Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead: The Underworld Sitcom

Minos has finished assigning punishments — Pyriphlegethon, Chimaera, vultures — when Sostratus the bandit asks for a moment. He walks Minos through it step by step: if Fate spun out all his actions, then he was Clotho's instrument, the way a sword is the judge's. Minos, after a long pause, lets him go and quietly asks him not to teach the rest of the dead the same questions. The collection closes on the underworld's justice quietly conceding a point. Cast: Minos, Sostratus.

Agamemnon tries to mediate between Ajax and the memory of Odysseus, who recently came down to consult the oracle and got cut dead. Ajax restates the grievance over Achilles' armour with undimmed heat: Odysseus was the only one who contested it. Agamemnon, weary, points out that Odysseus won fair, in front of Trojan judges. Ajax is unmoved. Not even Athena could order him to forgive. Cast: Agamemnon, Ajax.

Menippus subjects the blind prophet to relentless anatomical questioning about his stretch as a woman: did he have a womb, did it disappear, did the beard come in gradually or all at once. Tiresias retreats to his standard story about settling a dispute among the gods. Menippus diagnoses the professional habit: none of them can manage a straight word. Cast: Menippus, Tiresias.

The three Cynics gather at the entrance to watch the new arrivals. Crates tells the story of his own crossing — a murdered rich man, a satrap demanding his dead horse, an Armenian who couldn't walk on his soft feet. Antisthenes confesses he ran ahead to bag the best seat on the ferry. Then Diogenes interviews a ninety-year-old beggar — no wealth, no health, no family — who is weeping because the light was sweet. Nobody has a comeback. Cast: Diogenes, Antisthenes, Crates, The Old Pauper.

Menippus asks Chiron why a god chose to die. Chiron explains, calmly: immortality became repetition, and pleasure depends on going without. The underworld is fine — equality is democratic, no hunger, no thirst. Menippus, gently, points out that sameness down here will eventually wear him out too, and there's no third option on offer. Chiron asks what to do. Menippus tells him: be content. Cast: Menippus, Chiron.

Nireus, Homer's handsomest Greek, demands that Menippus judge him better-looking than ugly Thersites. Menippus inspects both skulls and finds Nireus's the more brittle, but otherwise indistinguishable. The famous beauty is outraged. Thersites is, for the first time in his existence, satisfied. Cast: Nireus, Menippus, Thersites.

Mausolus claims top billing on the basis of his kingdom, his looks, and the largest tomb in the known world. Diogenes points out that the tomb is in Halicarnassus and Mausolus is here — so the marble isn't actually doing him any good, except possibly weighing him down. Diogenes doesn't know whether he has a tomb at all. He wasn't interested. Cast: Diogenes, Mausolus.

Protesilaus petitions Pluto for a single day back in the light — not for life, but for the bride he left on his wedding night. Pluto cites precedent against it; Protesilaus cites Eurydice and Alcestis. Persephone, quietly, solves the problem: have Hermes touch him with the wand and restore him to the bridegroom he was. Pluto agrees. One day. Cast: Protesilaus, Pluto, Persephone.

Charon tries to collect from Menippus, who has nothing, did not bring anything, bailed the boat himself, and was the only passenger not crying. Hermes refuses to cover the fare. Charon threatens the pole; Menippus offers to crack his skull. They settle on lupins and the leftovers of Hecate's supper, and Menippus walks off whistling. Cast: Charon, Menippus, Hermes.

Menippus, dog to dog, gets the inside story from Cerberus. Socrates was brave at the threshold — for the audience — and then wept like an infant once he saw the dark. Cerberus extends the verdict to all of them: bold outside, undone inside. Only Menippus and Diogenes came down laughing, of their own accord. Cast: Menippus, Cerberus.

Aeacus walks Menippus through the underworld's celebrity wing. Heroes are dust. Pythagoras immediately asks for beans. Empedocles arrives charred from Etna and blames melancholy; Menippus corrects him: vanity. Socrates is across the way, still chatting up beautiful young men. He is the one philosopher who is genuinely at home. Cast: Menippus, Aeacus, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates.

Protesilaus is found strangling Helen at the gate. Aeacus calmly redirects him: blame Menelaus. Menelaus redirects him to Paris. Paris pleads Eros, that mandatory god. Aeacus answers on Eros's behalf and points out that Protesilaus jumped first onto the Trojan beach, recklessly, all by himself. Protesilaus, cornered, blames Fate — which Aeacus, fairly, accepts. Cast: Aeacus, Protesilaus, Menelaus, Paris.

Menippus asks Hermes for the celebrity tour — Hyacinthus, Narcissus, Nireus, Helen. Hermes points out a skull. Menippus is unimpressed: this is what a thousand ships were filled for. Hermes, on the clock, briefly defends Homer's verdict, then excuses himself to collect the next batch of dead. Cast: Menippus, Hermes.

Menippus finds Tantalus weeping by the lake and asks the practical question: what does a soul without a body need a drink for? Tantalus explains that this is precisely the punishment — to thirst as though he had a body. Menippus, gently and without mockery, observes that the problem appears to be the wanting, not the water. The pathos is real; the practicality is the comedy. Cast: Menippus, Tantalus.

Diogenes spots Heracles in the underworld and asks the obvious question: how can the son of Zeus be a corpse? Heracles explains he is only the shade — the real Heracles is upstairs married to Hebe. Diogenes ties him in metaphysical knots until there are three Heracleses and one extra father to account for. Heracles reaches for his bow. Cast: Diogenes, Heracles.

Achilles tells Antilochus, plainly and quietly, that he regrets the choice: the glory is useless and the dead are all equal under the same gloom. Antilochus does not indulge him — he points out that everyone here is in the same situation, including Heracles and Meleager, and that the others bear it in silence rather than make wishes that get laughed at. The pathos is real. Cast: Antilochus, Achilles.

Alexander's father takes him through the campaign, item by item, with paternal exasperation: Medes in soft slippers were not real opponents, the kandys and tiara were embarrassing, the dinner-party murders unforgivable. The one thing Philip approves of is Alexander's restraint with Darius's family. The being-a-god routine, Philip notes, fell apart every time Alexander got wounded. Cast: Philip, Alexander.

Diogenes greets Alexander with 'so you're dead too' and proceeds to dismantle the divine-parentage story, the unburied corpse still lying in Babylon, and the Egyptian godhood Ptolemy is allegedly arranging. Alexander weeps about Aristotle's flattery; Diogenes prescribes long draughts from Lethe and points out that Cleitus and Callisthenes are already heading this way. Cast: Diogenes, Alexander.

A formal set-piece in Minos's court: Alexander and Hannibal argue precedence, with real competitive heat. Hannibal makes the most self-made case — no divine parents, no fake gods, just the Alps and the Po and rings measured in bushels. Alexander answers with the Granicus, the Ocean, and Porus. Scipio steps in late, concedes to Alexander, and quietly demolishes Hannibal's claim. Minos ranks them and moves on. Cast: Alexander, Hannibal, Minos, Scipio.

Crates tells Diogenes about two cousins, Moerichus and Aristeas, who spent years buttering each other up for mutual inheritance and then died on the same day in the same shipwreck. The estates went to relatives who hadn't seen it coming. Diogenes and Crates compare notes on the only inheritance that matters: wild-olive sticks, satchels, lupins, and plain speech. Cast: Crates, Diogenes.

Charon's boat is overloaded, so Hermes runs a stripping inspection on the gangway. Lampichus the tyrant surrenders his diadem, cruelty, and rage item by item; Damasias the wrestler sheds his flesh and victory wreaths; Craton gives up the family monument; an unnamed philosopher is found to be packing gold, vices, and a five-pound beard, which Menippus chops off with an axe. The rhetorician complies in one line. Cast: Charon, Hermes, Menippus, Lampichus, Damasias, Craton, The Philosopher, The Rhetorician.

Simylus is astonished to learn that Polystratus, the notorious tightwad he remembered, spent his last thirty years being fawned over by lovers — rich, bald, dribbling — competing for a place in the will. Polystratus left everything to a twenty-year-old Phrygian he'd just bought, who is now considered better-born than Codrus. Simylus, eventually, approves. Cast: Simylus, Polystratus.

Cnemon explains to Damasias how he drew up a public will leaving everything to wealthy childless Hermolaus, expecting reciprocity. The roof then fell in on Cnemon. Hermolaus has the lot. A short, brisk farce: Cnemon out-schemed himself. Cast: Cnemon, Damasias.

Callidemides tells Zenophantus, who himself died choking at his patron's table, how he died: he poisoned a cup for old Ptoeodorus, the wine-pourer muddled the order, and Callidemides drank his own poison. Ptoeodorus laughed. Zenophantus also laughs, then suggests, gently, that the main road would have got him to the inheritance more safely. Cast: Zenophantus, Callidemides.

Terpsion arrives at thirty, worn out from worrying about whether ninety-year-old Thucritus would ever finally die. Pluto explains, kindly, that the system is more intelligent than the legacy-hunters give it credit for: the public loves watching them get buried first. Terpsion, slowly, recognises he was the punchline. He still hopes a few rivals predecease Thucritus too. Cast: Terpsion, Pluto.

Pluto has an idea for Hermes: let rich, childless Eucrates live another ninety years, and fetch his legacy-hunters down ahead of him. The flatterers have already divvied up the estate in their heads; the punchline is that Eucrates will outlive every one of them and attend their funerals looking younger every year. Hermes approves. Cast: Pluto, Hermes.

Hermes sits Charon down to reconcile the books: anchor, oar-strap, sail needle, wax, nails. Charon can't pay until business picks up — meaning, until there's a plague or a decent war. Hermes notes for the record that the modern dead are softer than the old breed: poisoned by wives, bloated by luxury, and almost all here over money. Cast: Hermes, Charon.

Menippus interrogates two hero-oracles, Trophonius and Amphilochus, about the franchise they're still running upstairs. Trophonius gamely defends his status as a 'hero' — part man, part god — until Menippus points out that one half is allegedly off prophesying in Boeotia while the other half is visibly a corpse. The metaphysics do not survive the conversation. Cast: Menippus, Amphilochus, Trophonius.

Croesus files a formal noise complaint with Pluto: Menippus keeps laughing while he and Midas and Sardanapalus are trying to lament properly. Pluto, weary, hears both sides. Menippus cheerfully promises to keep singing 'Know thyself' as a refrain over their wailing forever. Cast: Croesus, Pluto, Menippus, Midas, Sardanapalus.

Diogenes catches Polydeuces on his way back to the upper world and loads him with errands: invite Menippus down for better laughs, tell the philosophers to shut up, tell the rich to stop hoarding, tell the beautiful that beauty is dust. Polydeuces takes it all in stride — until Diogenes starts in on the Spartans, at which point he draws a line. A brisk opening: the show's worldview delivered as a delivery list. Cast: Diogenes, Polydeuces.