Habrocomes, my child, I am not a settler or a native Sicilian but an elite Spartan, from one of the powerful families there, and very prosperous. When I was a young man and enrolled among the ephebes, I fell in love with a citizen girl by the name of Thelxinoe, and Thelxinoe returned my love. We met at a time when an all-night festival was being held in the city, with a god's guidance, and enjoyed the pleasure that our meeting had promised. For a while we used to meet in secret, and swore repeatedly to each other that our relationship would last till death. But one of the gods must have been spiteful. While I was still classed among the ephebes, Thelxinoe's parents agreed to her marriage to a young man called Androcles, who had by this time also fallen in love with her. At first, the girl had to invent all sorts of excuses to put off the wedding, but in the end she was able to arrange a meeting with me, and she agreed to elope from Sparta with me by night. We both dressed up as young men, and I even cut Thelxinoe's hair, on the very night before her wedding. Escaping from the city we came to Argos, then Corinth, where we boarded a ship and sailed for Sicily. When the Spartans learned of our escape, they condemned us to death. We lived out our days here, short of material comforts, but happy in the belief that we enjoyed every kind of pleasure, because we were with each other. […]