Thus far Thespesius saw; but when he was about to return to the earth, he was in utter desperation through terror. For a certain woman, of marvellous form and stature, laying hold of him, said, “Come hither, that you may remember these things the better,” and she was about to strike him with a red-hot wand such as the encaustic painters use, when another woman prevented her. Then he, as if suddenly forced through a tube by an intensely strong and powerful wind, alighted on his own body, and awoke hard by his own tomb. FOOTNOTES: [1:1] A name probably chosen for this retreating collocutor because the dialogue is anti-Epicurean in its dogmas and its spirit, and the supposed arguments to be refuted were therefore such as an Epicurean would have urged. Epicurus denied the Divine Providence, and maintained that the gods did not concern themselves with human affairs. [1:2] Some commentators suppose this to be the second part of a dialogue, of which the first part is lost. But it is more probable that the reader is, for dramatic effect, introduced into the midst of a prepared scene. This was not an uncommon device in the philosophical dialogues that have come down to us from early time. Plato, Cicero, and Lucian furnish instances of it, and two other of Plutarch’s dialogues begin in a similar way. _Cinius_ is a name that occurs nowhere else. A purely conjectural emendation of a single letter would give us the better known name, _Quintus_. The scene of this dialogue is the temple of Apollo at Delphi,—the temple in which Plutarch officiated as priest. [2:1] Plutarch’s son-in-law. [2:2] Plutarch’s brother. [2:3] The figure by which arguments are called spears or javelins, and are said to be hurled when uttered—in itself not unnatural—occurs frequently in the ancient classics. Indeed, the most authentic derivation of the Latin _dicere_, _to speak_, is from the Greek δικεῖν, _to hurl_. The French word _trait_ offers an analogy in point. [2:4] Brasidas, the most distinguished Spartan general, and the leader of the Spartan forces, in the earlier part of the Peloponnesian war, was slain near Amphipolis, at the moment of victory. Cleon, the Athenian general, was killed at the same time. The incident referred to in the text has no record in history; but a scholiast on Aristophanes says that Cleon and Brasidas killed each other, referring probably to the tradition that they both were killed by Cleon’s spear. [3:1] A verse from the _Orestes_,—the reply of Orestes when asked whether Apollo would give him no assistance in his troubles. [3:2] In a speech of Cleon in favor of the slaughter of the men and the enslavement of the women and children of Mytilene, for the attempt to release themselves from the sway of the Athenians.