Chapter III: Preface (3)

"Our country is Ionia; our family one of the most illustrious in Ephesus. In early youth, as the laws appointed, we entered into the priesthood. I was consecrated to Diana, my brother to Apollo. But as the office is an annual one, and the time was elapsed, we were going to Delos to exhibit games[22] according to the custom of our country, and to lay down the priesthood. We loaded a ship therefore with gold, silver, costly garments, and other things necessary for the show and the entertainment which we were to give to the people. We set sail; our parents being advanced in years, and afraid of the sea, remained at home: but a great number of our fellow citizens attended us, some on board our ships, others in vessels of their own. When we had completed the greatest part of our voyage, a tempest suddenly arose; winds and hurricanes, raising the waves, drove the ship out of its course. The pilot yielded at length to the fury of the storm; and deserting the government of the ship, let her drive at the mercy of the winds. We scudded before them for seven days and nights; and at length were cast upon the shore where you found us, and where you saw the slaughter which had happened there. Rejoicing at our preservation, we gave an entertainment to the ship's company. In the midst of it, a party of the sailors, who had conspired to make themselves masters of our riches, by taking away our lives, attacked us; our friends defended us; a dreadful combat ensued, which was continued with such rage and animosity, on both sides, that of the whole number engaged we alone survived (would to God we had not!), miserable remains of that unhappy day; in one thing alone fortunate, in that some pitying deity has brought us into your hands; and, instead of death which we feared, we are now to deliberate upon a marriage. I do not by any means decline the offer. Prisoner as I am, I ought to esteem it an honour and a happiness to be permitted to aspire to the bed of my conqueror. It seems too, to be by a particular providence of the gods, that I, a priestess, should be united to the son of a high priest. One thing alone I beg of you, Ο Thyamis. Permit me, at the first city I arrive at in which there is a temple or altar of Apollo, to resign my priesthood, and lay aside these badges of my office: this perhaps would with most propriety be done in Memphis, when you shall have recovered the dignity you are entitled to. Thus would our wedlock be celebrated with better auspices, joined with victory and prosperous success: but, if you would have it sooner, be it as you please; let me only first perform those rites which the custom of my country demands. This I know you will not refuse me, as you have yourself been, as you say, dedicated to holy things from childhood, and have just and reverend notions of what relates to the gods."

Here she ceased, and her tears began to flow. Her speech was followed by the approbation and applause of the company, who bid her do thus, and promised her their aid. Thyamis could not help joining with them, though he was not entirely satisfied, for his eager desire to possess Chariclea made him think even the present hour an unreasonable delay. Her words, however, like the siren's song, soothed him, and compelled his assent; he thought, too, he saw in this some relation to his dream, and brought himself to agree that the wedding should be celebrated at Memphis. He then dismissed the company, having first divided the spoils, a great part of the choicest of which were forced upon him by his people.

He gave orders that, in ten days, they should all be ready to march to Memphis; and sent the Greeks to the habitation in which he had before placed them. Cnemon, too, by his command, attended them no longer now as a guard, but as a companion: their entertainment was the best which Thyamis could afford; and Theagenes, for his sister's sake, partook of the same handsome treament. He determined within himself to see Chariclea as seldom as possible, lest the sight of her should inflame the desire which tormented him, and urge him on to do anything inconsistent with what he had agreed to and promised. He deprived himself, therefore, of that company in which he most delighted, fearing that to converse with her, and to restrain himself within proper bounds, would be more than he could answer for. When the crew had dispersed, each to his habitation in the lake, Cnemon went to some distance from it, in search of the herb which he had promised to procure for Theagenes; and Theagenes, taking the opportunity of his absence, began to weep and lament, not addressing himself to Chariclea, but calling earnestly upon the gods: and she with tender solicitude inquiring whether he was only lamenting their common misfortunes, or suffering any new addition to them?--"What can be newer or more unworthy," he replied, "than the breaking of vows and promises? than that Chariclea, entirely forgetting me, should give her consent to another marriage?"--"God forbid!" replied the maiden; "let not your reproaches increase the load of my calamities; nor, after so long an experience of my fidelity, lightly suspect a measure which the immediate necessity of the moment compelled me to adopt: sooner will you change than find me changed in regard to you. I can bear ill fortune; nor shall any force compel me to do anything unworthy of the modesty and virtue of my sex. In one thing alone, I own, I am immoderate, my love for you; but then it is a lawful one; and, however great, it did not throw me inconsiderately into your power; I resigned myself to you on the most honourable conditions; I have hither to lived with you in the most inviolate purity, resisting all your solicitations, and looking forward to a lawful opportunity of completing that marriage to which we are solemnly pledged. Can you then be so unreasonable as to think it possible that I should prefer a barbarian to a Greek? a pirate, to one to whom I am bound by so many ties?"--"What, then," said Theagenes, "was the meaning of that fine speech of yours? To call me your brother, indeed, was prudent enough, to keep Thyamis from suspecting the real nature of our love, and to induce him to let us continue together. I understood, too, the meaning of your veiling the true circumstances of our voyage under the fictions of Ionia and Delos. But so readily to accept his proposals, to promise to marry him, nay, to fix a time for the ceremony--this, I own, disturbs me, and passes my comprehension; but I had rather sink into the earth than see such an end of all my hopes and labours on your account."

Chariclea flung her arms round Theagenes, gave him a thousand kisses, and bedewing him with tears, cried out, "How delightful to me are these apprehensions of yours! They prove that all the troubles you have undergone have in no degree weakened your love; but know, Ο my dear Theagenes, that unless I had promised as I did, we should not now be talking together. You must be sensible that contradiction only adds force to violent passion; seeming compliance allays the impulse in its birth, and the allurement of promises lulls the violence of desire. Your rough lovers think they have got something when they have obtained a promise: and, relying upon the faith of it, become quieter, feeding themselves with hope. I, being aware of this, in words resigned myself up to him, committing what shall follow to the gods, and to that genius who presides over our loves.

"A short interval of time has frequently afforded means of safety, which the wisest counsels of men could not have foreseen. I saw nothing better to be done than to endeavour to ward off a certain and imminent danger, by a present, though uncertain, remedy. We must, therefore, my dearest Theagenes, use this fiction as our best ally, and carefully conceal the truth even from Cnemon; for though he seems friendly to us, and is a Greek, yet he is a captive, and likely, perhaps, to do anything which may ingratiate him with his master. Our friendship with him is as yet too new, neither is there any relation between us sufficiently strong to give us a certain assurance of his fidelity. If he suspects, therefore, and inquires into our real situation, we must deny it: for even a falsehood is commendable when it is of service to those who use it, and does no injury to the hearers of it."

While Chariclea was thus suggesting this course, Cnemon comes running in, with an altered countenance, and seemingly in much agitation. "Ο Theagenes," he cried, "I have brought you the herb I mentioned; apply it, and it will heal your wounds; but you must now, I fear, prepare yourself for others, and a slaughter equal to that which you have lately been an actor in." Theagenes desiring him to explain himself, "There is no time at present;" he replied, "for explanation; action will probably anticipate words; but do you and Chariclea follow me as fast as you can;" and taking them with him, he brought them to Thyamis. They found him employed in burnishing his helmet and sharpening his spear. "Very seasonably," he exclaimed, "are you employed about your arms; put them on as fast as you can, and command all your men to do the same, for a hostile force is approaching greater than ever threatened us before, and they must now be very near. I saw them advancing over the top of the neighbouring hill, and have made all possible haste to bring you information, giving the alarm to every one I met with in my passage."

Thyamis, at these tidings, started up and cried out, "Where is Chariclea?" as if he were more apprehensive for her than for himself. When Cnemon showed her standing near the door. "Lead this maiden privately," says he, "into the cave where I keep my treasures, and forget not to replace as usual the covering of it; having done this, return to me as fast as you can: meanwhile, I will prepare for the storm of battle which awaits us." Having said this, he ordered his lieutenant to bring forth a victim, that he might begin the engagement after a due sacrifice to his country's gods. Cnemon proceeded to execute his commission, and leading off Chariclea, who turned earnestly towards Theagenes, and lamented her hard fate, he let her down into the cave. This was not, as many are, the work of nature, an accidental excavation, but the contrivance of the pirates, who, imitating her operations, had hollowed out an artificial cavern for the reception of their treasures. It was formed in this manner: its entrance,[23] narrow and dark, was under the doors of a hidden chamber, the threshold became, in case of need, a second door, for farther descent; it fitted exactly, and could be lifted up with great facility; the rest of the cave was cut into various winding passages, which, now diverging, now returning, with a multitude of ramifications, converged at last into an open space at the bottom, which received an uncertain light from an aperture at the extremity of the lake. Here Cnemon introduced Chariclea, and led her to the farthest recess, encouraging and promising her that he and Theagenes would come to her in the evening; and that he would not suffer him to engage in the battle which impended. Chariclea was unable to answer him; and he went out of the cave, leaving her half dead, silent, and stupified, as if her soul had been separated from her with Theagenes. He shut down the door, dropping a tear for her as he did it, and for the necessity he was under of burying her in a manner alive, and consigning the brightest of human forms to darkness and obscurity. He made what haste he could to Thyamis. He found him burning with ardour for the fight, and Theagenes by his side splendidly armed; he was even to frenzy rousing the spirits of his followers who surrounded him, and thus began to address them:

"There is no need, comrades, to address you in a long exhortation; you want no encouragement, to whom war is the breath of life; and the sudden approach of the enemy cuts off all space for words; it becomes us to prepare to resist force by force; not to do so would betray an absence of all energy. I do not put you in mind of your wives and children as is usual on these occasions, though nothing but victory can preserve them from destruction and violation. This contest is for our very being and existence; no quarter, no truce, ever takes place in piratic warfare; we must either conquer or die. Let us exert, then, our force to the utmost, and with determined minds fall upon the enemy."

Having said this, he looked round for his lieutenant, Thermuthis, and called him several times by his name. When he nowhere appeared, throwing out hasty threats against him, he rushed on towards the ferry. The battle was already begun, and he could see at a distance those who inhabited the extremities and approaches of the lake in the fact of being routed by the enemy, who set on fire the boats and huts of those who fell or fled. The flames spread to the neighbouring morass, caught hold of the reeds which grew there in great abundance, dazzled every eye with an almost intolerable blaze, and, crackling and roaring, stunned their ears.

War[24] now appeared in all its horrid forms: the inhabitants for some time, with readiness and energy, supported and repelled the attack; but being astonished by the sudden incursion, and pressed by the superior numbers of the enemy, those on the land gave way, and many of those on the lake, together with their boats and habitations, were overwhelmed in the waters! every dreadful sound now struck the air, as the conflict raged both by land and water; groans and shouts were mingled, the lake was discoloured with blood, all were involved in fire or water. Thyamis, at this sight, called to mind his dream, and the temple of Isis shining with lamps, and flowing with the blood of victims; he saw a resemblance in it to the scene before him, and began to fear that he must give up his former favourable interpretation; that Chariclea was destined to fall in this tumult, and that so having had her in his possession, he should now have her no longer; that she would be slain, not merely be wounded in her virginity; exclaiming, therefore against the goddess, for having deceived him, and unable to bear the thought that any one else should possess Chariclea, he ordered the men who were about him to halt, and if they were obliged to engage, to defend themselves as well as they could, by retiring behind, and making sallies from, the numerous little islands: as by so doing they might, for some time, be able to resist the attack of the enemy. He then, under pretence of going to seek Thermuthis, and sacrificing to his household gods, returned in great agitation to his tent, suffering no one to follow him.

The disposition of the barbarians is obstinate and determined;[25] when they despair of their own safety, they are accustomed to destroy those who are most dear to them; either wildly imagining that they shall enjoy their company after death; or thinking that by so doing they shall deliver them from the injuries and insults of the enemy. Stimulated by some of these motives, Thyamis, forgetting the urgent danger which pressed upon him, and the enemies by whom he was surrounded as by a net; burning with anger, love, and jealousy, rushed headlong to the cave: he poured out his Egyptian exclamations with a loud voice, and soon after his entrance, being addressed by some one in the Greek tongue, the voice guided him to the person; he seized her hair with his left hand, and with his right plunged his sword into her bosom: the unfortunate creature sank down, uttering a last and piteous groan. Issuing forth and closing the trap-door, he threw a little dust over her, and dropping a tear he exclaimed, "Are these then the nuptial presents you were to expect from me!" When he arrived at the boats, he saw his people ready to fly as the enemy approached near, and Thermuthis having now made his appearance, preparing to begin the sacrifice: having abused him for his unseasonable absence, and told him that he had already offered up the most beauteous of victims, he, Thermuthis and the rower got into a boat: their small vessels would not hold more, being made out of the trunk of a tree rudely hollowed. Theagenes and Cnemon got into another, and in the same manner all the rest embarked.

When they had proceeded a little from the shore, rowing round the side rather than launching out into the deep, they lay upon their oars, and drew up in a line, to receive the enemy; but at their approach, a sudden panic seized the pirates, and not sustaining the first hostile shout of their opponents, they fled in disorder: Cnemon and Theagenes gradually retired, but not from fear: Thyamis alone disdained to fly; and perhaps not wishing to survive Chariclea, rushed into the midst of his foes. A cry was instantly heard among them, "This is Thyamis, let all have an eye to him:" immediately they turned their boats and surrounded him; he, vigorously fighting, wounded some and killed others, and yet strange was that which ensued: out of so great a multitude no one lifted up a sword, or cast a dart at him, but every one did their utmost to capture him alive. He continued manfully to resist, till at length his spear was wrested from him, and he had lost his lieutenant, who had nobly seconded him; and who, having received, as he thought, a mortal wound, leaped into the lake, and with great difficulty reached the shore, no one offering to pursue him; for now they had laid hold on Thyamis, and esteemed the capture of one man a victory; and though he had destroyed so many of their men, their joy at having taken him alive far exceeded their grief for the loss of their comrades; for gain is dearer to robbers than their lives; and friendship and relationship are only so far considered among them as they conduce to this main end.

The leaders of this attack were the men who had fled from Thyamis and his followers at the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile: they, enraged at the loss of a booty, which through plunder, they considered as their own, gathered their friends together, and many others from the neighbouring towns, by proposing to them an equal division of the spoils; and became their guides in the expedition.

The reason why they were so desirous of taking Thyamis alive was this: Petosiris, who resided at Memphis, was his younger brother; by his artifices he had unlawfully deprived Thyamis of the priesthood, and hearing that he was now at the head of the pirates, he feared that he might take some opportunity to attack him, or that in time his treachery might be discovered; he was besides suspected of having made away with his brother, who nowhere appeared. For these reasons he proclaimed great rewards among all the nests of pirates in his neighbourhood, to any one who should capture him alive: they, stimulated by these offers, and in the heat of battle, not losing sight of gain, took him prisoner at the price of many of their lives. They sent him, under a strong guard, to the main land, he reproaching them all the while for their seeming lenity, and bearing bonds much more indignantly than he would have borne death. The rest proceeded towards the island in quest of treasures and spoil; but when, after a long and strict search, they found nothing of any consequence, some few things excepted, which out of hurry or forgetfulness were left out of the cavern, they set fire to the tents; and the evening coming on, fearing to remain there any longer, lest they should be surprised by the enemy whom they had driven thence, they returned to their companions upon the continent.

[Footnote 1: Piracy was not in those times considered dishonorable; but the contrary.--Thucyd. B. i. 4.]

[Footnote 2: Called by Herodotus, B. ii. 17, the Bucolic mouth. "It seems clear that the phrase was derived from the inhabitants of the region, a horde of piratical herdsmen, apparently of different race from the agricultural Egyptians. They haunted the most marshy part of the Delta, where the papyrus reeds effectually masked their retreats."--Blakesley's Herodotus.]

[Footnote 3: ἐπὶ τρίτον ζωστῆρα--to the third wale. The wales are strong planks extending along a ship's side through the whole length at different heights, serving to strengthen the decks and form the curves. A passage in the Cyclops of Euripides may illustrate the above--

γάνυμας δὲ δαιτὸς ἤβης,
σκάφος ὁλκὰς ὥς γεμισθεὶς
ποτὶ σέλμα γαστρὸς ἂκρας.--Cyclops. 503.
]

[Footnote 4:

Indum sanguineo veluti violaverat ostro
Si quis ebur.--Æn. xii. 67.
]

[Footnote 5: ἤ γέγoνας πολέμου πάρεργον. The expression πολέμου πάρεργον means a by-work; something done by the by.--Thucyd. B. i. 112.]

[Footnote 6: Iliad, B. i. 45.]

[Footnote 7: A full description of the personal appearance of the buccaneers will be found in Achilles Tatius.--B. iii. c. 9.]

[Footnote 8: Ή μὲν ταῦτα ἐπετραγῴδει.]

[Footnote 9: For a further description of the buccaneer stronghold, see Achilles Tatius, B. iv. c. 14.

Perhaps Heliodorus (afterwards a bishop) had derived the materials for his graphic description of their haunts and manners from personal residence among them, as was the case (so Horace Walpole informs us) with Archbishop Blackburne (_temp._ Geo. II,) who in his younger days is said to have been a buccaneer. In Herod. v. 16, is a curious account of a fishing-town built in the lake Prasias, exactly corresponding with the description of _The Pasturage_ in Heliodorus.]

[Footnote 10: Ἔμπνουν ἄγαλμα.

"And there she stood, so calm and pale
That, but her breathing did not fail,
And motion slight of eye and head,
And of her bosom, warranted
That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,
You might have thought a form of wax,
Wrought to the very life, was there;
But still she was, so pale, so fair."--Marmion, c. xxi
]

[Footnote 11: Βουλῆς δὲ τῆς ἅνω. The Council of the 500, who were a kind of Committee of the Ἐκκλησία to prepare measures for that assembly.]

[Footnote 12: Cnemon and his stepmother will recall to the reader's memory Phædra and Hippolytus.]

[Footnote 13: In the Ceramicus, without the city, was an engine, built in the form of a ship, upon which the πέπλος, or robe of Minerva, was hung, in the manner of a sail, and which was put in motion by concealed machinery. It was conveyed to the temple of Ceres Eleusinia, and from thence to the citadel, where it was put upon Minerva's statue, which was laid upon a bed strewed with flowers, and called πλακὶς.]

[Footnote 14: The public hall at Athens, in which the Prytanes for the time being, and some other magistrates, had their meals, and entertained foreign ambassadors.]

[Footnote 15: Literally, "I had him enrolled in his proper ward (φρατρία), in his proper house (γένος), and among those arrived at puberty (ἕφηβοι)," the successive steps to Athenian citizenship.]

[Footnote 16: The Barathrum was a yawning cleft behind the Acropolis, into which criminals were cast.]

[Footnote 17: Hesiod, "Works and Days," 221.

"Justice....
When mortals violate her sacred laws,
When judges hear the bribe and not the cause,
Close by her parent god behold her stand,
And urge the punishment their sins demand."--Lee.

Ammianus Marcellinus says, B. xxix., "_Inconnivens_ justitiæ oculus; arbiter et vindex perpetuus rerum."

Rarò antecedentem scelestum
Descruit pede Pœna claudo.--Hor. Od. iii. II. 31.
]

[Footnote 18: Ὄν θυμόν κατέδων. Il. vi. 202.]

[Footnote 19: Δεύτερος ἔσται πλοῦς, we will go on a fresh tack.]

[Footnote 20: Κακή κακῶς.]

[Footnote 21: The succession to the Egyptian priesthood was hereditary.--Vide Herod., ii. 37.]

[Footnote 22: θεωρίαν ἤγομεν. The Athenians made a solemn voyage to Delos every year; the deputation was called θεωρία; the persons employed in it, θεωροὶ; the ship, θεωρὶς. See Robinson's Antiquities of Greece.]

[Footnote 23: This description is very obscure in the original; the meaning seems to be, that the descent to the cavern was effected by lifting up an oblong stone, bearing the appearance of a threshold, but serving as a door. The following is the version of the Italian translator: "L'entrata era stretta e oscura, sottoposta all' entrata d'uno occulto edificio, in guisa che la soglia della prima entrata faceva un' altra porta ad uso di scendere," &c. The poet, Walter Lisle, gives the passage thus:--

"A cave there was, it opened well and shut
With narrow door of stone, that threshold was
T'an upper room. Within, a maze it has
Of sundrie wayes, entangled (like the roots
Of thicke-set trees, amids and all abouts),
That meet in plaine."

And wishing to embellish the picture, he adds--

"With scales of crocodile
The roofe is pav'd, brought hither from the Nile."
]

[Footnote 24: See a passage, already referred to, in Achilles Tatius (B. iv. c. 14), containing a spirited picture of pirate warfare.]

[Footnote 25: There is a curious example of this disposition of the barbarians in the conduct of Mithridates, after his defeat by Lucullus. See Ferguson's Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 24. He ordered his wives and sisters to destroy themselves, fearful of their falling into the enemy's hands.]