Essays on the Greek RomancesHaight, Elizabeth Hazelton
History
Essays on the Greek Romances
Haight, Elizabeth Hazelton
Apuleius. Metamorphoses; Greek fiction -- History and criticism
Now Habrocomes riding through Cilicia on his quest met by chance
Hippothoos who begged to be allowed to travel with him. They went into
Cappadocia and there dining together told each other their life
histories, Hippothoos his love of a beautiful lad and the loss of him,
Habrocomes his love for the beautiful Anthia and his loss of her. The
description of Anthia made Hippothoos relate his capture of a fair
maiden and her rescue. Habrocomes, convinced that the girl was Anthia,
persuaded Hippothoos to join him in his search.
But the preparations for the wedding of Perilaos and Anthia were going
on apace, and it would have been consummated had not Anthia found a
friend in an Ephesian physician Eudoxos to whom she confided her
tragedy. She begged him to give her poison so that she might die
faithful. She promised him silver so that he might return to Ephesus.
Eudoxos gave her not poison but a sleeping potion, then hurriedly
departed. The very night of her wedding, in the nuptial chamber, Anthia
took what she believed poison. Perilaos coming to his bride found a
corpse. To do her all honor, the bereft bridegroom had her placed in a
magnificent tomb with splendid funeral gifts.
Robbers broke in the tomb for the treasure just as Anthia awoke. They
carried her off with them to Alexandria. No one else knew she was alive.
Habrocomes heard from an old woman the story of Anthia’s death, of the
pillaging of her tomb and the carrying off of her body. So leaving
Hippothoos he started off alone by ship for Egypt hoping to find the
brigands who had committed such sacrilege. The bandits had already sold
Anthia to a rajah named Psammis, but Anthia saved herself from his
amorousness by telling him that she was a consecrated priestess of Isis
so he respected her.
Habrocomes’ ship missed its course to Alexandria and landed in
Phoenicia. There the inhabitants set upon the strangers and capturing
them sold them as slaves at Pelusium, Habrocomes to an old soldier,
Araxos. This soldier had a hideous and wicked wife Cyno who, falling in
love with Habrocomes, offered to kill her husband and marry him. When he
refused, she herself killed her husband and accused Habrocomes of the
murder. He was sent to Alexandria to be tried. Hippothoos meanwhile had
gathered a new band and in his travels had come to Egypt and made the
mountains near the frontiers of Ethiopia his center for expeditions.
Habrocomes was condemned to death by the Prefect of Egypt, but his
execution was twice frustrated by miracles caused by the Nile river when
he appealed to the sun-god Helios for aid against injustice. So he was
cast into prison.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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