She carefully observed the mimes, dancers, comedians, and especially the women, who in tragedies represented goddesses in love with young men, or mortals loved by the gods.  Having discovered the secrets by which they pleased the audience, she thought to herself that she was more beautiful and could act better.  She went to the manager, and asked to be admitted into the troupe.  Thanks to her beauty, and to the lessons she had received from old Moeroe, she was received, and appeared on the stage in the part of Dirce.

She met with but indifferent success, for she was inexperienced, and the admiration of the spectators had not been aroused by hearing her praises sung.  But after she had played small parts for a few months, the power of her beauty burst forth with such effect that all the city was moved.  All Antioch crowded to the theatre.  The imperial magistrates and the chief citizens were compelled, by the force of public opinion, to show themselves there.  The porters, sweepers, and dock labourers went without bread and garlic, that they might pay for their places.  Poets composed epigrams in her honour.  Bearded philosophers inveighed against her in the baths and gymnasia; when her litter passed, Christian priests turned away their heads.  The threshold of her door was wreathed with flowers, and sprinkled with blood.  She received so much money from her lovers that it was no longer counted, but measured by the medimnus, and all the treasure hoarded by miserly old men was poured out at her feet.  But she was placid and unmoved.  She rejoiced, with quiet pride, in the admiration of the public and the favour of the gods, and was so much loved that she loved herself.

After she had several years enjoyed the admiration and affection of the Antiochians, she was taken with a desire to revisit Alexandria, and show her glory in that city in which, as a child, she had wandered in want and shame, hungry and lean as a grasshopper in the middle of a dusty road.  The golden city joyfully welcomed her, and loaded her with fresh riches; when she appeared in the games it was a triumph.  Countless admirers and lovers came to her.  She received them with indifference, for she at last despaired of meeting another Lollius.

Amongst many others, she met the philosopher Nicias, who desired to possess her, although he professed to have no desires.  In spite of his riches, he was intelligent and modest.  But his delicate wit and beautiful sentiments failed to charm her.  She did not love him and sometimes his refined irony even irritated her.  His perpetual doubts hurt her, for he believed in nothing, and she believed in everything.  She believed in divine providence, in the omnipotence of evil spirits, in spells, exorcisms, and eternal justice; she believed in Jesus Christ, and in the goddess of good of the Syrians; she believed also that bitches barked when black Hecate passed through the streets, and that a woman could inspire