Various mechanical devices used in the development of the plot show Chariton’s art of narration. Conversation as any novel demands is constantly used. Soliloquies are introduced frequently: at some emotional crisis, Chariton, instead of describing the thoughts and feelings of his characters, has them burst into speech to themselves. Callirhoe on hearing of the supposed loss of Chaereas with the warship laments his death and the destruction of her father’s gallant vessel. Later beside the Euphrates river when she can no longer see “the ocean which led back to Syracuse,” she upbraids cruel Fortune for driving her farther and farther from home. Again, in horror at the proposals of the eunuch, she laments all her misfortunes and expresses her resolve to die as befits Hermocrates’ daughter rather than become the mistress of the Great King. So too Dionysius on the return of Chaereas, after attempts at self-control, bursts forth with despair and jealousy into a lament over the imminent loss of his love. At the same time Chaereas, believing that Callirhoe loves Dionysius and will never return to him from the wealthy Ionian, utters a bitter lament before attempting to hang himself. Letters also are an important means of developing the plot in the Greek Romances, especially in Chariton. He uses seven letters.[27] Chaereas’ first letter to Callirhoe is an impassioned love-letter with an appeal for forgiveness and for an assurance that she still loves him. This is a crucial letter in the plot because it is sent by Bias of Priene to Dionysius himself who conceals it from Callirhoe. Bias sends a brief business letter with it. Pharnaces, governor of Lydia, on the instigation of Dionysius writes a letter to Artaxerxes accusing Mithridates of trying to seduce Dionysius’ wife. This letter is important for the plot, because it motivates the trial of Mithridates. The Great King on receiving it dispatches two laconic business letters to Pharnaces summoning Dionysius and to Mithridates calling him to trial. The other two letters do not affect the plot, but reveal the characters of the senders. These are the letters in Book VIII of Chaereas to Artaxerxes and of Callirhoe to Dionysius. Chaereas proudly sends back Statira unharmed as the gift of Callirhoe to the Great King. Callirhoe with a woman’s intuition comforts Dionysius for her loss by gratitude for his protection, by assuring him that she is with him in spirit in the presence of her son whom she intrusts to his care. She begs him not to marry again, but to bring up the daughter of his first wife and her own son, eventually marry them to each other and send him to Syracuse to see his grandfather. She includes a message to Plangon and ends with an appeal to good Dionysius to remember his Callirhoe. It is hardly strange that Callirhoe concealed this masterpiece of epistolography from her jealous husband, Chaereas.