“The door!” said Lycon curtly.
Conops opened it without a word.
Lycon now turned to the slaves and informed them that the order of the household must and should be restored. No one would be overburdened with work; but, if each did his share, there would seem to be less to be done. Then he represented to the slaves who had been born in Simonides’ house how shamefully they had behaved in consulting only their own convenience, while their master was ill and helpless, needing more than anything else careful attendance.
He soon succeeded in touching the hearts of the slaves and, when he perceived it, he added that Simonides would forgive and forget everything if within three days they would bring him the household instruments of punishment which they had thrown away and broken. If one of the older slaves fulfilled this demand, Simonides would make him overseer of the others, but should they persist in their negligence their master, with an Attic slave-dealer’s assistance, would sell them to the mines.
VI.
Early the next morning, while the dew was still sparkling on the leaves and in the grass, Simonides’ daughter, Myrtale, a girl of seventeen, came out of the women’s apartment into the garden. She had thrown over her head a red scarf with small white stars, from beneath which fell her thick dark-brown locks. Her figure, though not tall, was well developed, and its delicately-rounded outlines were fully displayed by the red robe she wore. The little Methonian bore no resemblance to the stately marble caryatides which as images of the Attic virgins adorned the vestibule of the Erechtheum; but her whole figure was so instinct with life and youth that no eye could help lingering on it with pleasure. Even the swine-herd, Conops, turned his clumsy head to watch her as she passed and among the slaves, who half neglected and half admired her, she was never called anything but hē pais, “the child.”
Myrtale, however, was a child who had a will of her own and a very determined one. Having early lost her mother, she had had no female companionship except her nurse, who indulged her in everything. She had been educated in a much freer manner than was usually the case with Hellenic maidens. She took her meals with her father, even when his friend Polycles, the wine-dealer, visited him. When Polycles noticed that the young girl did not lack intelligence he often asked her opinion, and this pleased Simonides, who spoiled his only child and treated her more like a son and heir than like a daughter.
Nay, when Simonides, during his days of health, read aloud the plays of Magnes, the Icarian, Myrtale, at that time a girl of thirteen or fourteen, was usually present and stimulated by the unbridled laughter of the two friends, understood much that had been previously incomprehensible, and caught many an allusion which the two men did not suspect that she could comprehend. In this way Myrtale had learned to know more of the world and life than other young girls who spent their days in a virgin chamber.[T]
[T] Part of the women’s apartment.
The slaves’ negligence, the only thing that could have shadowed her youth, disturbed her far less than it troubled her father, since she always had her faithful nurse with her and—thanks to the freedom granted her—enjoyed her life like a careless child, to whom the present moment is everything.