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“A number of obols,” he said, “were lying at his feet, and some other small coins of silver had been stuck to his thigh with wax, and leaves of silver, votive offerings or payment for a cure from one or another of those who through him had ceased to be subject to fever. We had a plaguy Libyan servant, a groom; the fellow undertook to steal and did steal everything that was there, at night, after waiting until the statue had descended. But as soon as Pellichus came back and discovered that he had been robbed, mark how he punished and exposed the Libyan! The unhappy man ran about the hall the whole night long unable to get out, just as if he had been thrown into a labyrinth, until finally he was caught in possession of the stolen property when daycame. He got a sound thrashing then, on being caught, and he did not long survive the incident, dying a rogue’s death from being flogged, he said, every night, so that welts showed on his body the next day. In view of this, Tychiades, mock Pellichus and think me as senile as if I were a contemporary of Minos!” “Well, Eucrates,” I said, “as long as bronze is bronze and the work a product of Demetrius of Alopece, who makes men, not gods, I shall never be afraid of the statue of Pellichus, whom I should not have feared very much even when he was alive if he threatened me.”
