In Naucratis lived a wealthy Greek merchant called Charaxos. He came from the island of Lesbos but had spent most of his life trading with Egypt and in his old age had settled at Naucratis.
One day when he was walking in the marketplace he saw a large and boisterous crowd gathered round the place where the slaves were sold. Out of curiosity he pushed his way to the front and found that everyone was looking at a beautiful girl for sale. Charaxos was bowled over by the sight of this girl. He had never seen anyone so lovely. When the bidding began, Charaxos, being one of the wealthiest merchants in Naucratis, bought the girl without much difficulty.
Her name was Rodophis. She'd been kidnapped by pirates as a child from her home in northern Greece. She'd been sold to a rich man who employed many slaves on the island of Samos and had spent most of her childhood there. But when she grew up her master wished to make some money out of so beautiful a girl and sent her to Naucratis to be sold.
Charaxos was so moved by her story he gave her a house of her own to live in with a garden and slave girls to attend on her. Indeed he became quite besotted with her. He gave her presents of jewels and beautiful clothes and spoiled her as if she had been his own daughter.
One day, in her secret garden, a strange thing happened; Rodophis was bathing in the pool and the slave-girls were holding her clothes, her jeweled girdle and her rose-red slippers of which she was particularly fond. Suddenly an eagle came swooping down out of the clear blue sky as if to attack the little group. The slave-girls dropped everything and fled shrieking to hide among the trees and flowers of the garden. Rodophis stood startled, unable to move.
But the eagle paid no attention to any of them. Instead, it picked up one of her rose-red slippers in its talons and soared high into the air carrying the slipper.
Rodophis wept at the loss of her rose-red slipper, feeling sure that she would never see it again. She regretted losing anything the kindly Charaxos had given her.
However, the eagle had been sent by the god Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, whose sacred bird it was. The bird flew straight up the Nile to Memphis to the palace of Pharaoh Amasis while he sat in the great courtyard giving justice to his people and hearing any complaints they wished to bring.
The Eagle flew into the great courtyard and dropped the rose-red slipper of Rodophis right into Pharaoh's lap.
The people cried out in surprise when they saw this, and Amasis, startled by this unusual incident, picked up the little rose-red slipper and admired the delicate workmanship and the tiny size of it. After examining the slipper he thought the girl for whose foot it was made must certainly be one of the loveliest in the world.
Indeed Amasis believed this to be an omen and a message from the gods so he issued a decree 'Let my messengers go forth through all the cities of Egypt and to the very borders of my kingdom. Let them take with them this rose-red slipper which the divine bird of Horus has brought to me, and let them declare that the girl from whose foot this slipper came, shall be the bride of Pharaoh!'
So they set forth from Memphis and went by way of Heliopolis and Tanis and Canopus until eventually they came to Naucratis. Here they heard of the rich merchant Charaxos and of how he had bought the beautiful Greek girl in the slave market, and how he was lavishing all his wealth upon her as if she had been a princess put in his care by the gods.
So they went to the great house beside the Nile and found Rodophis in the secret garden beside the pool.
When they showed her the rose-red slipper she cried out in surprise that it was hers. She held out her foot so that they could see how well it fitted her; and she bade one of the slave girls fetch the other slipper.
Then the messengers knew this was the girl whom Pharaoh had sent them to find, and they knelt before her and said, "Pharaoh Amasis - life, health, strength be to him - bids you come with all speed to his palace at Memphis. There you shall be treated with all honor and given a high place in his Royal House of Women."
Such a command could not be disobeyed so Rodophis bade farewell to Charaxos, who was torn between joy at her good fortune and sorrow at his loss, and set out for Memphis.
And when Amasis saw her beauty, he was sure that the gods had sent her to him. He did not merely take her into his Royal House of Women; he made her his Queen and the Royal Lady of Egypt. And they lived happily together for the rest of their lives and were fortunate enough to die a year before the coming of Cambyses, the cruel Persian invader.
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