The worship of the kiss is featured in an enchanting story of a magic charm breathed on the lover’s lips[181] and a fantastic assertion that if a maiden’s kiss is stolen, the maid is raped.[182] Moreover a code of love is presented, almost as detailed as Ovid’s _Ars Amatoria_, in instructions given by Clinias to Clitophon,[183] by the slave Satyrus to Clitophon,[184] by Clitophon in discussion with Menelaus.[185] A delightful part of this Art of Love is telling the Lady love-stories, for all womankind is fond of myths.[186] Magic too plays its part in the technique of love, for incantation works a charm for a lover;[187] philtres may bewitch the indifferent;[188] and ordeals test chastity.[189]
Closely akin to the philosophical discussions of love, its power, its art, its magic is the worship of Aphrodite, the mother of Eros. Yet there are few references to her cult. Her dominance is hinted: initiation into love makes Aphrodite the most powerful of gods.[190] Melitte wishes to have her nuptials on the sea, for Aphrodite is the sea’s daughter and she wishes to propitiate her as the goddess of marriage by thus honoring the sea, her mother.[191] Clitophon at the end of his separation from Leucippe prays to Lady Aphrodite to forgive the long delay in their union, for it was due to no insult to her and he begs her blessing on their marriage.[192] The story of the ordeal by the water of the Styx[193] is a merry tale of rivalry between Artemis and Aphrodite for a young girl’s worship in which Aphrodite made young Rhodopis break her oath of chastity but Artemis changed her into a spring in the very cave where she lost her virginity. Yet Achilles Tatius presents no such deep-seated reverence for the goddess of Love as that which permeates Chariton’s romance.
Artemis of Ephesus is rather the deity who dominates Tatius’ story. She appears in dreams to the heroine and to Leucippe’s father.[194] In her name Leucippe rebukes Thersander for insulting a virgin in the city of the Virgin Goddess.[195] Sostratus arrives at Ephesus as the head of a sacred embassy in honor of Artemis and so finds his daughter.[196] Leucippe has taken refuge in the temple of Artemis and in that temple at last she and Clitophon are reunited.[197] Here the villain of the piece Thersander brutally attacks Clitophon.[198] Thersander’s lawyer in court makes insulting slanders about the fact that Clitophon and Leucippe probably defiled the temple by an amour there.[199] But Artemis is proved to be no liar, and there is implicit recognition of her protection of Leucippe though Achilles Tatius does not end with thanksgiving to her. Her cult forms an objective background of religious tradition for the action. No deep religious feeling for her is manifested.