Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

The Delay of the Deity
are allowed to play at dice or draughts, though the
noose is all the while dangling above their heads.
10. Moreover, what reason is there for saying
that those who lie in prison under sentence of death
do not receive their punishment until they are de
capitated? or that he who has drunk the hemlockjuice,
but is still walking about waiting for the heavi
ness to get into his legs, until he is seized by anaes
thesia and the rigor of death, (has not received his?)
If we regard the consummation of the punishment as
the punishment itself, we overlook the intervening
sufferings and fears, as well as the apprehension and
regret with which every evil-doer is harassed. Is not
this just as if we were to say of the fish that has swal
lowed the hook, that it is not caught until we see it
broiled or cut up by the cooks? Every one who has
committed a crime is firmly held by justice and has
then and there fastened within himself, like a bait
the sweet morsel of iniquity. Having an avenging
conscience in his breast, Like a frantic tunny he
spins round in the sea. For the well-known reckless
audacity and over-confidence of vice is active and
ardent until the evil deed has been done; then the
passion subsiding like a wind, sinks down weak and
cowed under the weight of fears and superstitions; so
that it is entirely
in accordance with the event and
the truth that Stesichorus attributes a dream to
Klytemnestra in about these words: She thought a
dragon with gory head approached her, and from it
Pleisthenades came forth. For visions by night and
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