KRESUS, MIDAS, AND

II.

SARDANAPALUS

COMPLAIN TO PLUTO OF

MENIPPUS THAT HE DERIDES THEM FOR THEIR LAMENTATIONS OVER THE LOSS OF THE POWER, WEALTH, AND LUXURY WHICH BELONGED TO THEM ON EARTH.-MENIPPUS, IN SPITE OF PLUTO'S REMONSTRANCES, PERSISTS IN HIS RIDICULE.

Kræsus, Pluto, Midas, Sardanapalus, and Menippus.

Kræsus (pointing at Menippus). We can't endure, Pluto, this dog here, Menippus, dwelling near us. So either establish him somewhere else, or we shall change our habitation to another spot.

Pluto. But what harm does he do you, seeing he is your fellow-ghost?

Kroesus. Whenever we groan and lament, remembering our possessions above-Midas here, his gold coin, and Sardanapalus his abundant luxury, and I, Kroesus, my treasures—he laughs at and upbraids us, calling us names -"slaves" and "castaways";' and sometimes he disturbs our lamentations by singing, too; and, in a word, he is a nuisance to us.

Pluto. What is this they say, Menippus?

Menippus. Quite true, Pluto: for I hate them for vile and pestiferous fellows, for whom it was not enough to live badly, but who, even when dead, still remember and cling to their earthly possessions. I find pleasure, therefore, in vexing them.

Pluto. But it is not right; for they are no small things they mourn the loss of.

Menippus. Are you, too, for playing the fool, Pluto, and casting in your vote with these whining fellows?

1 Kalápuara, in the first instance, "offscouring," "the refuse of a sacrifice." Used at Athens, in special sense, for certain real or pretended criminals, who on the occasion of some national calamity were, like the scape-goats of the Jews, employed as propitiatory sacrifices, and thrown into the sea. Cf. Aristoph. IIX. 454. S. Paul, I Cor. iv. 13. Cf.:

2 For ὀλεθρίους, the common reading, Jacobitz has ὀλέθρους. "Destroyers rightlier called, and plagues of men," Par. Lost, xi.

Pluto. Not at all: but I would not have you up in arms. [exit. Menippus (shaking his fist). None the less, basest of Lydians, Phrygians, and Assyrians, be well assured of this that I will never leave off: for, wherever you may go, I will follow, annoying you, and singing to the tune of your wailing, and ridiculing you.

Krosus. Is this not insolence?

Menippus. No, but that was insolence of which you were guilty-in requiring worship, and in mocking at and insulting freemen, without having any thought of the leveller death at all. Therefore, bitterly shall you bewail the loss of all these things.

Kroesus. Yes, O heavens, of many and great possessions! Midas. Of how much gold I!

Sardanapalus. Of how much luxury I! Menippus. Well done! So do. You, for your part, lament and weep, and I will accompany you, and occasionally join in with the refrain, "Know thyself": for it would be quite a suitable accompaniment to such howling.

1 The famous apophthegm, yvõi σɛavròv, has been attributed to various Greek celebrities-Thales, Pythagoras, Sokrates, and others: but it is generally conceded to Chilon, of Sparta, one of the " seven sages," who lived in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. See Diog. Laert. IIɛpi Biwv, &c. i.; the Platonic Dialogue, 'Arißiáồng, i. (from which it appears that the words were inscribed on the entrance to the temple at Delphi); Juv. Sat. xi. 27. Menander, the first of the New Comedy dramatists, parodies this well-worn adage, and holds that "Know others” might be more useful χρησιμώτερον γὰρ ἦν τὸ Γνῶθι τοὺς aMovç. For Kræsus, see Herod. i. For some instances of the luxury of Sardanapalus, consult Athenæus, xii. 38, 39.

III.

MENIPPUS RIDICULES THE ORACLES OF TROPHONIUS AND AMPHILOCHUS.

Menippus, Amphilochus, and Trophonius.1

Menippus. So then, you two, Trophonius and Amphilochus, dead men though you are, for some reason or other have been thought worthy of temples, and have the reputation of prophets; and the foolish triflers of men have supposed you to be divine.

Amphilochus. Why, pray, are we to blame, if they, in their folly, will have such opinions about dead people?

Menippus. But they would not be holding such opinions, unless, while you were living, you had indulged in such juggling tricks, as though you foreknew the future, and were able to foretell it to those who inquired of you.

Trophonius. Menippus, Amphilochus himself must know what answer he is to give respecting himself: but I, for my part, am a hero, and deliver prophecies, whenever any one comes down to visit me. But you appear never to

1 Amphilochus, with his equally prophetic father, enjoyed great reputation for oracular power. While on earth, they had taken part in the celebrated War of the Epigoni (or "Descendants" of the Seven against Thebes) upon the city of Edipus. Amphilochus, the murderer of his mother, had shrines at Athens, at Oropus on the confines of Attica and Boeotia, and at Mallus in Cilicia. The Oracle of Amphiaraus was situated near Thebes, at the spot where he had been swallowed up with his chariot, in his flight from the battle before that city. For the still more renowned Oracle and Cavern of Trophonius (who while in the flesh had enjoyed the reputation of an expert thief) at Lebadeia in Boeotia, see Aristoph. Nep. 507; Diod. B. I. xv. ; Philost. A. T. viii. 19; Maximus Tyrius (Aíaλ. xxvi.); Origen in Celsus (Aóyos 'Anons); Lucian, 'AXéžavèpoç, 29. The Comic poets (Kratinus and Alexis) had not neglected so promising a subject. Pausanias, ix. 39. Pausanias gives a rather particular account of the Cavern and its preternatural terrors, of which he had himself been witness. Plutarch is said to have left a treatise on the subject, which, very unhappily, has not survived.

have stayed at Lebadeia at all; for otherwise you would not refuse credence to these things. Menippus. What do you say? Unless I had gone to Lebadeia, and dressed myself ridiculously in those fine linen robes, and carried a barley-cake in my hands, and had crawled through the mouth, which is low enough in the roof, into the Cavern, I could not know that you are a dead man, as we are, superior only by your juggling faculty? But, in the name of the prophetic art, what, pray, is a "hero"? for I don't know.

Trophonius. A sort of compound of man and God.

Menippus. Which (as you say) is neither man nor god, but both together? Where, then, has that half of you, the divine part, now gone off to ?

Trophonius. It is delivering oracles in Boeotia, Menippus. Menippus. I don't know, my friend Trophonius, what you are talking about, indeed. That, however, you are wholly a dead man, I see distinctly enough.

IV.

HERMES DEMANDS FROM CHARON ARREARS OF PAYMENT DUE TO HIM FOR HIS SERVICES ON THE STYX. CHARON EXCUSES HIMSELF ON THE PLEA OF BAD TIMES; NO GREAT WAR OR FAMINE, AS IT HAPPENED, RAVAGING THE EARTH AT THAT MOMENT. HERMES MORALISES ON THE CAUSES OF DEATH, DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF OLD, WHICH DESPATCH MEN IN CROWDS TO HADES.

Hermes and Charon.

Hermes. Let us reckon up, Mr. Ferryman, if you please, how much you now owe me, so that we may not hereafter quarrel at all about it.

Charon. Let us do so, Hermes; for it is better to come to a definite understanding about it between ourselves, and less likely to cause trouble! 1

1

1 Or, as Wieland translates, "wir haben gleich eine Sorge weniger."

Hermes. I procured to your order an anchor at five drachmæ.1

Charon. A high price!

Hermes. By Pluto, I purchased them at the full sum of the five pieces, and a leathern thong for the oar for two oboli.

Charon. Set down five drachmæ and two oboli.

Hermes. And a darning-needle for mending the sail. Five oboli I paid down for that.

Charon. Set down those, too.

Hermes. And bees'-wax to fill up the chinks in our little craft, and nails, too, and a small rope, of which you made the brace-two drachmæ in all.

Charon. And you made a good bargain there.

Hermes. That is the whole sum, unless something else has altogether escaped me in the reckoning. And when, then, do you say that you will repay me this?

Charon. Just now, my dear Hermes, it is quite impossible. But if some pestilence or war should send us down some shoals of men, it will then be in my power to make profits by cooking the accounts of the fares."

Hermes. Am I, then, now to take my seat, praying for the worst to happen, with the mere chance that I may get something from it?

Charon. There is nothing for you, otherwise, Hermes. Just now, as you see, few come to us: for peace prevails.3 Hermes. Better so, even though payment of your debt due to me must be postponed by you. But, however, the men of former times, Charon—you know in what sort they used to come to us, nearly all of them, covered all over with blood, and riddled with wounds, the majority of them. But, nowadays, it is either some one who has died by poison at the hands of his son or of his wife; or who is swollen out in his stomach and legs by gluttony-pallid and paltry-not at all like their predecessors. The most

1 The drachma, the principal silver coin with the Greeks, was, at Athens, nearly equal to the French franc-93d.

2 For Eakus, the infernal judge, to whom Charon was bound to present his accounts. Cf. Aristoph. Barp. 465, K. т. λ.; Juv. Sat. i. 10. 3 It will be remembered that these Dialogues were composed during the (com paratively) peaceful reigns of the Antonines.