The judgement of souls
SocratesIn all these lives, one who lives justly wins a better lot, one who lives unjustly a worse. No soul returns to the place from which it came before ten thousand years have passed: it takes so long to grow its wings again. But a soul that has pursued philosophy without deceit, or loved boys while practising philosophy, is an exception. If such souls choose this life three times in succession, they regain their wings in the third thousand-year circuit and depart in the three-thousandth year.
The others are judged when their first life ends. After judgement some go to courts beneath the earth and pay a penalty; others, lightened by Justice, live in a place in heaven worthy of the life they led in human form. In the thousandth year both groups arrive to draw lots and choose a second life, and each chooses the one it wishes. There a human soul can enter an animal life, while the soul of one who was once human can return from an animal to a human. For a soul that has never seen the truth will never come into human form.