Bacchis had been a courtesan for more than twenty-five years. That is equivalent to saying that she was nearly forty, and that her beauty had changed its character several times. Her mother, who had long been the directress of the house and her general adviser, had given her principles of conduct and economy which had enabled her gradually to acquire a great fortune, which she was in a position to spend freely, at an age when the magnificence of the bed supplies the place of physical splendour. Thus it was that instead of buying adult slaves at the market at a high rate, an expense which so many others considered necessary, and which ruined the young courtesans, she had been content for ten years with a single negress, and had provided for the future by making her beget a child every year, in order to create for herself, for nothing, a numerous staff of domestics who should be a source of riches later on. As she had chosen the father with care, seven very beautiful mulatto girls had been born of her slave, and also three boys whom she had killed, because male slaves give useless suspicions to jealous lovers. She had named the seven daughters after the seven planets, and had chosen them diverse functions, in harmony, as far as possible, with the names they bore. Heliope was the slave for the day-time, Selene for the night, Aretias guarded the door, Aphrodisia tended the bed, Hermione did the buying, and Cronomagira, the cooking. Finally, Diomeda, the housekeeper, kept the books and superintended the staff. Aphrodisia was the favourite slave, the prettiest and best-loved. She often shared her mistress’s bed at the request of lovers who took a fancy to her. Consequently, she was dispensed from all servile work in order that her arms might be kept delicate and her hands soft. By an exceptional favour, her hair was not covered, so that she was often taken for a free woman, and that very night she was to be freed in reality at the enormous price of thirty-five minæ. ill-043 Bacchis’s seven slaves, all tall and admirably trained, were such a source of pride to her that she never went out without having them in her train, at the risk of leaving her house empty. Thanks to this imprudence, Demetrios had been able to enter her house without difficulty; but when she gave the festival to which Chrysis was invited she was still in ignorance of the calamity. That evening Chrysis was the first arrival. She was dressed in a green robe worked with enormous rose-branches which flowered over her breasts.