18.3
The latter was most talked of among the Greeks, to the effect that though the king tempted her virtue and sent her fifteen thousand pieces of gold, she resisted his advances, until he entered into a marriage contract with her, sent her a diadem, and greeted her with the title of Queen. But her marriage had been an unhappy one, and she bewailed that beauty which had procured her a master instead of a husband, and a guard of Barbarians instead of home and family, dwelling as she did far, far away from Greece, where the blessings for which she had hoped existed only in her dreams, while she was bereft of the real blessings to which she had been wonted.
18.4
And now Bacchides came and ordered them all to die, in whatever manner each might deem easiest and most painless. Monimé snatched the diadem from her head, fastened it round her neck, and hanged herself. But her halter quickly broke in two. O cursed bauble, she cried, couldst thou not serve me even in this office? Then she spat upon it, hurled it from her, and offered her throat to Bacchides.
18.5
But Berenicé, taking a cup of poison, shared it with her mother, who stood at her side and begged for some. Together they drank it off, and the force of the poison sufficed for the weaker body, but it did not carry off Berenicé, who had not drunk enough. As she was long in dying, and Bacchides was in a hurry, she was strangled.
18.6
It is said also that of the unmarried sisters, one drank off her poison with many abusive imprecations on her brother; but that Statira did so without uttering a single reproachful or ungenerous word. She rather commended her brother because, when his own life was at hazard, he had not neglected them, but had taken measures to have them die in freedom and under no insults. Of course these things gave pain to Lucullus, who was naturally of a gentle and humane disposition.
