Then we have the story of Thrasyllus, as told by Apuleius,[75] which is thoroughly modern in its romantic tone.  He was in love with the wife of his friend, Tlepolemus, whom he treacherously murdered while out hunting.  His crime is not discovered, and he begins to press his suit for her hand to her parents almost immediately.  The widow’s grief is heart-rending.  She refuses food and altogether neglects herself, hoping that the gods will hear her prayer and allow her to rejoin her husband.  At last, however, she is persuaded by her parents, at Thrasyllus’s instance, to give ordinary care to her own health.  But she passes her days before the likeness of the deceased, which she has had made in the image of that of the god Liber, paying it divine honours and finding her one comfort in thus fomenting her own sufferings.

When she hears of Thrasyllus’s suit, she rejects it with scorn and horror; and then at night her dead husband appears to her and describes exactly what happened, and begs her to avenge him.  She requires no urging, and almost immediately decides on the course that her vengeance shall take.  She has Thrasyllus informed that she cannot come to any definite decision till her year of mourning is over.  Meanwhile, however, she consents to receive his visits at night, and promises to arrange for her old nurse to let him in.  Overjoyed at his success, Thrasyllus comes at the hour appointed, and is duly admitted by the old nurse.  The house is in complete darkness, but he is given a cup of wine and left to himself.  The wine has been drugged, however, and he sinks into a deep slumber.  Then Tlepolemus’s widow comes and triumphs over her enemy, who has fallen so easily into her hands.  She will not kill him as he killed her husband.  “Neither the peace of death nor the joy of life shall be yours,” she exclaims.  “You shall wander like a restless shade between Orcus and the light of day....  The blood of your eyes I shall offer up at the tomb of my beloved Tlepolemus, and with them I shall propitiate his blessed spirit.”  At these words she takes a pin from her hair and blinds him.  Then she rushes through the streets, with a sword in her hand to frighten anyone who might try to stop her, to her husband’s tomb, where, after telling all her story, she slays herself.

Thither Thrasyllus followed her, declaring that he dedicated himself to the Manes of his own free-will.  He carefully shut the tomb upon himself, and starved himself to death.

This is by far the best of the stories in which we find a vision of the dead in sleep playing an important part; but there is also the well-known tale of the Byzantine maiden Cleonice.[76] She was of high birth, but had the misfortune to attract the attention of the Spartan Pausanias, who was in command of the united Greek fleet at the Hellespont after the battle of Plataea.  Like many Spartans, when first brought into contact with real luxury after his frugal upbringing