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DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD.
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his person of scars, healed over and almost obliterated. He explains that these are the traces of great faults committed in his youth through ignorance, which by the help of philosophy he has amended in his maturer years. He is acquitted, and bid to take his place among the just, after he shall have given evidence against the tyrant Megapenthes. Micyllus, the poor cobbler, who has had few temptations, shows no marks at all. But when Megapenthes, hanging back in terror from the scrutiny, is hurled by Tisiphone into the presence of the judge, Cyniscus has a terrible list of crimes to charge against him. He has abused his power and wealth to the most atrocious deeds of lust and cruelty. In vain he tries to deny the accusations: his Bed and his Lamp, the unwilling witnesses of his debaucheries, are summoned, by a bold and striking figure of impersonation, to bear their evidence against him; and when he is stripped for examination, his whole person is found to be livid with the marks imprinted on it by his crimes. The only question is what punishment shall be assigned him. The Cynic philosopher begs to suggest a new and fitting one.

Cyniscus. It is the custom, I believe, for all your dead here to drink the water of Lethe?

Rhadamanthus. Certainly.

Cyn. Then let this man alone not be permitted to taste it.

Rhad. And why so?

Cyn. So shall he suffer the bitterest punishment in the recollection of all that he has been and done,