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.