15
After making our way past these people also, we entered the Acherusian Plain, where we found the demigods and the fair women and the whole crowd of the dead, living by nations and by clans, some of them ancient and mouldy, and, as Homer says, “impalpable,” while others were still well preserved and substantial, particularly the Egyptians, thanks to the durability of their embalming process. It was not at ail easy, though, to tell them apart, for all, without exception, become precisely alike when their bones are bare. However, with some difficulty and by dint of long study we made them out. But they were lying one atop of another, ill-defined, unidentified, retaining no longer any trace of earthly beauty. So, with many skeletons lying together, all alike staring horridly and vacuously and baring their teeth, I questioned myself how I could distinguish Thersites from handsome Nireus, or the mendicant Irus from the King of the Phaeacians, or the cook Pyrrhias from Agamemnon; for none of their former means of identification abode with them, but their bones were all alike, undefined, unlabelled, and unable ever again to be distinguished by anyone.
