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Washington is not Corinth, and Lais, the beautiful daughter of Timandra, might not have been the prototype of the ravishing Laura, daughter of the plebeian house of Hawkins; but the orators add statesmen who were the purchasers of the favors of the one, may have been as incorruptible as the Republican statesmen who learned how to love and how to vote from the sweet lips of the Washington lobbyist; and perhaps the modern Lais would never have departed from the national Capital if there had been there even one republican Xenocrates who resisted her blandishments.
It is said, that the famous Lais, who was called the Corinthian, though she was a native of Hyccara, a small town in Sicily, from whence she was brought a captive, was the daughter of this Timandra.
He wrapped his garment round his left arm, took his sword in his hand, and broke through the flame. None of the murderers durst come near him, but they threw darts and stones at him so thickly that at last he fell, and they despatched him. Timandra, the last of his wives, took up his body, wrapped it in her own mantle, and buried it in a city called Melissa.
Alkibiades was at this time dwelling in a village in Phrygia, with Timandra the courtezan, and one night he dreamed that he was dressed in his mistress's clothes, and that she, holding his head in her arms, was painting his face and adorning him like a woman. Others say that he saw Magaeus in his dream cutting off his head, and his body all in flames.
And, though he counted gold as dross, yet was he not dissatisfied that Timandra had saved the gold he had given her formerly against a rainy day. And when a child was born, Timon was at his wits' end, and blessed the old woman who came to nurse it. And she admonished him of his duty to the Gods, which meant sacrifice, which meant merry-making.
After he had fallen and the barbarians were gone, Timandra took up his corpse, covered it with her own clothes, and, as far as was in her power, showed it every mark of honour and respect. This Timandra is said to have been the mother of Lais, commonly called the Corinthian, who really was brought as a captive from Hykkara, a small town in Sicily.
He rushed out with drawn sword upon his assailants, who shrank from the attack, but who slew him from a distance with their javelins and arrows. Timandra, a female with whom he lived, performed towards his body the last offices of duty and affection. Thus perished miserably, in the vigour of his age, one of the most remarkable, but not one of the greatest, characters in Grecian history.
The barbarians, as soon as they saw him, retreated, and none of them durst stay to expect him, or to engage with him, but, standing at a distance, they slew him with their darts and arrows. When he was dead, the barbarians departed, and Timandra took up his dead body, and, covering and wrapping it up in her own robes, she buried it as decently and as honorably as her circumstances would allow.
Since he could not live without intrigues, he was soon entangled in one, unmasked, and condemned, without his knowing it, to death. One day he was sitting with his paramour, and chatting quietly at his ease: "You think, then, Timandra, that Cyrus marches against his brother Artaxerxes, in order to seize the throne of Persia."
And his neighbours made him demarch, and he feasted them. And Apemantus came to deride him, and Timon bore with him; but he was impertinent to Timandra, and Timon beat him.
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