Toxaris, or Friendship (13-15)

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.