f his limbs were broken or misshapen when
he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in
a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be
distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and
for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is equally true of
the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural
or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view.--And when they
come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places
them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the
soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of
some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his
soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of
perjuries and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he
is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has no straightness,
because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of
all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury
and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously to his
prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves.

Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly
punished ought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to
be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers,
and fear and become better. Those who are improved when they are
punished by gods and men, are those whose sins are curable; and they are
improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering;
for there is no other way in which they can be delivered from their
evil. But they who have been guilty of the worst crimes, and are
incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, as they are
incurable, the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit.
They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them
enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings
as the penalty of their sins--there they are, hanging up as examples,
in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle and a warning to
all unrighteous men who come thither. And among them, as I confidently
affirm, will be found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports of him, and
any other tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as
I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants an