ranted her permission, and having
ordered all his subjects to obey her as himself, she first gave several
very moderate orders to make trial of the guards; but when she saw that
they obeyed her without the slightest hesitation, she ordered them to
seize Ninus and put him in fetters, and at last put him to death; and
all her commands being obeyed, she ruled over Asia for a long time with
great lustre. And was not Belestiche a foreign woman off the streets,
although at Alexandria she has shrines and temples, with an inscription
as Aphrodite Belestiche, which she owes to the king's love? And she who
has in this very town[75] a temple and rites in common with Eros, and at
Delphi stands in gold among kings and queens, by what dowry got she her
lovers? But just as the lovers of Semiramis, Belestiche, and Phryne,
became their prey unconsciously through their weakness and effeminacy,
so on the other hand poor and obscure men, having contracted alliances
with rich women of rank, have not been thereby spoilt nor merged their
personality, but have lived with their wives on a footing of kindness,
yet still kept their position as heads of the house. But he that abases
his wife and makes her small, like one who tightens the ring on a finger
too small for it fearing it will come off,[76] is like those who cut
their mares' tails off and then take them to a river or pond to drink,
when they say that sorrowfully discerning their loss of beauty these
mares lose their self-respect and allow themselves to be covered by
asses.[77] To select a wife for wealth rather than for her excellence or
family is dishonourable and illiberal; but it is silly to reject wealth
when it is accompanied by excellence and family. Antigonus indeed wrote
to his officer who had garrisoned Munychia[78] to make not only the
collar strong but the dog lean, that he might undermine the strength of
the Athenians; but it becomes not the husband of a rich or handsome
woman to make his wife poor or ugly, but by his self-control and good
sense, and by not too extravagantly showing his admiration for her, to
exhibit himself as her equal not her slave, and (to borrow an
illustration from the scales) to add just so much weight to his
character as shall over-balance her, yet only just. Moreover, both
Ismenodora and Baccho are of a suitable age for marriage and procreation
of children; Ismenodora, I hear, is still in her prime, and" (here my
father smiled slily at Pisias) "she is