Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843
EARLY GREEK ROMANCES—THE ETHIOPICS OF HELIODORUS
"It is not in Provence, (Provincia Romanorum,) as is commonly said from the derivation of the name—nor yet in Spain, as many suppose, that we are to look for the fatherland of those amusing compositions called Romances, which are so eminently useful in these days as affording a resource and occupation to ladies and gentlemen who have nothing to do. It is in distant and far different climes to our own, and in the remote antiquity of long vanished ages:—it is among the people of the East, the Arabs, the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Syrians, that the germ and origin is to be found of this species of fictitious narrative, for which the peculiar genius and poetical temperament of those nations particularly adapt them, and in which they delight to a degree scarcely to be credited. For even their ordinary discourse is interspersed with figurative expressions; and their maxims of theology and philosophy, and above all, of morals and political science, are invariably couched under the guise of allegory or parable. I need not stay to enlarge upon the universal veneration paid throughout the East to the fables of Bidpai or Pilpay, and to Lokman, who is (as may easily be shown) the Esop of the Greeks:—and it is well known that the story of Isfendiyar, and of the daring deeds of the Persian hero Rustan, in love and war,50 are to this day more popular in those regions than the tales of Hercules, Roland, or Amadis de Gaul, ever were with us. And so decidedly is Asia the parent of these fictions, that we shall find on examination, that nearly all those who in early times distinguished themselves as writers of what are now called romances, were of oriental birth or extraction. Clearchus, a pupil of Aristotle, and the first who attempted any thing of the sort in the Greek language, was a native of Soli in Cilicia:—Jamblichus was a Syrian, as were also Heliodorus and Lucian, the former being of Emessa, the latter of Samosata:—Achilles Tatius was an Alexandrian; and the rule will be found to hold good in other instances, with scarcely a single exception."
Such is the doctrine laid down (at somewhat greater length than we have rendered it) by the learned Huetius, in his treatise De Origine Fabularum Romanensium; and from the general principle therein propounded, we are certainly by no means inclined to dissent. But while fully admitting that it is to the vivid fancy and picturesque imagination of the Orientals that we owe the origin of all those popular legends which have penetrated, under various changes of costume, into every corner of Europe,51 as well as those more gorgeous creations which appear, interwoven with the ruder creations of the northern nations, to have furnished the groundwork of the fabliaux and lais of the chivalry of the middle ages:—we still hold that the invention of the romance of ordinary life, in which the interest of the story depends upon occurrences in some measure within the bounds of probability, and in which the heroes and heroines are neither invested with superhuman qualities, nor extricated from their difficulties by supernatural means, must be ascribed to a more European state of society than that which produced those tales of wonder, which are commonly considered as characteristic of the climes of the East. Even the authors enumerated by the learned bishop of Avranches himself, in the passage above quoted, were all denizens of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, and consequently, in all probability, Greeks by descent; and though the scene of their works is frequently laid in Asia, the costumes and characters introduced are almost invariably on the Greek model. These writers, therefore, may fairly be considered as constituting a distinct class from those more strictly Oriental, not only in birth, but in language and ideas; and as being, in fact, the legitimate forerunners of that portentous crowd of modern novelists, whose myriad productions seem destined (as the Persians believe of the misshapen progeny of Gog and Magog, confined within the brazen wall of Iskender,) to over-run the world of literature in these latter days.
At the head of this early school of romantic writers, in point of merit as of time, (for the writings of Lucian can scarcely be considered as regular romances; and the "Babylonica" of Jamblichus, and the "Dinias and Dercyllis" of Antonius Diogenes, are known to us only by the abstract of them preserved in Photius,) we may, without hesitation, place Heliodorus, the author of the "Ethiopics," "whose writings"—says Huetius—"the subsequent novelists of those ages constantly proposed to themselves as a model for imitation; and as truly may they all be said to have drunk of the waters of this fountain, as all the poets did of the Homeric spring." To so servile an extent, indeed, was this imitation carried, that while both the incidents and characters in the "Clitophon and Leucippe" of Achilles Tatius, a work which, in point of literary merit, stands next to that of Heliodorus, are, in many passages, almost a reproduction, with different names and localities,52 of those in the "Ethiopics," the last-named has again had his copyists in the "Hysminias and Hysmine" of Eustathius or Eumathius, and the "Dosicles and Rhodanthe" of Theodorus Prodromus, the latter of whom was a monk of the twelfth century. In these productions of the lower empire, the extravagance of the language, the improbability of the plot, and the wearisome dullness of the details, are worthy of each other; and are only varied occasionally by a little gross indelicacy, from which, indeed, none but Heliodorus is wholly exempt. Yet, "as in the lowest deep there is a lower still," so even Theodorus Prodromus has found an humble imitator in Nicetas Eugenianus, than whose romance of "Charicles and Drosilla" it must be allowed that the force of nonsense "can no further go." Besides this descending scale of plagiarism, which we have followed down to its lowest anti-climax, we should mention, for the sake of making our catalogue complete, the "Pastorals, or Daphnis and Chloe" of Longus—a work in itself of no particular merits or demerits as a literary composition, but noted for its unparalleled depravity, and further remarkable as the first of the class of pastoral romances, which were almost as rife in Europe during the middle ages as novels of fashionable life are, for the sins of this generation, at the present day. There only remain to be enumerated the three precious farragos entitled "The Ephesiacs, or Habrocomas and Anthia"—"the Babylonics"—and "the Cypriacs"—said to be from the pen of three different Xenophons, of whose history nothing, not even the age in which any of them lived, can be satisfactorily made out—though the uniformity of stupid extravagance, not less than the similarity of name, would lead à priori to the conclusion that one luckless wight must have been the author of all three. From this list of the Byzantine romances, (in which we are not sure that one or two may not after all have been omitted,) it will be seen that Heliodorus had a tolerably numerous progeny, even in his own language, to answer for; though we fear we must concur in the sweeping censure of a Quarterly Reviewer, (vol. x. p. 301,) who condemns then en masse, with the single exception of the "Ethiopics" of the last-named author, as "a few tiresome stories, absolutely void of taste, invention, or interest; without influence even upon the declining literature of their own age, and in all probability quite unknown to the real forerunners of Richardson, Fielding, and Rousseau."
A work thus excepted, by common consent, from the general reprobation is which all its compeers are involved, must deserve some notice from its negative, if not from its positive merits; and the particulars which have been preserved of its literary history are also somewhat curious. Even in these days, when almost every other individual is a novelist, either in esse or in embryo, the announcement of a love-story from the pen of a bishop would create what is called "a considerable sensation"—though perhaps it would hardly draw down on the author such condign and summary punishment as was inflicted by the straitlaced Kirk of Scotland, less than a century ago, on one of her ministers, for the high crime and misdemeanour of having indited "a stage play, called the Tragedy of Douglas."53 Yet not only the "Ethiopics," but the best known of its successors, the "Clitophon and Leucippe" of Achilles Tatius, are both universally asserted to have been juvenile productions of ecclesiastics who afterwards attained the episcopal dignity: and the former, if we may credit the Ecclesiastical History of Nicephorus, fared not much better at the hands of the Provincial Synod of Thessaly than did the "Tragedy of Douglas" at those of the Scottish Presbyteries. Hear what saith the historian: "This Heliodorus, bishop of Trica, had in his youth written certain love-stories called the "Ethiopics," which are highly popular even at the present day, though they are now better known by the title of 'Chariclea'"—(the name of the heroine)—"and it was by reason thereof that he lost his see. For, inasmuch as very many of the youth were drawn into peril of sin by the perusal of these amorous tales, it was determined by the provincial synod that either these books, which kindled the fire of love, should themselves be consumed by fire, or that the author should be deposed from his episcopal functions—and this choice being propounded to him, he preferred resigning his bishopric to suppressing his writings."—(Niceph. Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. xii. c. 34.)54 Heliodorus, according to the same authority, was the first Thessalian bishop who had insisted on the married clergy putting away their wives, which may probably have tended to make him unpopular: but the story of his deposition, it should be observed, rests solely on the statement of Nicephorus, and is discredited by Bayle and Huet, who argue that the silence of Socrates (Ecclesiast. Hist. v. chap. 22.) in the passage where he expressly assigns the authorship of the "Ethiopics" to the Bishop Heliodorus, more than counterbalances the unsupported assertion of Nicephorus—"an author," says Huet, "of more credulity than judgment." If Heliodorus were, indeed, as has been generally supposed, the same to whom several of the Epistles of St Jerome were addressed, this circumstance would supply an additional argument against the probability of his having incurred the censures of the church: but whatever the testimony of Nicephorus may be worth on this point, his mention of the work affords undeniable proof of its long continued popularity, as his Ecclesiastical History was written about A.D. 900, and Heliodorus lived under the reign of the sons of Theodosius, or fully five hundred years earlier. Enough, however, has been said of him in his capacity of a bishop—and we shall proceed to consider him in that of an author, by which he is far better known than by episcopacy.
The time of the story is laid in the middle ages of Grecian history, after the conclusion of the wars between Greece and Persia, and while Egypt was still governed by the satraps of the great king; and the first scene at once plunges the reader, in accordance with the Horatian precept, in medias res. A band of marauders, prowling on the coast of Egypt, are surprised by the sight of a ship moored to the shore without any one on board, while the beach around is strewed with the fragments of a costly banquet, and with a number of dead bodies of men, slain apparently in mutual conflict; the only survivors being a damsel of surpassing beauty, arrayed as a priestess of Diana, who is wailing over the inanimate form of a wounded youth. Before they have time however, either to unravel the mystery, or to avail themselves of the booty, thus unexpectedly spread before them, they are in turn put to flight by a more numerous party of robbers, or rather buccaneers, (bucoli or herdsmen,) who carry off the forlorn couple to their retreat, in the inner-most recesses of a vast lake or morass, near the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile.55 The description of this robber-colony appears to have been drawn from an existing or well-remembered state of things, and bears considerable resemblance, except in the presence of women and children, to a setsha, or stronghold, of the Zaporog Cossacks in the islets of the Dniepr.
"This whole region is called by the Egyptians the Bucolia, or 'pasturages,' and is a tract of low land, which has been converted by the inundations of the Nile into a lake, of great depth in the middle, and gradually shoaling towards the margins into a marsh. Among this labyrinth of lakes and morasses, all the robber-community of Egypt hold their commonwealth; some building huts wherever there is enough of dry land for the purpose, and others living wholly on board their boats, which serve them for a home, as well as to transport them from place to place. In these narrow craft their children are born and brought up, tied by a cord round their foot, in their infancy, to keep them from falling overboard, and tasting for their first food, after being weaned, the fish of the lake dried in the sun. Thus, many of these buccaneers are natives of the lake itself, which they regard as their country and their fortress; and they also receive among them many recruits of the same sort as themselves. The waters serve them for a defence, and they are further fortified by the vast quantity of reeds overgrowing the borders of the lake, through which they have contrived certain narrow winding paths known only to themselves, to guard them against sudden incursions from without."
The chief, Thyamis, is forthwith desperately smitten by the charms of Chariclea, and announces, in a set speech to his followers, when assembled for the division of the booty, his intention of taking her to wife. The heroine, as usual with heroines in such trying circumstances, feigns compliance, stipulating only for the delay of the ceremony till she could deposit her sacred ornaments in a temple; a request which Thyamis—who, by the way, is no vulgar depredator, but an Egyptian of rank, who has been deprived of an hereditary56 priesthood, and driven into hiding, by the baseness of a younger brother—is too well bred to refuse. The beautiful captive is accordingly, (with Theagenes, whom she calls her brother,) given in charge, for the time, to an Athenian prisoner named Cnemon, who had been driven into exile by the vindictive artifices of his step-mother and her confidante, and the recital of whose adventures (apparently borrowed from those of Hippolitus) occupies a considerable space at this juncture, without much advancing the story. On the following day, however, the settlement is attacked by an irresistible force, guided by the gang who had been driven from their prey on the beach. Thyamis, after performing prodigies of valour, is taken prisoner; and Theagenes and Chariclea, with Cnemon, escaping in the confusion, find themselves alone in an island of the lake. Cnemon, as being best acquainted with the language and the surrounding country, is sent the next day to the main land, to make discoveries, accompanied by Thermuthis, the buccanier lieutenant, who had returned when the fray was over, in hopes of recovering a fair captive of his own. The object of his search, however, who proves to be no other than Thisbe, the treacherous soubrette through whom Cnemon's misfortunes had arisen, had been slain by accident in the conflict; and Thermuthis, whose suspicions had been awakened by the joy expressed by Cnemon, is meditating the murder of his fellow-traveller, when he opportunely perishes by the bite of an asp. Cnemon, continuing on his way,57 reaches the margin of the Nile opposite the town of Chemmis, and there encounters a venerable personage, who, wrapt in deep thought, is pensively pacing the banks of the river. This old Egyptian priest, (for such he proves to be,) Calasiris by name, not only takes the abrupt intrusion of Cnemon in perfect good part, but carries his complaisance so far as to invite him to the house of a friend of whom he is himself a guest, and the honours of whose mansion he is doing in the temporary absence of the owner. This obliging offer is, of course, accepted with great alacrity; and, in the course of after-dinner conversation, the incidental mention by Calasiris of the names of Theagenes and Chariclea, and the consequent enquiries of Cnemon, who recognises them as those of his late fellow captives, lead to a long episodical narration from the old gentleman, during which Cnemon, in return for the hospitality and confidence thus unexpectedly shown him, displays most enviable powers as a listener, and which, in a great measure, unfolds the plot to the reader.
It appears that Persina, consort of Hydaspes, King of Ethiopia, had given birth, in consequence of one of those accidents which will sometimes happen in the best regulated families, to a white or fair-complexioned daughter;58 and dreading lest the hue of her offspring, unusual in that country, might draw on herself suspicions which might expose her to certain pains and penalties, she secretly committed the infant to the care of Sisimithres, an officer of the court, placing at the same time in his hands, as tokens by which she might afterwards be recognised, various costly ornaments, especially a ring which had been given her by the king at their nuptials, bearing "the royal symbol engraven within a circle on the talismanic stone Pantarbé," and a fillet on which was embroidered, in the Ethiopic character,59 the story of the child's birth. Under the guardianship of Sisimithres, she remained seven years; till, fearing for her safety if she continued in Ethiopia, he took the opportunity of his being sent to Thebes as ambassador from Hydaspes to the Satrap of Egypt, to transfer his charge, with the tokens attached to her, to a priest of the Delphian Apollo, named Charicles, who was travelling in search of consolation for domestic afflictions. Before Sisimithres, however, had time to explain the previous history of the foundling, he was compelled to leave Egypt in haste; and Charicles, carrying her with him on his return to his Grecian home, adopted her as his daughter, add gave her the name of Chariclea. She grew up at Delphi a miracle of grace and beauty, dedicating herself to the service of the temple, and obedient to the will of her supposed father in all points, except one, her determination to lead a single life. At this juncture, Calasiris (who, as it now incidentally transpires, is father of Thyamis and his rival-brother Petosiris) arrives at Delphi during the celebration of the Pythian games, having found it expedient to absent himself from Egypt for a time, for various family reasons, and more especially on account of the prediction of an oracle, that he should live to see his two sons engaged with each other in mortal conflict. A favourable response, vouchsafed to him by the Pythia from the tripod, at his entrance into the fane of Apollo, having pointed him out as a personage of consideration, he is treated with high distinction by Charicles, who confides to him the history of Chariclea, as far as he is himself acquainted with it, and entreats him to dispose her, by those occult sciences in which the Egyptian priests were supposed to be versed, to listen to the suit of his nephew Alcamenes, whom he had destined for her husband. Calasiris promises compliance; but the scene is now changed by the arrival of a magnificent deputation from the Ænianes, a noble tribe of Thessaly, headed by a princely youth named Theagenes, who, as a reputed descendant of Achilles, has come to sacrifice at the shrine of his ancestor Neoptolemus. The pomp and pageantry of the ceremonial is described in vivid language, and with considerable effect; and as a specimen of our author's manner, we shall quote the procession of the Thessalians to the temple.
"In the van came the oxen destined for sacrifice, led by men of rustic guise and rude demeanour, each clad in a white tunic closely girt about him, with the right arm bare to the shoulder, and brandishing a double-headed axe. The oxen were all black without mixture, with massive necks low-hung dewlaps, and straight and even horns, which in some were gilt, in the others twined with garlands; and their number was neither more nor less than a hundred—a true hecatomb. Next followed the rest of the victims, each kind of animal kept separate and in order, and all marshalled to the sound of flutes and other wind instruments. Then appeared, in rich and flowing robes, and with their long locks floating loose on their shoulders, a band of the deep-zoned virgins of Thessaly, divided into two separate sets or choruses, the first of which bore baskets of flowers and ripe fruit, while those in the second carried salvers of sweetmeats and rich perfumes, which filled the air with the mingled fragrance breathing from them; but these light burdens were supported on their heads, thus leaving their hands free to be joined in the movements of the dance, to the slow and stately measure of which they advanced; while one chorus led the hymn, the strains of which were taken up by the other, in praise of Peleus and Thetis, their hero-son, and Neoptolemus and the other heroes of his race. The alternate rhythm of the chant keeping time with the fall of their footsteps, riveted the attention of the spectators, who seemed spell-bound by the sweet voices of the maidens, till the cavalcade which succeeded, flashing out from the crowd beyond, with their princely leader at their head, once more attracted all eyes to themselves. The troop consisted of fifty horsemen, who rode like guards in double file, twenty-five on each side of the chief, arrayed all alike in white cloaks with borders of azure embroidery, clasped across the breast with golden buckles, and with buskins laced above the ancle with scarlet thongs. Their steeds were all of that generous breed which the rich plains of Thessaly alone produce, and pawed the ground as if impatient of the bit by which their ardour was restrained by their riders; and the silver and gold which glittered on their frontlets and caparisons, showed the rivalry prevailing among these cavaliers in the splendour of the equipments, rather of their coursers than themselves. But it was on him who rode in the midst of this gallant party, eclipsing all his comrades as the glare of lightning seems to obscure all lesser luminaries, that the eyes of the gazing crowd were now fixed. He was completely armed at all points, except his head, and grasped in his hand an ashen lance; while a scarlet cloak, on which was depicted, in figures of gold tissue, the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ, flowed loose over his panoply, and was fastened in front with a clasp, representing Pallas sculptured in amber, and holding before her the Gorgon's head on her shield. The breeze, which blew back his locks from his forehead, gave his features more fully to view; and even the horse which bore him seemed to move with a statelier gait, arching his neck and proudly caracoling, as if conscious of the noble presence of his master; while the admiration of the surrounding multitude burst out into a spontaneous shout of applause, and some of the women of the lower class even threw fruit and flowers towards him, in the hope, I suppose, of drawing on themselves a glance of acknowledgement from his eye."
The cavalier thus eulogized by Calasiris is of course Theagenes, who, after thrice encompassing in due form the tomb of Neoptolemus, at length reaches the Temple of Apollo; but, during the performance of the ceremonial, it falls to his lot to receive the torch with which the altar is to be kindled from the hand of Chariclea, and love at first sight, mutual and instantaneous, is the result. The aid of Calasiris is again invoked by both the lovers; and the good old gentleman, whose knowledge of the Ethiopian hieroglyphics, by enabling him to decipher the mysterious inscription on the fillet, has put him in possession of the true parentage of Chariclea, (which he does not, however, communicate to Charicles,) at once resolves to contrive their elopement, being further stimulated thereto by Apollo in a dream—the agency of dreams, it should be remarked, being introduced on almost every possible occasion throughout the narrative, and their dictates in all cases religiously acted upon by the parties interested. A passage is procured on board a Phœnician ship opportunely lying in the Crissæan Gulf, the nearest point of the coast to Delphi; and the abduction of Chariclea having been effected by apparent violence by the companions of Theagenes, the trio set sail for Sicily, the fugitives passing as the children of Calasiris. The voyage is at first prosperous; but the ship happening to touch at Zacynthus, the beauty of Chariclea attracts the eye of a noted pirate named Trachinus, who, when the vessel resumes her course, pursues and captures her after a long chase, and turning the crew adrift in the boat,60 and carries his prize, with his three captives, to the coast of Egypt, where he prepares a feast on the beach, from the materials furnished by the rich cargo of the Phœnician ship, in honour of his intended nuptials. Calasiris, however, whose genius seems ever fertile in expedients, has contrived to possess the mind of Pelorus, the pirate lieutenant, with the belief that he is the object of the fair captive's preference; and his assertion at the banquet of his claims gives rise to a furious conflict among the intoxicated pirates, ending in the slaughter of the whole party except Pelorus himself, who in turn falls by the sword of Theagenes. Calasiris, who had prudently retired to a safe distance till the fighting was over, is now on the point of coming forward to aid Chariclea in the care of her wounded lover, when he is anticipated by the arrival of the robbers, by whom, as related at the commencement of the story, he sees his protegés carried off.
Before this recital, however, had been brought to a close, Nausicles,61 the master of the house, returns, and the cause of his absence is explained. An Athenian mistress whom he had brought from Greece had fallen into the hands of the freebooters; and Nausicles, having procured the aid of a body of Persian troops from the governor of the district, had proceeded against the buccanier settlement in order to recover her. On reaching the island, however, they find only Theagenes and Chariclea, Cnemon and Thermuthis having just started on their voyage of discovery; and Nausicles, disappointed of finding her whom he sought, (and who was no other than the faithless Thisbe, slain, as above related, in the battle,) conceived the idea of claiming Chariclea in her place by way of indemnity; while Theagenes was sent off to Memphis by the Persian officer, who deemed that his beauty and noble bearing would make him an acceptable addition to the household62 of the Satrap Oroondates. The lovers are thus again separated, and Chariclea is in despair; but, on arriving at the house of Nausicles, she is of course immediately recognised and reclaimed by Calasiris. Cnemon, who seems to have as extraordinary a genius for sudden friendships as the two heroines in the "Rovers," marries the fair daughter of Nausicles after a few hours' courtship, and at once sets sail with his father-in-law for Greece, having ascertained from him that the detection of his enemies had now made his return safe:—And Calasiris and Chariclea, disguised as beggars, set out in search of the lost Theagenes. That luckless hero had, meanwhile, been re-captured on his road to Memphis, by his, old friend Thyamis, who, having escaped (it does not exactly appear how) from the emissaries of his treacherous brother, with whom the attack on the island proves to have originated, is now at the head of another and more powerful body of the buccanier fraternity, in the district of Bessa. He receives Theagenes with great cordiality, and, having beaten off an attack from the Persian troops, takes the bold resolution of leading his lawless followers against Memphis itself, in order to reclaim his right to the priesthood, while Oroondates is engaged on the southern frontier in withstanding an invasion of the Ethiopians. Arsace, the wife of the satrap, who is acting as vice-regent for her husband, unprovided with troops to repel this sudden incursion, proposes that the two brothers shall settle the ecclesiastical succession by single combat; and a duel accordingly takes place under the walls of Memphis, in which Petosiris is getting considerably the worst of it, when the combat is interrupted by the arrival of Chariclea and Calasiris, who thus witnesses the spectacle foretold by the oracle—(the dread of seeing which had driven him into voluntary exile)—his two sons aiming at each other's life. The situation is a well-conceived one, and described with spirit. Calasiris is recognised by his penitent sons, and himself resumes the priesthood, the contested vacancy in which had been occasioned only by his absence and supposed death. The lovers are received as his guests in the temple of Isis, and all seems on the point of ending happily, when Calasiris, as if the object of his existence had been accomplished in the fulfilment of the oracle, is found the same night dead in his bed.
The loss of their old protector soon involves them in a fresh maze of troubles. Thyamis, indeed, whose elevation to the high priesthood seems to have driven his former love for Chariclea out of his head, still continues their friend; but Arsace, the haughty consort of the satrap, who is represented as a princess of the royal blood of Persia, and a prototype of Catharine of Russia in her amours, has already cast her eyes on Theagenes, whose personal attractions seem on all occasions to have been as irresistible by the ladies as those of the fair partner of his wanderings by the other sex.63 Under pretence of removing them from the temple during the period of mourning for Calasiris, they are lodged in the palace of the satrapess, where the constancy of the hero is exposed to a variety of perilous temptations, but comes forth, of course, unscathed from the ordeal. The love of ladies thus rejected has been prone, in all ages and countries, particularly in Egypt since the days of Yusuf and Zuleikha,64 to turn into hatred; and Arsace is no exception to this long-established usage. Theagenes is accordingly thrown into a dungeon, and regularly bastinadoed under the superintendence of a eunuch, in order to instill into him proper notions of gallantry; while an attempt on the life of Chariclea, whom Arsace has discovered not to be his sister, fails through the mistake of an attendant, who delivers the poisoned goblet intended for her to Cybele, the princess's nurse and confidante, and the contriver of the plot. Chariclea, however, is condemned on this pretext to be burned alive as a poisoner; but the flames recoil before the magical influence of the gem Pantarbé, which she wears in her mother's ring; and before Arsace has time to devise any fresh scheme for her destruction, the confidential eunuch of Oroondates, to whom the misdeeds of his spouse had become known, arrives from the camp of Syene with orders to bring the two captives to the presence of the satrap. Arsace commits suicide in despair; but the escort of the lovers, while travelling along the banks of the Nile, is surprised by a roving party of Ethiopians; and they are carried to the camp of Hydaspes, by whom they are destined, according to Ethiopian usage, to be hereafter sacrificed to the sun and moon—the national deities of the country, as first-fruits of the war. A long account is now introduced of the siege and capture of Syene by the Ethiopians, and the victory of Hydaspes over Oroondates, which occupies the whole of the ninth book; and though in itself not ill told, is misplaced, as interrupting the narrative at the most critical point of the story. Peace is at last concluded between the belligerents; and Hydaspes, returning in triumph to his capital of Meroë, holds a grand national festival of thanksgiving, at which the victims are to be sacrificed. The secret of her birth had, however, been revealed to Chariclea by Calasiris before the elopement from Delphi, and when on the point of being led to the altar, she suddenly throws herself at the feet of the Queen Persina, and, producing the well-remembered token of the fillet and the ring, claims the protection of her parents. The recognition of the mother is instantaneous, but Hydaspes, who had always believed that the child to which his queen gave birth had died in early infancy, remains incredulous, till his doubts are removed by the evidence of Sisimithres, who identifies Chariclea as the child which he had confided, ten years before, to the care of Charicles. At this juncture Charicles himself appears, having come to Egypt to reclaim his lost child from Calasiris, and thence having been sent on by Oroondates to the court of Ethiopia:—and the denouement, as far as the heroine is concerned, is now complete. Theagenes, however, still remains doomed, and Hydaspes seems unwilling to relinquish his victim; but, after an interval of suspense, during which he incidentally performs various exploits rather unusual in a man in momentary expectation of death,65 he is spared, at the vehement intercession of Persina, to whom Chariclea has revealed her love for the young Thessalian. The voice of the people, raised in acclamation at this deed of clemency, is ratified by the approbation of Sisimithres and the Gymnosophists, and all difficulties are now at an end. The betrothal of Theagenes and Chariclea is publicly announced; and, at the termination of the festival, they return in state into the city, with Hydaspes and Persina, as the acknowledged heirs of the kingdom.