But this enlightenment did not make Agias's task any the easier.

He knew perfectly well that he could never raise a tithe of the forty thousand sesterces that Pratinas was to receive from Calatinus, and so redeem Artemisia.

He had no right to expect the gift of such a sum from Drusus.

If Pratinas really owned the poor girl as a slave, he could do anything he listed with her, and no law could be invoked to say him nay.

There was only one recourse left to Agias, and that was fairly desperate--to carry off Artemisia and keep her in hiding until Pratinas should give up the quest and depart for Egypt.