Toxaris; Or, Friendship (24)

Mnesippos You are right. But I will tell you of a fourth, Zenothemis, the son of Charmoleos, from Marseilles. He was pointed out to me in Italy when I was there on an embassy from our government, and he was a tall, handsome man, and apparently rich. There sat beside him in his carriage a woman who was hideous in every way. Her right side, moreover, was withered, and she had lost an eye. She was altogether deformed, a revolting scarecrow. On my expressing wonder that a man so handsome and in the prime of life could endure to have such a woman

ure. driving about with him, the man who had pointed him out told me what had necessitated the marriage, for he knew all the circumstances perfectly, being himself a native of Marseilles. He said that Menekrates, the father of the ill-favored woman, and Zenothemis were friends, and equals in riches and position. But after a while Menekrates was deprived of his estate, and at the same time disfranchised by a condemnation of the Six Hundred for proposing an unconstitutional meas- This, he said, was the penalty in Marseilles for making unconstitutional propositions. Now Menekrates was in great grief, partly because of the scandal of the condemnation, and partly because from being a rich and honored man he was now become poor, and of no reputation. But his greatest trouble was his daughter, who was already marriageable, being eighteen years old, but of so ill-favored an aspect that no one, however humbly born or poor, would have seen fit to take her without a struggle, even with all the fortune her father once possessed. She was also said to have epileptic fits at the waxing of the moon.