An End and a Beginning

Chiomara

It came to pass that Chiomara, the wife of Ortiagon, was made a prisoner of war along with the rest of the women at the time ewhen the Romans under Gnaeusovercame in battle the Galatians in Asia. The officer who obtained possession of her used his good fortune as soldiers do, and dishonoured her. He was, naturally, an ignorant man with no self-control when it came to either pleasure or money. He fell a victim, however, to his love of money, and when a very large sum in gold had been mutually agreed upon as the price for the woman, he brought her to exchange for the ransom to a place where a river, flowing between, formed a boundary. When the Galatians had crossed and given him the money and received Chiomara, she, by a nod, indicated to one man that he should smite the Roman as he was affectionately taking leave of her. And when the man obediently struck off the Roman's head, she picked it up and, wrapping it in the folds of her garment, departed. When she came to her husband and threw the head down before him, he said in amazement, "A noble thing, dear wife, is fidelity." "Yes," said she, "but it is a nobler thing that only one man be alive who has been intimate with me."

- Plutarch