57
although my wife forbade them to touch it, and declared that it was her property, mortgaged to secure her marriage portion; she said to them also, You have the fifty sheep, the serving boy, and the shepherd, whose value is in excess of the amount of your judgement (for one of the neighbors knocked at the door and told her this). Furthermore she told them that the money was lying at the bank for them, for she had heard me say so. And, if you will wait here, she said, or if one of you will go after him, you shall take the money back with you at once; but let the furniture alone, and do not carry off anything that is mine—especially since you have the full value of your judgement.
58
But although my wife spoke in this way, they not only did not desist, but when the nurse took the cup which was set by her and from which she had been drinking, and put it in her bosom to prevent these men from taking it, when she saw that they were in the house, Theophemus and Evergus, this brother of his, observing her, treated her so roughly in taking the cup from her
59
that her arms and wrists were covered with blood, as they wrenched her arms and pulled her this way and that in taking the cup from her, and she had lacerations on her throat, where they strangled her, and her breast was black and blue. And they pushed their brutality to such extremes, that they did not stop throttling and beating the old woman, until they had taken the cup from her bosom.
