From Herodotus of Halicarnassus to Sophocles the Athenian.

Herodotus describes, in a letter to his friend Sophocles, a curious encounter with a mariner just returned from unknown parts of Africa.

To Sophocles, the Athenian, greeting. Yesterday, as I was going down to the market-place of Naucratis, I met NicaretÊ, who of all the hetairai in this place is the most beautiful. Now, the hetairai of Naucratis are wont somehow to be exceedingly fair, beyond all women whom we know. She had with her a certain PhocÆan mariner, who was but now returned from a voyage to those parts of Africa which lie below Arabia; and she saluted me courteously, as knowing that it is my wont to seek out and inquire the tidings of all men who have intelligence concerning the ends of the earth.

“Hail to thee, NicaretÊ,” said I; “verily thou art this morning as lovely as the dawn, or as the beautiful Rhodopis that died ere thou wert born to us through the favour of Aphrodite.” [50]

Now this Rhodopis was she who built, they say, the Pyramid of Mycerinus: wherein they speak not truly but falsely, for Rhodopis lived long after the kings who built the Pyramids.

“Rhodopis died not, O Herodotus,” said NicaretÊ, “but is yet living, and as fair as ever she was; and he who is now my lover, even this Phanes of PhocÆa, hath lately beheld her.”

Then she seemed to me to be jesting, like that scribe who told me of KrÔphi and MÔphi; for Rhodopis lived in the days of King Amasis and of Sappho the minstrel, and was beloved by Charaxus, the brother of Sappho, wherefore Sappho reviled him in a song. How then could Rhodopis, who flourished more than a hundred years before my time, be living yet?

While I was considering these things they led me into the booth of one that sold wine; and when NicaretÊ had set garlands of roses on our heads, Phanes began and told me what I now tell thee but whether speaking truly or falsely I know not. He said that being on a voyage to Punt (for so the Egyptians call that part of Arabia), he was driven by a north wind for many days, and at last landed in the mouth of a certain river where were many sea-fowl and water-birds. And thereby is a rock, no common one, but fashioned into the likeness of the head of an Ethiopian. There he said that the people of that country found him, namely the Amagardoi, and carried him to their village. They have this peculiar to themselves, and unlike all other peoples whom we know, that the woman asks the man in marriage. They then, when they have kissed each other, are man and wife wedded. And they derive their names from the mother; wherein they agree with the Lycians, whether being a colony of the Lycians, or the Lycians a colony of theirs, Phanes could not give me to understand. But, whereas they are black and the Lycians are white, I rather believe that one of them has learned this custom from the other; for anything might happen in the past of time.

The Amagardoi have also this custom, such as we know of none other people; that they slay strangers by crowning them with amphorÆ, having made them red-hot. Now, having taken Phanes, they were about to crown him on this wise, when there appeared among them a veiled woman, very tall and goodly, whom they conceive to be a goddess and worship. By her was Phanes delivered out of their hands; and “she kept him in her hollow caves having a desire that he should be her lover,” as Homer says in the Odyssey, if the Odyssey be Homer’s. And Phanes reports of her that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, but of her coming thither, whence she came or when, she would tell him nothing. But he swore to me, by him who is buried at Thebes (and whose name in such a matter as this it is not holy for me to utter), that this woman was no other than Rhodopis the Thracian. For there is a portrait of Rhodopis in the temple of Aphrodite in Naucratis, and, knowing this portrait well, Phanes recognised by it that the woman was Rhodopis. [53] Therefore Rhodopis is yet living, being now about one hundred and fifty years of age. And Phanes added that there is in the country of the Amagardoi a fire; and whoso enters into that fire does not die, but is “without age and immortal,” as Homer says concerning the horses of Peleus. Now, I would have deemed that he was making a mock of that sacred story which he knows who has been initiated into the mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis. But he and NicaretÊ are about to sail together without delay to the country of the Amagardoi, believing that there they will enter the fire and become immortal. Yet methinks that Rhodopis will not look lovingly on NicaretÊ, when they meet in that land, nor NicaretÊ on Rhodopis. Nay, belike the amphora will be made hot for one or the other.

Such, howbeit, was the story of Phanes the PhocÆan, whether he spoke falsely or truly. The God be with thee.

Herodotus.