Codex 94

[Iamblichus, Dramaticon]

Read the Dramaticonof Iamblichus,[1] a narrative of love adventures. The author makes less show of indecencies than Achilles Tatius, but he is more immoral than the Phoenician Heliodorus. Of these three writers, who have all adopted the same subject and have chosen love intrigues as the material for their stories, Heliodorus is more serious and restrained, lamblichus less so, while Achilles Tatius pushes his obscenity to impudence. The style of Iamblichus is soft and flowing; if there is anything vigorous and sonorous in it, it is less characterized by intensity than by what may be called titillation and nervelessness. Iamblichus is so distinguished by excellence of style and arrangement and the order of the narrative that it is to be regretted that he did not devote his skill and energies to serious subjects instead of to puerile fictions.

The characters of the story are a handsome couple named Rhodanes and Sinonis, united by the tie of mutual love and marriage. Garmus, king of Babylon, having lost his wife, falls in love with Sinonis and is eager to marry her. Sinonis refuses and is bound with chains of gold, while Rhodanes is placed upon the cross by Damas and Sacas, the king’s eunuchs. He is taken down through the efforts of Sinonis, and the lovers take to flight, one thus escaping death, the other a hated marriage. Sacas and Damas have their ears and noses cut off and are sent after the fugitives. They take different routes to carry out the search. Rhodanes and Sinonis are nearly surprised by Damas in a meadow. For a fisherman had told him of some shepherds who, being put to the torture, at last show him the meadow where Rhodanes had discovered a treasure, revealed to him by the inscription engraved on a cippus [2] surmounted by a lion.

A spectre in the form of a goat becomes enamoured of Sinonis, which obliges the lovers to leave the meadow. Damas finds a garland of flowers dropped by Sinonis and sends it to Garmus as a consolation. In their flight, the lovers come across an old woman at the door of a hut; they, hide themselves in a cave, thirty stades long and open at both ends, the mouth of which is concealed by thick bushes. Damas comes up with his companions, and questions the old woman, who is terrified by the sight of the naked sword. The horses on which Rhodanes and Sinonis had ridden are captured. The soldiers surround their hiding-place; the brazen shield of one of those who were keeping watch is broken on the cave; the hollowness of the echo discloses the whereabouts of the fugitives; the soldiers begin to dig, and Damas’s shouts reach the ears of those within. They retire farther into the cave and make their way to the second opening. Here a swarm of wild bees attacks the diggers, drops of honey falling also upon the fugitives. The bees as well as the honey are infected with poison from their having eaten certain venomous reptiles, so that the diggers whom they sting either lose a limb or die. Rhodanes and his companion, hard pressed by hunger, lick up some drops of the honey, are seized with colic, and fall on the road as if dead. The soldiers, worn out by the attack of the bees, take to flight but renew the pursuit of the lovers. Seeing Rhodanes and Sinonis prostrate in the road, they pass them by, taking them for two dead strangers. Sinonis, while in the cave, had cut her hair, and made a rope with it to draw water : Damas finds it and sends it to Garmus, as an earnest of the speedy capture of the fugitives. The soldiers who passed by where Rhodanes and Sinonis were lying in the road pay respect to them as if they were really dead, according to the custom of the country; some cover them with their tunics, others throw over them anything they have at hand, even pieces of bread and meat, and then go their way. The lovers recover from the drowsiness caused by the honey; Rhodanes had been roused by some crows quarrelling over some pieces of meat, and woke Sinonis. Getting up, they go in the opposite direction to the soldiers, so as to be less easily recognized. They meet two asses and mount them, having first loaded them with part of what the soldiers, thinking them dead, had thrown over them, and which the lovers had carried away. They stop at an inn, but soon leave it for another, in the neighbourhood of a full market-place. Two brothers have died and they are accused of their murder, but acquitted. The elder of the two brothers, who had poisoned the younger and who had accused them, poisons himself, thereby proving their innocence. Rhodanes gets possession of the poison without being seen. They put up at the house of a brigand who robbed passers-by and ate them. Soldiers sent by Damas capture the brigand and set fire to his house; Rhodanes and Sinonis, enveloped by the flames, with great difficulty escape with their lives, after they have killed the asses and thrown them on the fire to make a bridge across. The soldiers who fired the house, meeting them during the night, ask them who they are. “We are the ghosts of those murdered by the brigands,” they reply. Their thin, pale countenances, the weakness of their voice, persuade the soldiers that they are speaking the truth, whereat they are greatly alarmed. The lovers resume their flight, and meeting a young girl who is being carried to the grave, join the throng of spectators. An old Chaldaean comes up and stops the funeral, saying that the girl is still alive, and so it turns out to be. He predicts to Rhodanes and Sinonis that they will attain royal rank. The girl’s grave is left empty, and a great part of the robes which were to be burnt and of the food and drink is left behind. Rhodanes and Sinonis make a good meal, take some of the clothes and sleep in the grave. In the morning, the soldiers who had fired the house find they have been deceived, and set out in pursuit of Rhodanes and Sinonis, imagining that they are accomplices of the brigand. Having traced them as far as the grave and seeing them lying there motionless, overcome by wine and sleep, they imagine they are looking on corpses and so leave them, although they hesitated since their footsteps guided them thither.[3] Rhodanes and Sinonis leave the grave and cross the river, the waters of which are sweet and clear and reserved for the king of Babylon alone to drink. Sinonis, when trying to sell the clothes she has taken, is arrested for sacrilege and brought before Soraechus, the son of Soraechus the tax-gatherer and named the Just. Owing to her beauty, he is minded to send her to king Garmus; whereupon Rhodanes and Sinonis mix a dose of poison, considering death preferable to the sight of this king. Their intention is revealed by a female slave to Soraechus, who secretly empties the cup containing the deadly potion and fills it with a sleeping draught; after they have drunk it and are in a deep sleep they are placed in a carriage to betaken to the king. A little way from Babylon, Rhodanes is frightened by a dream and cries out; this wakes Sinonis, who takes up a sword and wounds herself in the breast. Soraechus wants to know their history, and the lovers having received a solemn promise from him, tell him everything. He sets them at liberty and shows them a temple of Aphrodite on a little island, where Sinonis can be healed of her wound.

By way of digression the author relates the history of the temple and the little island, which is formed by the surrounding waters of the Euphrates and Tigris. The priestess of Aphrodite had three children, Euphrates, Tigris, and Mesopotamia, the last, who was born ugly, being changed into a woman so beautiful that three suitors quarrelled for her hand. Bochorus, the most famous judge of the time, was chosen to decide their claims, and the three rivals pleaded their cause. Now Mesopotamia had given one of them the cup from which she drank, had crowned the second with a garland of flowers from her own head, and had kissed the third. Bochorus decided that she belonged to the one whom she had kissed, but this decision only embittered the quarrel, which ended in the death of the rivals by one another’s hands. In another digression the author gives details of the temple of Aphrodite. The women who visit it are obliged to reveal in public the dreams they have had in the temple; this leads to minute details of Phar-nuchus, Pharsiris and Tanais, from whom the river is named. Pharsiris and Tanai’s initiated those who dwelt on the banks of the river into the mysteries of Aphrodite. Tigris died in the little island just mentioned, after having eaten of some roses in the buds of which, not yet full blown, lurked a poisonous little beetle. His mother believed she had made him a demi-god by her enchantments.

Iamblichus then describes different kinds of enchantments ----by locusts, lions and mice. According to him, the last is the oldest, the mysteries being called after the name of these animals.[4] There are also enchantments by hail, snakes, necromancy and ventriloquism, the ventriloquist being called by the Greeks Eurycles, and by the Babylonians Sacchuras. The author calls himself a Babylonian and says that, after having learnt the art of magic, he devoted himself to the study of the Greek arts and sciences. He flourished in the reign of Soaemus, son of Achaemenides the Arsacid, who occupied the throne of his fathers, and was afterwards a Roman senator and consul, and king of Greater Armenia.[5] At this time Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor. When Aurelius sent Verus, his adopted brother and son-in-law and colleague in the empire, to make war against Vologaesus the Parthian king, Iamblichus predicted the beginning, the course, and end of the war. He also tells how Vologaesus fled over the Euphrates and Tigris, and how the kingdom of Parthia became a Roman province.

Tigris and Euphrates, the children of the priestess, were very like each other, and Rhodanes was like both. Tigris, as has been mentioned, had been poisoned by eating roses, and when Rhodanes crosses over to the island with Sinonis, the mother of Tigris, when she sets eyes on Rhodanes, declares that her son has come back to life, accompanied by Kore.[6]Rhodanes falls in with the deception, highly amused at the credulity of the islanders. Damas is informed of what has happened to Rhodanes and Sinonis and of what Soraechus has done for them, his informant being the physician whom Soraechus had secretly sent to attend to Sinonis’s wound. Soraechus is arrested and taken to Garmus, and at the same time the informer is sent with a letter to the priest of Aphrodite, ordering him to seize Rhodanes and Sinonis. The physician, in order to cross the river, hangs himself round the neck of a camel in the usual manner, having first deposited the letter in the animal’s right ear. He is drowned in the river, the camel alone reaches the island, and Rhodanes and Sinonis, taking Damas’s letter out of its ear, become aware of the danger that threatens them.

They accordingly take to flight, and on the way meet Soraechus, who is being taken to Garmus, and put up at the same inn. During the night Rhodanes bribes certain persons to slay the guards of Soraechus, who takes to flight with the lovers, being thus rewarded for his previous kindness. Damas arrests the priest of Aphrodite and questions him about Sinonis; the old man is condemned to change his ministry for the office of executioner; the manners and customs relating to this office. Euphrates, whom the priest his father takes for Rhodanes and calls him by this name, is arrested, and his sister Mesopotamia takes to flight. Euphrates is taken before Sacas and questioned about Sinonis, being taken for Rhodanes and examined as such. Sacas sends a messenger to Garmus to inform him that Rhodanes is captured and that Sinonis soon will be. For Euphrates, when questioned in the name of Rhodanes, being obliged to call his sister Mesopotamia by the name of Sinonis, declares that Sinonis fled when she saw him arrested.

The fugitives Rhodanes, Sinonis and Soraechus, put up at the house of a farm-labourer. He has a beautiful daughter, who has just lost her husband, and out of her affection for him has cut her hair. She is sent to a goldsmith to sell the golden chain which Sinonis had brought from her former prison. The goldsmith, seeing the beauty of the young woman, and recognizing part of the chain which he happened to have made himself, and noticing that she has her hair cut, suspects that she is Sinonis. He accordingly informs Damas and has the labourer’s daughter secretly watched. Suspecting what is afoot, she takes refuge in an empty house. The story of the young girl named Trophime, of the slave who was both her lover and murderer, of the golden ornaments, of the lawless conduct of the slave, of his suicide, of the blood that spirted over the labourer’s daughter when the murderer was committing suicide, of the fear and flight of the young woman, of the terror and flight of those who were keeping watch on her, of the young woman’s return to her father, of the story of her adventures, of the departure of Rhodanes, and of the letter sent by the goldsmith to inform Damas that Sinonis has been found. To confirm his letter, he sends the chain which he has bought, and mentions the other suspicious circumstances connected with the labourer’s daughter.

Rhodanes, at the moment of leaving, kisses the labourer’s daughter. Sinonis is furiously jealous; at first she had only suspected this kiss, but her suspicions were confirmed when she wiped off the marks of blood with which his lips were stained. Sinonis makes up her mind to kill the young woman and hastens back like a madwoman, followed by Soraechus, who is unable to calm her passionate fury.

They put up at the house of a wealthy man of dissolute habits, named Setapus, who falls in love with Sinonis and tries to seduce her. She pretends to return his love and, at night, when Setapus is intoxicated, stabs him with a sword, orders the servants to open the door, leaves Soraechus, who is ignorant of what has happened, and sets out in haste to find the labourer’s daughter. Soraechus, when he hears of her departure, starts in pursuit, having hired some of the slaves of Setapus to accompany him, so as to prevent the murder of the labourer’s daughter. He overtakes her, makes her get into a carriage which had been prepared beforehand, and turns back with her. On their return, the servants of Setapus, who had found their dead master, filled with rage rush upon them, seize Sinonis, bind her, and take her to Garmus to be punished as a murderess. Soraechus, having sprinkled his head with dust, and rent his cloak, announces the sad news to Rhodanes, who would have killed himself, but is prevented by Soraechus.

Garmus, having received the letters from Sacas and the goldsmith, informing him of the capture of Rhodanes and Sinonis, rejoices greatly, offers sacrifice to the gods, orders preparations to be made for the marriage, and issues a decree that all prisoners should be unbound and set free. Sinonis is accordingly released from her bonds by the servants of Setapus. Garmus orders Damas to be put to death and he is handed over to the priest whom he himself had deprived of his priesthood and made executioner. Garmus was wroth with Damas, because he had allowed others to have the honour of arresting the supposed Rhodanes and Sinonis. Damas is succeeded in his office by his brother Monasus.

The story of Berenice, daughter of the king of Egypt, of her disgraceful amours, of her intimacy with Mesopotamia, who was afterwards seized by Sacas and, as Sinonis, sent to Garmus with her brother Euphrates. Garmus, hearing from the goldsmith that Sinonis has escaped, orders him to be put to death, and the guards, who had been deputed to watch the pretended Sinonis and to bring her to him, to be buried alive with their women and children.

An Hyrcanian dog, belonging to Rhodanes, finds in the ill-omened inn the bodies of the unhappy girl and of the slave, her infatuated lover and murderer. It has already devoured the body of the slave and half eaten that of the young girl, when the father of Sinonis comes on the scene. Recognizing the dog as belonging to Rhodanes and seeing the half-eaten body of the girl, he first kills the dog as a sacrifice to Sinonis and then hangs himself, having first buried the remains of the girl and written on her tomb with the blood of the dog, “Here lies the beautiful Sinonis.” Meanwhile Rhodanes and Soraechus come up, see the dog lying dead by the tomb, Sinonis’s father hanging by a rope, and the epitaph written on the tomb. Rhodanes stabs himself and adds to the epitaph on Sinonis the words: “and the handsome Rhodanes,” written in his own blood. Soraechus puts his head in the noose, and Rhodanes is preparing to give himself the death blow, when the labourer’s daughter rushes in, shouting loudly, “Rhodanes, she who lies here is not Sinonis.” She runs, and cuts the rope by which Soraechus is hanging, and snatches the dagger from the hand of Rhodanes. At last she manages to convince them by relating the story of the unhappy girl, and of the buried treasure, which she had come to carry off.

Meanwhile Sinonis, released from her bonds, hastens to the labourer’s house, still furious with his daughter. Unable to find her, she asks her father where she is, and on his telling her the way she has taken, she immediately sets out in pursuit with drawn sword. At the sight of Rhodanes lying on the ground and her rival sitting alone by his side, endeavouring to staunch the wound in his breast (Soraechus having gone to fetch a physician) her rage and jealousy know no bounds and she rushes upon the young woman. But Rhodanes, forgetting his wound at the sight of her violence, musters up strength to throw himself in front of Sinonis and hold her back, at the same time snatching the sword from her hands. Sinonis, transported with rage, rushes out of the inn and running like a madwoman shouts to Rhodanes: “I invite you to-day to Garmus’s wedding.” Soraechus, on his return, hearing what has taken place, consoles Rhodanes, and after his wound has been dressed, the labourer’s daughter is sent back with money to her father.

Euphrates and Mesopotamia, the supposed Rhodanes and Sinonis, together with Soraechus and the real Rhodanes are taken before Garmus. Garmus, seeing that Mesopotamia is not Sinonis, delivers her to Zobaras with orders to cut off her head on the banks of the Euphrates, to prevent any one else in future taking the name of Sinonis. But Zobaras, who has already drunk at the fountain of love, is smitten with Mesopotamia; he spares her life and sends her back to Berenice, who had become queen of Egypt after her father’s death, and from whom she had been taken.[7]Berenice is again united to Mesopotamia, on whose account Garmus threatens war.

Euphrates is handed over to his father, now executioner, by whom he is recognized, and his life is spared. He takes the place of his father, whose hands are not soiled with human blood, and afterwards, disguised as the daughter of the executioner, escapes from the prison and regains his freedom.

Such was the state of affairs when Soraechus is condemned to be crucified. The place of execution appointed was the meadow with the fountain where Rhodanes and Sinonis had first rested during their flight, where Rhodanes had discovered the hidden treasure of which he informs Soraechus when the latter is being led away to execution. A body of Alans, indignant at not receiving their pay from Garmus, who had halted at the place where Soraechus was to be executed, drive away the guards of Soraechus and set him free. Soraechus, having found the treasure of which he had been told, and having cleverly removed it from its hiding-place, persuades the Alans that he has learnt this and other things from the gods. Having gradually gained their confidence, he induces them to elect him their king, makes war upon Garmus and defeats him. But this happened later.

While Soraechus is on his way to execution, Garmus, crowned with garlands and dancing, orders Rhodanes to be taken to the place where he was to have been executed before, and to be placed upon the cross. While Garmus, drunk with wine and dancing round the cross with the flute-players, abandons himself to joy and revelry, he receives a letter from Sacas, informing him that Sinonis has just married the young king of Syria. Rhodanes is rejoiced, Garmus at first wants to kill himself, but, changing his mind, makes the unwilling Rhodanes, who would have preferred death, come down from the cross. Garmus then appoints him to the command of an army which he decides to send against the king of Syria, so as to pit the lover against the rival. Rhodanes is treacherously received by the army in a friendly manner, Garmus having privately instructed the generals under Rhodanes that, if their army is victorious and Sinonis is captured, they are to put Rhodanes to death. Rhodanes gains the victory, recovers Sinonis, and becomes king of Babylon, as a swallow had foretold. For when Garmus in person came to see Rhodanes set out on the expedition, an eagle and a kite pursued this swallow, which escaped the eagle but became the prey of the kite. Such is the contents of the sixteen books.