After this he is dragged from one Assyrian mart to another; next in the train of a Galatian slave-merchant he stands for sale in many a market and knows many diverse houses. Who could tell the names of all his buyers? Among these Ptolemy, servant of the post-house,[88] was one of the better known. Then Ptolemy, tired of Eutropius’ long service to his lusts, gives him to Arinthaeus;—gives, for he is no longer worth keeping nor old enough to be bought. How the scorned minion wept at his departure, with what grief did he lament that divorce! “Was this thy fidelity, Ptolemy? Is this my reward for a youth lived in thine arms, for the bed of marriage and those many nights spent together in the inn? Must I lose my promised liberty? Leav’st thou Eutropius a widow, cruel wretch, forgetful of such wonderful nights of love? How hard is the lot of my kind! When a woman grows old her children cement the marriage tie and
[88] I take Ptolemy to have been a stationarius, i.e. a servant in a public post-house, but there is possibly some covert allusion to stabulum in the sense of prostibulum, a brothel.
uxorisque decus matris reverentia pensat.
nos Lucina fugit, nec pignore nitimur ullo.
cum forma dilapsus amor; defloruit oris 75
gratia: qua miseri scapulas tutabimur arte?
qua placeam ratione senex?”
Sic fatus acutum
adgreditur lenonis opus, nec segnis ad artem