Dialogi mortuorum

Books

• Διογένης καὶ Πολυδεύκης

  Diogenes and Pollux discuss life after death in the underworld, where the Cynic philosopher finds the afterlife perfectly suited to his ascetic philosophy.

  17 lines
• Πλούτων κατὰ Μενίππος

  Croesus, Midas, and Sardanapalus lament their lost wealth in Hades, while the dead mock their attachment to earthly riches.

  15 lines
• Μένιππος, Ἀμφίλοχος καὶ Τροφώνιος

  Menippus interrogates the famous dead and finds them stripped of every pretension, their beauty and power reduced to identical skulls.

  9 lines
• Ἑρμῆς καὶ Χάρων.

  Hermes and Charon discuss the vanity of human wishes as they ferry another boatload of souls across the Styx.

  17 lines
• Πλούτων καὶ Ἑρμῆς.

  A newly dead man protests the journey to Hades, desperately clinging to the life he can no longer have.

  9 lines
• Τερψίων καὶ Πλούτων.

  The dead debate which king was greater — Alexander, Hannibal, or Scipio — while Minos judges their competing claims.

  11 lines
• Ζηνόφαντος καὶ Καλλιδημίδης.

  Menippus laughs at the mourning rituals of the living, finding their grief as absurd from below as their ambitions were from above.

  9 lines
• Κνήμων καὶ Δάμνιππος.

  Hermes auctions off the lives of the dead, revealing the true worthlessness of earthly fame and fortune.

  9 lines
• Σιμύλος καὶ Πολύστρατος.

  A philosopher arrives in Hades and discovers that his elaborate metaphysical system is entirely useless in the realm of the dead.

  27 lines
• Χάρων καὶ Ἑρμῆς καὶ Μένιππος καὶ Κράτων.

  Charon complains about the overcrowding in his ferry as wars and plagues send the dead flooding into the underworld.

  63 lines
• Κράτης καὶ Διογένης.

  Ajax and Agamemnon continue their quarrel from the Trojan War, proving that death resolves nothing for the truly stubborn.

  13 lines
• Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀννίβας, Μίνως καὶ Σκηπίων.

  Philip of Macedon is lectured by Alexander, his son, whose boundless ambition Philip can now critique from the safety of death.

  20 lines
• Διογένης καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος.

  Diogenes encounters Alexander the Great in Hades and takes savage pleasure in seeing the world-conqueror reduced to equality with a beggar.

  16 lines
• Φίλιππος καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος.

  Hermes guides a reluctant soul to Hades, dealing with excuses, bribes, and philosophical objections to mortality.

  12 lines
• Ἀχιλλεὺς καὶ Ἀντίλοχος.

  The beauty of Helen of Troy has vanished in death, and her skull — indistinguishable from any other — launches a meditation on the futility of desire.

  5 lines
• Διογένης καὶ Ἡρακλῆς.

  A rich man and a poor man compare their fates in Hades, discovering that death is the great equaliser they were promised.

  21 lines
• Μένιππος καὶ Τάνταλος.

  Menippus mocks Tantalus for his eternal punishment, suggesting that the torment is largely self-inflicted through expectation.

  11 lines
• Μένιππος καὶ Ἑρμῆς.

  Hermes catalogues the possessions that the newly dead must surrender before boarding Charon's ferry.

  10 lines
• Αἰακὸς, Πρωτεσίλεως, Μενέλαος, καὶ Πάρις.

  A tyrant arrives in Hades and finds that his former subjects are now his equals — and they have long memories.

  11 lines
• Μένιππος, Αἰακός καὶ Πυθαγόρας.

  The philosophers dispute precedence in Hades, their rival schools of thought equally irrelevant in the democracy of death.

  46 lines
• Μένιππος καὶ Κέρβερος.

  Crates and Diogenes trade cynical observations about the latest arrivals from the world above.

  6 lines
• Χάρων, Ἑρμῆς, καὶ Μένιππος.

  Charon threatens to capsize the boat unless the dead surrender their remaining attachments to earthly identity.

  27 lines
• Πρωτεσίλεως, Πλούτων, καὶ Περσεφόνη.

  A legacy-hunter arrives in Hades to discover that the wealthy man whose death he celebrated had left him nothing.

  16 lines
• Διογένης καὶ Μαύσωλος.

  Minos judges the dead with an eye that penetrates all disguises, finding virtue in unexpected places and vice in the most respectable.

  7 lines
• Νιρεὺς καὶ Θερσίτης καὶ Μένιππος.

  Nireus and Thersites compare their appearances in death, where Homer's handsomest and ugliest Greeks are now indistinguishable.

  12 lines
• Μένιππος καὶ Χείρων.

  Menippus provides a tour of the underworld's notable residents, each illustrating a different folly of human ambition.

  13 lines
• Διογένης καὶ Ἀντισθένης καὶ Κράτης.

  Protesilaus, the first Greek to die at Troy, reflects on whether his brief moment of glory was worth the eternity of death that followed.

  21 lines
• Μένιππος καὶ Τειρεσίας.

  Diogenes dispatches a message to the living through a newly arrived shade, warning them that everything they value is worthless.

  15 lines
• Αἶας καὶ Ἀγαμέμνων.

  The final reckoning of the dialogues brings together the themes of vanity, death, and the comic futility of human striving.

  8 lines
• Μίνως καὶ Σώστρατος.

  Lucian's parting meditation on mortality gathers the wisdom of the underworld into a single devastating observation about life and death.

  17 lines