Note 159 — Chapter VII

But the Hellenic literati remained grateful to their colleague and patron. In the Apollonius–romance (v. 41) the great sage from Cappadocia refuses Vespasian the honour of his company, because he had made the Hellenes slaves, just as they were on the point of again speaking Ionic or Doric, and writes to him various billets of delectable coarseness. A man of Soloi, who broke his neck and then became alive again, and on this occasion saw all that Dante beheld, reported that he had met with Nero’s soul, into which the agents of the world–judgment had driven flaming nails, and were employed in turning it into a viper; but a heavenly voice had interposed, and ordered them to transform the man—on account of his Philhellenism when on earth—into a less repulsive animal (Plutarch, De sera num. vind., at the end).