But whom should he get as companions in this wild enterprise?  He at once thought of Cymon and his friends, and he fetched them out of prison and armed them, and concealed them in his house.  On the wedding-day he divided them into three parties.  One went down to the shore and secured a ship; one watched at the gate of Pasimondas’s house; and the third party, headed by Cymon and Lysimachus, rushed with drawn swords into the bridal chamber and killed the two bridegrooms, and bore the tearful but by no means unwilling brides to the ship, and sailed joyfully away for Crete.

There they espoused their ladies, amidst the congratulations of their relatives and friends; and though, by reason of their actions, a great quarrel ensued between the two islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, everything was at last amicably adjusted.  Cymon then returned with Iphigenia to Cyprus, and Lysimachus carried Cassandra back to Rhodes, and all of them lived very happily to the end of their days.

Gisippus and Titus:  A Tale of Friendship

As Pamfilo has told us so excellent a tale about the force of love, said Filomena, I will now relate a story showing the great power of friendship.

At the time when Octavius Caesar, who afterwards became the Emperor Augustus, was governing Rome as a triumvir, a young Roman gentleman, Titus Quintius Fulvus, went to Athens to study philosophy.  There he became acquainted with a noble young Athenian named Gisippus, and a brotherly affection sprang up between them, and for three years they studied together and lived under the same roof.

In the meantime, Gisippus fell in love with a young and beautiful Athenian maiden named Sophronia, and a marriage was arranged between them.  Some days before the marriage, Gisippus took his friend with him on a visit to his lady.  It was the first time that Titus had seen Sophronia, and as he looked upon her beauty he grew as much enamoured as ever a man in the world was with a woman.  So great was his passion that he could neither eat nor sleep, and he grew so sick that at last he was unable to rise from his bed.  Gisippus was extremely grieved at his illness, and knowing that it must have been caused by some secret malady of the mind, he pressed him to reveal the cause of his grief.  At length Titus, unable to restrain himself any longer, said, with his face streaming with tears: 

“O Gisippus, I am unworthy of the name of friend!  I have fallen in love with Sophronia, and it is killing me.  How base I am!  But pardon me, my dear friend, for I feel that I shall soon be punished for my disloyalty by death!”