And they told their stories to one another, the one lamenting
and wailing as they recalled how many and how dreadful things they had suffered and seen in their journey beneath the earth Footnote 1Cf. Phaedr. 256 D, Epist. vii. 335 B-C. —it lasted a thousand years Footnote 2Phaedr. 249 A, Virgil, Aen. vi. 748. —while those from heaven related their delights and visions of a beauty beyond words. To tell it all, Glaucon, would take all our time, but the sum, he said, was this. For all the wrongs they had ever done to anyone and all whom they had severally wronged they had paid the penalty in turn tenfold for each, and the measure of this was by periods of a hundred years each, Footnote 3The ideal Hindu length of life is said to be 100 years. so that on the assumption that this was the length of human life the punishment might be ten times the crime; as for example that if anyone had been the cause of many deaths or had betrayed cities and armies and reduced them to slavery, or had been participant in any other iniquity, they might receive in requital pains tenfold for each of these wrongs, and again if any had done deeds of kindness and been just and holy men they might receive their due reward in the same measure; and other things not worthy of record he said of those who had just been born Footnote 4For the words Cf. Tim. 76 E
εὐθὺς γιγνομένοις
. Plato does not take up the problem of infant damnation! Warburton says, and I make no doubt but the things not worth to be remembered was the doctrine of infants in purgatory, which appears to have given Plato much scandal, who did not at that time at least reflect upon its original and use.
See also Mozley, Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 307, apud Seebohm. The Oxford Reformers (3rd ed.), p. 495: Augustine had laid down that the punishment of such children was the mildest of all punishment in hell. . . . Aquinas laid down the further hypothesis that this punishment was not pain of body or mind, but want of the Divine vision.
Virgil, Aen. vi. 427, Anth. Pal. ix. 359. 10 θανεῖν αὐτίκα τικτόμενον
. Stallbaum and Ast think ἀποθανόντων dropped out of the text after γενομένων. and lived but a short time; and he had still greater requitals to tell of piety and impiety towards the gods and parents Footnote 5Cf. Phaedo 113 E-114 A, where there is a special penalty for murderers and parricides. and of self-slaughter. For he said that he stood by when one was questioned by another Where is Ardiaeus Footnote 6Cf. Archelaus in Gorg. 471. the Great?
Now this Ardiaeos had been tyrant in a certain city of Pamphylia just a thousand years before that time and had put to death his old father and his elder brother, and had done many other unholy deeds, as was the report. So he said that the one questioned replied, He has not come,
said he, nor will he be likely to come here.
For indeed this was one of the dreadful sights we beheld; when we were near the mouth and about to issue forth and all our other sufferings were ended, we suddenly caught sight of him and of others, the most of them, I may say, tyrants. Footnote 7Cf. Gorg. 525 D-526 A. But there were some of private station, of those who had committed great crimes. And when these supposed that at last they were about to go up and out, the mouth would not receive them, but it bellowed when anyone of the incurably wicked Footnote 8Cf. Gorg. 525 C, and What Plato Said, p. 536, on Phaedo 113 E. Biggs, Christian Platonists, ii. p. 147
At the first assize there will be found those who like Ardiaeus are incurable.
or of those who had not completed their punishment tried to come up.
Book 10