I was a merchant living in Cyprus and I had pooled my money together with a Phoenician merchant named Bakhos Adonia. For a long time business had not been going well because of high taxes and a large amount of thievery in the area. A day came when we ordered a large shipment of supplies but when it arrived we didno t have enough money to pay for it. So the captain of the ship ordered us to pay in full within three days or heo d have us jailed by the guards. Under pressure, we cobbled together a plan to extort the money from another merchant by capturing his daughter. Suffice to say this failed and the guards came after us and seized all our property. Thus Bakhos and I were forced to flee Cyprus and determined that we would head to northern Italy since it's cheaper to live there, as we were almost out of gold.