The most interesting among the upright characters in the play are the priests: Calasiris, high-priest of Isis in Egypt, Charicles, priest of Apollo at Delphi, Sisimithres, the Greek Gymnosophist. They are consecrated to service, devoted to worship. They are men of the world extending their knowledge by travel and talk. Calasiris on his visit to Delphi spent his days in philosophical discussion of religious rites and the meaning of the gods of Greece and of Egypt. Charicles is a humanitarian who educates the little waif Chariclea as his own daughter. Sisimithres dares withdraw from the human sacrifices proposed by a great king and people and by his personal authority converts them from such abominable customs to a purer conception of deity and of worship. Calasiris in his role of interpreting the events of the story and solving its problems, in his clear philosophical interests probably represents Heliodorus himself.[119] To return to the structure of the romance, the plot with such borrowings from epic and dramatic poetry, with such characters, some types, some highly individualized, moves forward in a manner that resembles the modern cinema. There is no carefully interwoven plot such as tragedy presents, for example in _Oedipus Rex_. Rather there is a progression of episodes, each a clear picture in itself, all after many involutions and evolutions falling into an orderly narrative. Rattenbury thinks that after Heliodorus’ original beginning which secures the interest and sympathy of the reader through his curiosity he fails to maintain the interest throughout. The long retrospective narrative of Calasiris becomes monotonous. The reader is irritated by the postponement of the denouement after he as well as the hero and heroine knows the secret of Chariclea’s parentage. Maillon, however, finds in Heliodorus a great talent for narration. After the impressive opening scene, he says, from narrative to narrative, from description to description, one is led slowly but without ennui to the grandeur of the final chapters. The variety of the episodes does not detract from the unity of the narrative because we keep returning to Theagenes and Chariclea in whom we have been interested from the first.[120]