romance, the scene lies throughout in palaces, camps, and temples;
kings, high-priests, and satraps, figure in every page; the hero
himself is a prince of his own people; and the heroine, who at first
appears of no lower rank than a high-priestess of Delphi, proves, in
the sequel, the heiress of a mighty kingdom. In the work of Achilles
Tatius, on the contrary, (the plot of which is laid at a later period
of time than that of its predecessor,) the characters are taken,
without exception, from the class of Grecian citizens, who are
represented in the ordinary routine of polished social existence,
amidst their gardens of villas, and occupied by their banquets and
processions, and the business of their courts of law. There are no
unexpected revelations, no talismanic rings, no mysterious secret
affecting the fortunes of any of the personages, who are all presented
to us at the commencement in their proper names and characters. The
interest of the story, as in the _Ethiopics_, turns chiefly on an
elopement, and the consequent misadventures of the hero and heroine
among various sets of robbers and treacherous friends; but the lovers,
after being thus duly punished for their undutiful escapade, are
restored, at the finale, to their original position, and settle
quietly in their native home, under their own vines and fig-trees.

Of the author himself little appears to be certainly known. Fabricius
and other writers have placed him in the "third or fourth" century of
our era; but this date will by no means agree with his constant
imitations of Heliodorus, who is known to have lived at the end of the
fourth and beginning of the fifth century; and Tatius, if not his
contemporary, probably lived not long after him. Suidas (who calls him
_Statius_) informs us that he was a native of Alexandria; and
attributes to his pen several other works on various subjects besides
the romance now in question, a fragment only of which--a treatise on