[Footnote 62:  The establishment of household slaves or Mamlukes seems to have been nearly on the same footing with the ancient as with the modern Persians.]

The loss of their old protector soon involves them in a fresh maze of troubles.  Thyamis, indeed, whose elevation to the high priesthood seems to have driven his former love for Chariclea out of his head, still continues their friend; but Arsace, the haughty consort of the satrap, who is represented as a princess of the royal blood of Persia, and a prototype of Catharine of Russia in her amours, has already cast her eyes on Theagenes, whose personal attractions seem on all occasions to have been as irresistible by the ladies as those of the fair partner of his wanderings by the other sex.[63] Under pretence of removing them from the temple during the period of mourning for Calasiris, they are lodged in the palace of the satrapess, where the constancy of the hero is exposed to a variety of perilous temptations, but comes forth, of course, unscathed from the ordeal.  The love of ladies thus rejected has been prone, in all ages and countries, particularly in Egypt since the days of Yusuf and Zuleikha,[64] to turn into hatred; and Arsace is no exception to this long-established usage.  Theagenes is accordingly thrown into a dungeon, and regularly bastinadoed under the superintendence of a eunuch, in order to instill into him proper notions of gallantry; while an attempt on the life of Chariclea, whom Arsace has discovered not to be his sister, fails through the mistake of an attendant, who delivers the poisoned goblet intended for her to Cybele, the princess’s nurse and confidante, and the contriver of the plot.  Chariclea, however, is condemned on this pretext to be burned alive as a poisoner; but the flames recoil before the magical influence of the gem Pantarbe, which she wears in her mother’s ring; and before Arsace has time to devise any fresh scheme for her destruction, the confidential eunuch of Oroondates, to whom the misdeeds of his spouse had become known, arrives from the camp of Syene with orders to bring the two captives to the presence of the satrap.  Arsace commits suicide in despair; but the escort of the lovers, while travelling along the banks of the Nile, is surprised by a roving party of Ethiopians; and they are carried to the camp of Hydaspes, by whom they are destined, according to Ethiopian usage, to be hereafter sacrificed to the sun and moon—­the national deities of the country, as first-fruits of the war.  A long account is now introduced of the siege and capture of Syene by the Ethiopians, and the victory of Hydaspes over Oroondates, which occupies the whole of the ninth book; and though in itself not ill told, is misplaced, as interrupting the narrative at the most critical point of the story.  Peace is at last concluded between the belligerents; and Hydaspes, returning in triumph to his capital of Meroe, holds a grand national festival of thanksgiving,