XXI. STRATONICE

Galatia produced also Stratonice the wife of Deiotarus and Chiomara the wife of Ortiagon, women that deserve to be remembered.

Stratonice, well knowing that her husband desired children from her to succeed to the kingdom, but having no child herself, prevailed upon him to have a child by anotheF woman, and to connive at its being passed off as her own. Deiotarus thought highly of the idea, and did everything in dependence upon her judgement, and she procured a comely maiden from among the prisoners, Electra by name, and sealed her to Deiotarus. The children that were born she brought up with loving care and in royal state as if they had been her own.

XXII. CHIOMARAThis is printed as one of the fragments of Polybius, xxi. 38 (xxii. 21), from whom it is possible that Plutarch copied the story. Cf. also Livy, xxxviii. 24; Valerius Maximus, vi. 1, ext. 2; Florus, , i. 27. 6 (ii. 11. 6).

It came to pass that Chiomara, the wife of Ortiagon, was made a prisoner of war along with the rest of the women at the time when the Romans under GnaeusGnaeus Manlius Vulso: the battle took place in 189 b.c. overcame in battle the Galatians in Asia. The officerA centurion, according to the Roman account. who obtained possession of her used his good fortune as soldiers do, and dishonoured her. He was, naturally, an ignorant man with no self-control when it came to either pleasure or money. He fell a victim, however, to his love of money, and when a very large sum in gold had been mutually agreed upon as the price for the woman, he brought her to exchange for the ransom to a place where a river, flowing between, formed a boundary. When the Galatians had crossed and given him the money and received Chiomara, she, by a nod, indicated to one man that he should smite the Roman as he was affectionately taking leave of her. And when the man obediently struck off the Roman’s head, she picked it up and, wrapping it in the folds of her garment, departed. When she came to her husband and threw the head down before him, he said in amazement, A noble thing, dear wife, is fidelity. Yes. said she, but it is a nobler thing that only one man be alive who has been intimate with me. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.

Polybius says that be had a conversation with this woman in Sardis, and that he admired her good sense and intelligence.