Toxaris, or Friendship (11-15)

MNESIPPUS It is no mean undertaking, Toxaris, to engage in single combat with a man-at-arms like yourself, equipped with very accurate and well-sharpened shafts of speech. Nevertheless, I shall not so ignobly betray of a sudden the whole Greek cause as to yield you the field. It would be shocking if, when they two defeated as many Scythians as are indicated by the stories and by those ancient paintings in your country which you described with such histrionic expressiveness a little while ago, all the Greeks, including so many peoples and so many cities, should lose by default to you alone. If that should take place, it would be fitting for me to be docked, not of my right hand, as your people are, but of my tongue. But ought we to set ourselves a limit to the number of these exploits of friendship, or should we hold that the more of them a man can tell, the better off he is as regards the victory?

TOXARIS By no means; let us prescribe that the victory does not in this case reside with the greater numbers. No, if yours turn out to be better and more telling ‘than mine, though equal in number, they will obviously inflict more serious wounds upon me and I shall succumb to your blows more quickly.

MNESIPPUS You are right, so let us settle how many will do. Five, I should think, for each. .

TOXARIS I think so too; and you may speak first, after taking oath that you will assuredly tell the truth. Merely to make up such tales is not at all hard, and there is no obvious means of disproof. But if you should take your oath, it would not be right to disbelieve you.

MNESIPPUS We shall do so, if you really think an oath is at all essential. But which of our gods will satisfy you? Zeus Philios?

TOXARIS Yes indeed; and I will take the oath of my own country for you when I myself speak.

MNESIPPUS Well then, as Zeus Philios is my witness, I solemnly swear that whatever I shall tell you I will say either from my own knowledge or from information obtained of others with all the accuracy that was possible, without contributing any dramaturgy on my own part. And the first friendship of which I shall give you an account is that of Agathocles and Deinias, which has become far-famed among the Ionians. Agathocles of Samos, to whom I refer, lived not long ago, and was peerless in friendship, as he proved, but otherwise not at all superior to the general run of Samians qjther in family or in means.

He and Deinias, the son of Lyson, of Ephesus, were friends from their boyhood. But Deinias turned out to be enormously rich; and as was natural in one whose wealth was new, he had many others about him who were well enough as boon companions and agreeable associates, but as far as could be from friends.

Well, for a time Agathocles was put to the test among them, associating with them and drinking with them, though he took little pleasure in that kind of pastime; and Deinias held him in no higher esteem than his toadies. But at length Agathocles began to give offence by rebuking him frequently, and. came to be considered a nuisance by reminding him always of his ancestors and admonishing him to keep what his father had acquired with much labour and left to him. Consequently Deinias no longer even took him along when he caroused about the town, but used to go alone with those others, trying to escape the eye of Agathocles.

In course of time those flatterers persuaded the poor fellow that Charicleia was in love with him. She was the wife of Demonax, a distinguished man, foremost among the Ephesians in public affairs. Notes from the woman kept coming into his house; also, half-faded wreaths, apples with a piece bitten out, and every other contrivance with which gobetweens lay siege to young men, gradually working up their love-affairs for them and inflaming them at the start with the thought that they are adored (for this is extremely seductive, especially to those who think themselves handsome), until they fall unawares into the net.

Charicleia was a dainty piece of femininity, but

outrageously meretricious, giving herself to anyone who happened to meet her, even if he should want her at very little cost; if you but looked at her, she nodded at once, and there was no fear that Charicleia might perhaps be reluctant. She was clever too, in every way, and an artist comparable with any courtesan you please at alluring a lover, bringing him into complete subjection when he was still of two minds, and when at last he was in her toils working him up and fanning his flame, now by anger, now by flattery, soon by scorn and by pretending to have an inclination for someone else. She was every bit of her thoroughly sophisticated, that woman, and plentifully armed with siege-engines to train upon her lovers.

This, then, was the ally whom Deinias’ toadies at that time enlisted against the boy, and they constantly played up to rer lead, unitedly thrusting him into the affair with Charicleia. And she, who already had given many young fellows a bad fall, * who, times without number, had played at being in love, who had ruined vast estates, versatile and thoroughly practised mischief-maker that she was— once she got into her clutches a simple youngster who had no experience of such enginery, she would not let him out of her talons but encompassed him all round about and pierced him through and through, until, when at last she had him wholly in her power, she not only lost her own life through her quarry but caused poor Deinias misfortunes without end.

From the very first she kept baiting him with those notes, sending her maid continually, making out that she had cried, that she had lain awake,

and at last that she would hang herself for love, poor girl, until the blessed simpleton became convinced that he was handsome and adored by the women of Ephesus, and of course made a rendezvous after many entreaties.

After that, naturally, it was bound to be an easy matter for him to be captured by a beautiful woman, who knew how to please him with her company, to weep on occasion, to sigh piteously in the midst of her conversation, to lay hold of him when he was at last going away, to run up to him when he came in, to adorn herself in the way that would best please him, and of course to sing and to strum the lyre.

All this she had brought into play against Deinias; and then, when she discerned that he was in a bad way, having by that time become thoroughly permeated with love and pliable, she employed another artifice to complete the poor boy’s undoing. She pretended to be with child by him (this too is an effective way to fire a sluggish lover); moreover, she discontinued her visits to him, saying that she was kept in by her husband, who had found out about their affair.

Deinias was now unable to bear the situation and could not endure not seeing her. He wept, he sent his toadies, he called upon the name of Charicleia, he embraced her statue (having had one of marble made for him), he wailed; at last he flung himself on the ground and rolled about, and his condition was absolute insanity. Naturally, the gifts which he exchanged for hers were not on a par with apples and wreaths, but whole apartment-houses, farms, and serving-women, gay clothing, and all the gold that she wanted.

Why make a long story of it? In a trice the estate of Lyson, which had been the most famous in Ionia, was completely pumped out and exhausted.