When Epicurus had thus spoken, O Quintus, and before any one had replied, he went hurriedly away, as we were now at the end of the porch. We stood for some time in speechless wonder at the strange conduct of the man and looking at one another, then turned back to resume our walk. Thereupon Patrocleas first broke the silence: “Pray, what shall we do?” said he, “Shall we drop the inquiry, or shall we answer the arguments of the speaker who is not present as if he were?” “It would not be fitting to leave the dart he discharged, as he departed, sticking in the wound. Brasidas, as we are told, drew the shaft from his body, and with the same weapon slew the man who had hit him. It is not worth our while, of course, to defend ourselves against all those who assail us with ill-grounded or fallacious arguments, but it will suffice us if we cast them from us before they become firmly fixed in our minds.” “What was there then,” said I, “in what he said that most impressed you? For many things and without any order, one here, another there, the man kept charging against Providence, with anger and vituperation at the same time.” 2. Hereupon Patrocleas said: “The tardiness and delay of the Deity in punishing the wicked seems to me a matter of special importance; and now, by the arguments that have been advanced, I have been led anew and, as it were, a stranger, to the question; but long ago I was offended when I read in Euripides, ‘He procrastinates, and this is the manner of the Deity.’ Yet God ought, least of all things, to be slack towards the wicked, as they are neither slack nor dilatory about doing evil, but are impelled by their unrestrained passions to acts of injustice. And in truth, the retribution, which Thucydides says follows close upon the commission of a crime, forthwith bars the way for those who usually prosper in successful villainy. For there is no debt like overdue justice that makes him who has been wronged so faint-hearted and discouraged, while it emboldens the wicked man in his audacity and violence; but the punishments that follow close upon the commission of crimes are restraints upon those who are meditating wrongs against others, and there is the greatest consolation in this for those who have suffered injustice. So, then, the remark of Bias often troubles me when I reflect upon it; for he said, according to report, to a certain reprobate, that he did not fear lest he might not suffer the punishment of his misdeeds, but only that he might not himself (Bias) live to see it. What profit was it to the Messenians, who were long since dead, that Aristokrates was punished for betraying them at the battle of Taphros, when the matter remained undiscovered for more than twenty years, during which time he had been king of the Arcadians, though he was finally detected and punished, when they were no longer alive? Or what consolation was it to the Orchomenians who had lost children and friends and kinsmen