A man fancied he was dead, refused to eat, and importuned his parents to bury him. By the advice of his physician, he was wrapped in a winding-sheet, laid upon a bier, and in this way he was carried on the shoulders of four men to the churchyard. On their way, two or three pleasant fellows (appointed for that purpose) meeting the hearse, demanded in a commanding tone of voice to know whose body they had in the coffin. They replied it was a young man’s, and mentioned his name. “Surely,” said one of them, “the world is well rid of him; for he was a man who led a bad and vicious life, and his friends have good reasons to rejoice that he has thus ended his days, otherwise he would have died an ignominious death on the scaffold.” The young man overheard this observation, at which he felt extremely indignant; but feeling that it was not consistent with propriety or the laws of nature for a dead man on his way to his last home to exhibit any indications of passion, he satisfied himself by coolly replying, “That they were wicked men to do him that wrong, and that if he had been alive he would teach them to speak better of the dead.” “It is well,” said one of the men in reply, “that you are no more; both for yourself and family. You were a mean, pitiful scoundrel, guilty of every abomination, and the world is rejoiced that you no longer live.” This was too much for the patience of the dead man to endure, and feeling that he could no longer suffer such unjust aspersions to be cast on his character, he leaped from the coffin, procured the first stick he could lay hands on, and commenced belabouring his vile accusers. As it may be supposed, they gave him plenty to do, and by the time he had gratified his indignation, and well chastised his calumniators, he had become completely exhausted. In this state he was taken home, and in a few days he was completely cured of the morbid idea which had taken possession of his imagination. Menecrates, as we learn from Ælian,[55] become so mad, as seriously to believe himself the son of Jupiter, and to request of Philip of Macedon that he might be treated as a god. But it is not always that the man thus deranged falls into such good hands as those of the Macedonian monarch; for Philip humorously determining to make the madman’s disease work its own cure, gave orders immediately that his request should be complied with, and invited him to a grand entertainment, at which was a separate table for the new divinity, served with the most costly perfumes and incense, but with nothing else. Menecrates was at first highly delighted, and received the worship that was paid to him with the greatest complacency; but growing hungry by degrees over the empty viands that were offered him, while every other guest was indulged with substantial dainties, he at length keenly felt himself to be a man, and stole away from the court in his right senses.