contradicted him, but all dismissed their suspicions entirely from their
minds and prayed to Quirinus, worshipping him as a god.

This account resembles the Greek legends of Aristeas of Proconnesus, and
that of Kleomedes of Astypalaea. The story goes that Aristeas died in a
fuller's shop, and that when his friends came to fetch his body it had
disappeared; then some persons who had just returned from travel said
that they had met Aristeas walking along the road to Kroton. Kleomedes,
we are told, was a man of unusual size and strength, but stupid and
half-crazy, who did many deeds of violence, and at last in a boy's
school struck and broke in two the column that supported the roof, and
brought it down. As the boys were killed, Kleomedes, pursued by the
people, got into a wooden chest, and shut down the lid, holding in
inside so that many men together were not able to force it open. They
broke open the chest, and found no man in it, dead or alive. Astonished
at this, they sent an embassy to the oracle at Delphi, to whom the
Pythia answered,

"Last of the heroes is Kleomedes of Astypalaea."

And it also related that the corpse of Alkmena when it was being carried
out for burial, disappeared, and a stone was found lying on the bier in
its place. And many such stories are told, in which, contrary to reason,
the earthly parts of our bodies are described as being deified together
with the spiritual parts. It is wicked and base to deny that virtue is a
spiritual quality, but again it is foolish to mix earthly with heavenly
things.

We must admit, speaking with due caution, that, as Pindar has it, the
bodies of all men follow overpowering Death, but there remains a living
spirit, the image of eternity, for it alone comes from heaven. Thence it
comes, and thither it returns again, not accompanied by the body, but
only when it is most thoroughly separated and cleansed from it, and
become pure and incorporeal. This is the pure spirit which Herakleitus
calls the best, which darts through the body like lightning through a
cloud, whereas that which is clogged by the body is like a dull, cloudy
exhalation, hard to loose and free from the bonds of the body. There is
no reason, therefore, for supposing that the bodies of good men rise up
into heaven, which is contrary to nature; but we must believe that men's
virtues and their spirits most certainly, naturally and rightly proceed
from mankind to the heroes, and from them to the ge