Book 16
4.25
A daughter of one of the kings was of extraordinary beauty, and had fifteen brothers, who were all in love with her, and were her unceasing and successive visitors; she, being at last weary of their importunity, is said to have employed the following device. She procured staves to be made similar to those of her brothers; when one left the house, she placed before the door a staff similar to the first, and a little time afterwards another, and so on in succession, but making her calculation so that the person who intended to visit her might not have one similar to that at her door. On an occasion when the brothers were all of them together at the market-place, one left it, and came to the door of the house; seeing the staff there, and conjecturing some one to be in her apartment, and having left all the other brothers at the marketplace, he suspected the person to be an adulterer ; running therefore in haste to his father, he brought him with him to the house, but it was proved that he had falsely accused his sister.
