Sosthenes, the bailiff of Thersander, interests his master in Leucippe, so he tries to seduce her, but unsuccessfully. Clitophon in prison is told a false story that both Leucippe and Melitte are faithless to him. Clitophon resolves to denounce Melitte as an accomplice in a plot for the murder of Leucippe and then to die. He is tried for adultery and self-confessed murder, but Clinias foils his attempt by telling the whole truth in court. Sosthenes departs, leaving Leucippe free. Leucippe’s father, Sostratus, by good fortune arrives in Ephesus on a sacred embassy just in time to assist his daughter. The trial of Clitophon is resumed in a long court scene in which finally Thersander challenges Leucippe and Melitte to tests of chastity by the magic pipes of Pan and the magic spring of Rhodopis. Both pass the ordeals. Thersander, since everything is going against him, for his slave, Sosthenes, has been captured and will be forced to confess the truth, flees. Sosthenes confesses. Clitophon is acquitted. Leucippe tells her whole story: how the bandits beheaded another woman dressed in her clothes to prevent Clitophon from following; how a quarrel over her arose among them in which Chaereas was slain; then she was sold by the other pirates to Sosthenes, who bought her for Thersander. Sostratus then relates the secondary romance of Callisthenes and Calligone. The novel ends with a happy reunion of all at Tyre where prayers and sacrifices are offered in behalf of the lasting felicity of Clitophon and Leucippe, of Callisthenes and Calligone. Such is the story which Phillimore characterizes as “a breathless succession of improbable incident.”[143] The settings move with the same cinematic rapidity which Chariton employed: from Sidon to Berytus, to the sea and shipwreck, to Pelusium and Alexandria, to Ephesus and the great court scene, to Byzantium and back again to Tyre. In one point particularly the structure of the plot differs from Chariton’s and indeed from the plots of all the other Greek Romances. The author in the beginning hands over the story to a narrator, the hero, Clitophon, who then tells the events in the first person. Very soon, however, the reader has forgotten this device: so many other characters are given the floor to relate their own tales. And at the end the author too has forgotten this beginning, for Clitophon does not round up his narrative with a polite farewell. He does not even explain how he happened to be at Sidon where he started the tale. And the author does not express his appreciation of the entertainment Clitophon has given him.[144] The chief interests of the romance are again love, adventure and religion. There are two love-stories of primary interest instead of one. Yet the bulk of the plot turns on adventure rather than on sex or worship. And delight in adventure adds to the typical travellers’ tales a flaming curiosity which demands description of many strange novelties.