Longus wrote a Prooimion to his romance which reveals the occasion and the purpose of his writing. While hunting in Lesbos he saw in a fair grove of the Nymphs a painted picture which told a tale of ancient love. “There were figured in it young women, in the posture, some of teeming, others of swaddling, little children; babes exposed, and ewes giving them suck; shepherds taking up foundlings, young persons plighting their troth; an incursion of thieves, an inroad of armed men.” And on studying the painting Longus says: “I had a mighty instigation to write something as to answer that picture. And therefore, when I had carefully sought and found an interpreter of the image, I drew up these four books, an oblation to Love and to Pan and to the Nymphs, and a delightful possession even for all men. For this will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has loved, it will remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For there was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that God to write the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my own right wits.” With this delightful prayer, our humorous nympholept Longus begins his story. We must now outline briefly his four books of Pastorals. The characters are: _Daphnis_, a young goatherd _Lamo_, foster-father of Daphnis _Myrtale_, foster-mother of Daphnis _Chloe_, a young shepherdess _Dryas_, foster-father of Chloe _Nape_, foster-mother of Chloe _Dorco_, an oxherd _Philetas_, an aged shepherd and a famous piper _Lycaenium_, a city chit married to a swain _Dionysophanes_, lord of the manor _Clearista_, his wife _Astylus_, his son _Gnatho_, a parasite of Astylus _Lampis_, a herdsman Tyrian pirates Young nobles of Methymna In Lesbos near Mytilene there was a great estate of a great noble. On it once strange things happened for a goatherd Lamo found a fine baby boy being nursed by a she-goat. Purple was his cloak and near him was a little golden sword with an ivory handle. Lamo and his wife Myrtale reared the child and named him Daphnis. Two years later another shepherd Dryas found in a cave sacred to the nymphs and carved with pictures of them a baby girl being nursed by a sheep. And beside her were little possessions, a girdle embroidered in gold, gilded shoes, golden anklets. Dryas and his wife reared the child and named her Chloe. These are our hero and heroine.