The story of the Grecian bride is still more wonderful, and yet it comes to us so surprisingly well authenticated, inasmuch as the details were forwarded by the prefect of the city in which the thing occurred, to the proconsul of his province, and by the latter were laid before the emperor Hadrian—and as it was not the custom to mystify Roman emperors—we are constrained to believe that what the prefect and proconsul communicated to him, they had good reason for believing themselves. It appears that a gentleman, called Demostrates, and Charito, his wife, had a daughter called Philinnion, who died; and that about six months afterward, a youth named Machates, who had come to visit them, was surprised on retiring to the apartments destined to strangers, by receiving the visits of a young maiden who eats and drinks and exchanges gifts with him. Some accident having taken the nurse that way, she, amazed by the sight, summons her master and mistress to behold their daughter, who is there sitting with the guest. Of course, they do not believe her; but at length, wearied by her importunities, the mother follows her to the guest’s chamber; but the young people are now asleep, and the door closed; but looking through the keyhole, she perceives what she believes to be her daughter. Still unable to credit her senses, she resolves to wait till morning before disturbing them; but when she comes again the young lady had departed; while Machates, on being interrogated, confesses that Philinnion had been with him, but that she had admitted to him that it was unknown to her parents. Upon this, the amazement and agitation of the mother were naturally very great; especially when Machates showed her a ring which the girl had given him, and a bodice which she had left behind her; and his amazement was no less, when he heard the story they had to tell. He, however, promised that if she returned the next night, he would let them see her; for he found it impossible to believe that his bride was their dead daughter. He suspected, on the contrary, that some thieves had stripped her body of the clothes and ornaments in which she had been buried, and that the girl who came to his room had bought them. When, therefore, she arrived, his servant having had orders to summon the father and mother, they came; and perceiving that it was really their daughter, they fell to embracing her, with tears. But she reproached them for the intrusion, declaring that she had been permitted to spend three days with this stranger, in the house of her birth; but that now she must go to the appointed place; and immediately fell down dead, and the dead body lay there visible to all.