We considered our circumstances and what we should do, utterly without resources in a foreign country, and my opinion was that we had better thrust our swords between our ribs then and there and die, rather than submit to be shamefully destroyed by hunger and thirst. But Sisinnes tried to encourage me, and implored me to do nothing of the sort, for he had a plan by which we should get food enough. And for the nonce he took to carrying wood from the harbor, and returned with provisions bought with his wages. But early next morning, as he was walking about the market-place, he saw a kind of procession, as he said, of noble and beautiful youths. They were enlisted to fight in single combat for pay, and the contest was to come off in three days. He made full inquiries about them, and then came to me and said, "Don't call yourself poor any longer, Toxaris, for in three days I shall prove you rich."

That was all he told me, and we managed to eke out a wretched existence in the interval. When the games were about to begin we also were among the spectators, for Sisinnes dragged me out, persuading me that it would be a pleasure to see the wonderful Greek games, and brought me to the theatre. Sitting there we first saw wild beasts infuriated with darts and then chased by dogs, or let loose upon bound men, who, we concluded, were criminals. Then the single fighters entered, and the herald, bringing forward a well-grown youth, said that whoever wished to fight him was to come into the arena and get two thousand dollars, the wages for fighting. At this Sisinnes rose, and, leaping into the arena, offered to fight, and asked for weapons. When he received the money he brought it to me and gave it into my hands. "If I should win, Toxaris," he said, "we will go off together with plenty of money, but if I fall, bury me and go back to Scythia." Thereupon I cried out,

but he took the armor and put it all on except the helmet. This he did not wear, but fought bareheaded. The first thing that happened was that he was wounded, cut under the knee with a curved sword, so that the blood ran plentifully. I was already dead in advance with fear. But, watching his adversary, who came on too boldly, he struck him on the breast and drove home so that he went down in an instant between Sisinnes's feet. Sisinnes was exhausted himself by his wound, so that he sat down on the body and almost gave up his own ghost. But I ran forward, raised him up and comforted him, and when they had dismissed him as already the victor I lifted him and carried him home. After he had been nursed a long time he survived, it is true, and lives to this day in Scythia, married to my sister. But, nevertheless, he is lame from his wound. This, Mnesippos, took place neither in Machlyëne nor in Alania, so as to be unsupported by evidence and open to disbelief, but many of the folk of Amastris are at hand who remember the contest of Sisinnes.

When I have told you as my fifth case the deeds of Abauchas I will stop. This Abauchas once came into a city of the Borysthenites, bringing with him his wife, whom he loved tenderly, and two small children, one of them a baby at the breast and the other a girl seven years old. A friend of his, Gyndanes, journeyed in company with him, and he, moreover, was suffering from a wound he got from robbers who had waylaid them on the road. For in fighting them he got a thrust in the thigh, so that he could not even stand for pain. As they were asleep at night— they happened to be lodging in an upper story—a great fire broke out, all means of exit were cut off, and the flames surrounded the house on every side. Thereupon Abauchas awoke, and he left his weeping child behind and shook off his wife, who clung to him, calling to her to save herself; but he lifted his friend and made his way down, and was in time to get out through part of the house not yet entirely seized by the fire. His wife followed, carrying the baby, and bidding the little girl come after; but the woman was half-burnt and let the baby fall from her arm, and barely leaped through the flame with the little girl, who also had a narrow escape from death. When it was afterwards made a reproach to Abauchas that he had deserted his wife and children to bring Gyndanes out, he would say, "It is an easy matter for me to have more children, and it is impossible to know whether they will be good or not; but it would take me a long time to find another such friend as Gyndanes, who has given me great proof of his affection."