Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their death, and
when judgment had been given upon them they departed--the good to the
islands of the blest, the bad to the house of vengeance. But as they were
still living, and had their clothes on at the time when they were being
judged, there was favouritism, and Zeus, when he came to the throne, was
obliged to alter the mode of procedure, and try them after death, having
first sent down Prometheus to take away from them the foreknowledge of
death. Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were appointed to be the judges;
Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus for Europe, and Minos was to hold the court
of appeal. Now death is the separation of soul and body, but after death
soul and body alike retain their characteristics; the fat man, the dandy,
the branded slave, are all distinguishable. Some prince or potentate,
perhaps even the great king himself, appears before Rhadamanthus, and he
instantly detects him, though he knows not who he is; he sees the scars of
perjury and iniquity, and sends him away to the house of torment.

For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishment--the curable and
the incurable. The curable are those who are benefited by their
punishment; the incurable are such as Archelaus, who benefit others by
becoming a warning to them. The latter class are generally kings and
potentates; meaner persons, happily for themselves, have not the same power
of doing injustice. Sisyphus and Tityus, not Thersites, are supposed by
Homer to be undergoing everlasting punishment. Not that there is anything
to prevent a great man from being a good one, as is shown by the famous
example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But to Rhadamanthus the
souls are only known as good or bad; they are stripped of their dignities
and preferments; he despatches the bad to Tartarus, labelled either as
curable or incurable, and looks with love and admiration on the soul of
some just one, whom he sends to the islands of the blest. Similar is the
practice of Aeacus; and Minos overlooks them, holding a golden sceptre, as