Chrysis looked on and held her peace. What could she say? She could only have exonerated the slave by incriminating Demetrios, who was beyond reach of all attack, and who would have taken a cruel revenge. Besides, a slave was a source of riches, and it was a satisfaction to the long-standing grudge that Chrysis bore her enemy to think that she was destroying in this way with her own hands the value of three thousand drachmæ as completely as if she had thrown the money into the Eunostis. And then, was the life of a minion worth troubling about? Heliope handed Bacchis the first nail and the hammer, and the torture began. Intoxication, rancour, anger, all the passions together, even the instinct of cruelty which lurks in a woman’s heart, animated the soul of Bacchis at the moment she struck, and she uttered a shriek almost as piercing as that of Aphrodisia when the nail bent in the open palm. She nailed up the second hand. She nailed the feet one upon the other. Then, excited by the sight of the blood spurting from the three wounds, she cried: “It is not enough! Thief! Sow! Sailors’ strumpet!” She took the long pins out of her hair, and dug them violently into the flesh of her breasts, the belly, and the thighs. When she had no more weapons left in her hands, she smacked the poor wretch and spat upon her. She contemplated this work of vengeance for some time; then she returned into the banqueting-hall with all the guests. Phrasilas and Timon alone did not follow her. After a moment’s silent meditation, Phrasilas coughed slightly, put his right hand into his left, raised his head, lifted his eyebrows, and drew near the crucified one, whose body shook with a continuous, horrible trembling. “Although I am,” he said to her, “in divers circumstances, opposed to absolute theories so-called, yet I cannot blind myself to the fact that, in the conjuncture which has overtaken you, you would gain by being familiarised in more solid fashion with the maxims of the Stoics. Zeno, who does not seem to have had a spirit completely exempt from error, has left us several sophistries of no great general import, but, at the same time, you might derive profit from them to the particular end of calming your last moments.