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Leno. I will give twenty.
Athanag. And I thirty.
Leno. Forty.
Athanag. Fifty.
Leno. Eighty.
Athanag. Ninety.
Leno. I will give a hundred sestertia in ready money; if any one offer more, I will give ten golden sestertia above.
"Why should I contend any further with Leno?" thought Athanagoras: "I may purchase a dozen for the price she will cost him. Let him have her, and by and by I will enter covertly his dwelling and solicit her love."
Tharsia was conducted by Leno to a house of ill fame, in an apartment of which there was a golden Priapus[1], richly ornamented with gems.
"Girl! worship that image," said Leno.
Tharsia. I may not worship any such thing. O my lord! are you not a Lapsatenarian?
Leno. Why?
Tharsia. Because the Lapsateni worship Priapus.
Leno. Know you not, wretched girl, that you have entered the house of the miser Leno?
Casting herself at his feet, she exclaimed: "O sir! do not dishonour me; be not guilty of such a flagrant outrage."
- ↑ Priapus, the Latin god of gardens.
