The River Styx

There are diverse regions in the hollows on the face of the globe everywhere.

• Some of them deeper and more extended than that which we inhabit.
• Others deeper but with a narrower opening than ours, and some are shallower and also wider.

All have numerous perforations.

There are passages broad and narrow in the interior of the earth, connecting them with one another.

There flows out of and into them. This is similar to:

• basins, a vast tide of water
• huge subterranean streams of perennial rivers
• springs hot and cold
• a great fire
• great rivers of fire
• streams of liquid mud, thin or thick (like the rivers of mud in Sicily
• the lava streams which follow them).

The regions about which they happen to flow are filled up with them.

There is a swinging or see-saw in the interior of the earth which moves all this up and down.

This is caused by a chasm which is the vastest of them all. It pierces right through the whole earth.

This is that chasm which Homer describes in the words:

‘Far off, where is the inmost depth beneath the earth;’

He in other places, and many other poets, have called Tartarus.

The see-saw is caused by the streams flowing into and out of this chasm.

They each have the nature of the soil through which they flow.

This is because the streams are always flowing in and out. This is because the watery element has no bed or bottom, but is swinging and surging up and down.

The surrounding wind and air do the same. They follow the water up and down, here and there, over the earth.

This is like how respiration the air is always in process of inhalation and exhalation.

The wind swings with the water in and out, producing fearful and irresistible blasts.

When the waters retire with a rush into the lower parts of the earth, they flow through the earth in those regions, and fill them up like water raised by a pump.

Then when they leave those regions and rush back here, they again fill the hollows here.

When these are filled, flow through subterranean channels and find their way to their several places, forming seas, and lakes, and rivers, and springs.

Thence they again enter the earth, some of them making a long circuit into many lands, others going to a few places and not so distant.

Again they fall into Tartarus, some at a point a good deal lower than that at which they rose, and others not much lower, but all in some degree lower than the point from which they came.

Some burst forth again on the opposite side, and some on the same side.

Some as wind around the earth with one or many folds like the coils of a serpent. These descend as far as they can, but always return and fall into the chasm.

The rivers flowing in either direction can descend only to the centre and no further, for opposite to the rivers is a precipice.

Now these rivers are many, and mighty, and diverse. There are 4 principal ones.

1. Oceanus

This is the greatest and outermost. It flows round the earth in a circle.

2. Acheron

This flows in the opposite direction of Oceanus.

It passes under the earth through desert places into the Acherusian lake.

This is the lake to the shores of which the souls of the many go when they are dead, and after waiting an appointed time, which is to some a longer and to some a shorter time, they are sent back to be born again as animals.

3. Pyriphlegethon

This river passes out between the two. Near the place of outlet, it pours into a vast region of fire and forms a lake larger than the Mediterranean Sea, boiling with water and mud.

Proceeding muddy and turbid, and winding about the earth, comes, among other places, to the extremities of the Acherusian Lake, but mingles not with the waters of the lake, and after making many coils about the earth plunges into Tartarus at a deeper level.

It throws up jets of fire in different parts of the earth.

4. Cocytus

This goes out on the opposite side.

It falls first of all into a wild and savage region, which is all of a dark-blue colour, like lapis lazuli.

This is called the Stygian river. It falls into and forms the Lake Styx. After falling into the lake and receiving strange powers in the waters, passes under the earth, winding round in the opposite direction.

It comes near the Acherusian lake from the opposite side to Pyriphlegethon.

The water of this river too mingles with no other, but flows round in a circle and falls into Tartarus over against Pyriphlegethon.

When the dead arrive at the place to which the genius of each severally guides them, first of all, they have sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously or not.

Those who appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to the river Acheron. They embark in any vessels which they may find, are carried in them to the lake.

There they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and having suffered the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, they are absolved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds, each of them according to his deserts.

But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like—such are hurled into Tartarus which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out.

Some people commit great but remediable crimes such as doing violence to a father or a mother in a moment of anger.

They have repented for the remainder of their lives, or, who have taken the life of another under the like extenuating circumstances.

These are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth.

• Mere homicides go by way of Cocytus
• Parricides and matricides go by Pyriphlegethon

They are borne to the Acherusian lake. There they lift up their voices and call on the victims they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to be kind to them, and let them come out into the lake.

If they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles.

But if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged. That is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges.

Those too who have been pre-eminent for holiness of life are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth.

Of these, such as have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer still which may not be described, and of which the time would fail me to tell.

Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do that we may obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize, and the hope great!

A man of sense should not say that my description of the soul and her mansions is exactly true.

But the soul is immortal. And so he may think properly that something of the kind is true.

Let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who having cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him and working harm rather than good, has sought after the pleasures of knowledge; and has arrayed the soul, not in some foreign attire, but in her own proper jewels, temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth—in these adorned she is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her hour comes.

You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time or other. For me, the voice of fate calls.

Soon I must drink the poison. I should take a bath first so that the women may not have the trouble of washing my body after I am dead.