Live Your Myths

Egyptian Myth | The Girl With The Rose-Red Slippers

"Cinderella" is a popular folktale with thousands of variants throughout the world. It is also a popular writing trope where a young woman living a difficult life changes her fortune by marrying into royalty. One of the oldest known versions of this is the ancient Greek tale of Rhodopis, a Greek slave, that married an Egyptian pharaoh because of her lost red slipper.

During the rule of Pharaoh Amasis, Ancient Egypt was in constant threat of being conquered by Cyrus of Persia, that had already expanded vastly and had conquered most of Western Asia and much of Central Asia. To strengthen his country, the Pharaoh decided to accept as many Greeks that wished to settle and trade in Egypt, giving them a city called Naucratis. One of those that settled in the city was also a wealthy Greek merchant called Charaxos who'd decided to settle there in his old age.

One day, when Charaxos was walking in the marketplace, he saw a crowd gathered around the place where slaves were being sold. Curious, he pushed through the crowd and saw a beautiful Greek girl who was being sold. Being a wealthy merchant, he bid the most, taking her home with him where he found out that her name was Rhodopis. The girl had been taken away from her family and home by pirates, only to be sold to a rich man in Egypt called Aesop. He has also purchased other slaves who worked for him, but Rhodopsis was his favorite and Aesop was kind to her. He'd tell her various tales and treat her differently from other slaves, but once she grew he decided to sell her again to make money.

Charaxos felt pity so he decided to take good care of her, spoiling her as if she were his own daughter. He bought her her own house with a beautiful garden, lots of jewleries, and even gave her her own slave girls who'd tend to her needs.

One of such precious gifts from him was a pair of beautiful rose-red slippers that Rhodopis became fond of.

One particular hot day, when she was bathing in the marble-edged pool in her secret garden an eagle swooped down from the sky taking one of the slippers away with it. Rhodopsis wept, feeling sorry because she had lost such a precious gift not knowing that that would change her destiny. The eagle had flown over the valley of Nile, still carrying the slipper before letting it go over the pharaoh's palace in such a way that it landed on the Pharaoh Amasis lap.

Pharaoh Amasis was startled. He had been in the great courtyard listening to his people complains when all of sudden this slipper fell on his lap. It was as if the deities were guiding him towards the owner of the slipper. So he took it in his hands and admired the delicate workmanship and tiny size of it, feeling that whoever had lost it must have been one the loveliest girls in the world. Then he issued a decree. His messengers would take the slipper and go through all Egypt to find the girl who had lost it, and she would become his bride. The messengers set on the road, searching for the owner of the red slipper. When they came to Naucratis they found out that there was a merchant by the name Charaxos who had purchased a slave that he treated as if she were a princess. They went to her house and showed her the slipper.

Rhodopis recognized it as her own. She showed her foot and then another pair of similar slippers that she owned. So the messengers knew that she was the girl that their pharaoh was searching for. They took her to the Pharaoh Amasis who saw her and was sure that the gods had sent her to him. She did not just become part of his Royal House of Women but also his Queen and the Royal Lady of Egypt.