The youthful pair then, crowned by Hydaspes with white mitres, and invested with the dignity of priesthood, sacrificed under propitious omens; and, accompanied by lighted torches and the sounds of pipes and flutes, Theagenes and Hydaspes, Charicles and Sisimithres, in chariots drawn by horses, Persina and Chariclea, in one drawn by milk white oxen, were escorted, into Meröe (amidst shouts, clapping of hands, and dances), there to celebrate with greater magnificence the more mystic portions of the nuptial rites. Thus ends the Romance of the "Ethiopics," or Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea, written by a Phœnician of Emesa, in Phœnicia, of the race of the Sun--Heliodorus, the son of Theodosius. [Footnote 1: In. Bk. viii., 98, Herodotus gives an account of the Persian system of estafette--comparing it to the torch race:--"Kατάπερ Ἔλλησι ἡ λαμπαδηφορίη, τὴν τῷ Ἡφαίστῳ επιτέλεουσι." See also, Xen. Cyrop. viii. 6, 17.] [Footnote 2: Solinus describes these fabulous creatures as "alites ferocissimæ et ultra omnem rabiem sævientes;" others speak of them as resembling an eagle in the upper part, a horse in the lower.--See Æsch. P. V., 395 and 803.] [Footnote 3: See Blakesley's edit. of Herod. iii. 98: where mention is made of boats made of bamboo, used by the Indians, of which Pliny says, that the length of the boats, made of the internodal wood, often exceeded five cubits, and that they would hold three persons.] [Footnote 4: Herod. i. 216, states the same concerning the Massagetæ, and assigns the same cause:--"Τῶν θεῶν τῴ ταχίστῳ πάντων τῶν θνητῶν τὸ τάχιστον δατέονται."] [Footnote 5: Τὴν ἐσχάρα.] [Footnote 6: Taλaντεύει καθ' ἡμας ἡ μοῖρα.] [Footnote 7: "Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpora virtus." Virg. Æn. v. 344. ] [Footnote 8: "Immunis aram si tetigit manus, Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos penates Farre pio et saliente micâ." Hor. III. Od. xxiii. 17. ] [Footnote 9: See Book IV.] [Footnote 10: In the version printed in 1717 is a curious blunder in the word ἐλέφαντα--"a spot black as ebony, resembling an elephant."] [Footnote 11: Tὸ ὄμμα δὲ οἱονεί κέρας ἥ σίδηρον εἰς τὰ ὁρώμενα τείνας. ... "ille--immota tenebat Lumina, et obnixus curam sub corde premebat."--Æn. iv. 331. ] [Footnote 12: See the speech of Agamemnon, in the Iphigenia in Aulis, 1242.] [Footnote 13: "Ostendent terris hunc tantùm fata, neque ultrà Esse sinent."--Virg. Æn. vi. 870. ] [Footnote 14: "Et serves animæ dimidium meæ."--Hor. I. Od. iii. 8.] [Footnote 15: εἱσαγγιλεὺς. See Herod. III. 84.] [Footnote 16: It would be unfair to deprive the reader of the very quaint rendering of this passage in the version of 1717: "Merœbus, young and bashful, and wonderfully tickled at the thoughts of a bride, blushed through his black skin, his face looking _like a ball of soot that had taken fire_."]