'Finally, Proteus arrives in Greece; and what does he do there? He makes himself offensive in Elis; he instigates Greece to revolt against Rome; he finds a man of enlarged views and established character[6], a public benefactor in general, and in particular the originator of the water-supply to Olympia, which saved that great assembly from perishing of thirst--and he has nothing but hard words for him; "Greece is demoralized," he cries; "the spectators of the games should have done without water, ay, and died if need be,"--and so many of them would have done, from the violence of the epidemics then raging in consequence of the drought. And all the time Proteus was drinking of that very water! At this there was a general rush to stone him, which pretty nearly succeeded; it was all our magnanimous friend could do, for the time being, to find salvation at the altar of Zeus. He spent the four following years in composing a speech, which he delivered in public at the next Olympic games; it consisted of encomiums on the donor of the water-supply and explanations of his flight on the former occasion. But by this time people had lost all curiosity about him; his prestige was quite gone; everything fell flat, and he could devise no more novelties for the amazement of chance-comers, nor elicit the admiration and applause for which he had always so passionately longed. Hence this last bold venture of the funeral-pyre. So long ago as the last Olympic Games he published his intention of cremating himself at the next. That is what all this mystification is about, this digging of pits we hear of, and collecting of firewood; these glowing accounts of fortitude hereafter to be shown. Now, in the first place, it seems to me that a man has no business to run away from life: he ought to wait till his time comes. But if nothing else will serve, if positively he must away,--still there is no need of pyres and such-like solemn paraphernalia: there are plenty of ways of dying without this; let him choose one of them, and have done with it. Or if a fiery end is so attractively Heraclean, what was to prevent his quietly selecting some well-wooded mountain top, and doing his cremation all by himself, with Theagenes or somebody to play Philoctetes to his Heracles? But no; he must roast in full concourse, at Olympia, as it might be on a stage; and, so help me Heracles, he is not far out, if justice is to be done on all parricides and unbelievers. Nay, if we look at it that way, this is but dilatory work: he might have been packed into Phalaris's bull years ago, and he would have had no more than his deserts,--a mouthful of flame and sudden death is too good for him. For by all I can learn burning is the quickest of deaths; a man has but to open his mouth, and all is over.