After receiving a letter from his wife, Toxena, telling him how much she missed him and what she'd bought during his absence, Plutarch left Delphi in a hurry fearing the worst.

'My dearest,' Toxena greeted her husband on his flustered arrival, three weeks later.'Why are you home so soon?'

As usual, at the sight of her beauty, Plutarch's heart melted and she, taking him by the hand, lead him into their home of pink marble.

Settling her husband down on voluptuous silk cushions, Toxena called to the servants ordering them to serve up the best meal they could create.

Later, lulled by the delicious fare and heady wine made from red grapes growing in their own vineyard, Plutarch, looked across those volumes of cushions at his wife and noticed, for the first time, a heavy gold bracelet draped around her dainty wrist.

Instant suspicion and jealousy rose up. 'Who gave you that bracelet?' he demanded.

'No one, dear husband,' she replied coyly.

He frowned and went on to ask in a gentler tone, 'Then how did you obtain such expensvie jewellery?'

'I bought it from a merchant,' she said and standing up, swept an elegant arm about the room.'Look around you dearest, at the delights I've purchased these past eight months.'

Plutarch did as she asked and as his gaze went from lush tapestries spun with gold thread and statues cast in silver, the last juicy olive, hours before plucked from his own grove, threatened to erupt from his throat.

'When you're away,' Toxena explained with a girlish pout. 'I get bored and lonely. There's nothing for me to do, my dear husband.'

Wordlessly, Plutarch struggled to his feet and strode over to a heavy ivory chest and opening the lid, he took out his Abaci board and commenced to count the price of his revered position as priest, mathematician and philosopher at the academy in Delphi.