In the same way and in the same spirit Menippus visits the Lower World, where he sees Minos judging the dead. Minos too seems to have been interested in literature, for he reduced the sentence upon Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, on the very proper ground of his generosity to authors. But the general picture has less humour. "We entered the Acherusian plain, and there we found the demi-gods, and the heroines, and the general throng of the dead in nations and tribes, some ancient and mouldering, 'strengthless heads' as Homer says, others fresh and holding together--Egyptians these in the main, so thoroughly good is their embalming. But to know one from another was no easy task; all become so much alike when the bones are bared; yet with pains and long scrutiny we began to recognize them. They lay pell-mell in undistinguishable heaps, with none of their earthly beauties left. With so many skeletons piled together, all as like as could be, eyes glaring ghastly and vacant, teeth gleaming bare, I knew not to tell Thersites from Nireus the fair.... For none of their ancient marks remained, and their bones were alike, uncertain, unlabelled, undistinguishable. When I saw all this, the life of man came before me under the likeness of a great pageant, arranged and marshalled by Chance," who assigns the parts and reassigns them as she pleases; and then the pageant ends, every one disrobes and all are alike. "Such is human life, as it seemed to me while I gazed."[46] Over and over again with every accent of irony the one moral is enforced--sometimes with sheer brutality as in the tract on _Mourning_. {215} Menippus asked Teiresias in the shades what was the best life. "He was a blind little old man, and pale, and had a weak voice." He said: "The life of ordinary people is best, and, wiser; cease from the folly of metaphysics, of inquiry into origins and purposes; spit upon those clever syllogisms and count all these things idle talk; and pursue one end alone, how you may well arrange the present and go on your way with a laugh for most things and no enthusiasms."[47] In fact, "the unexamined life" is the only one, as many a weary thinker has felt--if it were but possible. [Sidenote: Criticism of Lucian]