of some white marble carvings, the gift of a Chian sculptor, stood out in sharp relief.  The floor was covered with rich carpets from Sardis; low cushions of panthers’ skins lay ranged along the colonnade; around the artistically wrought hearth stood quaint Egyptian settees, and small, delicately-carved tables of Thya wood, on which lay all kinds of musical instruments, the flute, cithara and lyre.  Numerous lamps of various and singular shapes, filled with Kiki oil, hung against the walls.  Some represented fire-spouting dolphins; others, strange winged monsters from whose jaws the flames issued; and these, blending their light with that from the hearth, illumined the apartment.

In this room a group of men were assembled, whose appearance and dress differed one from the other.  A Syrian from Tyre, in a long crimson robe, was talking animatedly to a man whose decided features and crisp, curly, black hair proclaimed him an Israelite.  The latter had come to Egypt to buy chariots and horses for Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah—­the Egyptian equipages being the most sought after at that time.  Close to him stood three Greeks from Asia Minor, the rich folds of whose garments (for they wore the costly dress of their native city Miletus), contrasted strongly with the plain and unadorned robe of Phryxus, the deputy commissioned to collect money for the temple of Apollo at Delphi, with whom they were in earnest conversation.  Ten years before, the ancient temple had been consumed by fire; and at this time efforts were being made to build another, and a more beautiful one.

Two of the Milesians, disciples of Anaximander and Anaximenes, were staying then in Egypt, to study astronomy and the peculiar wisdom of the Egyptians at Heliopolis, and the third was a wealthy merchant and ship-owner, named Theopompus, who had settled at Naukratis.

[Anaximander of Miletus, born 611-546, was a celebrated geometrician, astronomer, philosopher and geographer.  He was the author of a book on natural phenomena, drew the first map of the world on metal, and introduced into Greece a kind of clock which he seems to have borrowed from the Babylonians.  He supposes a primary and not easily definable Being, by which the whole world is governed, and in which, though in himself infinite and without limits, everything material and circumscribed has its foundation.  “Chaotic matter” represents in his theory the germ of all created things, from which water, earth, animals, nereids or fish-men, human beings &c. have had their origin.]

Rhodopis herself was engaged in a lively conversation with two Samian Greeks:  the celebrated worker in metals, sculptor and goldsmith Theodorus, and the Iambic poet Ibykus of Rhegium, who had left the court of Polykrates for a time in order to become acquainted with Egypt, and were bearers of presents to Amasis from their ruler.  Close to the fire lay Philoinus of Sybaris, a corpulent man with strongly-marked features and a sensual expression of face; he was stretched at full-length on a couch covered with spotted furs, and amused himself by playing with his scented curls wreathed with gold, and with the golden chains which fell from his neck on to the long saffron-colored robe that clothed him down to his feet.