216 SMYTH — PEKICLES AND APOLLONIUS. [Oct. 7, 



Before we leave this aspect of the romance it may be well to 

 attend a moment to a conjecture which Prof. Erwin Rohde has de- 

 veloped with much ingenuity. He imagines that the Latin scribe 

 broadened the trend of the story by an addition that is not particu- 

 larly successful. In the first part of the romance Apollonius is 

 introduced as a suitor for the hand of Antiochus* daughter. He is 

 rebuffed and goes abroad. We should expect that his vain wooing 

 would cause him some grief, but we have no word of sorrow or 

 regret. On the contrary, he pledges his love to the first maiden 

 who looks upon him with favor and compassion. King Antiochus 

 and his daughter could be spared from the story altogether and the 

 rest of the narrative not suffer in the least. It is true that King. 

 Antiochus reappears occasionally, and that at his shipwreck on the 

 coast of Ethiopia Apollonius cries out that Neptune is more cruel 

 than Antiochus. The wicked king dies by lightning and Apol- 

 lonius claims his pa^erna/ kingdom (cum desiderassem properare ad 

 patrium [meum] regnum percipiendum). He journeys into Egypt 

 where he remains fourteen years. Why does he not go to Antioch ? 

 " After the loss of my dear wife I will not take possession of the 

 kingdom," he says to his friends of Tarsus. It seems natural enough 

 to them, but not to us. We know nothing of the kingdom foi 

 fourteen years, but when all the family are again united we learn 

 that Apollonius took possession of the kingdom and that all was 

 well. Prof. Rohde therefore concludes that Antiochus, his daughter 

 and his kingdom, have nothing to do with the fable, and that the 

 Antiochus episode had been first prefixed to the romance and then 

 clumsily interwoven. Perhaps the Latin scribe was moved to intro- 

 duce this prologue by the necessity of providing a motive sufficiently 

 strong to send forth this luxurious king of Tyre a lonely ocean waif. 

 The Greek poet might have found this motive, as in Xenophon, in 

 an oracular response impelling and exhorting Apollonius to action, 

 but the Christian poet could hardly accept the domination of human 

 action by the oracle of a heathen daemon. He must change the 

 motive, and the one which he chose to substitute for the original he 

 found freely developed in Greek myth and saga. The tale of the 

 father who loves his own daughter, and who deters suitors by im- 

 posing upon them difficult tasks, is the story of CEnomaus, who, 

 loving his daughter Hippodamia, delays her marriage through 

 chariot races with her suitors ; Sithon who loving his daughter 

 Pallene slays her lovers in single combat ; the father of Side loves 



