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.