s in
the entire text. The means I have adopted in my endeavor to make Nitetis
as young as possible need a more serious apology; as, notwithstanding
Herodotus' account of the mildness of Amasis' rule, it is improbable that
King Hophra should have been alive twenty years after his fall. Even this
however is not impossible, for it can be proved that his descendants were
not persecuted by Amasis.

On a Stela in the Leyden Museum I have discovered that a certain Psamtik,
a member of the fallen dynasty, lived till the 17th year of Amasis'
reign, and died at the age of seventy-five.

Lastly let me be permitted to say a word or two in reference to Rhodopis.
That she must have been a remarkable woman is evident from the passage in
Herodotus quoted in Notes 10, and 14, Vol. I., and from the accounts
given by many other writers. Her name, "the rosy-cheeked one," tells us
that she was beautiful, and her amiability and charm of manner are
expressly praised by Herodotus. How richly she was endowed with gifts and
graces may be gathered too from the manner in which tradition and fairy
lore have endeavored to render her name immortal. By many she is said to
have built the most beautiful of the Pyramids, the Pyramid of Mycerinus
or Menkera. One tale related of her and reported by Strabo and AElian
probably gave rise to our oldest and most beautiful fairy tale,
Cinderella; another is near akin to the Loreley legend. An eagle,
according to AElian--the wind, in Strabo's tale,--bore away Rhodopis'
slippers while she was bathing in the Nile, and laid them at the feet of
the king, when seated on his throne of justice in the open market. The
little slippers so enchanted him that he did not rest until he had
discovered their owner and made her his queen.

The second legend tells us how a wonderfully beautiful naked woman could
be seen sitting on the summit of one of the pyramids (ut in una ex
pyramidibus); and how she drove the wanderers in the desert mad through
her exceeding loveliness.

Moore borrowed this legend and introduces it in the following verse:

"Fair Rhodope, as story tells--
The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells
'Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,
The lady of the Pyramid."

Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis must have
been no ordinary woman. Some scholars would place her on a level with the
beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by Julius Africanus,
Eusebiu