there; while I and the ferryman will go for others.

Menippus. A good voyage to you, Hermes!-Well, let us, too, go our way. Why, pray, are you still lingering? You will most certainly have to be judged, and they say that the sentences are severe-wheels, and rocks, and vultures.2 And each one's life will be clearly revealed.

1 See Diog. Laert. IIɛpì Biwv. K. 7. λ. vi. 99, and N. A. i. Cf. Δημώναξ, 65-66.

2

Menippus alludes, in particular, to the revolving wheel to which Ixion (see . A. vi.) is everlastingly bound; to the rocks which Sisyphus vainly rolls uphill; and to Tityus, whose liver is being eternally gnawed by a vulture. For the fates of Tityus and Ixion, see Hor. Car._iii. 4, 11. For Sisyphus, Car. ii. 14; Lpod. xvii. Cf. Lucretius, De Rer. Nat. iii.; Lucian's Neкvoμavrɛía, 14; and Plato IIoλ. x. 614.

XI.

KRATES AND DIOGENES, MEETING IN HADES, INDULGE THEIR SATIRE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE FATES OF TWO MILLIONAIRE

MERCHANTS (COUSINS) WHO HAD BEEN CONSTANTLY PLOTTING, IN THE USUAL MANNER, EACH FOR THE OTHER'S LEGACY, AND WHO HAD BOTH PERISHED ON THE SAME DAY BY SHIPWRECK. THE TWO EMINENT CYNICS CONGRATULATE THEMSELVES ON THE RECOLLECTION OF THE VERY DIFFERENT CHARACTER OF THEIR OWN OBJECTS IN LIFE.

Krates and Diogenes.

Krates. You used, Diogenes, to know Morichus, the rich fellow, the millionaire him of Korinth, who owned those numerous merchant-ships; whose cousin was Aristeas, himself, too, a plutocrat, who used to quote that verse of Homer :

"Let one or other lift his man.' "2

Diogenes. Why, Krates?

Krates. They used to court and wheedle one the other for the sake of the expected legacy (being of the same age), and publicly registered their wills; Morichus, if he should die first, leaving Aristeas master of all his property, and Aristeas Morichus, should he predecease the other. Such

A distinguished follower of Diogenes of Sinope. He had abandoned a large fortune in order to attach himself to the doctrines and practice of the School of Antisthenes. Like his master, he lived upon the most strictly frugal fare: in which abstinent living he was not surpassed by Epikurus himself, or, perhaps, by any Christian ascetic of later ages. His marriage was somewhat romantic. His wife, Hipparchia, who belonged to an aristocratic family, had united her fate with his, in spite of great opposition from her friends; and even declared her resolve to kill herself, if they refused consent. Krates, who left behind him some writings, now lost, lived in the fourth century. See Diog. Laert.

2"H μ'áváɛı' yw oέ. Lit. "Either do you lift me up, or I will you.” The speech of Telamonian Aias to Odysseus, in the wrestling encounter between the two heroes. See 'IX. xxiii. 724. The version above is quoted from Prof. Newman's Iliad of Homer. The application of the Homeric verse by Aristeas is obvious.

were the terms of the wills; while they were accustomed to surpass one the other in their mutual wheedling and flattery. The prophets, both those who divine the future from the stars, and those who divine from dreams, like the disciples of the Chaldæans-nay, even the Pythian himself -offered the victory now to Aristeas, now to Morichus; and the scales were for inclining at one time in favour of the latter, and now again for the former.

Diogenes. What, pray, was the end of it, Krates? For it is worth hearing.

Krates. Both have died on one and the same day, and the properties devolved unexpectedly upon Eunomius and Thrasykles-both relatives-who never even dreamed that this would happen. For, sailing across from Sikyon to Kirrha,' about the middle of the passage, they were overtaken by the west-north-west wind across their bows, and they were wrecked and lost.

Diogenes. It was very kind of them. Well, as for us, when we were in life, we entertained no such designs in regard to one another; neither did I ever pray for the death of Antisthenes, that I might inherit his staff—and he used to have a pretty strong one, which he made for himself of wild olive; nor, I imagine, did you, Krates, eagerly desire to inherit my possessions at my death-my tub and my wallet, which held two quarts of lupines.

Krates. No, for I had no need of them; neither had you, Diogenes: for what we needed, you inherited from Antisthenes, and I from you, possessions far better and more respectable than all the power of the Persians.

Diogenes. What are these possessions you speak of ? Krates. Wisdom, self-sufficiency, truth, plain-speaking, freedom.

Diogenes. By my faith, yes. I remember also, that, having received this wealth in succession from Antisthenes, I left behind to you, in fact, still more.

1 Sikyon, near Korinth; Kirrha, a port of Phokis; both in the Korinthian Gulf. For the wind called Iapyx, see Hor. Car. i. 3, iii. 27; Virg. Æn. viii. 710.

2 Diogenes had reason to remember this fact. Upon his first approaching the founder of Cynicism, Antisthenes, we are informed, drove him away with blows from this same stick.

Krates. However, the rest of the world used to despise such kind of possessions, and no one of them courted us, looking to obtain our legacies; but they all directed their looks to the gold coin.

Diogenes. With good reason; for they had not where they could receive from us and stow away such possessions, gradually leaking and wasting away, as they were, under the influence of luxury, like rotten pouches. So that, if even one were to put into them either wisdom, or plainness of speech, or truth, it would immediately escape and run through, the bottom of the vessel not being able to hold it in; something like what the daughters of Danaus, those famous maidens, experience when they draw water in their perforated pitcher: while as for the gold, they used to guard it with tooth and nail, and every possible contrivance.

Krates. Accordingly, we shall possess our wealth even here, while they will arrive carrying an obolus with them, and even that as far only as their ferryman.

XII.

ALEXANDER OF MACEDON AND HANNIBAL, QUARRELLING FOR PRECEDENCE, SUBMIT THE ARBITRAMENT OF THEIR CAUSE TO MINOS. EACH RECOUNTS HIS EXPLOITS. SCIPIO, THE CONQUEROR OF CARTHAGE, INTERVENES, AND PRONOUNCES IN FAVOUR OF ALEXANDER, CLAIMING THE SECOND PLACE FOR HIMSELF, AND ASSIGNING THE THIRD PLACE TO HANNIBAL.

Alexander, Hannibal, Minos, and Scipio.

Alexander. I ought to be preferred to you, you Libyan, for I am superior to you.

Hannibal. No, indeed; rather, I ought to have the precedence.

Alexander. Let Minos decide then (appealing to that judge).

Minos. But who are you?

Alexander. This is Hannibal of Carthage, and I am Alexander, the son of Philip.