“What is there surprising in that?” said
Antigonus: “I know a man who came to life more
than twenty days after his burial, having attended
the fellow both before his death and after he came
to life.’ “How was it,” said I, “that in twenty
days the body neither corrupted nor simply wasted
away from inanition? Unless it was an Epimenides The Cretan priest who slept for forty years, or thereabouts. 
whom you attended.”

 
While we were exchanging these words the sons
of Eucrates came in upon us from the palaestra, one
already of age, the other about fifteen years old, and
after greeting us sat down upon the couch beside
their father; a chair was brought in forme. Then,
as if reminded by the sight of his sons, Eucrates
said: “As surely as I hope that these boys will be a
joy to me”—and he laid his hand upon them—
“what I am about to tell you, Tychiades, is true.
Everyone knows how I loved their mother, my wife
of blessed memory; I made it plain by what I did
for her not only while she was alive but even when
she died, for I burned on the pyre with her all the
ornaments and the clothing that she liked while she
lived. On the seventh day after her death I was
lying here on the couch, just as I am now, consoling
my grief; for I was peacefully reading Plato’s book
about the soul. While I was thus engaged,
Demaenete herself in person came in upon me and
sat down beside me, just as Eucratides here is sitting
now”—with a gesture toward the younger of his
sons, who at once shuddered in a very boyish way;
he had already been pale for some time over the
story. ‘“When I saw her,” Eucrates continued, “I


 

caught her in my arms with a cry of grief and began
to weep. She would not permit me to cry, however,
but began to find fault with me because, although I
had given her everything else, I had not burned one
of her gilt sandals, which, she said, was under the
chest, where it had been thrown aside. That was
why we did not find it and burned only the one.
We were continuing our conversation when a cursed
toy dog that was under the couch, a Maltese, barked,
and she vanished at his barking. The sandal, however, was found under the chest and was burned
afterwards.
 
“Is it right, Tychiades, to doubt these apparitions
any longer, when they are distinctly seen and a
matter of daily occurrence?” “No, by Heaven,”
I said: “those who doubt and are so disrespectful
toward truth deserve to be spanked like children,
with a gilt sandal!”
 
At this juncture Arignotus the Pythagorean came
in, the man with the long hair and the majestic
face—you know the one who is renowned for wisdom,
whom they call holy. As I caught sight of him, I
drew a breath of relief, thinking: “There now, a
broadaxe has come to hand to use against their
lies. The wise man will stop their mouths when
they tell such prodigious yarns.” I thought that
Fortune had trundled him in to me like a deus ex
machina, as the phrase is. But when Cleodemus
had made room for him and he was seated, he first
asked about the illness, and when Eucrates told him
‘that it was already less troublesome, said: “What
were you debating among yourselves? As I came

 

in, I overheard you, and it seemed to me that you
were on the point of giving a fine turn to the conversation!” 
“We are only trying to persuade this man of
adamant,” said Eucrates, pointing at me, “to believe
that spirits and phantoms exist, and that souls of
dead men go about above ground and appear to
whomsoever they will.” I flushed and lowered my ©
eyes out of reverence for Arignotus. ‘“Perhaps,
Eucrates,” he said, “Tychiades means that only the
ghosts of those who died by violence walk, for example, if a man hanged himself, or had his head cut
off, or was crucified, or departed life in some similar
way; and that those of men who died a natural
death do not. If that is what he means, we cannot
altogether reject what he says.” “No, by Heaven,”
replied Deinomachus, “he thinks that such things do
not exist at all and are not seen in bodily form.”

 

“What is that you say?” said Arignotus, with a
sour look at me. “Do you think that none of
these things happen, although everybody, I may say,
sees them?’ “Plead in my defence,” said I,“if I
do not believe in them, that I am the only one of all
who does not see them; if I saw them, I should believe in them, of course, just as you do.” “Come,”
said he, “if ever you go to Corinth, ask where the
house of Eubatides is, and when it is pointed out to
you beside Cornel Grove, enter it and say to the doorman Tibius that you should like to see where the

 

Pythagorean Arignotus exhumed the spirit and
drove it away, making the house habitable from
that time on.