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When now he had left Pittalacus’ house and been taken up by Hegesandrus, Pittalacus was enraged, I fancy, at having wasted, as he considered it, so much money, and, jealous at what was going on, he kept visiting the house. When he was getting to be a nuisance, behold, a mighty stroke on the part of Hegesandrus and Timarchus! One night when they were drunk they, with certain others, whose names I do not care to mention,
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burst into the house where Pittalacus was living. First they smashed the implements of his trade and tossed them into the street—sundry diceProbably the scholiast is right in explaining ἀστραγάλους διασείστους shaken astragali, as the gamester’ s name for a sort of dice. Perhaps the hearers would understand that they were loaded dice. Benseler, however, approves Dorville’ s explanation, that these dice had been many a time before now shaken between Pittalacus and the rascals who are now tossing them into the street. and dice-boxes, and his gaming utensils in general; they killed the quails and cocks, so well beloved by the miserable man; and finally they tied Pittalacus himself to the pillar and gave him an inhuman whipping, which lasted until even the neighbors heard the uproar.
