_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.