In the Tartarus Minos punished the same crimes which he would have punished on earth according to the wise laws of the Cretenses, supposing that he had in reality reigned over them. If crimes against religion were to be punished in the Tartarus, it was because religion, being considered as a duty, and as the principal bond of society, it necessarily followed that irreligion was to be one of the greatest crimes, which was to be avenged by the gods. Hence the people were taught that the great crime of many of the famous criminals, tortured in the Tartarus, was their disrespect for the mysteries of Eleusis; that the great crime of Salmone was to have tried to imitate Jove's thunder; and that the great crime of Ixion, of Orion, and of Tityus, was to have violated goddesses. The fiction of the Elysium was directed to the same moral and political aim. Virgil places in the Elysium the heroes who laid down their lives for the defense of their country; also the inventors of arts, and all those who have been useful to their fellow men, and have a title to their gratitude. It was to strengthen this idea that apotheosis was instituted; hence it was taught in the mysteries that Hercules, Bacchus, and the Dioscores were but men, who, by their virtues and their services had obtained immortality. Afterwards the Romans placed Scipio in the Elysium. Cicero ascribed a high station in the Elysium to the true patriots; to the friends of justice; to good sons; to good parents; and to good citizens. In the Elysium, as Plato described it, kindness and justice were rewarded: there the true patriot, the modest and just Aristides, had been admitted. To this divine recompense piety, eagerness in seeking for truth, and love to it, were the surest titles. When the dead had been judged those who had been pronounced worthy of the Elysium passed to the right hand side, and were led to the Elysium, every one by his guardian angel. Those who had been sentenced to the Tartarus passed to the left hand side, and were dragged thereto, each one by the evil genius that beguiled him while on earth. Onward they were driven, carrying on their back their sentence of condemnation, and the enumeration of all their crimes. Those whose vices were curable were to be released after due expiation and reform. According to Plato, the dead who have been guilty of murder, sacrilege, and other enormous crimes, shall be endlessly miserable in the Tartarus. Those whose crimes have not been so great shall be detained therein for a year; and, at the expiration of this time they will be brought out, near the marsh of Acheron, by the waters of the Cocyte, and of the Pyriphlegeton rivers. Then they shall humbly beg pardon from those they have wronged; and, if they obtain it, they shall be released; if not they shall be taken back to the Tartarus on the rivers. Virgil also speaks of that state of expiation and purification of the souls of the dead.