Harlot of Alexandria

A harlot called out to the magistrianos Basil Argyros during his business trip to Alexandria, offering her service for 20 folleis. Argyros, who had remained chaste since the death of his wife Helen two years earlier, and suspected that a married woman named Zois had contemplated seducing him, was in a mood to be tempted, and thus took up the offer. He spent himself prematurely, and had to pay extra for another round. He gave her an entire silver milliaresion at the end. Argyros left the encounter certain that he was not suited for a monastic life, which he had briefly thought when he was newly widowed.