Alces′tis [Alcestis], wife of Admetus, who, to save her husband’s life, died in his stead, and was restored to life by Hercules. […] She was present at births, and held the distaff from which was spun the thread of life. […] She spun the thread of life. […] Vulcan made her of clay, and gave her life. […] A name of Apollo, signifying light and life.

Thus the private life of the ancient Greeks and Romans may be more fully elucidated. […] Their mode of life exactly resembles that of the princes and nobles of the heroic ages. […] It is thus that mythology changes with modes of life. […] Extending them so far as to restore the dead to life, he drew on himself the enmity of Hades, on whose complaint Zeus with his thunder deprived him of life. […] At the time when it was become the mode to exalt the characters of philosophers by ascribing to them all kinds of wonderful works, the sophist Eunapius told the following curious legend in his life of Jamblichus, the author of as marvellous a life of Pythagoras.