Ascyltos, when he had secured silence, adroitly put a stop to their
laughter by exclaiming, "We can see that each puts the greater value upon
his own property. Let them return our tunic to us, and take back their
mantle!" This exchange was satisfactory enough to the peasant and the
young woman, but some night-prowling shyster lawyers, who wished to get
possession of the mantle for their own profit, demanded that both
articles be deposited with them, and the judge could look into the case
on the morrow, for it would appear that the ownership of the articles was
not so much to the point as was the suspicion of robbery that attached
to both sides. The question of sequestration arose, and one of the
hucksters, I do not remember which, but he was bald, and his forehead was
covered with sebaceous wens, and he sometimes did odd jobs for the
lawyers, seized the mantle and vowed that HE would see to it that it was
produced at the proper time and place, but it was easily apparent that he
desired nothing but that the garment should be deposited with thieves,
and vanish; thinking that we would be afraid to appear as claimants for
fear of being charged with crime. As far as we were concerned, we were
as willing as he, and Fortune aided the cause of each of us, for the
peasant, infuriated at our demand that his rags be shown in public, threw
the tunic in Ascyltos' face, released us from responsibility, and
demanded that the mantle, which was the only object of litigation, be
sequestered. As we thought we had recovered our treasure, we returned
hurriedly to the inn, and fastening the door, we had a good laugh at the
shrewdness of the hucksters, and not less so at that of our enemies, for
by it they had returned our money to us. (While we were unstitching the
tunic to get at the gold pieces, we overheard some one quizzing the
innkeeper as to what kind of people those were, who had just entered his
house. Alarmed at this inquiry, I went down, when the questioner had
gone, to find out what was the matter, and learned that the praetor's
lictor, whose duty it was to see that the names of strangers were entered
in his rolls, had seen two people come into the inn, whose names were not
yet entered, and that was the reason he had made inquiry as to their
names and means of support. Mine host furnished this information in such
an offhand manner that I became suspicious as to our entire safety in his
house; so, in order to avoid arrest, we decided to go out, and not to
return home until after dark, and we sallied forth, leaving the
management of dinner to Giton. As it suited our purpose to avoid the
public streets, we strolled through the more unfrequented parts of the
city, and just at dusk we met two women in stolas, in a lonely spot, and
they were by no means homely. Walking softly, we followed them to a
temple which they entered, and from which we could hear a curious
humming, which resembled the sound of voices issuing from the depths of a
cavern. Curiosity impelled us also to enter the temple. There we caught
sight of many women, who resembled Bacchantes, each of whom brandished in
her right hand an emblem of Priapus. We were not permitted to see more,
for as their eyes fell upon us, they raised such a hubbub that the vault
of the temple trembled. They attempted to lay hands upon us, but we ran
back to our inn as fast as we could go.)