at which the victims are to be sacrificed.  The secret of her birth had, however, been revealed to Chariclea by Calasiris before the elopement from Delphi, and when on the point of being led to the altar, she suddenly throws herself at the feet of the Queen Persina, and, producing the well-remembered token of the fillet and the ring, claims the protection of her parents.  The recognition of the mother is instantaneous, but Hydaspes, who had always believed that the child to which his queen gave birth had died in early infancy, remains incredulous, till his doubts are removed by the evidence of Sisimithres, who identifies Chariclea as the child which he had confided, ten years before, to the care of Charicles.  At this juncture Charicles himself appears, having come to Egypt to reclaim his lost child from Calasiris, and thence having been sent on by Oroondates to the court of Ethiopia:—­and the denouement, as far as the heroine is concerned, is now complete.  Theagenes, however, still remains doomed, and Hydaspes seems unwilling to relinquish his victim; but, after an interval of suspense, during which he incidentally performs various exploits rather unusual in a man in momentary expectation of death,[65] he is spared, at the vehement intercession of Persina, to whom Chariclea has revealed her love for the young Thessalian.  The voice of the people, raised in acclamation at this deed of clemency, is ratified by the approbation of Sisimithres and the Gymnosophists, and all difficulties are now at an end.  The betrothal of Theagenes and Chariclea is publicly announced; and, at the termination of the festival, they return in state into the city, with Hydaspes and Persina, as the acknowledged heirs of the kingdom.

[Footnote 63:  In all the Greek romances, it seems almost inevitable that all the male characters should fall in love with the heroine, and all the females with the hero; and, this is, in some of them, carried to a ludicrous degree of absurdity.]

[Footnote 64:  The name of Potiphar’s wife, according to the 12th chapter of the Koran.  The story of Yusuf and Zuleikha forms the subject of one of the most beautiful poems in the Persian language, by Jami.]

[Footnote 65:  One of these consists in pursuing a wild bull on horseback, and throwing himself from the horse on the neck of the bull, which he seizes by the horns, and then, by main force wrenching his neck round, hurls him powerless to the ground on his back!  Such an achievement appears almost incredible; but it is represented, in all its particulars, in one of the Arundel marbles, (Marmor.  Oxon.  Selden, xxxviii,) under the name of [Greek:  Tayrokathapsia], and is mentioned as a national sport of Thessaly, the native country of Theagenes, both by Pliny (Hist.  Nat. viii. 45), and by Suetonius (Claud. cap. 21)—­“He exhibited,” (says the latter writer,) “Thessalian horsemen who drive wild bulls round and round the circus, and leaping on them when they are weary, bring them to the ground by the horns.”]