(Indignis quoque confertur.Herostratus.)
2. Then it vexed me much that they admitted as many evil-doers (robbers, tyrants, adulterers, murderers, incendiaries, and so forth) as they did good men. Then I understood that this could but encourage the perverse in their vices; and, indeed, it befell that one arrived claiming immortality who, asked what deed worthy of immortal memory he had done, replied that he had destroyed the most glorious thing in the world of which he knew; for he had purposely burnt down a temple on which seventeen kingdoms had during three centuries bestowed much labour and expense, and wrought its destruction in one day. Then this man Censura was amazed at such infamous audacity, and, judging him unworthy, would not allow him to proceed. But the Lady Fortuna came and ordered that he should be admitted. Then, encouraged by this example, others enumerated all the awful deeds which they had committed. One said that he had shed as much human blood as he could; another imagined a new form of blasphemy; another said that he had sentenced God to death; yet another said that he had torn down the sky from the firmament, and immersed it in an abyss; yet another had founded a new association of incendiaries and murderers through which the race of men was to be destroyed, and so forth. And all these were allowed to mount upward, which, I may say, greatly displeased me.
