The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Chapter 15
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH. 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 prætor’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.)