I shivered, horror-struck, at this thunderbolt and, beating my throat, "Oh Destiny," I wailed, "you've vanquished me completely, at last!" As for Giton, he fell in a faint upon my bosom and remained unconscious for quite a while, until a sweat finally relieved our tension, whereupon, hugging Eumolpus around the knees, "Take pity upon the perishing," I besought him, "in the name of our common learning, aid us! Death himself hangs over us, and he will come as a relief unless you help us!" Overwhelmed by this implication, Eumolpus swore by all the gods and goddesses that he knew nothing of what had happened, nor had he had any ulterior purpose in mind, but that he had brought his companions upon this voyage which he himself had long intended taking, with the most upright intentions and in the best of good faith.

"But," demanded he, "what is this ambush?
Who is this Hannibal who sails with us?
Lycas of Tarentum is a most respectable citizen and the owner, not only of this ship, which he commands in person, but of landed estates as well as commercial houses under the management of slaves.

He carries a cargo consigned to market.

He is the Cyclops, the arch-pirate, to whom we owe our passage! And then, besides himself, there is Tryphaena, a most charming woman, travelling about here and there in search of pleasure." "But," objected Giton, "they are the very ones we are most anxious to avoid," whereupon he explained to the astonished Eumolpus the reasons for their enmity and for the danger which threatened us.

So muddled did he become, at what had been told him, that he lost the power of thinking, and requested each of us to offer his own opinion.