Thereupon Antigonus, the physician, said, “I myself, Eucrates, have a bronze Hippocrates about eighteen inches high. As soon as the light is out, he goes all about the house making noises, turning out the vials, mixing up the medicines, and overturning the mortar, particularly when we are behindhand with the sacrifice which we make to him every year.” “Has it gone so far,’ said I, “that even Hippocrates the physician demands sacrifice in his honour and gets angry if he is not feasted on unblemished victims at the proper season? He ought to be well content if anyone should bring food to his tomb or pour him a libation of milk and honey or put a wreath about his gravestone!”

“Let me tell you,” said Eucrates, “—this, I assure you, is supported by witnesses—what I saw five years ago. It happened to be the vintage season of the year; passing through the farm at midday, I left the labourers gathering the grapes and went off by myself into the wood, thinking about something in the meantime and turning it over in my mind. When I was under cover, there came first a barking of dogs, and I supposed that my son Mnason was at his usual sport of following the hounds, and had entered the thicket with his companions. This was not the case, however; but after a short time there . came an earthquake and with it a noise as of thunder, and then I saw a terrible woman coming toward me, quite half a furlong in height. She had a torch in her left hand and a sword in her right, ten yards long; below, she had snake-feet, and above she resembled the Gorgon, in her stare, I mean, and the frightfulness of her appearance; moreover, instead of hair she had the snakes falling down in ringlets, twining about her neck, and some of them coiled upon her shoulders.—See,” said he, “how my flesh . creeps, friends, as I tell the story!’ And as he spoke he showed the hairs on his forearm standing on end (would you believe it?) because of his terror!

Ion, Deinomachus, Cleodemus, and the rest of them, open-mouthed, were giving him unwavering attention, old men led by the nose, all but doing obeisance to so unconvincing a colossus, a woman half a furlong in height, a gigantic bugaboo! For my part I was thinking in the meantime: “They associate with young men to make them wise and are admired by many, but what are they themselves? Only their grey hair and their beard distinguishes them from infants, and for the rest of it, even infants are not so amenable to falsehood.”

Deinomachus, for instance, said: “Tell me, Eucrates, the dogs of the goddess—how big were they?” “Taller than Indian elephants,” he replied; “black, like them, with a shaggy coat of filthy, tangled hair.— Well, at sight of her I stopped, at the same time turning the gem that the Arab gave me to the inside of my finger, and Hecate, stamping on the ground with her serpent foot, made a tremendous chasm, as deep as Tartarus; then after a little she leaped into it and was gone. I plucked up courage and looked over, taking hold of a tree that grew close by, in order that I might not get a dizzy turn and fall into it headlong. Then I saw everything in Hades, the River of Blazing Fire, and the Lake, and Cerberus, and the dead, well enough to recognise some of them. My father, for instance, I saw distinctly, still wearing the same clothes in which we buried him.”

“What were the souls doing, Eucrates?”’ said Ion. “What else would they be doing,” he said, “except lying upon the asphodel to while away the time, along with their friends and kinsmen by tribes and clans?”’ “Now let the Epicureans go on contradicting holy Plato,” said Ion, “and his doctrine about the souls! But you did not see Socrates himself and Plato among the dead?” “Socrates I saw,” he replied, “and even him not for certain but by guess, because he was bald and pot-bellied; Plato I could not recognise, for one must tell the truth to friends, I take it.

“No sooner had I seen everything sufficiently well than the chasm came together and closed up; and some of the servants who were seeking me, Pyrrhias here among them, came upon the scene before the chasm had completely closed. Tell them, Pyrrhias, whether I am speaking the truth or not.” “Yes, by Heaven,” said Pyrrhias, “and I heard barking, too, through the chasm and a gleam of fire was shining, from the torch, I suppose.’ I had to laugh when the witness, to give good measure, threw in the barking and the fire!

Cleodemus, however, said, “These sights that you saw are not novel and unseen by anyone else, for I myself when I was taken sick not long ago witnessed something similar. Antigonus here visited and attended me. It was the seventh day, and the fever was like a calenture of the most raging type. Leaving me by myself and shutting the door, they all were waiting outside; for you had given orders to that: effect, Antigonus, on the chance that I might fall asleep. Well, at that time there appeared at my side while I lay awake a very handsome young man, wearing a white cloak; then, raising me to my feet, he led me through a chasm to Hades, as I realised at once when I saw Tantalus and Ixion and Tityus and Sisyphus. Why should I tell you all the details? But when I came to the court—Aeacus and Charon and the Fates and the Furies were there—a person resembling a king (Pluto, I suppose) sat reading off the names of those about to die because their lease of life chanced to have already expired. The young man speedily set me before him; but Pluto was angry and said to my guide: ‘ His thread is not yet ‘fully spun, so let him be off, and bring me the blacksmith Demylus, for he is living beyond the spindle.’ I hastened back with a joyful heart, and from that time was free from fever; but I told everyone that Demylus would die. He lived next door to us, and himself had some illness, according to report. And after a little while we heard the wailing of his mourners.”