the lake which the river forms by
its discharge, Styx. This river having fallen in here, and received
awful power in the water, sinking beneath the earth, proceeds, folding
itself round, in an opposite course to Pyriphlegethon, and meets it in
the Acherusian lake from a contrary direction. Neither does the water of
this river mingle with any other, but it, too, having gone round in a
circle, discharges itself into Tartarus opposite to Pyriphlegethon. Its
name, as the poets say, is Cocytus.

"These things being thus constituted, when the dead arrive at the place
to which their demon leads them severally, first of all they are judged,
as well those who have lived well and piously as those who have not. And
those who appear to have passed a middle kind of life, proceeding to
Acheron, and embarking in the vessels they have, on these arrive at the
lake, and there dwell, and when they are purified, and have suffered
punishment for the iniquities they may have committed, they are set
free, and each receives the reward of his good deeds, according to his
deserts: but those who appear to be incurable, through the magnitude of
their offences, either from having committed many and great sacrileges,
or many unjust and lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these a
suitable destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth.

"But those who appear to have been guilty of curable yet great offences,
such as those who through anger have committed any violence against
father or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life in a state
of penitence, or they who have become homicides in a similar manner,
these must of necessity fall into Tartarus, but after they have fallen,
and have been there for a year, the wave casts them forth, the homicides
into Cocytus, but the parricides and matricides into Pyriphlegethon: but
when, being borne along, they arrive at the Acherusian lake, there they
cry out to and invoke, some those whom they slew, others those whom they
injured, and invoking them they entreat and implore them to suffer them
to go out into the lake, and to receive them, and if they persuade them
they go out and are freed from their sufferings; but if not, they are
borne back to Tartarus, and thence again to the rivers, and they do not
cease from suffering this until they have persuaded those whom they have
injured, for this sentence was imposed on them by the judges.

"But those who are found to have lived an eminent