which we inhabit: but all are connected by passages and perforations in
the interior of the earth. And there is one huge chasm or opening called
Tartarus, into which streams of fire and water and liquid mud are ever
flowing; of these small portions find their way to the surface and form
seas and rivers and volcanoes. There is a perpetual inhalation and
exhalation of the air rising and falling as the waters pass into the depths
of the earth and return again, in their course forming lakes and rivers,
but never descending below the centre of the earth; for on either side the
rivers flowing either way are stopped by a precipice. These rivers are
many and mighty, and there are four principal ones, Oceanus, Acheron,
Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus. Oceanus is the river which encircles the
earth; Acheron takes an opposite direction, and after flowing under the
earth through desert places, at last reaches the Acherusian lake,--this is
the river at which the souls of the dead await their return to earth.
Pyriphlegethon is a stream of fire, which coils round the earth and flows
into the depths of Tartarus. The fourth river, Cocytus, is that which is
called by the poets the Stygian river, and passes into and forms the lake
Styx, from the waters of which it gains new and strange powers. This
river, too, falls into Tartarus.

The dead are first of all judged according to their deeds, and those who
are incurable are thrust into Tartarus, from which they never come out.
Those who have only committed venial sins are first purified of them, and
then rewarded for the good which they have done. Those who have committed
crimes, great indeed, but not unpardonable, are thrust into Tartarus, but
are cast forth at the end of a year by way of Pyriphlegethon or Cocytus,
and these carry them as far as the Acherusian lake, where they call upon
their victims to let them come out of the rivers into the lake. And if
they prevail, then they are let out and their sufferings cease: if not,
they are borne unceasingly into Tartarus and back again, until they at last