Loukios, or the Ass (40-42)

But when I saw what was going to happen, I made a strong resolve to save myself from the knife; so, breaking the halter they led me by, I

leaped out and entered at a run the room where the rascals were seated at table with the proprietor of the farm. Running in thither, I pranced about and overturned everything, lamp and tables together. I thought I had invented in this a clever means of safety, and that the proprietor would forthwith order me to be locked up where I could be guarded safely as an unruly ass. But this piece of cleverness brought me into the extremest danger. They thought I was mad, armed themselves with plenty of swords and lances and thick sticks, and got ready to kill me. When I saw what great peril I was in, I ran past them into the room where my masters were to sleep, and, seeing this, they closed the doors carefully from the outside.

As soon as day dawned I received the goddess on my back again, and set out in company with the begging priests, and we came to another village, large and populous, where they announced something even more striking than usual in the way of hocus-pocus-namely, that the goddess would not stay in the house of a man, but would occupy the temple of the most highly honored local goddess they had. The people received the foreign goddess very gladly, and lodged her with their own. To us they assigned lodgings with a poor family. When my masters had made a long stay here they desired to go on to the neighboring

city, and asked their goddess back from the villagers. They entered the sacred precincts themselves, brought her away, set her on my back, and drove me off. But, as luck would have it, the profane wretches had used the occasion of entering this temple to steal a votive vessel of gold, which they carried off hidden under the goddess. As soon as the villagers discovered what had happened they gave chase; when they came near they leaped down from their horses, arrested them in the road, accused them of sacrilege and temple-robbing, and demanded the stolen offering. Searching everywhere they found it in the lap of the goddess. So they bound the wretches, led them back, and cast them into prison. The goddess whom I carried they took and placed in another temple, and the golden vessel they restored to the local goddess.

The next day they decided to sell the prisoners' goods and me, and they disposed of me to a stranger from a neighboring village, a baker by trade. He took possession of me, bought ten bushels of wheat, which he placed on my back, and drove me home to his own house over a hard road. When we arrived he led me into the mill, where I beheld a great crowd of beasts, my fellow-slaves, and a great number of mills, all turned by them, and everything was covered with flour. They left me there in idleness that day,

seeing that I was a new slave, and had come over a hard road carrying a heavy burden. But on the morrow they covered my eyes with a bandage, harnessed me to the shaft of the mill, and then started me up. Although I knew how to work a mill from much experience, I feigned ignorance; but my hopes were vain, for a number of the millers seized clubs and surrounded me; and when I was not expecting it—for I could not see-they pounded me with one accord, and such was the effect of their blows that I suddenly began to whirl round like a top. And I learned by experiment that it will not do for a slave to wait for the master's hand before he does his work.