ions, and
vices or improvement of character. For just as it is likely in the case
of the body that the same feelings and changes will take place, so the
soul, being worked upon by fancies, naturally becomes better or worse
according as it has more confidence or fear."

Sec. XVII. While I was thus speaking, Olympicus interposed, and said, "You
seem in your argument to assume the important assumption of the
permanence of the soul." I replied, "You too concede it, or rather did
concede it. For that the deity deals with everyone according to his
merit has been the assumption of our argument from the beginning." Then
said he, "Do you think that it follows, because the gods notice our
actions and deal with us accordingly, that souls are either altogether
imperishable, or for some time survive dissolution?" Then said I, "Not
exactly so, my good sir, but is the deity so little and so attached to
trifles, if we have nothing divine in ourselves, nothing resembling him,
nothing lasting or sure, but that we all do fade as a leaf, as
Homer[855] says, and die after a brief life, as to take the
trouble--like women that tend and cultivate their gardens of Adonis[856]
in pots--to create souls to flourish in a delicate body having no
stability only for a day, and then to be annihilated at once[857] by any
occasion? And if you please, leaving the other gods out of the question,
consider the case of our god here.[858] Does it seem likely to you that,
if he knew that the souls of the dead perish immediately, and glide out
of their bodies like mist or smoke, he would enjoin many propitiatory
offerings for the departed and honours for the dead, merely cheating and
beguiling those that believed in him? For my own part, I shall never
abandon my belief in the permanence of the soul, unless some second
Hercules[859] shall come and take away the tripod of the Pythian
Priestess, and abolish and destroy the oracle. For as long as many such
oracles are still given, as was said to be given to Corax of Naxos
formerly, it is impious to declare that the soul dies." Then said
Patrocleas, "What oracle do you refer to? Who was this Corax? To me both
the occurrence and name are quite strange." "That cannot be," said I,
"but I am to blame for using the surname instead of the name. For he
that killed Archilochus in battle was called Calondes, it seems, but his
surname was Corax. He was first rejected by the Pythian Priestess, as
having slain a man sacred to th