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Title: Essays on the Greek Romances

Author: Elizabeth Hazelton Haight

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iii

ESSAYS ON
THE GREEK ROMANCES
BY
ELIZABETH HAZELTON HAIGHT
Professor Emeritus of Latin, Vassar College

NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
M D CCCC XLIII

iv
HAIGHT
ESSAYS ON THE GREEK ROMANCES

COPYRIGHT · 1943
BY LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE
RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR
ANY PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM

PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN
THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO

FIRST EDITION

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v

To
BLANCHE FERRY HOOKER
IN HONOR AND FRIENDSHIP

vi

The Publication
of this book was made possible
by the
J. LEVERETT MOORE RESEARCH FUND
IN CLASSICS
and the
LUCY MAYNARD SALMON FUND
FOR RESEARCH
established at Vassar College
in 1926

vii

PREFACE

If all the world loves a lover, as the old proverb says, then this my book
should win wide fame. For these Greek Romances of the first to the fourth
century of our era seem still to be singing the immemorial refrain from the
old spring-time song of “The Vigil of Venus”:

Cras amet qui numquam amavit,
quique amavit cras amet.

“Let those love now, who never lov’d before;
Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.”

At a time when fiction is the most popular form of literature, these
wonderful old Greek stories of love, adventure and worship are half
forgotten and rarely read except by the scholar. Yet here, as in epic, lyric,
elegy, drama, oratory and history, the Greeks were pioneers. In the second
and third centuries they had created four different types of romance (of
love, of adventure, the pastoral, the satiric) which were to have great
influence on French, Italian and English fiction. The student of comparative
literature, the student of the history of fiction cannot afford to neglect these
pioneer Greek novels.

Their appeal, however, should be just as great for the general reader as for
the scholar. For here are stories that mirror the life of the Mediterranean
world in the Roman Empire with all its new excitements of travel, piracy,
kidnapping, the new feminism, the new religious cults. And through all the
different types of romance except the satiric the Love-God holds viii
supreme sway over the hearts of men. So human, so vivacious are the

love-stories that I offer to my readers Longus’ assurance of profit in his
introduction to his Pastoral Romance:

“I drew up these four books, an oblation to Love and to Pan and to the
Nymphs, and a delightful possession even for all men. For this will cure
him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has loved, it will
remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For there was never any
yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be any, never so
long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that
God to write the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my
[1]
own right wits.”

My hope in writing on the Greek Romances is that I may lure readers back
to them. My essays aim to be guideposts pointing the way. I venture to
suggest that along with my book readers should peruse at least four novels
of different types for which good translations are available. These are
Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe by Warren E. Blake (beautiful in
English and format) and three volumes of The Loeb Classical Library:
Daphnis and Chloe by Longus, Lucian’s True History (in Lucian vol. I) and
the Latin novel which combines the different Greek types into one great
synthesis, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. If I can win new readers for these my
favorites, my writing will be as successful as it has been happy!

It is a pleasure once again to express grateful thanks to publishers and
authors who have allowed me to quote material. I am indebted to the
Harvard University Press for its courtesy in allowing me to quote freely
from volumes in The Loeb Classical Library; to the Clarendon Press,
Oxford for the use of material from R. M. Rattenbury, “Romance: the Greek
Novel,” in New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature, Third ix
Series, from F. A. Todd, Some Ancient Novels, from J. S. Phillimore,
“Greek Romances” in English Literature and the Classics, and from The
Works of Lucian of Samosata translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler;
to Longmans, Green and Co., for the use of a quotation from F. G. Allinson,
Lucian Satirist and Artist; to the University of Michigan Press for the use of
Warren E. Blake’s translation of Chariton; to the Columbia University Press
for permission to quote from S. L. Wolff’s The Greek Romances in

Elizabethan Prose Fiction; and for generous permissions for quotations
from Professor M. Rostovtzeff and Professor B. E. Perry.

My writing has been greatly facilitated by the cooperation of the staff of the
Vassar Library, especially of Miss Fanny Borden, Librarian, who has
provided me with a study in the Library, patiently borrowed many books
from other libraries for me and shown unfailing interest in my work. A
constant stimulus to my writing has been the appreciation of my colleagues
and students expressed in invitations to read different chapters of this
volume to the Classical Journal Club and to the Classical Society. Finally
my profound gratitude is due to the donors of the funds which made
possible the publication of these Essays.

xi

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Greek Romances and Their Re-dating. 1
II. Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe. 14
III. The Ephesiaca or Habrocomes and Anthia by Xenophon of
Ephesus.
38
IV. The Aethiopica of Heliodorus. 61
V. The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius. 95
VI. The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe by Longus. 119
VII. Lucian and his Satiric Romances: the True History and Lucius or
Ass.
144
VIII. A Comparison of the Greek Romances and Apuleius’
Metamorphoses.
186
Index 203

1

ESSAYS ON
THE GREEK ROMANCES

I
THE GREEK ROMANCES AND THEIR RE-
DATING

The term “Greek Romances” is applied to long stories in Greek prose,
written from the end of the first to the beginning of the fourth century
before Christ and later imitated by Byzantine writers. It was one of these
last, Nicetas Eugenianus, who prefixed to his own romance a prelude of
verses which described their content:

“Here read Drusilla’s fate and Charicles’—
Flight, wandering, captures, rescues, roaring seas,
Robbers and prisons, pirates, hunger’s grip;
Dungeons so deep that never sun could dip
His rays at noon-day to their dark recess,
Chained hands and feet; and, greater heaviness,
Pitiful partings. Last the story tells
[2]
Marriage, though late, and ends with wedding bells.”

The subjects listed in these lines are typical of nearly all the novels. An
author selected new names for his hero and heroine and portrayed the same
quest for love and adventure. The young pair always marvellously
handsome fall desperately in love and plight their eternal fidelity in a sacred
oath. Soon they are separated by misadventure or the cruel will of Fortune
and suffer alone every misfortune and temptation, but by superhuman effort
and often by the aid of the gods, they at last emerge triumphant and 2
chaste and fall in exultation into each other’s arms.

It was just because of this similarity of pattern that it became the fashion for
critics to belittle these melodramas, to emphasize their similarities, and to
disregard their individual characteristics and enthralling style. Erwin
Rohde’s great critical study, Der griechische Roman, was perhaps the first
to treat them with the serious consideration which they deserve. Now
Rohde’s theories have to be in large part rejected because of new
discoveries in papyri which have necessitated the re-dating of the extant
novels and adding to their study fragments of novels hitherto unknown
which help establish new types and give a basis for a new critique.

My own discussion is to be concerned with the novels themselves, their
individual characteristics, their literary qualities, viewed on the basis of
their new dating. For this reason I shall spend little time on the famous
theories of the origins of the Greek Romances and on their precursors. For
my purpose of intensive, literary study it is enough to present these in
outline.

In regard to the origins of the Greek Romances, two special theories must
be mentioned since they have had more vogue than any others. These are
the theories of Erwin Rohde and of Bruno Lavagnini. Erwin Rohde in Der
griechische Roman, which first appeared in 1876, recognized two essential
elements in the Greek Romances: stories of love and stories of travel. He
studied the precursors of these two types. He finally affirmed that the
synthesis of the two, the romance, is a direct product of the rhetorical
schools of the Second Sophistry which flourished in Greece during the
Empire. Rohde based his work on the extant romances and the summaries
of Photius (Patriarch of Constantinople, 858-886) and believing that 3
none of this material antedated the second century of our era, he
constructed his theory that “Greek romance was a product of the Zweite
Sophistik, and had no direct connection either with the short story as
represented by the Milesian Tales or with any Greek or Alexandrian literary
[3]
form.” W. Schmid in the third edition of Rohde (1914) summarized in an
Appendix the new discoveries and theories after Rohde’s death.
[4] [5] [6]
I omit a résumé of the work of Huet, Dunlop, Chassang and of
[7]
Chauvin, all significant in their times, to present a theory which is now

more striking. In 1921 Bruno Lavagnini in a learned monograph, Le Origini
del Romanzo Greco, traced the development of the Greek romance from
local legends of Magna Graecia, Greece proper, the Greek Islands and Asia
Minor. He found support for his theory in the titles of many of them:

Ἐφεσιακά by Xenophon of Ephesus,
Βαβυλωνιακά by Xenophon of Antioch,
Αἰθιοπικά by Heliodorus,
Κυπριακά by Xenophon of Cyprus,
Ῥοδιακά, Κωακά, Θασιακά by

a Philippus of Amphipolis, which Suidas mentioned. In his study he took
into account the novelle or short stories which Rohde believed had no
influence on the novel, and studied the Μιλησιακά, the short Love
Romances of Parthenius, the fragment of the Aitia of Callimachus, Acontius
and Cydippe. He showed that Rohde had entirely neglected the important
influence of the novella in the Greek romance and had been mistaken in his
insistence on the fundamentally different character of the two. Rohde 4
claimed that the novella was realistic, the romance idealistic and hence
declared that any derivation of the romance from the novella was
impossible. Lavagnini recognized other influences in the development of
the romance, especially those of satire and of the new comedy, but he
maintained that an essential feature was the historical. He admitted that in
the use of his local legends the events are projected into an ideal and remote
past.

The tendency in the new criticism of the Greek Romances, notably in the
[8]
work of Aristide Calderini, is not to seek for any one main source for
their “origins,” but rather to consider all possible precursors in the field of
fiction who directly or indirectly influenced them. Their name is legion and
they appear in the fields of both poetry and prose. For from the earliest
times of Greek literature the art of narration was in use. Epics presented
narratives of war in the Iliad, of adventure in the Odyssey, of love in
Apollonius Rhodius. Drama produced narrative speeches particularly in
tragedy in the role of the messenger. Elegiac poetry developed subjective-
erotic stories, based on myths, or history, or real life, and written in lyric

mood in narratives or letters. Idyls finally portrayed against a pastoral
setting the outdoor loves of shepherds.

In prose, there are full-grown novelettes combining love and adventure
[9]
embedded in the Greek historians: Herodotus’ story of Candaules’ wife,
[10] [11]
the story of Rhampsinitus’ treasure, the story of the love of Xerxes,
the story of Abradatas of Susa and Panthea in Xenophon’s Education of
[12]
5
Cyrus which Whibley calls “the first love-story in European prose.”
Short stories or novelle in prose are known from the accounts of the
Milesian Tales and from Parthenius’ miniature Love Romances. The
Μιλησιακά were written in the second century B.C., by Aristides of Miletus
and a collection of them was translated into Latin by Cornelius Sisenna who
died 57 B.C. Their character was definite: they were erotic stories of a
lascivious type. Their philosophy of life was that all men—and women—
are sinners, and this belief was embodied in episodes from every-day life.
Their amorality was such that the Parthian Surena was horrified when in the
Parthian War of 53 B.C., a copy of the Milesian Tales was found in the pack
of a Roman officer. Other short local tales, for example those of Sybaris and
of Ephesus, shared these characteristics of realism, irony and disillusion.

Parthenius of Nicaea wrote a collection of short Love Romances of a very
different type. This Greek elegiac poet of the Augustan Age wrote his Love
Romances in Greek prose as a storehouse for his friend, Cornelius Gallus,
to draw upon for material for epic or elegiac verse; and for this reason he
put them forth in the briefest and simplest form possible. Most of them are
unfamiliar stories even when they are about well-known mythological
characters. In many the love tales are set against a background of war. Short
as they are, both their subject matter and style are significant for the
development of Greek prose fiction.

Moreover, the work of the rhetorical schools must be considered among the
forerunners of the novel, both in Greek and Latin. Although we know now
that the Greek Romances were being written before the time of the New or
Second Sophistry which Rohde postulated to be their origin, still in the 6
Greek Romances as well as in the Satyricon and in Apuleius’
Metamorphoses, there are many illustrations of the influence of the practice

cases of the rhetorical schools. A study of the Controversiae in Seneca the
Elder and in the pseudo-Quintilian, a study of The Lives of the Sophists by
Philostratus demonstrates that in these school exercises where “oratory
[13]
became a theatrical fiction” lay many first drafts of a new literary genre,
[14]
the romance.

It is a pity that Erwin Rohde could not have lived to revise himself his great
work on the Greek Romances in the light of the new discoveries about
them. No scholar has yet arisen equipped with his tremendous erudition and
penetrating criticism to succeed him worthily. Perhaps indeed the time has
not yet come to write a new critical history of the Greek romance, for at any
time added discoveries may demand still further revision of dates and
consideration of types. But at this stage it is essential to review the new
discoveries and to try to estimate their significance. This outline is based on
three important summaries: the introduction by Aristide Calderini to his
[15]
translation of Chariton; the “Appendix on the Greek Novel” by Stephen
Gaselee in the edition of Daphnis and Chloe and Parthenius in The Loeb
[16]
Classical Library; and the chapter on “Romance: the Greek Novel” by
R. M. Rattenbury in New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature, Third
[17]
Series.

Most spectacular and important of the new discoveries was that of the
fragments of the Ninus Romance, first published in 1893. They were 7
found on an Egyptian papyrus, on the back of which are written some
accounts of A.D. 101. The writing of the romance is so clear and beautiful
that it is dated by experts as belonging to the first century B.C. As
Rattenbury says: “The Ninus Romance is therefore the only pre-Christian
specimen of its kind; it is indisputably two centuries earlier than the earliest
of the completely extant romances (Charito), and probably as much earlier
[18]
than any of the known fragments.” The remains consist of two separate
fragments with parts of five columns on the first and of three on the second.
[19]
Gaselee writes of the content: “in the first (A) the hero, Ninus, and the
heroine (unnamed), deeply in love with one another, approach each the

other’s mother and set forth their love, asking for a speedy marriage; in the
second (B) the young couple seem to be together at the beginning, but
almost immediately Ninus is found leading an army of his Assyrians, with
Greek and Carian allies, against the Armenian enemy.”

Fragment A is short enough so that we can read Gaselee’s translation of it:
[20]

Ninus and the maiden were both equally anxious for an immediate
marriage. Neither of them dared to approach their own mothers—
Thambe and Derceia, two sisters, the former Ninus’ mother, the latter the
mother of the girl—but preferred each to address themselves to the
mother of the other: for each felt more confidence towards their aunts
than towards their own parents. So Ninus spoke to Derceia: “Mother,”
said he, “with my oath kept true do I come into thy sight and to the
embrace of my most sweet cousin. This let the gods know first of all—
yes, they do know it, and I will prove it to you now as I speak. I have
travelled over so many lands and been lord over so many nations, both
those subdued by my own spear and those who, as the result of my
father’s might, serve and worship me, that I might have tasted of every
enjoyment to satiety—and, had I done so, perhaps my passion for 8
my cousin would have been less violent: but now that I have come
back uncorrupted I am worsted by the god of love and by my age; I am,
as thou knowest, in my seventeenth year, and already a year ago have I
been accounted as having come to man’s estate. Up to now I have been
nought but a boy, a child: and if I had had no experience of the power of
Aphrodite, I should have been happy in my firm strength. But now that I
have been taken prisoner—thy daughter’s prisoner, in no shameful wise,
but agreeably to the desires both of thee and her, how long must I bear
refusal?

“That men of this age of mine are ripe for marriage, is clear enough: how
many have kept themselves unspotted until their fifteenth year? But I am
injured by a law, not a written law, but one sanctified by foolish custom,
that among our people virgins generally marry at fifteen years. Yet what
sane man could deny that nature is the best law for unions such as this?
Why, women of fourteen years can conceive, and some, I vow, even bear

children at that age. Then is not thy daughter to be wed? ‘Let us wait for
two years,’ you will say: let us be patient, mother, but will Fate wait? I
am a mortal man and betrothed to a mortal maid: and I am subject not
merely to the common fortunes of all men—diseases, I mean, and that
Fate which often carries off those who stay quietly at home by their own
fire-sides; but sea-voyages are waiting for me, and wars after wars, and I
am not the one to shew any lack of daring and to employ cowardice to
afford me safety, but I am what you know I am, to avoid vulgar boasting.
Let the fact that I am a king, my strong desire, the unstable and
incalculable future that awaits me, let all these hasten our union, let the
fact that we are each of us only children be provided for and anticipated,
so that if Fate wills us anything amiss, we may at least leave you some
pledge of our affection. Perhaps you will call me shameless for speaking
to you of this: but I should indeed have been shameless if I had privily
approached the maiden, trying to snatch a secret enjoyment, and
satisfying our common passion by the intermediaries of night or wine, or
servants, or tutors: but there is nothing shameful in me speaking to thee, a
mother, about thy daughter’s marriage that has been so long the object of
thy vows, and asking for what thou hast promised, and beseeching that
the prayers both of our house and of the whole kingdom may not lack
fulfilment beyond the present time.”

So did he speak to the willing Derceia, and easily compelled her to come
to terms on the matter: and when she had for a while dissembled, she
promised to act as his advocate. Meanwhile although the maiden’s
passion was equally great, yet her speech with Thambe was not 9
equally ready and free; she had ever lived within the women’s
apartments, and could not so well speak for herself in a fair shew of
words: she asked for an audience—wept, and desired to speak, but ceased
as soon as she had begun. As soon as she had shewn that she was
desirous of pleading, she would open her lips and look up as if about to
speak, but could finally utter nothing: she heaved with broken sobs, her
cheeks reddened in shame at what she must say, and then as she tried to
improvise a beginning, grew pale again: and her fear was something
between alarm and desire and shame as she shrank from the avowal; and
then, as her affections got the mastery of her and her purpose failed, she
kept swaying with inward disturbance between her varying emotions. But

Thambe wiped away her tears with her hands and bade her boldly speak
out whatever she wished to say. But when she could not succeed, and the
maiden was still held back by her sorrow, “This,” cried Thambe, “I like
better than any words thou couldst utter. Blame not my son at all: he has
made no over-bold advance, and he has not come back from his
successes and his victories like a warrior with any mad and insolent
intention against thee: I trust that thou hast not seen any such intention in
his eyes. Is the law about the time of marriage too tardy for such a happy
pair? Truly my son is in all haste to wed: nor needest thou weep for this
that any will try to force thee at all”: and at the same time with a smile
she embraced and kissed her. Yet not even then could the maiden venture
to speak, so great was her fear (or, her joy), but she rested her beating
heart against the other’s bosom, and kissing her more closely still seemed
almost ready to speak freely of her desires through her former tears and
her present joy. The two sisters therefore met together, and Derceia spoke
first. “As to the actual (marriage?),” said she....”

In fragment B the seventeen-year-old warrior is found marshalling his
forces, “seventy thousand chosen Assyrian foot and thirty thousand horse,
and a hundred and fifty elephants,” and at the end beginning the advance at
the head of his cavalry:

And stretching out his hands as if (offering sacrifice?), “This,” he cried, “is
the foundation and crisis of my hopes: from this day I shall begin some
[21]
greater career, or I shall fall from the power I now possess.”

In this Ninus Romance as we have it, the name of the heroine is not 10
mentioned, but her mother’s name is Derceia and that is a close
variant of Derceto, the name of the divine mother of Semiramis in the usual
legend. So although the type is different from that of the queen of Babylon,
the character is probably hers. It seems evident that this early novelist was,
then, building his romance around historical characters. Rattenbury points
this out and also shows conclusively that the characteristics of all the other
[22]
romances are indisputably present in this early fragmentary story:

“The impetuous but honest Ninus reappears clearly enough in the
Theagenes of Heliodorus, and the lovesick maiden of unassailable virtue
and almost intolerable modesty might be the heroine of any Greek
romance.”

Ninus pledges his faith as later heroes take an oath. He like them is the toy
of Eros or Aphrodite. In the extant romances,

“The characters, the treatment, and even the plots are almost stereotyped;
and yet one difference is observable—a tendency to abandon an
ostensibly historical background in favour of a purely fictitious setting.
The relative dates of the authors are by no means certain, but the
fortunate discovery of papyrus fragments of Charito and Achilles Tatius
supports the view, probable on other grounds, that Charito is to be
considered the earliest, and Achilles Tatius the latest. It is therefore of
interest to notice that Charito, though his hero and heroine are creatures
of his imagination, introduces some historical characters and some
historical events; his main story is fictitious, but he seems to have been at
pains to lend it a historical flavour. Heliodorus, somewhat later, presents
a picture of a fairly definite historical period, but no more; his characters
are all fictitious and there is no historical authority for the sequence of
events which he describes. Achilles Tatius degrades romance from the
realm of princes to the level of the bourgeoisie. His story is frankly
fictitious, and he evidently had no feeling that romance should be related
to history.”

Rattenbury goes on to illustrate his theory of the change from the 11
semi-historical to the purely fictitious romance by a study of the
Alexander Romance and the new fragments of other stories. The pseudo-
Callisthenes Alexander Romance in the oldest version extant is dated about
A.D. 300. But papyrus fragments indicate that a large part of the material in
it goes back to a time shortly after Alexander’s death. From the evidence of
our late pseudo-Callisthenes version which probably followed tradition it
would seem that history was treated as fiction and little attention paid to the
love-story of Roxane which could have furnished such a lively erotic
interest. New fragments of other romances show other great rulers used as
[23]
heroes. One is the Egyptian prince, Sesonchosis, called by the Greeks

Sesostris. Mythological characters too become protagonists in romances:
Achilles and Polyxena; the Egyptian Tefnut, daughter of Phre, the sun-god,
who took her adventures in the shape of a cat wandering in the desert of
Ethiopia. Other fragments run true to the general type of the Greek
Romances in manifesting now this, now that characteristic.

The sum total of all the fragments discovered up to date gives convincing
evidence of two important facts: first, the extant Greek Romances are only a
small part of the output of this genre; second, the dating of all the fragments
places them between the end of the first and the beginning of the fourth
century of our era. The Ninus Romance is the earliest fragment, Chariton’s
the earliest complete romance, that of Achilles Tatius the latest. On this
framework a chronological list of the extant novels arranged on the basis of
proved data and the probabilities of internal evidence and comparisons,
shapes like this:

12

The Greek Romances
Date Author Title
I Century B.C. Unknown The Ninus Romance (frag.)
Before A.D. Chariton of Chaereas and Callirhoe
150 Aphrodisias
II Century Lucian of Samosata A True History Lucius or Ass (an
A.D. epitome of the lost Metamorphoses)
II-III Xenophon of Ephesiaca, Habrocomes and Anthia
Centuries A.D. Ephesus
II-III Heliodorus of Aethiopica, Theagenes and Chariclea
Centuries A.D. Emesa
II-III Longus Daphnis and Chloe
Centuries A.D.
About A.D. Achilles Tatius of Clitophon and Leucippe
300 Alexandria
Byzantine
XII Century Eustathius Hysmine and Hysminias
A.D.

XII Century Nicetas Eugenianus Charicles and Drusilla (verse)
A.D.
XII Century Theodorus Dosicles and Rhodanthe (verse)
A.D. Prodromus
XII Century Constantine Aristander and Callithea (verse)
A.D. Manasses
Also known by translation or abstract
II-III Unknown Apollonius of Tyre (Latin translation)
Centuries A.D.
II-III Iamblichus, a Babyloniaca, Rhodanes and Sinonis
Centuries A.D. Syrian (abstract in Photius)
II-III Antonius Diogenes The Wonderful Things beyond Thule
Centuries A.D. (abstract in Photius)
Not before pseudo- Alexander Romance
A.D. 300 Callisthenes
13
It is to be observed that from internal evidence Xenophon of Ephesus
probably came before Heliodorus. Longus is sui generis, and so stands apart
from the typical genre of the novels; in fact is a unique specimen of another
type, the pastoral romance.

The new discoveries from the papyri with the consequent re-dating of all
known material has given a strong impetus to new study of Greek
Romances; new editions of text with translation are being brought out by
[24]
English, French, Italian and American scholars. The introductions to
some of these editions, especially those of Calderini and Dalmeyda, are the
first distinguished literary work in the field since Rohde with the exception
of Samuel Lee Wolff’s monograph on The Greek Romances in Elizabethan
Prose Fiction, New York, 1912.

The time has now come for a literary study in English which will make
available foreign criticism and present perhaps some new ideas. I plan to
discuss in successive chapters Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Heliodorus,
Achilles Tatius and Longus, and to suggest something of their influence.
Then I shall take up the Λούκιος ἢ ὄνος attributed to Lucian and his True

History and finally I shall show the synthesis of the novel of adventure and
the true Greek romance of love in the great Latin novel, Apuleius’
Metamorphoses.

14

II
CHARITON’S CHAEREAS AND CALLIRHOE

There are two reasons for beginning a perusal of the Greek Romances with
Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe. It is “the earliest Greek romance of
which the text has been completely preserved.” It is “a lively tale of
adventure in which a nobly born heroine is kidnapped across the sea from
Syracuse to Asia Minor, where her beauty causes many complications and
she is finally rescued by her dashing lover.” I quote from Warren E. Blake
whose publication of the Greek text and a literary translation of it are a
monument to American scholarship.

The date of the manuscript of this novel has been proved to be not later than
the middle of the second century A.D., by the recent discoveries of papyrus
[25]
fragments of it. Warren Blake comments on the significance of these
[26]
discoveries:

“In view of the complete absence in ancient literature of any certain
allusion to Chariton, he was long supposed to be the latest of the authors
of Greek romance, and was dated, purely by conjecture, about 500 A.D.
But by a turn of fortune as truly remarkable as any attributed by Chariton
himself to that fickle goddess, three scraps of his book have been 15
turned up in Egypt during the last forty years. One of these scraps
was found in company with some business documents which date from
about the end of the second century of our era. Inasmuch as the place of
discovery was a small country town to which new works of literature
would not likely penetrate immediately on publication, and since in any

case an expensive book is almost sure to be preserved longer than day-
by-day business papers, we seem quite justified in setting the date of
publication back some twenty-five or even fifty years. Thus it is probable
that this novel was written at least as early as the middle of the second
century, only about one hundred years later than most of the books of the
New Testament.”

The identity of the author is made known by the first sentence: “I am
Chariton of Aphrodisia, secretary to the advocate Athenagoras.” Aphrodisia
was a town in Caria in southern Asia Minor. Its locality helps little in
expanding the autobiography of the author out of this one crisp sentence.
But the romance itself reveals more of his personality. His fondness for
court-room scenes and his elaborate descriptions of them are what we
would expect from a secretary to a ῥήτωρ or advocate. His learning is
evident from his many literary and mythological references. And
occasionally he steps out of the role of the impersonal narrator into his own
character and speaks in the first person to his reader. We will come to feel
rather sure of his interests and tastes as we read his πάθος ἐρωτικόν.

Before proceeding to outline the plot of the eight books of this romance, it
will be well to clarify the story by presenting a list of the characters.

The chief characters are:

Chaereas, the handsome young Greek hero, son of Ariston of Syracuse
Callirhoe, the beautiful young Greek heroine, daughter of Hermocrates, a
famous general of Syracuse
Polycharmus, a young Greek, the devoted friend of Chaereas
Hermocrates, the general of Syracuse 16
Theron, a pirate
Dionysius, the governor of Miletus
Mithridates, satrap of Caria
Artaxerxes, king of the Persians
Statira, his wife, queen of the Persians
Pharnaces, the governor of Lydia and Ionia
Rhodogyne, the sister of Pharnaces, daughter of Zopyrus, wife of
Megabyzus, a Persian beauty.

The minor characters of importance are:

Leonas, a slave-dealer of Miletus
Plangon, a female slave of Dionysius
Phocas, slave and overseer of Dionysius, husband of Plangon
Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes
Hyginus, a servant of Mithridates.

The list of characters reveals at once a connection of Chariton’s novel with
the Ninus Romance because of the use of historical characters.
Hermocrates, the great general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians in
the naval battle, 414 B.C., is the father of the heroine and is referred to
repeatedly with the greatest pride. Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians,
appears in person in courts and in wars. Historical events too are mentioned
as if to give a background of reality: the contests between the Syracusans
and the Athenians; the war between the Greeks and the Persians; the
rebellion of Egypt against Persia; the merit of Cyrus the Great in organizing
the army.

Against such a background of plausible reality, the plot develops along
three main lines of interest: love, adventure and religion. The story begins
with the introduction of the radiant young hero and heroine of Syracuse
when they fall in love at first sight at a festival of Aphrodite. Almost
immediately they are married, but their ecstatic happiness is short, for
Callirhoe’s many other suitors, angry at her choice, plot revenge. They
make her husband jealous by false stories of a lover whom his bride 17
favors, and, by staging a surreptitious admission to his house of a
lover of Callirhoe’s maid, convince Chaereas that his wife is faithless. In
passionate fury he dashes to his wife’s room and when Callirhoe overjoyed
at his unexpected return rushes to meet him, he kicks her with such violence
in the middle of her body that she falls down, to all appearance dead.
Chaereas is tried for murder and pleads for his own condemnation, but is
acquitted against his will by the appeal of Hermocrates.

Callirhoe is now given a magnificent funeral and buried with much
treasure. The heroine, however, who had only fainted, soon revives, but
while she is bemoaning her sad fate, a band of pirates, led by Theron,
breaks open the tomb, steals the treasure, kidnaps the girl, then sets sail

with all speed for the east. At Miletus, Theron sells Callirhoe as a slave to
Dionysius, a noble Ionian prince. He soon falls in love with his slave, but
learning her story (except the fact that she was already married which
Callirhoe omits) respects her tragic position and woos her with delicacy and
consideration. Callirhoe, on finding that she is two months with child,
decides to accept the advice of the maid Plangon and marry Dionysius to
give her baby a father. Plangon assures Callirhoe that the child will be
considered a premature seven months baby, and she secures from Dionysius
a promise to bring up as his honored children any sons of the marriage.
Book III tells how Chaereas found the tomb empty; how Theron was
captured, forced to tell the truth by torture and crucified; how Chaereas and
his bosom friend Polycharmus went on a warship to Miletus in search of
Callirhoe but were captured and sold as slaves to Mithridates, satrap of
Caria.

Now Mithridates too had fallen in love with Callirhoe on seeing her at
Miletus. On returning to Caria he discovers the identity of his slave 18
Chaereas just in time to save him from crucifixion because of an
uprising of his fellow-slaves, and tells him that his wife is now married to
Dionysius. Chaereas writes a letter to Callirhoe full of penitence and of love
and Mithridates forwards it by Hyginus, his faithful slave, adding another
letter of his own promising Chaereas and Callirhoe his aid. Unfortunately
these letters fall into the hands of Dionysius himself and that noble prince,
in his mad passion for his wife, conceals from her the news that Chaereas is
alive and makes a plot for the protection of his own interests. He appeals to
Pharnaces, governor of Lydia and Ionia, who is also in love with Callirhoe,
to help a scheme he has made. Pharnaces thus prompted writes a letter to
Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, accusing Mithridates of trying to corrupt
Dionysius’ wife. The great King then summons Mithridates to a trial for
plotting adultery and sends also for Dionysius and Callirhoe.

The court scene is full of magnificence and surprises. Mithridates has no
fear because in answer to the denunciations of Dionysius he is able to
produce as a witness Chaereas who swears to his innocence and friendship.
Mithridates is acquitted and departs. Then the King dismisses the court for
five days before adjudging whose wife Callirhoe is to be since now she has
two living husbands. Meanwhile he intrusts the lady for safe keeping to his

wife, Statira. Dionysius is torn between the promptings of passion and
reason. Chaereas is in despair at the possibility of losing Callirhoe again.
And Artaxerxes, the King, like all the other great gentlemen in the story,
falls madly in love with Callirhoe for her beauty.

The King’s passion makes him postpone the court trial a month on the
pretext of a dream which demanded sacrifice to the gods. His eunuch tries
to persuade the heroine to do herself the honor of submitting to the 19
King’s embraces, but only horrifies and offends her purity. Now
Fortune again takes a hand in separating once more Chaereas and Callirhoe,
for a revolt of the Egyptians is announced, the King must be off to war, and
as usual the queen and her suite go with him. Callirhoe accompanies the
queen by royal orders.

Dionysius of course serves as one of the King’s generals. He has a crafty
piece of news conveyed to Chaereas that in reward for his faithful service
the King had given him Callirhoe. Chaereas, believing this false story, and
no longer caring to live, enlists with the faithful Polycharmus in the
Egyptian army to fight against his rival. He is allowed to collect an army of
three hundred Greeks in memory of Thermopylae and with them captures
Tyre. News of this loss makes the Persian King so anxious that he decides
not to travel with all his retinue, but to leave the women on the little island
of Aradus. Chaereas who is proving a valiant warrior soon takes the island
and discovers Callirhoe among his captives. Both faint on seeing each other
but since joy never kills, they soon recover and reunited tell all and forgive
all.

Word suddenly comes that the Persian King has defeated the Egyptians and
their King is dead. Chaereas and his men decide to sail home to Syracuse,
but first in response to the plea of Callirhoe Chaereas sends his prisoner, the
queen Statira, back to the King because she had befriended Callirhoe in her
woes. Callirhoe without the knowledge of Chaereas writes a beautiful and
affectionate letter of farewell to Dionysius, intrusting to him the care of her
son. (Dionysius still believes he is the boy’s father!) The ship of Chaereas is
driven by fair winds to Sicily where Hermocrates and the people of
Syracuse receive the hero and heroine in amazement and joy. 20
Chaereas tells the story of all their adventures and Callirhoe ends the

tale with a prayer to Aphrodite: “I beg thee, never again part me from
Chaereas, but grant us both a happy life, and death together.”

With this simple outline of the plot before us let us study the way in which
the story is told. Notable first of all are the shifting scenes, for the action
moves rapidly from Syracuse, to Miletus, to Caria, to Babylon, to the sea, to
Tyre, to the island of Aradus and then at last back to Syracuse after the full
circle of adventures. The contrast between the free Greek city of Syracuse
and the oriental kingdoms is constantly emphasized, but it is the love of
adventure for adventure’s sake that spices the narrative. The settings
include, besides picturesque descriptions of localities, court-room scenes
which are full of contrasts: the murder-trial of Chaereas in Syracuse and the
trial of Theron also; the arraignment of Mithridates for adultery before the
Great King in Babylon. Pageantry of weddings and of religious ceremonies
also enrich the plot.

The characters are painted in bold, rich colors. Hero and heroine are so
beautiful that they can be compared only to great works of art: Chaereas
resembles the pictures and statues of Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus,
Alcibiades. Callirhoe is now Aphrodite incarnate, now Artemis. Love is
enflamed by their great beauty and enters through their eyes at their first
sight of each other. Chaereas is proud and arrogant because of his looks and
so passionate that he is unrestrained in his anger when he believes Callirhoe
false. The kick which he gave his bride is a blot on his character which the
reader finds harder to condone than Callirhoe did. She declares that cruel
Fortune forced her husband to this act, for he never before had struck even a
slave. He is also so mercurial that he repeatedly gives way to despair 21
and is repeatedly saved from committing suicide by his devoted friend
and companion, Polycharmus. He appears in more heroic guise as a warrior
when he joins the Egyptians against Artaxerxes and Dionysius, resolved to
die in battle, and wins a great naval victory. He is generous in sending the
captive queen back to her lord. And he fulfills the ideals of romantic
chivalry by declaring to Callirhoe at the end that she is the mistress of his
soul.

Callirhoe like Helen had the gift of fatal beauty so that all men who saw her
fell in love with her and she incurred for a time the jealousy of Aphrodite.

But in spite of every temptation her spirit remained virginal and she was
persuaded to marry Dionysius only to give a nominal father to her unborn
child. She meets misfortune with natural tears, but with more fortitude than
Chaereas shows. And she rules her anger even when the eunuch of King
Artaxerxes makes insulting proposals to her by remembering that she had
been well brought up and as a Greek taught self-control. She handles
difficult situations with a woman’s intuitive tact as when she writes a
consoling farewell letter to Dionysius, without letting her husband have the
pain of knowing of it and its tenderness. By it she secures Dionysius’ care
for the son he still believes his own. She wins from Chaereas with gentle
tact a promise to send back the captives Statira and the beautiful
Rhodogyne to the Persians. And in meek devotion at the end she essays to
win even the goddess Aphrodite to complete reconciliation.

Polycharmus is a type more than an individual, for he is to Chaereas what
Achates was to Aeneas, the faithful friend who accompanies him through
all adventures. With boyish zeal, he hides from his parents in Syracuse his
plan to go with Chaereas on his search for Callirhoe, but he appears 22
on the stern of the ship as it sails in time to wave a farewell to his
father and mother. His chief function is to encourage Chaereas and prevent
his suicide. At the end on their return to Syracuse he is rewarded by being
given Chaereas’ sister for a bride and a part of the spoils of war for a dowry.

Dionysius is a sympathetic and noble character; indeed his sins are all for
love. He is in deep mourning for his dead wife when Callirhoe is purchased
as a slave by his manager. Although he believes that no person who is not
free-born can be truly beautiful, he is overwhelmed with love at the first
sight of Callirhoe. With tactful sympathy he draws out her story and
believes it. He never forces his passion upon her, but woos her delicately
through his maid-servant, Plangon, and is overjoyed when Callirhoe finally
consents to legal marriage for the purpose of raising a family. Even then in
spite of his desire he delays the marriage that he may do Callirhoe the honor
of a great wedding in the city. His happiness is complete to his mind when
after seven months a son is born. So it is because of his sincere love that
when he hears that a Syracusan warship has arrived to demand Callirhoe
back, he commends his slave Phocas who out of loyalty to his master had
persuaded barbarians to destroy the ship and its crew. Dionysius’ only

anxiety is that since some of the men escaped, Chaereas may still be alive.
This last fact he conceals from Callirhoe and to comfort her for Chaereas’
supposed death persuades her to erect a cenotaph to her first husband’s
memory. Later when he receives the intercepted letter of Chaereas to
Callirhoe, he faints with grief and fear, but coming to he believes the letter
forged as part of a plot of Mithridates to win the favor of his bride, so he
accuses Mithridates to the Great King. Summoned to Babylon to the trial he
is in constant terror, for “he looked on all men as his rivals” knowing 23
the devastating effects of Callirhoe’s beauty. When Chaereas is
produced alive in the trial, he argues valiantly for the retention of his wife
with some telling thrusts at Chaereas, but finally when he has lost his love,
he bears his grief like a man, having remarkable self-control, treasuring
Callirhoe’s affectionate letter as true solace, and devoting himself to her
son. Dionysius, as Callirhoe reminds him once, is a Greek with a Greek
education.

Among the orientals, resplendent princes appear often only to be numbered
among the disconsolate lovers of Callirhoe and because of their passion to
assist in furthering the complications of the plot. Such are Mithridates and
Pharnaces. More individualized portraits are painted of King Artaxerxes
and Queen Statira. Oriental magnificence is the aura of the Great King’s
personality whether he appears presiding in the court-room, or hunting in
Tyrian purple with golden dagger and elegant bow and arrow on his
caparisoned horse, or riding to war with his great army and his retinue: his
queen, her attendants, his eunuchs, all their gold and silver and fine raiment.
Yet through this rich setting appears a wise ruler who takes counsel of his
advisers in times of crises, listens judiciously to evidence in the court-room,
and in war follows the military traditions of Cyrus the Great. But he has his
human side: is influenced by wine, loneliness and the dark, and succumbs
to Callirhoe’s beauty though he is married to a great and subtle queen.
Hoping to win the object of his passion he is not above machinations with
his eunuch who acts as his go-between and with optimistic hope of success
even has Callirhoe taken along with the queen when he goes to war. Yet
when Statira is restored to him by Chaereas’ magnanimity, he welcomes her
warmly although her news that Callirhoe is with Chaereas is like “a 24
fresh blow upon an old wound.” He appears most human after hearing
Statira’s story of all that happened, for he is filled with varied emotions:

wrath at the capture of his dear ones, sorrow at the departure of Chaereas,
and final gratitude that Chaereas had ended the possibility of his seeing
Callirhoe. Out of his own conflict of emotions, he breaks gently to
Dionysius the news of his loss of Callirhoe and calls him away from
personal sorrow by giving him higher responsibility in the realm.
Artaxerxes is really made to appear in the novel as the Great King.

Statira is no less the queen. She is delighted when her husband suddenly
intrusts Callirhoe to her care, regarding his action as an honor and a sign of
confidence. She encourages Callirhoe with tactful sympathy and secures
needed rest for her, keeping away the curious ladies who hurry to the palace
to call. After a few days Statira can not resist asking Callirhoe which
husband she preferred, but her curiosity is not rewarded for Callirhoe only
weeps. As time goes on Statira’s jealousy is aroused because Callirhoe’s
beauty outshines her own and because she is fully aware of the significance
of the King’s more frequent visits to the women’s quarters. So when
Artaxerxes is preparing to start off for war, the queen does not ask what will
become of Callirhoe because she does not wish to have to take her, but the
King at the end demands her presence. Apparently Statira never betrayed
her jealousy to Callirhoe, for after Chaereas took captive all the women in
Aradus, Callirhoe has only praise for her kindness to relate to Chaereas and
calls Statira her dearest friend. Her generous happiness in being able to
return Statira’s courtesy by sending her back to her husband wins from
Statira a just encomium: “You have shown a noble nature, one that is
worthy of your beauty. It was a happy sponsorship indeed which the King
intrusted to me.” Callirhoe on parting commends her child to the 25
queen’s care and secretly consigns to the queen her letter to
Dionysius. Statira is still a subtle enough woman to enjoy telling the King
at once on her return without her rival: “You have me as a gift from
Callirhoe.”

Set off against the Great King of the Persians is Hermocrates, the general of
Syracuse who defeated the Athenians. His greatness as an admiral is
matched by his leadership as a citizen. At the trial of Chaereas for the
murder of Callirhoe it is Hermocrates whose generous plea in his daughter’s
name secures from the people a vote of acquittal. He listens to the wish of
the people assembled when they urge him to marry his daughter to

Chaereas. When Theron, the pirate, is captured and the crowd at Syracuse is
milling about him, Hermocrates insists on a public trial for him in
accordance with the laws and after the evidence is presented it is by a vote
of the people that he is condemned. Then Hermocrates asks the people to
vote to send a ship in search of his kidnapped daughter as a reward for his
patriotic services. Callirhoe’s pride centers in her father no less than in her
Greek blood. Her reunion with her father at the end of the romance is
almost as moving as her restoral to Chaereas. Hermocrates shines forth in
untarnished glory as a patriotic admiral, a leader of thought in a democratic
state, and a devoted father.

The minor parts are painted with less subtlety. Theron, the villain of the
story, is a black-hearted pirate dominated only by gain and self-interest,
ready to save his life at the expense of his fellow-sailors. Slaves are
presented as vivaciously as they are in comedy. Plangon, the maid of
Dionysius, is a shrewd, cunning opportunist, ready to serve her master’s
interests but not without kindness to the distraught Callirhoe in her plight of
pregnancy. Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes, is venal, wily, 26
complaisant and low-minded. As the confidant of Artaxerxes he takes
his cues from his master’s words, and solicits his favor by an attempt to
seduce Callirhoe’s heart for him. As a eunuch, a slave and a barbarian (says
Chariton) he could not conceive that Callirhoe would not yield to the
wishes of the King. When he is unable to persuade her by flattery, he
threatens her with the King’s vengeance. And when her words betray her
love for Chaereas, Artaxates can call her only a poor, foolish girl for
preferring a slave to the Great King of the Persians.

The use of the crowd by Chariton is another link between his romance and
drama, for it often fulfills the function assumed by the chorus in tragedy,
that is, the part of the spectator who comments on the action and interprets
it. It is the people of Syracuse in assembly that persuades Hermocrates to
wed his daughter to Chaereas. The crowd votes the crucifixion of Theron
and attends it. At Miletus the crowd joins in Dionysius’ prayer to Aphrodite
to protect Callirhoe and her son. The crowd at Babylon is struck dumb with
amazement at the radiance of Callirhoe. And when the Great King is to
decide whether Chaereas or Dionysius is to be her husband, all Babylon
becomes a court-room as the people discuss the rival partners. At the end of

the romance, all the harbor of Syracuse is filled with men to watch the ship
come in, and when Chaereas and Callirhoe are revealed on it, the crowd
bursts into tears. All rush to the theater and demand that there at once
Chaereas tell them his adventures. “Tell us everything,” they keep shouting.
They groan at his misfortunes. They offer prayers for the future of his son.
They shout assent to his proposal to make his three hundred valiant Greek
soldiers fellow-citizens of Syracuse. Indeed the crowd is constantly 27
the background of the action of the romance.

Various mechanical devices used in the development of the plot show
Chariton’s art of narration. Conversation as any novel demands is
constantly used. Soliloquies are introduced frequently: at some emotional
crisis, Chariton, instead of describing the thoughts and feelings of his
characters, has them burst into speech to themselves. Callirhoe on hearing
of the supposed loss of Chaereas with the warship laments his death and the
destruction of her father’s gallant vessel. Later beside the Euphrates river
when she can no longer see “the ocean which led back to Syracuse,” she
upbraids cruel Fortune for driving her farther and farther from home. Again,
in horror at the proposals of the eunuch, she laments all her misfortunes and
expresses her resolve to die as befits Hermocrates’ daughter rather than
become the mistress of the Great King. So too Dionysius on the return of
Chaereas, after attempts at self-control, bursts forth with despair and
jealousy into a lament over the imminent loss of his love. At the same time
Chaereas, believing that Callirhoe loves Dionysius and will never return to
him from the wealthy Ionian, utters a bitter lament before attempting to
hang himself.

Letters also are an important means of developing the plot in the Greek
[27]
Romances, especially in Chariton. He uses seven letters. Chaereas’ first
letter to Callirhoe is an impassioned love-letter with an appeal for
forgiveness and for an assurance that she still loves him. This is a crucial
letter in the plot because it is sent by Bias of Priene to Dionysius himself
who conceals it from Callirhoe. Bias sends a brief business letter with 28
it. Pharnaces, governor of Lydia, on the instigation of Dionysius
writes a letter to Artaxerxes accusing Mithridates of trying to seduce
Dionysius’ wife. This letter is important for the plot, because it motivates
the trial of Mithridates. The Great King on receiving it dispatches two

laconic business letters to Pharnaces summoning Dionysius and to
Mithridates calling him to trial. The other two letters do not affect the plot,
but reveal the characters of the senders. These are the letters in Book VIII of
Chaereas to Artaxerxes and of Callirhoe to Dionysius. Chaereas proudly
sends back Statira unharmed as the gift of Callirhoe to the Great King.
Callirhoe with a woman’s intuition comforts Dionysius for her loss by
gratitude for his protection, by assuring him that she is with him in spirit in
the presence of her son whom she intrusts to his care. She begs him not to
marry again, but to bring up the daughter of his first wife and her own son,
eventually marry them to each other and send him to Syracuse to see his
grandfather. She includes a message to Plangon and ends with an appeal to
good Dionysius to remember his Callirhoe. It is hardly strange that
Callirhoe concealed this masterpiece of epistolography from her jealous
husband, Chaereas.

The taking of an oath is often an important feature of Greek Romances. In
Chariton, Dionysius swears solemnly by the sea, by Aphrodite and by Eros
that he will marry Callirhoe according to the Greek laws “for the begetting
[28]
of children” and will bring up any child she bears. Dreams too play their
part in the plot. In a dream Dionysius sees an apparition of his dead wife as
she looked on her wedding-day. His slave Leonas interprets the dream as
prophetic of his coming happiness with the newly purchased slave,
[29]
Callirhoe. Callirhoe in her sleep sees a phantom of Chaereas who 29
says to her: “My wife, I intrust our son to you.” This dream determines her
[30]
to bring up her baby and so to marry Dionysius. In Babylon when she is
dreading having to appear in court, she has a dream of her happy wedding
to Chaereas in Syracuse. The maid Plangon interprets the dream as a good
[31]
omen for future happiness. King Artaxerxes had a dream of gods
demanding sacrifice so he proclaimed a festival of thirty days throughout
Asia. This delayed his decision between Chaereas and Dionysius, hence
was most important for the plot because wars arose before the court was
[32]
held and in them Chaereas and Callirhoe came together.

Apparent deaths are a common device of the Greek novelists and Chariton’s
plot turns on two, the supposed death of Callirhoe from Chaereas’ blow and
her subsequent burial; the reported death of Chaereas on his warship.
Concomitant with such deaths are the unexpected reappearances which add
the element of surprise, so essential for the characters and the crowd.

Descriptive passages are few and brief in Chariton and are often worked out
in a suggestive simile rather than in a conspicuous purple patch. Chaereas
was as “radiant as a star. The flush of exercise bloomed on his glowing face
like gold on silver.” Callirhoe, recognizing her lover, became more stately
and lovely than ever, as a flickering lamp again flares up when oil is poured
[33]
in. Public ceremonies are described at more length: the funeral
[34] [35]
procession of Callirhoe, her wedding to Dionysius. Space is given too
[36]
to the description of Artaxerxes’ hunt, that favorite ancient sport; to
[37] [38]
30
storm at sea; to war. But all these descriptions are concise in
their picturesqueness.

Finally clarity in the narrative is secured by repeated résumés of the story
either by the characters or by the author himself. Callirhoe tells her tragic
tale to Dionysius with such sincerity that he believes it and honors her as a
[39]
free-born woman. Polycharmus relates his adventures with Chaereas to
[40]
Mithridates and thereby saves his friend and himself from crucifixion.
Chaereas at the end unfolds the whole Odyssey of his wanderings to the
[41]
populace in the theater of Syracuse. At the beginning of Book V
Chariton epitomizes all the preceding part of the novel and at the beginning
of Book VIII he recapitulates the preceding book and reassures his audience
about the final book.

“Furthermore, I think that this last book will be the most pleasant of all to
my readers, and in fact will serve as an antidote to the tragic events of the
former ones. No more piracy or slavery or court trials or battles or
suicide or war or capture here, but true love and lawful marriage! And so

I am going to tell you how the goddess brought the truth to light and
revealed the unsuspecting lovers to each other.”

The happy ending which Chariton here forecasts is an essential feature of a
Greek romance. For in this type of literature in which Chariton is a pioneer,
virtue must triumph. The ethics demands that the hero and heroine must be
noble in character as well as in station and that therefore justice must be
done to virtue. The hero we have seen must possess personal courage and
military courage. He must be capable of emotional devotion, first of all to
his lady, then to his friend, and always to his father. His faults are those of
pride, arrogance and passion and his moments of brutality are condoned by
his contemporaries on account of his passionate temperament. He can 31
be generous to his foes. He can show pity to the unfortunate. But his
sympathies, even when the type is embodied in as noble a character as
Dionysius, are evoked by the free-born in distress, rarely by slaves. The
virtues of the heroine are first of all chastity, then loyal devotion to parents,
husband and child, pride of family, generosity of spirit and sympathy. She is
capable of resolute decision and heroic action if her chastity is menaced or
her dear ones are in danger. Standards different from our own best ones
appear in the general attitude towards slaves as an inferior class and in the
brutality manifested in the hero’s kick, in executions on the cross, in torture
of witnesses. Cleverness and deception are traits which are prized more
highly than we admit now. The noblest sentiments expressed are in behalf
of liberty and patriotism.

Religion plays so important a part in the romance that it demands a full
treatment. Chariton’s novel is dominated by two cults: the worship of the
abstract goddess Fortune, the worship of the goddess of love, Aphrodite. At
the end of Book I Callirhoe, just after she has been sold as a slave, in a
soliloquy, upbraids cruel Fortune for all her troubles, for the goddess made
her lover her murderer, surrendered her to tomb-robbers and now has let her
be sold as a slave. Again Callirhoe, when she finds that she is pregnant,
reproaches Fortune for letting her bear a child to be a slave. And on the
banks of the Euphrates in another soliloquy Callirhoe again charges Fortune
with all her miseries and blames her for taking “delight in persecuting one
lone girl.” Mithridates tells Chaereas: “The whims of Fortune have involved
you in this melancholy drama.” Queen Statira, when captured, exclaims that

Fortune has preserved her to see this day of slavery. And the author of the
romance as well as the characters repeatedly attributes to Fortune the 32
strange and sad misadventures of his hero and heroine. Callirhoe,
Chariton says, “was overcome by the stratagems of Fortune, against whom
alone human reason has no power. She is a divinity who loves opposition,
and there is nothing which may not be expected of her.” Throughout the
romance Fortune seems to be conceived not as blind chance, but as a
baleful goddess, who takes delight in cruelty and torture.

In conflict with her machinations is the power of the goddess of love whom
the young lovers worship. As clearly as in a Greek tragedy Aphrodite’s
influence is predominant throughout the romance. At the very beginning,
Chaereas and Callirhoe see each other for the first time at a festival of the
goddess and immediately fall in love. The end of the romance is the prayer
of thanks which Callirhoe offers to Aphrodite in her temple at Syracuse.
Callirhoe is so beautiful that over and over she seems Aphrodite incarnate,
now to the slave-dealer, Leonas, now to Dionysius, now to the crowd at the
time of her marriage to Dionysius, now in Babylon. Prayers for aid are
constantly offered to the goddess by Callirhoe, by Chaereas, by Dionysius,
by Artaxerxes, and these worshippers offer their petitions in her temples in
Syracuse, in Miletus, in Babylon, in Aradus and in Cyprus. Her power is
acknowledged; her favor is asked. Chaereas discovers Callirhoe is alive by
seeing a golden statue of her which Dionysius had dedicated in the temple
of Aphrodite near Miletus. Chariton himself in his résumé at the beginning
of Book VIII records the influence that Aphrodite had in his story. When
Fortune was maneuvering to have Chaereas leave his wife behind at
Aradus, all unaware of her presence, “this seemed outrageous to
Aphrodite,” says Chariton, “who, though she had previously been terribly
angered at Chaereas’ uncalled-for jealousy, whereby he had insolently 33
rejected her kindness after receiving from her a gift more
superlatively beautiful even than Paris’ prize, was by now becoming
reconciled with him. And since Chaereas had now nobly redeemed himself
in the eyes of Love by his wanderings from west to east amid countless
sufferings, Aphrodite felt pity for him, and, as she had in the beginning
brought together this noble pair, so now, having harried them long over land
and sea, she was willing once more to unite them.”

The final consideration about Chariton must be the style of his work. And
first of all the inquiry rises to our lips: how did the secretary of Athenagoras
become so distinguished in the art of narration? Homer, I am convinced, is
the master from whom, as Dante from Vergil, he took his beautiful style.
The romance is rich in literary allusions, but beyond all others Homer is
quoted repeatedly (twenty-four times indeed) and with great effectiveness.
Sometimes a mere transitional phrase is adopted:
[42]
“while the words were yet on his lips.”

In descriptions the brevity and simplicity of Homer are used with such
nicety that the language often trails off naturally into the very words of the
epic. In the thirty day festival at Babylon
[43]
“the sweet savor arose to heaven eddying amid the smoke.”

Men are pictured fighting and in their close array
[44]
“buckler pressed on buckler, helm on helm, and man on man.”

And as the conflict joined and Chaereas rushed against his enemies, he
[45]
“smote them right and left and there rose a hideous moaning.”

Artaxerxes in his court is compared to Zeus among the assembled 34
[46]
gods. A phantom of Chaereas appears to Callirhoe resembling him

“in stature, and fair eyes, and voice, and the raiment of his body was the
[47]
same.”

When Callirhoe came into the court-room in Babylon,

“she looked just as the divine poet says that Helen did, when she
appeared to ‘them that were with Priam and Panthöos and Thymoëtes ...

[48]
being elders of the people.’ At the sight of her, admiring silence fell,
[49]
‘and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her bedfellow.’”

Besides this use of Homeric phrases in descriptions, quotations are
frequently introduced in conversations as if Chariton found only Homer’s
[50]
words expressive to convey the thought of one character to another. But
far more important than such uses of Homeric phraseology is the
intensification of emotional coloring by a quotation from Homer at a crisis
of poignant feeling. When Callirhoe’s nurse calls her to get up for it is her
wedding day,

“her knees and heart were unstrung,”
[51]
because she did not know whom she was to marry. When Chaereas is
told that his wife is an adulteress,

“a black cloud of grief enwrapped him, and with both hands he took dark
[52]
dust and poured it over his head and defiled his comely face.”

When Chaereas is determined to set sail in winter in search of his
kidnapped bride, his mother begged him to take her with him and cried in
Homer’s words:

“My child, have regard unto this bosom and pity me if ever I gave 35
[53]
thee consolation of my breast.”

When Dionysius suddenly learned at a banquet that Chaereas was alive
from reading his letter to Callirhoe,
[54]
“his knees and his heart were unstrung.”

When Artaxerxes was smitten with love for Callirhoe, he lay awake all
night,

[55]
“now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face.”

When Chaereas and Callirhoe had their ecstatic reunion on Aradus,

“when they had had their fill of tears and story-telling, embracing each
other,
[56]
‘they came gladly to the rites of their bed, as of old.’”

Enough illustrations of Chariton’s use of Homer have been given to show
the manner of it. Different explanations of Chariton’s constant use have
been advanced. Schmid thinks it is an indication of the influence of the
Menippean satire with its mingling of prose and verse. Jacob believes it due
to Chariton’s desire to make his style poetic. Calderini is more
understanding. He thinks that Chariton, thoroughly familiar with Homer,
quoted him to express worthily some noble thought and that he saw the
peculiar emphasis which a quotation from Homer could give to the
expression of a sudden, violent emotion. He also uses episodes from Homer
[57]
(the appeal of Hecuba from the wall to Hector, the apparition of
[58] [59]
Patroclus before Achilles, the Homeric τειχοσκοπία). More than all,
his style is usually Homeric in its brevity and simplicity; and in his use of
quotations, of scenes and of style he is the first example of those relations
between epic and romance which became so important in the 36
[60]
mediaeval literature of the west.

Other literary influences are apparent. The Milesian Tales may have
suggested Miletus as the locality for the love-story of Dionysius. The Ninus
Romance is the precursor of the historical element which paints a
background of realism through the use of historical characters, notably
Hermocrates and Artaxerxes, and through allusions to actual wars. Drama
contributed the language of the stage to the description of the action. And at
one crisis when Chaereas, who is believed dead, is produced by Mithridates
in court, Chariton explains:

“Who could worthily tell of the appearance of the courtroom then? What
dramatist ever produced so incredible a situation on the stage? Indeed, you
might have thought that you were in a theater, filled with a multitude of
[61]
conflicting passions.” In another passage Mithridates says Fortune has
[62]
forced the lovers to enact a very sad tragedy. New comedy contributed
types of characters (particularly the slaves), spicy dialogue and at least two
[63]
quotations. The influence of history and especially of Herodotus is
apparent in the use of local history, in narratives of adventure, in depiction
of the adulation of the eastern sovereign, in the reflection of the great
struggle between the west and the east. The influence of the rhetorical
schools is seen in the court scenes which in both their cases and speeches
are strangely like those of the Controversiae of Seneca and the
Declamationes of Quintilian.

All these different literary forces combined to produce a style of narration
in Chariton which is at the same time simple and ingenuous, yet rhetorical.
His startling baroque effects are achieved by just this variation from 37
simple concise epic narrative with strong Homeric coloring, to intense
dramatic moments of high tragedy, to comic scenes of slaves’ intrigues, to
love passages which before had found expression only in poetry. Probably
Chariton learned the effective use of parallelism, contrast and surprise from
the schools of rhetoric, but he wields all his various tools with such success
that he has carved out a new form of literature in his prose romance.

38

III
THE EPHESIACA OR HABROCOMES AND
ANTHIA
BY XENOPHON OF EPHESUS

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

Love’s not Time’s Fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.”

Shakespeare’s famous CXVI sonnet is the lyric credo of those who believe
that love can triumph over adversity, old age and even death itself. The lines
just quoted are the quintessence of lyric romance.

Suppose now that the romantic novel or the modern cinema wishes to
feature this same theme: “True love lasts.” How would either one convey
the idea? I am going to show you by a concrete and melodramatic
[64]
illustration. Here is a script for it.

A young Greek who has been seeking over the world his kidnapped bride
has come to Sicily, his resources nearly gone. An old fisherman 39
Aegialeus gives him hospitality. It is night. The young man and the
old man tell each other their sad love stories. The old man is now speaking:

“I was a wealthy young Spartan and loved a Spartan girl, Thelxinoe. She
returned my love and presently we had, no one knowing it, our heart’s
desire. But my darling’s parents proposed to marry her to another Spartan.
So we fled secretly together and Sparta pronounced sentence of death on us
both. We managed to travel to Sicily. Here we lived in dire poverty, but in
our happiness we forgot all else because we were together. Soon my dear
died, but her body was not buried. I have her with me and I love her always
and I am with her.” After these words he led Habrocomes into an inner
room and showed him the mummy that had been Thelxinoe. She was old
now, but she appeared beautiful to her husband. “To her,” said he, “I always
talk as if she were alive. I sleep here with her; I eat near her. If I come back
tired from my fishing, the sight of her comforts me. For I do not see her as
you do, my son. I see her as she was in Lacedemon, as she was when we
fled. I see the night of our first love. I see our flight together.”

The young Greek exclaims:

“O my own dearest love, shall I ever find you even dead? Here to
Aegialeus the body of Thelxinoe is the great comfort of his life. Now I
have learned that age sets no bounds to true love.”

This story of the second or third century A.D. might seem too macabre to be
possible if the New York Times of Nov. 12, 1940 had not recorded such a
case at Key West, Florida. Karl Tanzler van Cosel, aged X-ray technician,
had removed the body of Elena Hoyas Mesa from its crypt and had kept it
in his bed-room for seven years. He said he had hoped to restore it to life.
Perhaps Xenophon of Ephesus who wrote this story of Aegialeus and 40
his mummy had heard some such “true story” which he embodied in
his novel. In any case, he has given us here an illustration of how the theme
“true love is eternal” may be pictured in a realistic romance. Think how
dramatic this scene would be in a movie: the small inner bed-room of the
fisherman’s hut suddenly lighted; the old man getting his young friend to
help him remove the front of the coffin, then looking rapturously at the

mummy inside and reaffirming before it his life-long love. That is my
illustration of the heart of a realistic Greek romance.

Almost nothing is known about Xenophon of Ephesus who wrote it. Suidas
mentions his romance the Ephesiaca in ten books (instead of the present
eight) and speaks also of a work he wrote on the city of Ephesus. Xenophon
probably was a native of Ephesus, for he shows intimate acquaintance with
many details of the cult of Artemis there. His date can be given only
approximately, but considerable internal evidence helps us to place him. He
imitates certain passages in Chariton, so he must be later than the second
century A.D. Certain references are very important. He is later than
Augustus, for he refers to the prefect of Egypt and of course there was none
[65]
until after 30 B.C. He mentions the Irenarch of Cilicia, and this official
[66]
was not known before Hadrian. He refers to the Artemision of Ephesus
[67]
as if it were at the height of its glory and contemporary. It was pillaged
and burned by the Gauls in 263 and only in part rebuilt. But, as Dalmeyda
[68]
points out, these details give us only vague indications of the date. Until
some fragment of papyrus which can be dated is discovered, we can place
Xenophon merely with some probability about the end of the second 41
century of our era.

The novel itself is simple in language and brief in scope, but complicated in
plot from many kaleidoscopic changes of scenes. There are so many exits
and reentries of the characters that we lose track of them. The brevity of the
narrative, the laconic expressions of emotion in it have made certain critics
maintain the theory that it is only an epitome of a story, or a kind of
scenario written as a preliminary sketch of a longer work. It seems to me
possibly an intentionally short romance written briefly and simply by an
author whose taste was akin to that of Chariton and who perhaps was
intentionally showing a definite reaction against the verbosity of other
novelists.

Partly because of the brevity of the romance a synopsis of the plot has to be
long. So much is crowded into small space, so many rapid transitions from
scene to scene are made, that a full sequential outline must be given before

we can study the significance and color of the romance. Here then is the
plot. The chief characters are:

Habrocomes of Ephesus, the handsome hero
Anthia of Ephesus, the beautiful heroine
Apsyrtos, a pirate chieftain
Manto, the daughter of Apsyrtos
Moeris, a Syrian, husband of Manto
Lampon, a goatherd, slave of Manto
Hippothoos, a brigand
Perilaos, a high police official of Cilicia
Eudoxos, a physician
Psammis, a rajah of India
Araxos, an old soldier in Egypt
Cyno, his wicked wife
Aegialeus, a Syracusan who kept a mummy
Polyidos, a captain in Egypt
Rhenaea, his jealous wife
A procurer of Taras
Leucon, a male slave of Habrocomes and Anthia
Rhode, a female slave, his wife

In Ephesus lived a lad named Habrocomes who was sixteen years old. 42
The beauty of his person was matched by the nobility of his soul. He
had one great fault, pride. And he scorned Eros as less handsome than
himself and unable to control a man against his will. Eros enraged armed
himself against this arrogant boy. It was the time of the festival of Artemis.
At this festival it was the custom to select fiancés. There was a great
procession of young men and women. Anthia, daughter of Megamedes and
Evippe, led the girls, and she was garbed as Artemis. She was so beautiful
that the crowd forgot handsome Habrocomes though a few exclaimed:
“What a couple Habrocomes and Anthia would make!” Here was Eros’
opportunity. After the procession broke up and all were attending the
sacrifice in the temple, the two saw each other and were vanquished.

Day by day, night by night love dominated them until both were worn out
by longing. Their parents not knowing what this strange malady was sent

embassies to the oracle of Apollo at Claros. The god diagnosed their
illnesses as the same, needing the same cure; he foretold long suffering for
both, dangerous travel by sea, kidnapping, imprisonment, death and burial,
but he promised final salvation through the goddess Isis and happy days.

The parents of Habrocomes and Anthia, puzzled and grieved by the oracle,
decided that at least they must use the remedy suggested by the god. So
Habrocomes and Anthia were married, and they did not fear the future
because of their present joy. As time went on, however, it seemed necessary
to the happy pair and to their parents that they should fulfill the oracle by
going on a journey. On the ensuing voyage both swore mighty oaths
(Anthia by Artemis) to be faithful to each other always. Next they put in at
Rhodes for rest. Habrocomes and Anthia hand in hand visited all the 43
city and dedicated golden armor to the sun-god in his temple. Then
they sailed to Egypt, but the ship was becalmed and one night Habrocomes
had a frightful dream. A giantess clad in red appeared to him who set fire to
the ship, destroyed all the sailors and saved only himself and Anthia. He
awoke in terror and terror became reality. Phoenician pirates arriving in a
great trireme boarded the ship and drove the sailors into the sea where they
drowned. Then they fired the ship, but took captive Habrocomes and Anthia
and bore them off to the country near Tyre. Corymbos, one of the pirates,
became enamored of Habrocomes; his bosom companion fell in love with
Anthia, but before they could accomplish their wicked designs on them, the
chief of the pirate band Apsyrtos arrived and appropriating the handsome
young pair as part of his booty took them to Tyre.

This was the beginning of worse troubles, for while Apsyrtos was away on
business, his daughter Manto fell in love with Habrocomes and made
advances to him through a slave and a letter. When he refused to satisfy her
desires, for vengeance she accused him to her father of having tried to rape
her. Apsyrtos had Habrocomes flogged, tortured and cast into prison. Anthia
contriving a secret visit to her husband told him she had been given as a
slave to Manto and must accompany her to Syria, where Manto’s newly
acquired husband Moeris lived. The two slaves of Habrocomes and Anthia,
Leucon and Rhode, were sold into a distant land. Manto to disgrace Anthia
as much as possible married her to one of her humblest slaves, Lampon, a
goatherd. But Lampon pitying Anthia on hearing from her own lips her

story respected her and never made her his actual wife. In Tyre Apsyrtos
happened to find the love-letter which his daughter had written to 44
Habrocomes. Learning from it his unjust treatment of Habrocomes he
released him from prison, gave him his freedom, and made him steward of
his house.

Meanwhile in Syria Anthia’s fatal beauty had inflamed Manto’s husband
Moeris with a mad passion for her. He confided this to the goatherd
Lampon begging for his aid. Lampon to save Anthia went secretly and told
Manto her husband’s designs. Manto in jealous fury ordered Lampon to kill
the woman. In sorrow he told Anthia all and together they planned that
instead of killing her he should sell her as a slave in some remote district.
He managed to hide this transaction and saved her life by selling her to
some Cilician merchants. But their ship was wrecked in a storm. A few
(among them Anthia) came to land on a raft and after wandering all night in
the woods were captured by the brigand Hippothoos.

Manto meanwhile wrote to her father a letter made up of truth and lies,
saying that the slave Anthia had been so troublesome she had given the girl
to a goatherd and afterwards when Moeris became enamored of the woman,
she had sold both the goatherd and his wife in Syria. Habrocomes at once
started out in search for Anthia and finding Lampon and learning the true
story from him, he set forth for Cilicia.

There, however, Anthia had been in great danger. Hippothoos and his
brigands were about to sacrifice her to Ares, but she was rescued by a high
police official of the district, Perilaos, who captured all the brigands except
Hippothoos. He took her to Tarsus and of course soon fell in love with her.
He offered her honorable marriage, wealth, children and she fearing his
violent passion forced herself to consent but asked for a month’s delay.

Now Habrocomes riding through Cilicia on his quest met by chance 45
Hippothoos who begged to be allowed to travel with him. They went
into Cappadocia and there dining together told each other their life
histories, Hippothoos his love of a beautiful lad and the loss of him,
Habrocomes his love for the beautiful Anthia and his loss of her. The
description of Anthia made Hippothoos relate his capture of a fair maiden

and her rescue. Habrocomes, convinced that the girl was Anthia, persuaded
Hippothoos to join him in his search.

But the preparations for the wedding of Perilaos and Anthia were going on
apace, and it would have been consummated had not Anthia found a friend
in an Ephesian physician Eudoxos to whom she confided her tragedy. She
begged him to give her poison so that she might die faithful. She promised
him silver so that he might return to Ephesus. Eudoxos gave her not poison
but a sleeping potion, then hurriedly departed. The very night of her
wedding, in the nuptial chamber, Anthia took what she believed poison.
Perilaos coming to his bride found a corpse. To do her all honor, the bereft
bridegroom had her placed in a magnificent tomb with splendid funeral
gifts.

Robbers broke in the tomb for the treasure just as Anthia awoke. They
carried her off with them to Alexandria. No one else knew she was alive.
Habrocomes heard from an old woman the story of Anthia’s death, of the
pillaging of her tomb and the carrying off of her body. So leaving
Hippothoos he started off alone by ship for Egypt hoping to find the
brigands who had committed such sacrilege. The bandits had already sold
Anthia to a rajah named Psammis, but Anthia saved herself from his
amorousness by telling him that she was a consecrated priestess of Isis so
he respected her.

Habrocomes’ ship missed its course to Alexandria and landed in 46
Phoenicia. There the inhabitants set upon the strangers and capturing
them sold them as slaves at Pelusium, Habrocomes to an old soldier,
Araxos. This soldier had a hideous and wicked wife Cyno who, falling in
love with Habrocomes, offered to kill her husband and marry him. When he
refused, she herself killed her husband and accused Habrocomes of the
murder. He was sent to Alexandria to be tried. Hippothoos meanwhile had
gathered a new band and in his travels had come to Egypt and made the
mountains near the frontiers of Ethiopia his center for expeditions.
Habrocomes was condemned to death by the Prefect of Egypt, but his
execution was twice frustrated by miracles caused by the Nile river when he
appealed to the sun-god Helios for aid against injustice. So he was cast into
prison.

At this time Psammis started home to India with a great camel train taking
Anthia with him. At Memphis Anthia offered prayers to Isis begging her
aid. As they neared the borders of Ethiopia, Hippothoos with his band fell
upon their caravan and, slaying Psammis and many men, seized his treasure
and took captive Anthia. Hippothoos and Anthia did not recognize each
other.

The Prefect of Egypt, on giving Habrocomes a new hearing, was convinced
of his innocence, freed him and gave him money. So Habrocomes took ship
again and went to Italy to make inquiries there about Anthia. Cyno was
executed.

Anthia was again in danger because of the lust of one of the bandits,
Anchialos. He, while Hippothoos was away, tried to do violence to her, but
she stabbed him fatally with a sword which she had found. Hippothoos on
his return decided, in vengeance for the death of his companion, to kill her
in a horrible way: to put her in a deep trench with two fierce dogs. But the
bandit set to guard the trench from pity secretly conveyed food to her 47
so that she fed and tamed the beasts.

Habrocomes on arriving at Syracuse in Sicily lived with a poor old
fisherman named Aegialeus who treated him like a son and told him his
own sad love-story. This is the story of the Mummy in the House.
Hippothoos left Ethiopia to go to Alexandria and believing Anthia dead
made no inquiries about her. The bandit left to guard her, now in love with
her, hid in a cave with a good store of provisions until the caravan had gone,
then released Anthia and the devoted dogs. He swore by the Sun and the
gods of Egypt to respect her until she voluntarily came to his arms, so dogs
and all they started on their travels.

The Prefect of Egypt had sent a company of soldiers under Polyidos to
disperse the bandits of whose marauding he had heard. Hippothoos’ band
was broken up; indeed he alone escaped. He embarked on a ship for Sicily.
Polyidos next captured Anthia and her escort. Polyidos although he had a
wife in Alexandria at once fell in love with Anthia and when they reached
Memphis, tried to rape her, but she fled to the temple of Isis as a suppliant.
Polyidos then swore that he would respect her if she would return to him,
saying that to see her and speak to her would satisfy his love, so she went

back to his care. On their arrival at Alexandria, Rhenaea the wife of
Polyidos was nearly insane with jealousy of the girl her husband had
brought home. One day in her husband’s absence she beat and reviled poor
Anthia, then gave her to a faithful slave with orders to take her to Italy and
sell her there to a procurer. This he did at Taras.

Hippothoos by this time had reached Sicily and was staying at
Tauromenium. Habrocomes at Syracuse in despair planned to go to Italy
and if he found no news of Anthia there, to return to Ephesus. The parents
of the young pair in their anxiety over them had died. The slaves 48
Leucon and Rhode who had been sold in Lycia had, on the death of
their master, inherited his wealth. They were on their way back to Ephesus
but were staying at Rhodes.

The procurer now forced Anthia to stand in front of his brothel,
magnificently arrayed, to attract customers. When many had gathered
because of her beauty, Anthia feigned a seizure and fell down in the sight of
all in convulsions. Later when she declared to the procurer that she had had
this malady since childhood, he treated her kindly.

Hippothoos in Tauromenium had come into great need. So when an elderly
woman fell in love with him, constrained by poverty, he married her. Very
shortly she died, leaving him all her possessions. So he set sail for Italy
always hoping to find his dear Habrocomes. Arriving at Taras he saw
Anthia in the slave market where the procurer because of her illness was
exhibiting her for sale. Hippothoos, recognizing her, learned from her lips
her story, pitied her, bought her and offered her marriage. Finally Anthia
told him that she was the wife of Habrocomes whom she had lost.
Hippothoos on hearing this revealed his devotion to Habrocomes and
promised to help her find her husband.

Habrocomes also had come to Italy, but in despair had given up his quest
and started back to Ephesus. Stopping at Rhodes on his voyage he was
discovered by Leucon and Rhode, who now took care of him. Next
Hippothoos also arrived at Rhodes, for he was taking Anthia back to
Ephesus. It was the time of a great festival to Helios. At the temple Anthia
dedicated locks of her hair with an inscription:

“In behalf of her husband Habrocomes Anthia dedicates her locks 49
to the god.”

This inscription was seen by Leucon and Rhode and the next day they
found Anthia herself in the temple and told her that Habrocomes was alive
and near and faithful. The good news spread through the city. A Rhodian
carried the word to Habrocomes and he came running like a madman
through the crowd, crying: “Anthia!” Near the temple of Isis he found her,
and they fell into each other’s arms. Then while the people cheered, they
went into the temple of Isis and offered thanks to the goddess for their
salvation. Then they went to the house of Leucon and at a banquet that
night told all their adventures.

When at last Habrocomes and Anthia were got to bed, they assured each
other that they had kept their oaths of faithfulness. The next day all sailed to
Ephesus. There in the temple of Artemis Habrocomes and Anthia offered
prayers and sacrifices; also they put up an inscription telling what they had
suffered and achieved. They erected magnificent sepulchres for their
parents. And they passed the rest of their lives together as though every day
were a festival. Leucon and Rhode shared all their happiness and
Hippothoos too established himself in Ephesus to be near them.

From this summary of the plot, it is at once apparent that the chief interests
of the romance are love, adventure and religion. The three are used by
Xenophon with almost equal distribution of interest and emphasis. Two
divinely beautiful young people (the lad only sixteen) fell in love with each
other at first sight at the festival of Artemis. Habrocomes had been too
proud of his appearance and in his arrogance had scorned the beautiful god
of Love as his inferior. So Eros brought him low and made the pair 50
suffer many misfortunes through separation. However they were
married first and through all their troubles they were true to their oaths of
mutual faithfulness. Temptations and adventures could not nullify their
chastity, but their victories were often superhuman and made possible only
by miracles and the aid of protecting gods. Anthia after a dream of seeing
Habrocomes drawn away from her by another fair lady awoke to utter the
belief that if he had broken faith, he had been forced by necessity; and for
[69]
herself she would die before losing her virtue. At the end, when Anthia

had proudly recounted the lovers she had escaped, Moeris, Perilaos,
Psammis, Polyidos, Anchialos, the ruler of Taras, Habrocomes was able to
reply that no other lady had ever seemed to him fair or desirable: his Anthia
[70]
found him as she had left him in the prison at Tyre. So hero and heroine
shine as types of perfect virtue. The nobility of the romance, as Dalmeyda
points out, appears not only in the purity of Habrocomes and Anthia, but in
[71]
a restrained expression of the sentiments and the acts of love.

The course of this true love was proverbially unsmooth and after the pair
were separated, the plot seesaws between the adventures of hero and
heroine. These are varied, exciting and often closely paralleled. Both were
assailed by amorous lovers, Anthia by at least nine, Habrocomes by
Corymbos, a pirate, by Manto, daughter of the chief of the pirate band, and
by Cyno, the lewd wife of an old soldier. Both were shipwrecked, Anthia
twice. Both nearly met death: Anthia as a human sacrifice, by taking poison,
by being thrown in a trench with fierce dogs; Habrocomes by crucifixion
and pyre. Bandits and pirates captured both. Both were nearly executed for
murder, Anthia for actually killing a bandit who attacked her, 51
Habrocomes on the false charge of Cyno. Both were sold into slavery,
Habrocomes once, Anthia over and over again. Strangely enough among
their adventures war played little part: the only wars described are official
expeditions against bandits.

From most of these adventures the pair were saved by their piety. Never did
they lose an opportunity of offering prayer, thanksgiving, vows and
sacrifices to the gods. The story begins with the festival of Artemis at
Ephesus at which Habrocomes and Anthia fell in love and ends with their
return to her temple to offer thanksgiving for a happy ending out of all their
misfortunes. At the festival Anthia appeared as the priestess of Artemis and
led a procession of maidens in which she alone was garbed as Artemis. This
may be a symbol of her resolute chastity. Many details of the worship of the
[72]
goddess are given which seem based on reality. Artemis appears not as
the Ephesian goddess of fertility, but as the protectress of chastity and in
this function joins with Isis in safeguarding the purity of the heroine.

Eros is the offended god who undoubtedly in vengeance caused the violent
love of Habrocomes, the separation and the miseries of the unhappy pair.
There are few references to Aphrodite: to her son rather than to herself is
given the function of inspiring love. On the Babylonian baldequin over the
marriage bed of Habrocomes and Anthia there had been woven a scene in
which Aphrodite appeared attended by little Loves and Ares unarmed was
[73]
coming towards her led by Eros bearing a lighted torch. Habrocomes at
[74]
Cyprus offered prayers to Aphrodite.

The oracle of Apollo at Claros determined the plot by ordering the 52
marriage of Habrocomes and Anthia and predicting their voyaging,
their separation, their disasters, their reunion. But its clauses are not
sufficiently explained: we are never told why the young bride and groom
and their parents feel they must start out on their fateful journey. Some
think the obscurity is due to Xenophon’s epitomizer. There are other
possible explanations. The action may be an abandoning of themselves to
the will of the gods; or a bold step towards their final promised safety; or a
flight from the city where they had suffered so much. An oracle is the
traditional prelude to a voyage of adventure. Xenophon uses it, says
Dalmeyda, to pique curiosity, to render the misfortunes of the two more
dramatic by the prophecy of them and to reassure his readers about a happy
[75]
ending.

In happiness or distress both the young lovers honored the god of the place
in which they found themselves. In the first part of their journey together
[76]
they offered sacrifice to Hera in her sanctuary at Samos. At Rhodes,
Habrocomes’ prayer to Helios saved him from crucifixion and burning
[77]
through the miracles of the Nile. Perhaps Helios was rewarding
Habrocomes for the golden armor which he and Anthia had jointly
[78]
dedicated to him at Rhodes in his temple. This votive had another certain
part in the plot because when Habrocomes returned there alone to pray near
his votive, Leucon and Rhode, who had been reading the inscription set up
[79]
near it by their masters, recognized him and revealed themselves. At

Memphis Anthia appealing to the pity of the god Apis received from his
[80]
famous oracle a promise that she would find Habrocomes.

Ares appears only in Xenophon. This is strange when war plays such 53
a part in the other romances. In the Ephesiaca, Hippothoos and his
bandits at the festival of Ares had the custom of suspending the victim to be
sacrificed, human being or animal, from a tree and killing it by hurling their
javelins at it. They were preparing to sacrifice Anthia in this way when she
[81]
was rescued.

The other cult which is as important as that of Artemis for the story is the
cult of Isis. Anthia saved herself from Psammis’ advances by declaring that
[82]
she was a consecrated priestess of Isis so the rajah respected her person.
At Memphis in her temple, Anthia appealed to Isis who had preserved her
[83]
chastity in the past to grant her salvation and restore her to Habrocomes.
To escape Polyidos’ lust, Anthia took refuge at the sanctuary of Isis at
Memphis and again besought the goddess for aid. Polyidos in fear of Isis
[84]
and pity for Anthia promised to respect her. Finally near that temple of
Isis Habrocomes and Anthia found each other and in the same temple they
[85]
offered prayers of thanksgiving. Isis thus in the Ephesiaca figures as the
protectress of chastity.

The worship of Isis had been carried to the coast of Asia Minor by sailors
and traders. In the empire both Artemis and Isis had statues in the
Artemesion of Ephesus. The Egyptian cult, purified and penetrated with
moral ideas, seems to belong to the second century A.D. From its very
nature, the goddess Isis becomes as natural a protector of Anthia as is
[86]
Artemis. This synthesis of the two goddesses in one protectress of the
heroine is a natural process of the philosophical thought of the time. In a
modern novel or a cinema, better clarity would be attained for our non-
philosophical minds if one goddess, Isis, was worshipped by Anthia and
was the deity of her salvation. Apuleius achieved just this 54

simplification in his novel by making Isis the one and only savior of his
hero Lucius.

To develop and sustain these three main interests of the story, love,
adventure and religion, the usual devices of a plot are employed. The setting
is cinematic in its many changes: Ephesus, the ocean, Samos, Rhodes, Tyre,
Syria, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, Rhodes again, back to
Ephesus, and thrown in with the setting are many geographical details
[87]
which are often wrong. The characters are familiar types: the ravishingly
beautiful hero and heroine, their perturbed parents, high officials (Perilaos
and Psammis) who take the place of historical characters, faithful slaves, a
wily procurer, a doctor, pirates, bandits.

Dalmeyda has written a discriminating paragraph on the morality of the
[88]
characters. He says that of course all the characters of the romance do
not attain the perfection of virtue of the two protagonists, but altogether the
author shows us a gallery of persons without wickedness who are
sympathetic and who have an air of honesty even in the exercise of the
worst occupations. Manto, who falsely accuses Habrocomes of having
wished to violate her and who has him cruelly tortured, is motivated by an
overwhelming passion. Apsyrtos, her father, chief of the pirates, shows
himself just and generous to the hero when he has discovered his daughter’s
calumny. The slaves are devoted and faithful. Lampon to whom Manto
gives Anthia as his wife is a rustic full of civility and goodness. The man
who traffics in young girls to whom Anthia is sold shows a noble sympathy
when she pretends to be afflicted with seizures. Hippothoos, a brigand
chief, exercises his trade ruthlessly putting villages to fire and sword; he has
a weakness too for handsome lads; but to Habrocomes he is a faithful 55
and devoted friend. He renounces his passion for Anthia when he
finds she is the wife of his friend and aids her in every way in her search for
Habrocomes. It is this recognition of some good in every human being that
gives Xenophon his large humanity.

Oracles are given by Apollo at Claros and by Apis in Memphis. Dreams and
visions disturb both hero and heroine. A letter (Manto’s) is important for the
plot. Some conversation is used. A court-room scene is sketched in,

Habrocomes’ trial for murder before the prefect of Egypt. Soliloquies are
frequent since woeful lovers parted must bewail their lot. Attempted
[89]
suicides testify to their despair. Résumés of adventures are helpfully
presented by important characters at different stages in the narrative. And
after a hundred hair-breadth escapes, journeys end in lovers’ meetings as the
oracle of Apollo had reassuringly predicted at the beginning of the romance.

In spite of the use of these conventions, the story has a lively and
compelling interest. We are led to share the admiration and marvel of the
characters themselves. We are moved by the pity which they often feel.
Their piety induces in us reverence. We agree with their preference for
Greeks rather than barbarians. And we admire the romantic love which
[90]
maintains faithfulness in the face of death, or outlives death itself.

The style of this gem of a novel is finely cut, clear and beautiful in its pure
Atticism. Dalmeyda, who follows Rohde and Bürger in believing the
present form of the romance is due to an epitomizer, yet has to admit that all
[91]
the “naked simplicity” of the style is not due to the redactor. This
characteristic is so distinctive of the author that it seems to 56
differentiate him from other writers of romance by giving his story the
air of a popular tale. Sometimes, Dalmeyda continues, the expression is
double, as if in a sort of naive elegance. Words are repeated awkwardly.
Stereotyped formulae are used. The author gives every person a name even
if he appears only once. Love is generally expressed in conventional terms,
which are however intended to suggest its violent or tragic character. There
is even a ready-made formula for ecstasy (οὐκέτι καρτερῶν or οὐκέτι
φέρειν δυνάμενος). But the passion of Habrocomes and Anthia is expressed
differently. At their final reunion Xenophon describes with force and
[92]
delicacy their joy which is both tender and passionate.

Whether “the naked simplicity” of the Ephesiaca is to be attributed to an
epitomizer, to its approach to the genre of a popular tale, or to the author’s
own taste, the romance is certainly characterized throughout by brevity,
restraint and sparcity of decoration. There are so few descriptions that those
of the festival of Artemis and of the canopy over the marriage bed of

[93]
Habrocomes and Anthia are notable. The action is too rapid and varied to
allow time for decorative passages. Instead of being set amid purple
patches, it is advanced by a kind of documentary evidence: two oracles, two
[94]
letters, one memorial and two votive inscriptions, all directly quoted,
and a reference to an inscription finally offered as a votive in the
Artemesion by Habrocomes and Anthia giving an account of all their
adventures.

Inset narratives, those stories within stories which make pleasing
digressions in other longer romances, are here very few. Hippothoos
recounts his love for the beautiful Hyperanthes and the boy’s untimely 57
[95]
drowning. Aegialeus, the Spartan living with the mummy of his
[96]
wife, tells how his love for her has outlasted death. Both these narratives
are colorful, dramatic and poignant from the very qualities which
characterize all the romance. These are brevity, sincerity and restrained
emotion.

The influence of Chariton is clearly seen in Xenophon both in direct
imitation and in qualities of style. When the Phoenician pirates had
kidnapped Habrocomes and Anthia on their trireme and fired their captives’
vessel leaving many to perish in the sea, an old slave, as he swam, pitifully
called to Habrocomes to save his aged paedagogue or at least kill him and
[97]
bury him. In view of the situation this is a ridiculous appeal, but it is a
clear imitation of a passage in Chariton where, when Chaereas resolves to
go to sea to search for Callirhoe, his father Ariston begs his son not to
[98]
desert him, but to take him on his trireme, or to wait a few days for his
father’s death and burial. Anthia, when Manto, the daughter of the brigand
chief, demands Habrocomes’ submission to her passion, begs her husband
to save his life in this way and swears that she will leave him free by killing
herself, only asking from him burial, one last kiss, and a place in his
memory. This is in direct imitation of Chariton and of Chaereas’ words
[99]
when he finds Callirhoe married to Dionysius. Here Xenophon is
simpler than his model, for he does not transfer the effective lines from

[100]
Homer which Chariton quotes. The burial of Anthia with its rich funeral
gifts resembles the burial of Callirhoe and also the lavish equipment of the
[101]
cenotaph for Chaereas. The language of Chariton is adapted for 58
the lament of Habrocomes in Italy at the failure of his quest and his
[102]
renewed pledge of faithfulness unto death.

These clear indications of imitation of detail serve to corroborate the
evidence of general imitation of style. Indeed Dalmeyda sees in the whole
temperament of Xenophon a close affinity to Chariton. Xenophon
introduces the most startling events without fanfare. Characteristic of his
style are accumulated questions, pathetic résumés, oaths, invocations of the
gods, apostrophes of men and of things particularly of that fatal beauty
which the young hero and heroine deplore because of their misery.
[103]
Xenophon’s relation to Chariton in all this is striking.

The plot of the novel has seemed to some critics epic in its chronological
narrative of successive adventures. Others find the structure a tragic plot
with an angry god demanding satisfaction for the sin of arrogance and the
guilty hero involving in his own nemesis the one most dear to him. It is true
that this and other resemblances to tragedy exist. The story of Manto and
her false denunciation of Habrocomes for an attempt to rape her after she
has failed to win his love goes back to the Phaedra story of Euripides’
Hippolytus. The noble goatherd husband of Anthia finds his prototype in
Electra’s peasant husband in Euripides’ play. The scene where Anthia on her
wedding-night takes poison which proves to be a sleeping potion, to avoid a
new marriage and keep her troth to her lost love seems to be the antecedent
of the poison scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

To me, however, this novelette finds its closest affiliation in another
successor. Both the structure and the devices used to arouse emotion
anticipate the modern cinema. This contemporary form of amusement is
such an accepted part of modern life that we hardly need to read the 59
books about the cinema by Allerdyce Nicoll, Lewis Jacobs, Maurice
Bardèche and others to understand “the Rise of the American Film.”
Personally I go to the movies to escape from routine and from painful

thoughts of our own times. Occasionally I allow myself to be educated
about Steel or The River. I prefer to industrial films or films of social
problems like lynching, prison conditions, housing, films with biographies
of great historical characters: Pasteur, Zola, Rembrandt. I like films set in
local history such as Maryland or Kentucky or Gone with the Wind or The
Howards of Virginia or The North West Mounted Police. I have to shut my
eyes during the fighting and the cruelties of Sea Hawk and All This and
Heaven Too. But I like the cinematic rapidity of changes of scene, the
control by the camera of space and magnitude, the extension of the time-
limit, the fade-ins and fade-outs which can create fantastic visions, the
value of the flash-back to recall what has been already seen, the
concentration of interest achieved by close-ups.

Many of these devices I recognize in the Greek Romances and especially in
Xenophon of Ephesus. His narrative is as condensed as that of a scenario
with lacunae, abrupt transitions, failures in an adequate vocabulary of
emotion. The local history of Ephesus is emphasized and depicted. Scenes
shift with cinematic rapidity. Hair-raising adventures succeed each other at
an exciting pace. Bandits and pirates achieve robbery and kidnapping. High
police officials or officers like G-Men perform valiant rescues. Court-room
scenes as in many films vie with shipwrecks in interest. Documents like
letters are presented to the reader’s eye as on the screen. Visions and dreams
are made to seem as real as in fade-ins and fade-outs.

There is a clear morality in the opposition of good and bad characters 60
and in the final victory of the good. Hero and heroine captivate by
their extraordinary beauty and maintain their chastity and fidelity against
terrific odds. Hence their phenomenal virtue is rewarded by reunion in the
end. Religion often plays a saving part (as on the screen for example in
Brother Orchid). The Reader like the audience at the movie goes away with
a sense of having been enlivened, entertained and vastly improved. For the
function of the Greek romance in the second and third centuries A.D., when
the universal rule of the Roman Empire gave scant scope for great oratory
or tragedy under the blessings of an enforced peace, was to entertain and to
edify. The Greek romance substituted for the adventures of the mind new
themes: the excitements of passion, the interests of travel, and the
consolations of religion. It was lifted out of the ranks of the trivial and the

second-rate by its great central theme: that there is such a thing as true love;
that weighed in the balance against it all the world is nothing; and that it
outlives time and even death.

Our own age in America, bleeding internally from the agony of a war which
it is powerless to end, fearful for its own menaced security, demands from
the cinema not only temporary oblivion and excitement, but encouragement
to believe that love lasts even unto death, that heroes ride again and are
victorious, and that finally, by the help of God, the right will conquer.

61

IV
THE AETHIOPICA OF HELIODORUS

The life of Heliodorus is as obscure as that of each of the other writers of
Greek romance, but in the tradition of his there is a special point of
controversy. Was Heliodorus a pagan novelist or a Christian bishop? Or by
some strange metamorphosis did the writer of the romantic Aethiopica
become in later and staider years the Bishop of Tricca? The only certain
facts are found in the autobiographical sentence which concludes the
romance, that he was a Phoenician of Emesa, of a family descended from
Helios, the son of Theodosius.

It was Socrates who, in the fifth century A.D., stated that the custom of
celibacy for the clergy was introduced in Thessaly by Heliodorus when he
became bishop of Tricca. He added that Heliodorus wrote in his youth a
[104]
love-story, which he called Aethiopica. Photius in the ninth century says
that he received the bishopric later, that is after writing the romance.
Nicephorus Callistus in the fourteenth century after quoting the remark of
Socrates adds that the Aethiopica created such a scandal Heliodorus had to
choose between his bishopric and the destruction of his romance so he
abandoned his charge, but this is probably mere embellishment of the story.
[105]
As Rattenbury points out, neither Socrates, Photius nor 62
Nicephorus declares that Heliodorus was a Christian when he wrote his
romance, but they imply clearly that he became a bishop afterwards. And if
the author of the romance was a devout pagan as he seems to have been,
that state of mind could have made possible his conversion to Christianity.

This seems a reasonable explanation of the strong tradition continuing from
the fifth century that Heliodorus became bishop of Tricca.

As to his date, there are some certainties but no exactitude. The Bishop of
Tricca must have lived before Socrates wrote his Historia Ecclesiastica
which covered the period 306-439. There is no external evidence on the
time of the writer of the romance, but from the general conclusions about
the dating of the Greek Romances, he probably wrote not later than the end
of the third century. His native city Emesa was the birthplace of two Roman
Emperors, Heliogabalus (218-222) and Alexander Severus (222-235).
About the middle of the century Emesa was conquered by Zenobia of
Palmyra, but was freed by Aurelian in 272. Heliodorus may have written in
its most flourishing period, 220-240. It is generally agreed that Heliodorus
is later than Chariton who could not have written after 150 and earlier than
Achilles Tatius who wrote about the beginning of the fourth century.

Rattenbury thinks that a possible reconstruction of Heliodorus’ life is this.
He was born in Emesa in Phoenician Syria. His family was connected with
the cult of the Sun. In his youth, perhaps between 220 and 240, he wrote a
romance in which the influence of the cult of Helios appears, also the neo-
Pythagoreanism of Apollonius of Tyana. It is not impossible that finally he
was converted to Christianity, became bishop of Tricca and in that office
[106]
introduced in his diocese celibacy for the clergy. Calderini has 63
shown with discrimination and perspicacity that the special characteristic of
the Aethiopica is the interest in philosophy which distinguishes it and its
author from Chariton, the writer of historical romance, and from Achilles
[107]
Tatius, the writer of romance tinged with science. A study of the
Aethiopica itself will show how deeply infused the novel is with this
religious philosophical coloring.

Before outlining the narrative, I will give as usual a list of the principal
characters. These are:

Theagenes, the young Greek hero
Chariclea, the young heroine, supposed to be a Greek
Hydaspes, king of Ethiopia

Persinna, queen of Ethiopia
Calasiris, of Memphis, priest of Isis and his sons:
Thyamis, in exile, a pirate captain
Petosiris, priest of Isis
Charicles, priest of Apollo at Delphi
Alcamenes, nephew of Charicles
Trachinus, a pirate
Pelorus, a pirate and officer of Trachinus
Cnemon, a young Athenian, son of
Aristippus, an Athenian, a stupid husband
Demaeneta, the amorous step-mother of Cnemon
Thisbe, the scheming maid of Demaeneta
Arsinoe, a slave-girl, a friend of Thisbe
Nausicles, a merchant
Thermuthis, an officer under Thyamis
Oroondates, viceroy of the Great King of the Persians
Mithranes, viceroy of Oroondates
Arsace, wife of Oroondates
Cybele, the maid of Arsace
Achaemenes, son of Cybele
Euphrates, the chief eunuch of Oroondates
Sisimithres, an Ethiopian Gymnosophist
Meroebus, nephew of Hydaspes

The opening scene of the romance is startling and mysterious. In 64
Egypt, from a mountain near the mouth of the Nile a band of pirates
get a view of the seashore. They behold a heavily laden ship without a crew,
a plain strewn with dead bodies and the remains of an ill-fated banquet. A
wounded youth is lying on the ground. He is being cared for by a beautiful
young woman dressed in a religious garb which makes her seem a priestess
or a goddess, Diana or Isis. Indeed a divine effulgence emanates from her.
The pirates though at first overawed descend and collect rich booty. Their
captain then courteously conveys the maiden and the youth to their pirate
home. This was called “The Pasture” and was a sort of island in a delta of
the Nile. Some of the pirates lived in huts made of reeds, some in boats. The
water was their fortification. Their streets were winding water-ways cut
through the reeds.

The pirate chief assigned the care of his two captives to a young Greek,
Cnemon, who was his interpreter. The prisoners were overjoyed on finding
their custodian a Greek. He promised to heal the wounds of Theagenes, who
had now revealed his own name and that of Chariclea, and on their urgent
request, he told him his own story.

“I,” he said, “am the son of Aristippus, an Athenian. After my brother’s
death, my father married again a woman named Demaeneta, who was a
mischief-maker. Like Phaedra she fell in love with me, her step-son, indeed
called me her dear Hippolytus. When I repelled her advances she accused
me to my father of attempted rape. He had me scourged. Worse than that,
Thisbe, the maid of Demaeneta, on her mistress’ orders involved me in an
amorous intrigue with herself and later promised to show me my step-
mother with an adulterer. Sword in hand I followed her to the bed- 65
room and just as I was about to murder her paramour, I found he was
my father. Aristippus charged me in court with attempted parricide. Only a
divided vote spared my life and sent me into exile. Lately I received news
that my father through Thisbe had found out his wife’s corruption; she had
killed herself; and now Aristippus is trying to obtain from the people his
son’s pardon.”

The next day Thyamis the pirate leader although he was warned in a dream
that having Chariclea, he would not have her, announced to his band his
intention of marrying her. She pretended to consent, but asked that their
marriage be postponed until they reached Memphis so that there she could
resign her priesthood of Diana. Thyamis accepted this condition. Theagenes
was horrified until Chariclea explained that this agreement was made only
to secure more time for their plans for safety. A hostile band of brigands
was now seen approaching. Thyamis had Cnemon hide Chariclea in a secret
cave. When the terrible battle began to go against him, Thyamis rushed
back to the cave and killed a woman in the dark whom he believed
Chariclea. In battle he was then taken alive. The victorious brigands fired
the huts on the island but did not find the cave. Cnemon and Theagenes,
who had escaped in little boats, returned to the island. When Cnemon
conducted Theagenes to the cave by its secret entrance, they found in its
dark gloom the body of a dead woman. Theagenes believing it Chariclea
burst into lamentation and planned suicide. But Cnemon took away his

sword, got a torch lighted and found that the woman was Thisbe and in her
dead hand was a letter. They soon found Chariclea alive.

After the first joy of reunion Chariclea wished to know who the dead 66
woman was. Cnemon revealed that she was Thisbe and related all her
story: how after her plot against him, Arsinoe, a rival courtesan whose lover
Nausicles she had stolen, revealed Thisbe’s machinations against
Demaeneta; how Cnemon’s father was exiled on the ground of complicity
and Thisbe fled. The letter in Thisbe’s hand proved to be to Cnemon, a
petition to save her from the pirates who had stolen her. Just then
Thermuthis, her pirate captor, arrived to reclaim her, only to find her dead.
The sword in her wound proved to him that she was slain by Thyamis.

Theagenes and Chariclea, Cnemon and Thermuthis now started out in
separate pairs towards Chemmis, a rich city on the Nile, to get food. The
menace of Thermuthis was conveniently removed as he died from the bite
of an asp. Near Chemmis Cnemon met an old man who entertained him at
his home. He proved to be Calasiris, the foster-father of Theagenes and
Chariclea. This he revealed to Cnemon in a long narrative of his own life:
how though a priest of Isis he had gone into voluntary exile to break off the
wiles of a courtesan; how he had sojourned at Delphi, attending the
ceremonies and talking with the philosophers. One, Charicles, related how
in his own travels in Egypt he had had intrusted to him by an Ethiopian
merchant a beautiful child. The merchant had found her exposed with a bag
of jewels and an inscribed fillet. These too he gave to Charicles making him
promise to guard her freedom and wed her to a free man. He had named her
Chariclea and brought her up in Greece but now, though she was very
beautiful, she refused to marry.

Calasiris also described to Cnemon the sacrifice to Neoptolemus offered by
the Aenianians and the Delphic oracle which he had heard there.

“Delphians, regard with reverential care, 67
Both him the goddess-born, and her the fair;
“Grace” is the sound which ushers in her name,
The syllable wherewith it ends, is “Fame.”
They both my fane shall leave, and oceans past,
In regions torrid shall arrive at last;
There shall the gods reward their pious vows,
[108]
And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows.”

Calasiris at the urgent request of Cnemon described all the ceremonies
attendant on the sacrifice to Neoptolemus: the hecatomb and the other
victims, the Thracian maidens bearing offerings, the hymn to the Hero, the
dance, the procession of the fifty armed horsemen led by Theagenes, the
radiant appearance of Chariclea in a chariot. All this description was the
brilliant setting for the meeting of Theagenes and Chariclea, for when
Theagenes took from the priestess’ hand the torch to light the sacrificial
pyre, in them both the flame of first love was kindled.

The next day Chariclea lay abed very ill in her apartment in the temple.
Calasiris feared it was due to “fascinatio.” Calasiris after meeting
Theagenes had a vision in which Apollo and Diana consigned Theagenes
and Chariclea to his care and bade him take them to Egypt. The next
morning Theagenes confessed to Calasiris his love and besought his aid.
Charicles begged him to heal his daughter. This enabled him to talk to her.

Chariclea recovered sufficiently the next day to attend the contest of the
men in armor and to award the palm to the victor, Theagenes. But her
passion and her illness increased after this second meeting and Calasiris
was again summoned to treat her. Her disease was diagnosed as love and
Calasiris persuaded her father to let him see the fillet found with the 68
exposed baby. Calasiris was able to read the inscription on it. It was a
letter from her mother, Persinna, queen of the Ethiopians, revealing that she
had borne a white daughter because at her conception she had been looking
at a picture of Andromeda; then fearing the charge of adultery she had
exposed her baby with the fillet and the jewels. All this Calasiris told to
Chariclea. Calasiris then made a plot with her by which she was to pretend

to become affianced to Alcamenes, the nephew of Charicles, as her foster-
father wished. Charicles was delighted although he was nervous because of
a dream in which an eagle from the hand of Apollo bore his daughter away.
He gave her all the jewels.

Then Calasiris persuaded some Phoenician merchants to take him and two
friends on their ship as far as Sicily; and he ordered Theagenes and his
young friends to kidnap Chariclea. She consented to the plan after
Theagenes had bound himself by an oath never to force her love. After they
were off, Charicles roused the city to pursuit of them. Calasiris after telling
of the arrival of the Phoenician ship at Zacynthos interrupted his narrative
to rest. Nausicles returned to the house and unknown to the others had
brought Chariclea with him.

(Here the author himself gave a résumé of the adventures of Theagenes and
Chariclea from the time they parted with Cnemon. In the cave the lovers
had a long talk and made an agreement as to what they would do in case
fortune again separated them: they would inscribe on temple, statue, herm
or boundary stone, Theagenes the name Pythicus, Chariclea Pythias; the
direction in which each departed; to what place or people; also the time of
writing. For recognition if they met disguised they decided to use as signs
Chariclea’s ring and Theagenes’ scar from a boar. Their watchwords were to
be a lamp for her, a palm-tree for him. They sealed this covenant in 69
kisses, then left the cave taking Chariclea’s sacred robes, her bow and
quiver and her jewels.

Soon they met an armed band and were taken prisoners. The commander
was Mithranes, an officer of Oroondates, viceroy of Egypt. Nausicles had
persuaded him for pay to make this expedition to the island in search of his
Thisbe. Nausicles on seeing Theagenes and Chariclea cleverly pretended
that Chariclea was Thisbe, the object of his quest. Mithranes demanded
Theagenes as his prize and despatched him to Oroondates as a fine youth
for service with the Great King.)

The next day Calasiris and Cnemon heard all Nausicles’ story from himself,
saw Chariclea and made a plan to ransom Theagenes. After Nausicles had
celebrated a sacrifice in the temple of Hermes, the god of gain, Calasiris on
request continued his narrative of the voyage from Delphi. At Zacynthos a

deaf old fisherman Tyrrhenus gave them lodging. The Tyrian merchant who
won the victory at the Pythian games now sued for Chariclea’s hand.
Tyrrhenus discovered an ambush of pirates waiting for the Phoenician ship
to sail. Calasiris without revealing this persuaded the Tyrian captain to sail
that night. The pirate crew under Trachinus pursued them and engaged them
in a terrible battle so finally the Phoenicians had to surrender. Trachinus
demanded marriage with Chariclea and she deceitfully promised her hand if
he would spare Calasiris and “her brother” Theagenes. With difficulty the
pirates maneuvered the boat to land near the mouth of the Nile. Trachinus
told Calasiris that he proposed to marry Chariclea that day. Calasiris,
ingenious as ever, persuaded him to let Chariclea go on the ship to attire
herself for the wedding and be left undisturbed there. Calasiris then plotted
with Pelorus, second in command of the pirates, telling him Chariclea 70
loved him. Pelorus since he had been the first to board the Phoenician
ship demanded, as his right of first choice of the booty, the girl. A terrible
battle ensued in which Trachinus was killed, Pelorus wounded by
Theagenes and put to flight and Theagenes badly wounded. In the morning
Egyptian pirates arrived and carried them both off. Calasiris had spent his
days mourning for them until this present recovery of Chariclea.

The next day Calasiris, Cnemon and Nausicles set out to find Theagenes.
An acquaintance informed Nausicles that Mithranes had sent his troops on
an expedition against the men of Bessa, commanded by Thyamis, because
they had stolen a captive Greek youth. So Nausicles and his friends returned
to Chemmis and told all to Chariclea. Nausicles gave a farewell dinner-
party since the season favorable for navigation compelled him to sail for
Greece. Cnemon after a struggle with himself decided to go with him and
was permitted to marry his daughter, Nausiclea.

Calasiris and Chariclea disguised as beggars started for Bessa to seek
Theagenes. Near Bessa they found many corpses lying on the ground. An
old woman told them there had been a battle between Mithranes’ forces and
the men of Bessa in which the men of Bessa had been victorious and
Mithranes had been killed. The victors had now set out to Memphis against
Oroondates. The old woman had lost her son in battle. That night Calasiris
and Chariclea secretly watched her magic rites by which she raised him to
give her news of her other son. The shade also revealed that there were two

witnesses to her wicked necromancy; that Chariclea should be happily
reunited with Theagenes and that his own mother would meet her death by
the sword. This soon happened, for she fell on an upright sword on the
battle-field.

Calasiris and Chariclea arrived at Memphis just as Thyamis and his 71
brigands began a siege of it. The people of Memphis in the absence of
Oroondates consulted the queen Arsace about the wisdom of going out to
attack the enemy. Thyamis had been driven into exile by the slanders of his
brother Petosiris who swore there was an amour between Thyamis and
Arsace. Petosiris had then succeeded his brother in the priesthood of Isis.
Arsace after looking at the enemy from the wall ordered a single combat
between Thyamis and Petosiris to decide the war. In this combat Petosiris
was forced to flee. As he was running around the city walls the third time,
Calasiris arrived and saw the combat between his two sons that an oracle
had foretold. Rushing between them he ended the contest.

Chariclea discovered Theagenes and suddenly threw her arms about him.
Her hero disgusted at her beggar’s rags threw her off and did not recognize
her until she whispered: “Pythias, have you forgotten the torch?” Then he
took her to his arms, while Arsace and the other watchers on the wall
marvelled at the scene as though it were on the stage. So peace was made
by the father and the lovers were reunited. All went to the temple of Isis.
Calasiris restored his son Thyamis to the priesthood.

Arsace had fallen madly in love with Theagenes on seeing him twice and
confided this to her aged maid, Cybele. This maid on going to the temple of
Isis to offer prayers for her mistress learned that Calasiris had died there
during the night and that no one except the priests could enter the temple
for seven days on account of the funeral rites. Thereupon Cybele craftily
secured permission to entertain the two young Greeks who were staying
there in Arsace’s palace and took them home. When they found that they
were in the palace, they became suspicious for they had noticed the 72
queen’s interest in Theagenes the day before. So at Chariclea’s
suggestion, Theagenes said they were brother and sister. Cybele went to
Arsace’s apartment to tell her all, locking the guests in their room. In her
absence, her son Achaemenes came home, listened at their door and from

their talk and from a glimpse at Theagenes realized that this was the very
youth who had been taken from him by Thyamis.

As the days passed, Arsace tried to win the love of Theagenes first through
subtle allurement, then through open confession of her passion and at last
through domination. Achaemenes finally told Arsace who they were so the
queen informed Theagenes that they were now her slaves as they had been
the captive slaves of Mithranes and he must obey her. Then in the presence
of Cybele Theagenes promised himself to Arsace on condition that she
would never give Chariclea to Achaemenes, who had demanded her. He
confessed that Chariclea was not his sister but his fiancée. On hearing this
Achaemenes rode away to inform Oroondates of all.

Oroondates was engaged in a campaign against Hydaspes, King of the
Ethiopians, who had got possession of Philae. On hearing Achaemenes’
report Oroondates despatched his eunuch Bagoas with fifty horsemen to
Memphis to bring Theagenes and Chariclea to his camp. He sent two letters
to this effect to Arsace and to his chief eunuch. Achaemenes he kept with
himself.

In Memphis Thyamis had been unable to procure the release of the young
Greeks from Arsace. Moreover the frustrated queen had begun to try
imprisonment and torture on Theagenes. When he was still obstinate,
Cybele advised getting rid of Chariclea to free his heart and she prepared to
poison the girl. Fortunately a maid exchanged the goblets. Cybele herself
drank the poison and expired, but with her last breath she declared 73
Chariclea had murdered her. So Arsace threw the girl into the prison
where Theagenes was and had her tried. In the court-room Chariclea
pleaded guilty, for this was the plan that she and her lover had agreed on in
the prison, that they might die together. The Supreme Council ordered that
she be burned alive. Chariclea was saved by a miracle, for the flames on the
pyre refused to touch her person. Arsace then consigned her again to prison
on the ground that she was a witch.

In prison, Chariclea and Theagenes had a long talk about the dream-visions
they had each seen. To each Calasiris had appeared and given a metrical
prophecy. To Chariclea he had said:

“Bearing Pantarbè, fear not flames, fair maid,
Fate, to whom naught is hard, shall bring thee aid.”

And to Theagenes:

“From Arsace, the morrow sets thee free—
[109]
To Aethiopia with the virgin flee.”

Chariclea interpreted these oracles to mean that her jewel, the Pantarbè, was
protecting her; and that on the next day they would be freed from Arsace
and go to Ethiopia.

Meanwhile Bagoas arrived at Memphis and Euphrates on receiving the
letter of Oroondates sent Theagenes and Chariclea off secretly with Bagoas.
On their journey they received first the news that Arsace had killed herself
and second that Oroondates had gone to Syene. Later on the way they were
seized by a band of Troglodite Ethiopians who took Bagoas and the two
Greeks to their king, Hydaspes. He planned to save them as victims to be
sacrificed to the gods.

Hydaspes was besieging Syene. Oroondates had got inside the city 74
before the blockade and was directing the defense. But Hydaspes used
a new weapon against him, inundation. His army dug a great trench around
Syene with earth-works encircling it. This trench he connected with the
river Nile by a long canal, fifty feet wide, banked by high walls. When the
works were finished, he cut away the embankment between his canal and
the Nile and let the river in. Syene became an island city and the pressure of
the water on the walls threatened inundation. So Oroondates and the people
of Syene had to sue for peace. This was granted, and Hydaspes built up
again the embankment between his canal and the Nile and proceeded to
drain off the water.

During the festival of the overflowing of the Nile Oroondates and his army
slipped away in the night, bridging the mud swamps about Syene by planks,
and went to Elephantine, which revolted with him against Hydaspes. In the
new battle Hydaspes was again victorious and took Oroondates prisoner,

but the Ethiopian was a generous conqueror and sent Oroondates back to be
again viceroy of his province.

Hydaspes on his way home stopped two days at Philae and from there sent
home letters announcing his victory to Persinna and the Gymnosophists.
Persinna recalled a dream that she had brought forth a full-grown daughter
and interpreted the daughter as this victory. The people assembled for the
celebration at the island city of Meroe and according to their traditions
demanded human sacrifice of foreign captives of war. The prisoners now
underwent the test of chastity by ascending the altar of fire and of course
Theagenes and Chariclea passed the test.

The Gymnosophists through their leader Sisimithres refused to witness
human sacrifice and foretold that this one would never be consummated.
Chariclea begged them to stay and hear her case. (She had recognized 75
Sisimithres’ name as that of the one who had given her to Charicles at
Catadupa). Chariclea declared that she was a native, not a foreigner, and
produced her fillet and her jewels, among them the mystic ring, Pantarbé.
Sisimithres narrated his part in her story. Hydaspes was puzzled over how
he could have a white child, but Sisimithres explained that Persinna at the
time of conception had fixed her eyes on a picture of the naked, white
Andromeda. When the picture was brought in as evidence, Chariclea’s
resemblance to its Andromeda was found startling. Moreover a birthmark of
a black ring around Chariclea’s arm attested her black blood.

The people now refused to have Chariclea sacrificed, but the fate of
Theagenes still hung in the balance. Chariclea begged that if he were to be
sacrificed, she might perform the deed. (Apparently she planned to carry
out a kind of suicide pact.) Hydaspes thought his daughter was insane and
sent her into a tent with her mother while he received ambassadors and their
gifts of victory. His nephew Meroebus brought a mighty athlete. Hydaspes
as a joke gave him in return an elephant, but also promised him the hand of
Chariclea. The Axiomitae presented a giraffe, an animal so strange that it
terrified some of the natives. Moreover, one bull and two horses broke their
fetters and dashed madly around the inside of the circle of guards.
Theagenes mounted another horse, pursued the bull, wore it out and finally
downed it. The enchanted spectators now demanded that he be matched

with the champion Meroebus. Him too he vanquished. Oroondates crowned
Theagenes as victor, but nevertheless prepared to sacrifice him.

At that moment ambassadors from Syene arrived with a letter from
Oroondates. He begged that a young woman captive be sent to him 76
with her father who was one of the ambassadors. This was Charicles.
He recognized Theagenes and accused him of having stolen his daughter at
Delphi. Theagenes revealed that Chariclea was the one demanded.
Sisimithres told the rest of the story. Chariclea rushing out of the tent
begged Charicles to forgive her elopement. Persinna told Hydaspes that she
had learned that Chariclea was betrothed to Theagenes.

Sisimithres speaking not in Greek but in Ethiopian for all the people to hear
ordered Hydaspes to submit to the will of the gods who had saved the two
young lovers and who did not approve of human sacrifice and exhorted him
to end human sacrifices forever. So Hydaspes asked the people to observe
the will of the gods and to sanction the marriage of Theagenes and
Chariclea. This they did. Then Hydaspes consecrated the two as priest and
priestess of the Sun and the Moon and on their heads he placed the mitres
which he and Persinna had worn as symbols of their offices. Thus was
fulfilled the oracle:

“In regions torrid shall arrive at last;
There shall the gods reward their pious vows,
And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows.”

Then a great procession escorted them to Meroe there to fulfill the more
mystic parts of wedlock.

In this brief re-telling of Heliodorus’ long story, certain striking features of
his structure appear. Geography and ethnography are important as in the
other novelists. The eastern basin of the Mediterranean is the center of the
adventures, the district which for centuries was the scene of the conflict for
power between many nations. As in Xenophon, many geographical details
[110]
are given, often with little accuracy. As Maillon points out, imagination
and fantasy falsify the historical and geographical allusions. 77
Heliodorus gathers everything that can satisfy the taste for the strange

and the marvellous. At a time when the critical spirit was so little developed
in the historians, a writer of romance would naturally produce marvellous
narratives and vague descriptions. Heliodorus confuses the Ethiopia of
Herodotus with that of the Ptolemies and imagines an Ethiopian empire
[111]
which did not exist during the domination of Egypt by the Persians. As
in Chariton, the superiority of the Greeks over the barbarians is part of the
author’s faith.

In the development of the plot Heliodorus makes his set more unified, less
cinematic than Xenophon had done. The scene of action lies almost entirely
in Egypt with a shift to Ethiopia for the final climax. This Egyptian set is to
be sure varied by different local scenes: the Nile, an island village in its
delta, towns such as Chemmis, Memphis, Syene and Philae, the battle-fields
of Bessa and Elephantine, but nearly the whole plot develops in Egypt. The
exceptions are in the sub-plot presented in Cnemon’s narrative of his life-
history which is laid in Athens, and in Calasiris’ long account of his visit to
Delphi. These however are clearly set off as insets in the unity of the
Egyptian scene.

The plot itself is an original combination of epic and dramatic structure.
The other writers of Greek romance begin at the beginning with a detailed
account of the hero and heroine, their family, their background. Heliodorus
in true epic style plunges us in medias res with his startling opening scene
of a seascape where a ship rides at anchor, treasure-laden but not manned,
where the shore is littered with the remains of a banquet, but strewn with
corpses, where a young man lies wounded with a beautiful maiden 78
dressed as a goddess ministering to him. The reader is as amazed and
puzzled at the sight as are the pirates who are peering down from the hills.

Another epic part of the structure is that the narrative of events does not
proceed in a straight line but zigzags back and forth while a new arrival
contributes his part to the development of the plot, or the author himself
gives a retrospective résumé of past events to explain the present. Calasiris’
long narrative is the best illustration of this resumptive method but
Cnemon, Achaemenes, Sisimithres and Charicles all contribute their share
[112]
of résumés. In general, Heliodorus uses résumés with great effect to

clarify his complicated plot. Sometimes he merely suggests a summary of
events (V. 16, 5); sometimes he gives a full succinct recapitulation of events
(II. 14, 1-2); sometimes his heroes recount their adventures to complain of
[113]
them (V. 11).

Many episodes too are taken from Homer. The games in Delphi in honor of
Apollo are indebted to those given by Achilles in honor of Patroclus. The
τειχοσκοπία where Arsace on the wall of Memphis watches the combat in
the plain recalls Helen on the walls of Troy. The duel there between
Thyamis and Theagenes is like one of the Homeric single combats. In it
Theagenes’ pursuit of Thyamis around the walls owes something to the
pursuit of Hector by the swift-footed Achilles. The scar of Theagenes which
is to be a sign of recognition was surely suggested by Odysseus’. The scene
where the old woman evokes her dead son on the field of battle imitates the
[114]
Homeric Νέκυια.

Even more prominent than his debt to epic poetry is Heliodorus’ use 79
of dramatic structure. All the usual devices of Greek tragedy appear.
Indeed the plot centers on the recognition of the young Greek heroine as the
white Ethiopian princess by the tokens exposed with her in babyhood: her
jewels, her mystic ring, her lettered fillet. This dramatic device of an
agnorisis or recognition is multiplied by Heliodorus for repeated situations:
the recognition of Chariclea in beggar’s rags by Theagenes through her
watchword, the identification of Charicles as her foster-father and of
Sisimithres as the noble Greek who found and saved the exposed child.

No less important is the usual Greek peripeteia, or reversal of fortune, for
hero and heroine are repeatedly reunited only to be separated anew;
together or separately they are rescued from one catastrophe only to be
plunged into a worse danger. Calasiris’ long narrative resembles not only
the minstrel’s songs at the court of Alcinous of old far-off divine events, but
also the messenger’s speeches in tragedy wherein events too horrible or too
complicated to be presented on the stage are told with a realism which starts
the imagination. The mechanism of a parallel subplot is employed in
Cnemon’s life-story. The letter in Thisbe’s dead hand is indebted to
Phaedra’s in Euripides’ Hippolytus. Cybele, Arsace’s maid, owes much in

her character of confidant to Phaedra’s nurse though she is more cynical
and familiar. The crowd takes the place of the chorus, now demanding
human sacrifice in the name of tradition, now releasing Chariclea from it
through pity, now approving of the appeal of the noble Gymnosophists in
the name of the gods to abolish the immolation of human victims. The deus
ex machina is supplied by these very gods of the Gymnosophists, Helios,
the Sun, and Selene, the Moon, celestial symbols of pure deities of 80
space and time conceived in the philosophical mind.

Against this structure of drama the characters move as though on a stage
and even through the stylized formulae of dramatic conventions usually
attain individuality and vitality. Maillon seems to me undiscriminating
when he speaks of them all as general types, not individuals, as marionettes
[115]
who can talk, lament and complain, but are without life. Even
characters that fall into general groups may as in real life have
distinguishing traits and in the list of characters certain are unforgettable
personalities.

The hero Theagenes is of course supremely handsome and physically
strong. He is also as Wolff says spectacularly courageous but easily
[116]
discouraged. He has to be kept from suicide by Cnemon. He has to be
cheered by Chariclea. And his Lady Fair is the resourceful partner in
emergencies who whispers to him “Call me your Sister” or invents means
of recognition in case of separation or makes a plot to share with him his
fate be it life or death. She demands too when they start off on travels
together that her lover swear a sacred oath to respect her virginity. Indeed
her leadership deserves the tribute given Dido, dux femina facti. As
Calderini notes, cleverness and deception were valued traits in those times
[117]
and both she displayed. But she guarded her chastity even from her
dearest and her courage never failed. On the battle field she can shoot her
arrows. She is surrounded by a divine aura of radiant beauty that illuminates
her holy garb.

The real hero of the romance is her father, the Ethiopian King Hydaspes,
whose qualities she seemed to have inherited. He is the type of the good
king, but beyond that he is very human. He has his humor so that when his

nephew presents him with a gigantic athletic champion he smilingly 81
gives him in exchange an elephant. He is generous to a defeated foe,
freeing Oroondates and restoring him to his office so that the viceroy makes
obeisance to him and calls him the most just of mortals. He follows
tradition in preparing to offer to the gods foreign captives as human victims,
but when convinced by the Gymnosophists of the inappropriateness of such
sacrifice he leads his people to the right decision about abolishing it and
happily crowns his daughter and her lover as new priests of a purified
worship.

Persinna his queen is a type of frustrated motherhood, timid enough to
expose at birth her beautiful white baby for fear of the charge of adultery,
but when her daughter is restored to her she glows with ardent parentalism
and interprets Chariclea’s wishes to her husband.

The characters in the sub-plot (Cnemon’s story) are less clearly delineated
than those in the main narrative. The story serves however not merely to
introduce Thisbe, who is useful for the main plot, but anticipates and
prepares for certain main characters. Aristippus the betrayed husband,
Demaeneta the wanton wife, Thisbe the corrupt maid and Cnemon the
coveted youth parallel Oroondates, Arsace, Cybele and Theagenes himself.

The far east opens up before us under the shadow of the Great King of the
Persians. He never appears, but his viceroys, their lieutenants, their eunuchs
work his will with the complete subservience which their act of obeisance
symbolizes. Oroondates is a good fighter, but he is ready to desert secretly
the city of Syene, which he has been defending, before terms of surrender
had been concluded, to start another war in the name of the Great King. His
will conveyed by letters must be law to his eunuch or his wife. This 82
arbitrariness when imitated by his eunuch Euphrates becomes sadistic
tyranny over prisoners given to his care.
[118]
Arsace his wife finds her escape in intrigue and amours. Highly over-
sexed she stops at nothing to satisfy her passion as her wanton fancies shift
from one desired lover to another. She has no mercy for Theagenes when he
is obdurate or for Chariclea when she finds she is the object of Theagenes’
affections.

Cybele her maid abets her machinations and her lust. Though her position
as confidante recalls Phaedra’s nurse in the Hippolytus, her character
reproduces all the venality, cunning and complaisance of the maids in new
Attic comedy. Torture and murder are natural tools for success in her eyes
and when she is hoist with her own petard, she dies asserting that she has
been poisoned by the innocent girl whom she had hoped to make her
victim. Arsace with her Cybele is a complete foil for the purity and loyalty
of Chariclea.

The most interesting among the upright characters in the play are the
priests: Calasiris, high-priest of Isis in Egypt, Charicles, priest of Apollo at
Delphi, Sisimithres, the Greek Gymnosophist. They are consecrated to
service, devoted to worship. They are men of the world extending their
knowledge by travel and talk. Calasiris on his visit to Delphi spent his days
in philosophical discussion of religious rites and the meaning of the gods of
Greece and of Egypt. Charicles is a humanitarian who educates the little
waif Chariclea as his own daughter. Sisimithres dares withdraw from 83
the human sacrifices proposed by a great king and people and by his
personal authority converts them from such abominable customs to a purer
conception of deity and of worship. Calasiris in his role of interpreting the
events of the story and solving its problems, in his clear philosophical
[119]
interests probably represents Heliodorus himself.

To return to the structure of the romance, the plot with such borrowings
from epic and dramatic poetry, with such characters, some types, some
highly individualized, moves forward in a manner that resembles the
modern cinema. There is no carefully interwoven plot such as tragedy
presents, for example in Oedipus Rex. Rather there is a progression of
episodes, each a clear picture in itself, all after many involutions and
evolutions falling into an orderly narrative. Rattenbury thinks that after
Heliodorus’ original beginning which secures the interest and sympathy of
the reader through his curiosity he fails to maintain the interest throughout.
The long retrospective narrative of Calasiris becomes monotonous. The
reader is irritated by the postponement of the denouement after he as well as
the hero and heroine knows the secret of Chariclea’s parentage. Maillon,
however, finds in Heliodorus a great talent for narration. After the
impressive opening scene, he says, from narrative to narrative, from

description to description, one is led slowly but without ennui to the
grandeur of the final chapters. The variety of the episodes does not detract
from the unity of the narrative because we keep returning to Theagenes and
[120]
Chariclea in whom we have been interested from the first.

To me personally the defects in the romance lie not in the long narrative of
Calasiris or in the early revelation of Chariclea’s identity, but in the 84
excessive use of descriptive passages. Planned though they
undoubtedly are to satisfy the craving of the age for a knowledge of the
novel and the strange, or to give local color, they retard the development of
the story. Often they are prolix and difficult because of an unfamiliar
vocabulary and a complicated sentence structure. There are many such
passages: descriptions of natural phenomena (the island city in the delta of
the Nile, the straits at Calydon); of curious animals (crocodile and giraffe);
of operations of war (a naval battle, the siege of Syene, the duel of Thyamis
and Petosiris); the religious ceremonies at Delphi. These vary greatly in
clarity and effectiveness, but in general they tend to be verbose and to retard
the narrative. Such descriptions are however one of the conventional
features of the Greek romance. And with all Heliodorus’ originality in plot,
in his tripartite structure of epic, dramatic and cinematic features, he
employs all the usual devices of Greek romance. These are oracle and oath,
résumés, conversation and rhetorical speeches, letters and soliloquies,
meditated suicide and apparent death, dreams and epiphanies. But
Heliodorus makes these conventional devices integral parts of his plot.

The oracle given by the Pythian priestess at Delphi early in the story
motivates the plot until the very end when its meaning is explained and its
prophecy fulfilled. The oath which Chariclea requires of her lover early in
her travels protects her chastity through all the intimacies of palace
apartment and prison dungeons. Résumés of events given several times by
Cnemon, by Calasiris in his long narrative, by Charicles, clarify and
[121]
facilitate the plot. Conversation is used constantly on the battle field or
in the boudoir, in palaces, in dungeons. Turn over the pages of 85
Heliodorus’ Greek as you would a modern novel and test how often
the pages are broken and enlivened by talk. Rhetoric colors some of the
longer speeches, but in the court-room scene (the trial of Chariclea for

poisoning Cybele) the procedure is described but the speeches are not
quoted.

Letters are as important as oracles for the development of the plot. The
letter of Persinna inscribed on the fillet exposed with her child furnishes the
indisputable evidence for the recognition of Chariclea. The letter in
Thisbe’s dead hand is of prime importance in the sub-plot in announcing to
Cnemon the death of his wicked step-mother. Business letters of Mithranes
to Oroondates, of Oroondates to Arsace and to the eunuch Euphrates, of
Hydaspes to the Supreme Council of Ethiopia and to his queen Persinna
furnish documentation for the march of events. The letter of Oroondates to
Hydaspes in the last book prepares the way for Charicles’ final explanation
of his relation to his foster-daughter and his own recognition of Chariclea.

Soliloquies reveal emotional states and meditated suicide. At Chemmis one
night Chariclea left alone yields to despair and vows that if she learns
Theagenes is dead, she will join him in the shades. An apparent death nearly
precipitates tragedy when in the dark of the cave the body of Thisbe is
mistaken for that of Chariclea. Theagenes bursts into despairing lamentation
and proposes suicide. But Cnemon foreseeing this has filched his sword and
presently the light of Cnemon’s torch reveals the truth and there ensues a
happy reversal of fortune.

Among all these usual features of the plot a new importance is given to
dreams and epiphanies. They are peculiarly significant because of their
bearing on Heliodorus’ philosophical and religious interests. Some 86
motivate minor events or simply create atmosphere. Thyamis in the
night before the battle with another band of brigands had a vision of Isis
who gave Chariclea to him with the mystic words: “Having her, you will
not have her, but you will be unjust and will kill the stranger. And she will
not be killed.” At first Thyamis, interpreting the dream in accordance with
his own wishes, thought it meant that he would murder her virginity, but she
would live. Then when the battle went against him, he changed his
interpretation and to save Chariclea from his foes, killed her (as he thought)
in the cave. So Thisbe’s death is explained. Another dream of little
importance is Chariclea’s in which a wild looking man appeared and
pierced her right eye with his sword. Opposing interpretations are given by

Theagenes and Cnemon. The epiphanies, however, which are vitally
significant for the plot all foretell the final fortunes of the hero and the
heroine. To Calasiris Apollo and Diana appeared, the god leading
Theagenes, the goddess Chariclea, and intrusted them to him. Diana too
bade him consider the pair as his children and take them to Egypt when and
how the gods should decree. Charicles too dreamed that an eagle flew from
the hand of Apollo, seized Chariclea and bore her away from Delphi to a
land of dark forms. Calasiris again had a vision, this time of Odysseus, the
great traveller, who demanded sacrifices and presented Penelope’s blessing
on Chariclea. Calasiris after his death himself appeared simultaneously to
Chariclea and Theagenes, telling the heroine that the Pantarbè jewel would
protect her, and telling the hero that he would be freed from Arsace and take
his Lady to Ethiopia. Hydaspes, when the prisoner Chariclea is brought
before him, recalled a dream that a full-grown daughter was born to him
and the face of this dream-girl was Chariclea’s. This prepared him for 87
the real recognition of her identity. Now the validity of these
apparitions is sometimes questioned: are they dreams or visions? The author
comments that desire often prompts favorable interpretation. He has
Hydaspes’ officers tell him that the mind creates for itself fantasies which
seem to foretell future events. He has the optimistic Chariclea encourage
Theagenes to trust in the gods and interpret Calasiris’ prophecies as
beneficent. But all the same Heliodorus motivates his plot by this popular
belief in dreams and epiphanies.

This structural element fits in with the religious-philosophical coloring of
the whole background. Dreams and epiphanies, miracles and necromancy
are partial manifestations of a deep-seated interest in cults and philosophies
that is a phenomenon of the times. There is a long description of the festival
of Neoptolemus at Delphi with its pageantry, sacrifices, hymn, dance,
libations and the lighting of the pyre. It is here that Theagenes and
Chariclea meet and at first sight fall in love. Nausicles the merchant must
sacrifice to Hermes, god of trade. The festival of the overflowing of the
Nile is celebrated in Egypt. And among the Ethiopians the first fruits of
victory in war are offered in the form of sacrifice of human captives to their
gods. The most prominent cults are those of Apollo-Helios of Delphi, Egypt
and Ethiopia and of the Egyptian Isis. These are savior gods to whom
mortals offer petitions for salvation.

Opinions differ as to whether the representation of the cult of Helios is the
usual conventional religious background of a Greek romance or whether it
is the author’s glorification of the cult of his native city with which he and
his family had some official connection. At the antipodes in criticism are
Rattenbury who perceives only the usual religious conventions and 88
Calderini who thinks the unique feature of the Aethiopica is its rich
[122]
philosophical coloring. All would agree on marked influence in
Heliodorus of Neo-Pythagoreanism and the teachings of Apollonius of
[123]
Tyana as recorded by Philostratus. Maillon in his preface gives this
discriminating summary of his own position towards Heliodorus’
philosophical interests. He says that the Pantheon of Heliodorus does not
contain many deities. He refers to the gods under the Neo-Pythagorean
name of οἱ κρείττονες. Calasiris whose role is most important may well
represent the author’s state of mind. This priest of Isis practices a large
eclecticism. He goes to Delphi and divides his time between the service of
the temple and theological discussion. He worships especially one god,
Apollo of Delphi, Helios of Emesa. Apollo directs the drama of his story,
Helios crowns it in Ethiopia. One sees in Heliodorus the intention of
simplifying and unifying mythology and of bringing back religion to its
eastern and Egyptian origins. Instead of wishing to discredit pagan stories,
he treats them philosophically to make them acceptable to an age which
was becoming emancipated and more severe and to a new faith which
wished to reconcile the philosophical tradition and the sense of the divine
and the mysterious.

Neo-Pythagoreanism was a curious attempt to found a religion which would
satisfy both the critical spirit and the people. At the beginning of the third
century appeared The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a magician and a disciple
of Pythagoras. Philostratus takes his hero to the Orient, Ethiopia, Greece,
Rome. He writes a real romance. And that of Heliodorus recalls it 89
often. Both authors show the same admiration for the Gymnosophists,
the same distinction between magic and theurgy. Both Apollonius and
Calasiris are opposed to impure sacrifices. The story of the magical
Pantarbè jewel appears in both Philostratus and Heliodorus. Calasiris like
Apollonius is a model of Pythagorean asceticism. Apollonius defends
himself about working miracles and lets a doubt appear about his theurgic

powers. Calasiris shows in daily life a common wisdom and reserves for
exceptional cases an appeal to great demons.

In the Aethiopica dreams play a more important role than the demons.
Communications with the invisible world are constant, but only exceptional
human beings who have had long experience in divine matters and a life
mortified and purified by expiation know the mysteries of the invisible
world.

This paraphrase of Maillon’s paragraphs shows how completely logical is
the conclusion of the romance where the noble Gymnosophist Sisimithres
persuades the king of the Ethiopians and his people to renounce human
sacrifice and accept the divine blessing on the loves of Theagenes and
Chariclea.

“At length Hydaspes said to Sisimithres, ‘O sage! What are we to do? To
defraud the gods of their victims is not pious; to sacrifice those who
appear to be preserved and restored by their providence is impious. It
needs that some expedient be found out.’

Sisimithres, speaking, not in the Grecian, but in the Ethiopian tongue, so
as to be heard by the greatest part of the assembly, replied: ‘O king! The
wisest among men, as it appears, often have the understanding clouded
through excess of joy, else, before this time, you would have discovered
that the gods regard not with favour the sacrifice which you have been
preparing for them. First they, from the very altar, declared the all-
blessed Chariclea to be your daughter; next they brought her foster-father
most wonderfully from the midst of Greece to this spot; they struck panic
and terror into the horses and oxen which were being prepared for
sacrifice, indicating, perhaps, by that event, that those whom 90
custom considered as the more perfect and fitting victims were to
be rejected. Now, as the consummation of all good, as the perfection of
the piece, they show this Grecian youth to be the betrothed husband of
the maiden. Let us give credence to these proofs of the divine and
wonder-working will; let us be fellow workers with this will; let us have
recourse to holier offerings; let us abolish, for ever, these detested human
[124]
sacrifices.’”

A few words must be said on the style of Heliodorus. It is predominantly
literary, but extremely varied. He uses Homer almost as much as Chariton
[125]
does. His adaptation of Homeric episodes has already been described. A
discussion of Homer and his parentage between Calasiris and Cnemon is
[126]
introduced in the style of the rhetorical schools. Descriptions as well as
episodes owe much to Homeric coloring, witness the epiphany of Odysseus.
[127]
But above all the language itself is almost as rich in quotations from
Homer as is Chariton’s.

Often reminiscent phraseology betrays quotations in solution. Frequently
too very famous phrases are quoted directly. Calasiris greets Nausicles with
that best of all wishes: “May the gods give you your heart’s desire!”
Nausicles reminds Calasiris that the gifts of the gods are not to be despised.
The maid Cybele assures Arsace that soon Theagenes will desert Chariclea
[128]
for her, exchanging bronze for gold. Emotional crises are described or
expressed in Homer’s words. Arsace’s sleeplessness has the same
manifestations as Achilles. Cnemon upbraids Chariclea for her pessimism
about Theagenes’ fate in the words of Agamemnon to Chalchas. And
Chariclea when she is questioned by physicians as to the cause of her illness
only keeps repeating: “Achilles, Peleus’ son, noblest of Greeks!” as 91
though only the apostrophe uttered by Patroclus could describe her
[129]
dear Theagenes. These are but a few illustrations of Heliodorus’
constant use of Homeric diction.
[130]
No less did he use the language of the theater. We have already seen
how much his plot owes to the structure of Greek tragedy. From drama he
took also a vocabulary of pungent metaphors to describe the progress of
[131]
events in his story. Repeatedly the action is referred to as a tragedy. And
certain scenes by their wording imply a recognition, a deus ex machina, a
prologue and a change from tragedy to comedy. These may, as Calderini
suggests, be reminiscences of contemporary plays now lost, which readers

[132]
of the time would recognize. Certainly structure and language of the
romance attest Heliodorus’ deep interest in the theater.

The third striking element in the diction of Heliodorus is the rhetorical. He
often uses all the artifices taught in the schools: alliterations, antitheses, set
phrases. He loves the grand style. A speech, even one uttered by his
charming heroine, is an opportunity for pomposity. He uses in excess that
fine writing for descriptive passages which the schools taught and he
scatters throughout his narrative pithy truisms or sententiae which were part
of the capital of the rhetorician.

But these lapses into over-refined phrases, laborious symmetry and
decorative rhetoric are less of a barrier to a modern reader than is his
syntax. His sentence structure in general is not paratactic as is so much of
Chariton and of Xenophon, but complex. Moreover these complex 92
sentences are often exceedingly long with a kind of agglutinative
accumulation of participial constructions that demands re-reading for
comprehension. Yet he can be simple and pellucid in rapid narrative and
emotional crises as the final Book shows. And it is just because much of his
narrative is so exciting that we fall into resentful criticism when Homer
[133]
nods in dull drowsiness.

Although we cannot date the Aethiopica more exactly than somewhere in
the third century (probably in the first half), the romance reflects in general
the life of the times in which Heliodorus lived. The east daubs its brilliant
colors upon the story as the power of oriental rulers impinges on the life of
the Greeks. The absolutism of the Great King of Persia is the model for
minor courts of viceroys and their queens who demand of their subjects and
captives the obeisance that they must render to their Super-Ruler. Military
officers and eunuchs are the descending steps in this hierarchy of tyranny.

Adventures center in war and travel. Cities and tribes revolt. Heroes must
display military virtues. Merchants, priests and women travel widely,
braving the dangers of storms at sea and of attacks by pirates. Women have
found a new freedom and are leaders in courage and endurance as the story
of Chariclea shows. Women take part in banquets and religious ceremonies

as well as in adventures. Romantic friendship between men and admiration
of young men’s beauty are a counterpart of the famous relation between
Hadrian and Antinous. Slaves and captives may become court favorites or
be subjected to indignities, imprisonment, torture.

The times are characterized too by an eager search for the new, the 93
unfamiliar, by scientific curiosity, by an interest in art. So descriptions
of strange countries and peoples, accounts of strange adventures and sights
are part of the novelist’s stock in trade. He describes vividly the island city
in the Nile’s delta, its water-ways through the reeds, its cave refuge with its
secret entrance; or he gives a technical account of the engineering processes
by which a city is besieged by threat of inundation; or he pictures such a
curiosity in the animal world as a giraffe. Works of art are featured with
admiring care: Theagenes’ embroidered robe and its clasp, Chariclea’s robe
and its girdle, the amethyst ring with its carved scene, the painting of
Perseus and Andromeda, nude, shining, chained to the rock.

And part of the picture of the times centers in man’s quest for new values
for life itself. Ethical standards for conduct are weighed and emphasized in
contrasts between Greeks and barbarians. Aspiration towards the higher life
is portrayed in the worship of the gods and its ceremonials and in the
philosophical discussions in which the priests take part. The Gymnosophists
and Calasiris share a large humanity.

The primary interests of the romance, however, far outweighing its
philosophy and its adventures, is love. Once more two enchanting young
people meet at a festival of a god, fall in love at first sight, plight their troth,
accompany each other through world-wide adventures, preserve their faith
and their chastity and for their piety are at last united in perfect happiness.
Theagenes and Chariclea join Chaereas and Callirhoe, Habrocomes and
Anthia, Clitophon and Leucippe, Daphnis and Chloe in the undying annals
of true love. And the reader closes Heliodorus’ novel with Cnemon’s 94
comment:

“I am at feud with Homer, father, for saying that love, as well as
everything else, brings satiety in the end; for my part I am never tired
either of feeling it myself, or hearing of its influence on others; and lives
there the man of so iron and adamantine an heart, as not to be enchanted

with listening to the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea, though the story
[134]
were to last a year?”

95

V
THE ADVENTURES OF LEUCIPPE AND
CLITOPHON
BY ACHILLES TATIUS

“Every romance,” says Aristide Calderini in writing of the Greek novels,
“represents successively a new advance or a new type in its genre. Now the
closest affiliation is with history, now with pastoral poetry, now with
philosophy. While certain common elements persist, the general pattern of
[135]
the whole changes; often the content is varied; often the limits.”

The variation within this new form of literature is richly illustrated by the
novel we are now to study, the one which was probably written last of the
extant Greek Romances as Chariton’s was the first. This is The Adventures
of Leucippe and Clitophon of Achilles Tatius.

We know little of the author. Suidas, the lexicographer of the tenth century,
wrote his brief biography:

“Achilles Statius” (note the incorrect form of the name ‘Tatius’) “of
Alexandria: the writer of the story of Leucippe and Clitophon, as well as
other episodes of love, in eight books. He finally became a Christian and
a bishop. He also wrote a treatise on the sphere, and works on etymology,
and a mixed narration telling of many great and marvellous men. His
novel is in all respects like that of the other writers of love-
[136]
romances.”

Now though Suidas used earlier material and essayed accuracy, two 96
statements in this biography are manifestly incorrect. There is nothing
whatever in the romance to indicate that Tatius was ever a Christian and the
story about his conversion and bishopric probably duplicates the similar
tradition about his predecessor, Heliodorus, who was identified with a
bishop of Tricca who bore his name. Moreover Tatius’ novel is very
different in many particulars from all the romances which are now known.
And it is these contrasts rather than the similarities which make him in our
studies so excellent a foil for Chariton.

The date of about A.D. 300 is probably right for the novel because the author
seems to imitate the style of certain romancers of the third century and
[137]
because a recently discovered papyrus fragment shows that for
palaeographical reasons this earliest manuscript could not have been written
later than the first half of the fourth century. This evidence about the
lateness of Achilles Tatius we shall find borne out by a deterioration in style
from Chariton’s simplicity to an over-elaboration and exaggeration and a
[138]
change in spirit from sincerity to ironic parody.

One important reason for knowing Achilles Tatius is “his contributions to
Elizabethan prose fiction and, through this, to the making of the modern
[139]
novel.” The first Greek text was not published until 1601 but before this
he was made known to the sixteenth century by translations in Latin, Italian
and French. And in 1597 the first English translation, that of William
Burton, appeared. Todd succinctly states his resulting influence:

“With Heliodorus, though in less measure, he furnished structure and
material for Sidney’s Arcadia, and thus was among the influences 97
that formed the novels of Richardson and Walter Scott; of Greene,
as Dr. S. L. Wolff puts it, he was the ‘first and latest love’; in Lyly
himself, and not only in him, we recognize Tatius as one of the sources of
[140]
English Euphuism.”

My plan in taking up Achilles Tatius is first to analyze briefly his plot and
then summarize its similarities to Chaereas and Callirhoe and the other

Greek novels. Then I shall discuss more in detail the unique features in
Tatius and his special characteristics.

An epigram in the Palatine Anthology, attributed to Photius, patriarch of
Constantinople, but by some to Leon the philosopher gives a bird’s eye
[141]
view of the story.

“The story of Clitophon reveals to the eyes, as it were, a bitter love but a
virtuous life. The very virtuous life of Leucippe puts all in ecstasy, (for
the story tells) how she was beaten and shorn of her hair and clothed
pitiably, and—the greatest point—having died three times she endured to
the end. And if you too wish to be virtuous, friend, do not consider the
side issues of the plot, but learn first the outcome of the story, for it joins
in marriage those who love sanely.”

For the expansion of this epitome it is necessary to have before us a list of
the many characters in the romance.

Chief characters:

Clitophon, a Greek of Tyre, son of Hippias
Leucippe, daughter of Sostratus of Byzantium, the uncle of Clitophon
Clinias of Sidon, cousin of Clitophon
Chaereas of Pharos, a fisherman
Melitte, a woman of Ephesus
Thersander, the husband of Melitte
Callisthenes of Byzantium
Calligone, the half-sister of Clitophon

Minor characters:

Sostratus, of Byzantium, father of Leucippe
Panthea, his wife
Hippias, a Tyrian, father of Clitophon and Calligone 98
Charicles, the amicus of Clinias
Menelaus, an Egyptian
Sosthenes, the bailiff of Thersander

Satyrus, a slave of Clitophon
Clio, Leucippe’s chambermaid, in love with Satyrus
Charmides, an Egyptian general
Gorgias, an Egyptian soldier
[142]
For the plot I condense Phillimore’s well-written summary. The author
begins with a description of Sidon. He has reached Sidon in his travels and
is touring the city, looking at the temples. He describes a painting of Zeus
and Europa, also a statue of Eros. He was reflecting on the Eros: “Think of
such a brat being lord of earth and sea!” When a young man near testifies to
Eros’ power which he has felt, the author invites him to tell his story. In a
Platonic scene under a plane-tree near a stream they sit down.

The stranger, Clitophon, a Greek of Tyre, tells his story in the first person.
Clitophon has been unwillingly betrothed at nineteen to his half-sister,
Calligone. Now his uncle, Sostratus, writes that he is sending his daughter
Leucippe and her mother from their home in Byzantium to Tyre for safety
during a war. Clitophon at once falls in love with Leucippe. He makes his
cousin, Clinias, his confidant. Clinias is sympathetic because he had a tragic
love affair with a youth who was killed by a fall from a horse which Clinias
gave him. (Here is introduced a purple patch on the driving accident.)

Encouraged by Clinias, Clitophon makes love constantly. Various scenes of
his wooing, for example a garden, are described in detail. Finally the lovers
elope, find a ship at Berytus, embark and start to Alexandria. They meet an
Egyptian fellow-passenger, Menelaus. There comes a great storm. 99
Hero and heroine are cast on shore at Pelusium near the temple of
Zeus Casius. Enter black brigands. Soldiers rescue Clitophon, but Leucippe
is kidnapped. Clitophon joins in an attempt to save her, but it is baulked by
a deep, impassable canal between the rescuing party and the ten thousand
brigands. Across it Clitophon watches the bandits perform a human
sacrifice by disembowelling the victim before an altar. It is Leucippe. The
body is put in a coffin.

The next day the canal is diked and crossed. Clitophon resolves to die on
Leucippe’s body, but suddenly he meets his slave Satyrus and Menelaus,
both saved from the wreck, who assure him that Leucippe is alive. On the

coffin being opened, she comes out—“Gashed open and minus all viscera.”
But the murderers had been deceived by a sheepskin full of animal entrails
attached to her and by a stage sword which never penetrated her body.
Clinias too was saved from the wreck. Now a punitive expedition under
Charmides, the Egyptian, starts, but unfortunately he falls in love with
Leucippe and has a philtre given her which drives her insane. On her
recovery they go to Alexandria. There a new rival, Chaereas, abducts
Leucippe. Clitophon pursues on a ship of war, but has to endure seeing
Leucippe beheaded on the deck of the enemy’s vessel. Clitophon recovers
the head from the sea and gives it burial.

Six months later Clitophon meets Clinias again. Clinias who had been home
in Sidon reports that “the cruel parent had actually betrothed the loving
cousins” so Clitophon and Leucippe might have married in peace.
Clitophon who naturally believes Leucippe dead is pursued by Melitte, a
lovely, wealthy and amorous widow of Ephesus. He finally yields to her;
they are betrothed in the temple of Isis and are to be married when they
reach Ephesus. On their arrival, Melitte drives Clitophon around her 100
great estates. There he has the overwhelming surprise of
encountering Leucippe who is working in the garden as a miserable slave.
This difficult situation is made more complicated by the sudden
reappearance of Melitte’s husband, Thersander, who had been falsely
reported drowned at sea. Thersander beats up Clitophon as an adulterer with
his wife and has him imprisoned.

Sosthenes, the bailiff of Thersander, interests his master in Leucippe, so he
tries to seduce her, but unsuccessfully. Clitophon in prison is told a false
story that both Leucippe and Melitte are faithless to him. Clitophon resolves
to denounce Melitte as an accomplice in a plot for the murder of Leucippe
and then to die. He is tried for adultery and self-confessed murder, but
Clinias foils his attempt by telling the whole truth in court. Sosthenes
departs, leaving Leucippe free. Leucippe’s father, Sostratus, by good
fortune arrives in Ephesus on a sacred embassy just in time to assist his
daughter. The trial of Clitophon is resumed in a long court scene in which
finally Thersander challenges Leucippe and Melitte to tests of chastity by
the magic pipes of Pan and the magic spring of Rhodopis. Both pass the
ordeals. Thersander, since everything is going against him, for his slave,

Sosthenes, has been captured and will be forced to confess the truth, flees.
Sosthenes confesses. Clitophon is acquitted. Leucippe tells her whole story:
how the bandits beheaded another woman dressed in her clothes to prevent
Clitophon from following; how a quarrel over her arose among them in
which Chaereas was slain; then she was sold by the other pirates to
Sosthenes, who bought her for Thersander. Sostratus then relates the
secondary romance of Callisthenes and Calligone. The novel ends with a
happy reunion of all at Tyre where prayers and sacrifices are offered 101
in behalf of the lasting felicity of Clitophon and Leucippe, of
Callisthenes and Calligone.

Such is the story which Phillimore characterizes as “a breathless succession
[143]
of improbable incident.” The settings move with the same cinematic
rapidity which Chariton employed: from Sidon to Berytus, to the sea and
shipwreck, to Pelusium and Alexandria, to Ephesus and the great court
scene, to Byzantium and back again to Tyre.

In one point particularly the structure of the plot differs from Chariton’s and
indeed from the plots of all the other Greek Romances. The author in the
beginning hands over the story to a narrator, the hero, Clitophon, who then
tells the events in the first person. Very soon, however, the reader has
forgotten this device: so many other characters are given the floor to relate
their own tales. And at the end the author too has forgotten this beginning,
for Clitophon does not round up his narrative with a polite farewell. He
does not even explain how he happened to be at Sidon where he started the
tale. And the author does not express his appreciation of the entertainment
[144]
Clitophon has given him.

The chief interests of the romance are again love, adventure and religion.
There are two love-stories of primary interest instead of one. Yet the bulk of
the plot turns on adventure rather than on sex or worship. And delight in
adventure adds to the typical travellers’ tales a flaming curiosity which
demands description of many strange novelties.

In general the technical devices common to all the romances are used.
There is much conversation. There are many soliloquies. Clitophon 102

[145]
upbraids himself for swerving from Calligone to Leucippe. Later he
[146]
bemoans Leucippe’s fate when she has been kidnapped by the blacks.
Leucippe, sold as a slave, laments her whole sad love-story while lustful
[147]
Thersander is eavesdropping outside the door. Clitophon, on hearing in
prison the false story that Leucippe has been murdered by Melitte, voices
[148]
his horror over her death and over the fact that he had kissed her slayer.
These soliloquies are employed to reveal the intense feelings of hero and
heroine at emotional crises.

Three letters are used. The first is a brief business letter which serves to
develop the plot, for in it Sostratus writes to his brother Hippias that he is
sending his daughter Leucippe and his wife Panthea to him for safe-keeping
[149]
until the war between the Byzantines and the Thracians is over. The
other two are love-letters. One is Leucippe’s to Clitophon telling him that
she has been sold as a slave, begging for ransom money, wishing him
happiness in his coming nuptials with Melitte, and assuring him she is still a
virgin. The other is Clitophon’s answer declaring that he has “imitated her
virginity, if there be any virginity in men,” begging her not to judge him
[150]
until he can explain all, but to pity him. Leucippe’s letter is found by
Melitte and helps motivate the plot in its emotional aspects, for it works
Melitte up through jealousy and despair to such passionate ardor that she
[151]
persuades Clitophon to sleep one night with her.

Oaths are not important in the structure of the plot. Once Leucippe swears
to her father by Artemis that she has told him a true story about being still a
[152]
maid. Dreams are frequent and are significant. Four are reported 103
which are vital factors in the plot. Clitophon’s father dreams that while he is
conducting the wedding ceremonies of his son and Calligone the torches are
extinguished. This dream leads him to hasten the marriage so distasteful to
Clitophon and it would have been consummated at once had not Calligone
been kidnapped by Callisthenes under the impression that she was
[153]
Leucippe. Then Clitophon had persuaded Leucippe to let him spend the

night with her and with the aid of Satyrus was already in her bedroom.
Leucippe’s mother who had just had a dream that a robber with a naked
sword was playing the part of Jack the Ripper with her daughter, rushed in
[154]
and interrupted the amour. Later on, Leucippe and Clitophon on the
same night have similar dreams. A goddess appears and warns each that
their love must not be consummated until the goddess decks the bride and
opens her temple to the bridegroom. This apparition makes them postpone
[155]
the rites of Aphrodite. In Book VII Sostratus, Leucippe’s father, sees in
a dream an apparition of Artemis who tells him that he will find Leucippe
and Clitophon in Ephesus. He goes to Ephesus then on a sacred embassy
[156]
and finds that Artemis does not lie.

This tendency to a repeated use of the same device for forwarding the plot
is seen in greater extravagance and exaggeration in the use of apparent
deaths. Leucippe is supposed to meet violent death three times, twice before
the eyes of her lover, once in vivid narrative told to him in prison. First she
is sacrificed by brigands by being disembowelled before an altar. Second
she is beheaded on the deck of a ship by black pirates and her head tossed
into the ocean. Third she is murdered by an assassin hired by Melitte. 104
[157]
In the first two cases ghastly details make the executions seem
real, but Leucippe always survives and reappears with a plausible but exotic
story. Surely in this exaggeration Achilles Tatius is using thinly veiled satire
of the device of improbable reappearances in the Greek romance.

The same exuberance appears in the use of the forensic speeches, of long,
mythological narratives and of wordy descriptions. All these will be
considered in the study of the style of the romance. Two more technical
devices of the plot must be mentioned here: the use of résumés and the
usual happy ending. Book VIII is crowded with résumés: Clitophon tells all
his adventures to Sostratus and the priest of Artemis. Leucippe relates to
Sostratus how the pirates decapitated another woman in her place. Finally
Sostratus relates to his daughter and to Clitophon the romance of
[158]
Callisthenes and Calligone. The romances of both pairs of lovers,
Clitophon and Leucippe, Callisthenes and Calligone, are concluded by

happy weddings. And among the leading characters only Melitte suffers
final disappointment. Achilles Tatius ironically grants her at least one
memorable embrace on a prison floor!

The character drawing is much less elaborate than the plot. While plot and
counterplot of the two romances interplay, the young hero Clitophon and
the beautiful Leucippe are more or less conventional figures who move
glamorously, weeping, fainting, dreaming, voyaging, through preposterous
adventures. But Callisthenes, the secondary hero, is far more interesting
than Clitophon because his character shows startling development. And
Melitte, though she plays the part of temptress, is a great human creation.

In Book II Callisthenes first appears as a wealthy orphan, who is 105
notoriously dissipated and extravagant. Wishing to marry beauty and
having a strange streak of romanticism he asked Sostratus for the hand of
the beautiful Leucippe although he had never seen her. Rejected by
Sostratus as a suitor because of his bad reputation he plotted vengeance in
his willful and violent way. He journeyed to Tyre, saw Calligone at a
festival, mistook her for Leucippe, fell in love at first sight, hired some
[159]
gangsters to kidnap her and sailed off with his prize. Callisthenes does
not reappear until in the end of Book VIII Sostratus tells the story of his
[160]
reform. On the voyage Callisthenes found himself madly in love with
Calligone, revealed to her that he was no pirate but a wealthy Byzantine
noble, offered her honorable marriage and a large dowry, and promised to
respect her chastity as long as she desired. At Byzantium, love transformed
him so that he appeared courteous, virtuous, self-controlled. He showed
great respect for his elders. He was no longer extravagant, but became
philanthropic. He gave large contributions to the state. He trained for
military service and won distinction in actual warfare. In this changed guise
he secured Sostratus as an advocate to persuade Hippias to give him the
hand of Calligone, whose chastity he had scrupulously respected. Eros thus
salvaged Callisthenes and then rewarded him.

Melitte the widow of Ephesus is the most elaborately drawn character in the
romance. There is even a long personal description of her: she is as
beautiful as a statue with skin like milk, cheeks roses, hair thick, long,

golden, and about her the radiance of Aphrodite. Clitophon admits he saw
her with pleasure. Indeed she is so magnetic that the kisses she was pleased
[161]
to bestow on him stirred him. She knew what she wanted and how to
get it. During four months she had to woo Clitophon though she was 106
rich and young and her husband has been lost at sea. Finally since
Clitophon was convinced that Leucippe was really dead, he yielded and
agreed to marry her, though on condition that they should not be united
until they arrived at Ephesus. She was as passionate as Clitophon was cold.
On the ship she made ardent love to him while he begged her to
philosophize on love’s nature. After Clitophon secretly received Leucippe’s
letter, he had to pretend illness to postpone the fulfillment of her desires.
Then Melitte sent for her so-called Thessalian slave Lacaena (really
Leucippe) and begged her to concoct a philtre that would arouse
Clitophon’s feeling. She is very outspoken about the fact that Clitophon
[162]
seems made of iron or wood; that indeed she seemed to love a statue.
And she had the ability to express to Clitophon every feeling she had
without inhibition and in most picturesque language. At her wedding
breakfast in Alexandria she punned merrily about the postponement of their
[163]
union. “I’ve heard of a cenotaph but never before of a cenogam.” The
bellying sail on the ship she compared to a pregnant woman’s body; indeed
[164]
she converted the whole ship into symbols of marriage. She also
compared herself to thirsty Tantalus standing by a river but not allowed to
drink. She could match Clitophon’s arguments and his quibbles did not
deceive her: “You are playing the sophist, dearest!” she commented. When
from the discovery of Leucippe’s letter to Clitophon and her husband’s safe
return she knew that she had lost Clitophon, she visited him secretly in
prison and poured out on him all her wrath and all her passion. Her
denunciation of him as eunuch, hermaphrodite, senile nonentity shifted to
adoration; and passion finally concentrated into so ardent and well 107
argued an appeal for one embrace that she was victorious. Clitophon
admitted ironically that love had taught her rhetoric and that he was
vanquished, so he gave the remedy to a sick soul and even on the prison
[165]
floor enjoyed her!

Melitte was no less subtle and plausible in the speech in which she made
her peace with her enraged husband Thersander: Clitophon was only one of
many refugees whom she aided in memory of her husband lost at sea;
[166]
indeed she had helped Clitophon to find his wife. When Thersander
challenged her by the ordeal of the water of the Styx, Melitte at once
accepted the test on a quibble because her husband had demanded from her
an oath that she had not fulfilled the rites of Aphrodite with the stranger
during the time while he himself was abroad. And it was just that
unfortunate stipulation which makes her last appearance in the romance
unforgettable. She is led out of the water of the Styx by the judge, proved
by indisputable ordeal a chaste woman! Achilles Tatius has won his readers
by this time to rejoice in Melitte’s vindication. For besides charm and
cleverness he has given her humanity and generosity. She was always
[167]
merciful to her slaves and was kindness itself to Lacaena-Leucippe.
After she had won her desire, she contrived the escape of Clitophon from
prison dressed in her clothes, and financed by her. She did not even forget
the jailer, but gave him money to go away for a time to avoid punishment.
[168]
Clitophon omitted in his final narrative of his adventures his
[169]
succumbing to Melitte but he had the grace to admit to himself her
charms.

It is clear that in the ethics of the romance there is a new point of 108
view. Achilles Tatius is definitely less idealistic than Chariton in his
treatment of the erotic theme. As Rattenbury has pointed out:

“Achilles Tatius seems to have felt that the fetish of chastity in the average
romance was absurd, and tries to humanize romance by creating characters
that are reasonably, not unreasonably, moral.... Leucippe comes through
safe and sound, it is true, but it was by good luck rather than by good
intention.” Clitophon is chaste as far as men can be and succumbs to
Melitte only once. “Achilles Tatius,” continues Rattenbury, “did not exactly
parody his predecessors, but it is suggested that by attempting to humanize
romance he not only showed up the absurdities of the usual stories, but was
also responsible for the overthrow of the literary form.... Achilles Tatius
seems to have been to Greek Romance what Euripides was to Greek

Tragedy. He broke down the conventions, and drove the essential and
permanent elements to seek refuge elsewhere. The erotic element did not
die, but found an outlet in ‘Love-Letters,’ a contemporary literary form of
which Aristaenetus was an exponent in the fifth century, but the idealized
love story of a superhumanly modest hero and heroine vanished, and Greek
Romance hibernated until it was revived some centuries later by the
[170]
Byzantine writers.”

Not inconsistent with Tatius’ slightly ironic treatment of amours is his
emphasis on the virtue of pity and his tendency to introduce long
philosophical discussions of conduct or the nature of love. Clitophon’s story
moves an Egyptian general to pity, tears and aid, for

“When a man hears of another’s misfortune, he is inclined towards pity,
and pity is often the introduction to friendship; the heart is softened by
grief for what it hears, and gradually feeling the same emotions at 109
the mournful story converts its commiseration into friendship and
[171]
the grief into pity.”

In the midst of Thersander’s attempt to rape the weeping Leucippe, there is
[172]
a long digression on tears and the pity they arouse. Clinias appeals to
the court not to put to death “a man who deserves pity rather than
[173]
punishment.” Leucippe, disguised as a slave, begs Melitte as a woman
to pity a woman and to pity one once free, now through Fortune’s will a
[174]
slave.

Tatius has presented also in Callisthenes a picture of a noble young hero
who was converted from the wildness of youth to self-control, respect,
[175]
patriotism and service by chivalrous love. And this portrait of
Callisthenes becomes an embodiment of an ideal latent in the philosophical
discussions of love which flavor the romance. “Love,” says Clitophon,
[176]
“inspired by beauty enters the heart through the eyes.” Later Clinias
tells Clitophon that he is greatly fortunate in being able to see his lady, for

when eyes of lovers meet, the emanations of their beauty wed in a spiritual
[177]
union that transcends bodily embrace. Clitophon, wooing Leucippe in a
fair garden, discourses to her on the power of love over birds, creeping
things, plants, even iron which responds to the magnet, over water (for
[178]
Arethusa and Alpheus wed). To cheer up Menelaus and Clinias on ship-
board and divert them from their sorrows, Clitophon starts a philosophic
discussion on love of women compared with love of men, untranslatable in
[179]
its openness. Menelaus takes up the cudgels for the love of men,
probably much to Clinias’ satisfaction for he had previously denounced to
his dear Charicles the love of women who, if they love, kill and had
arraigned for his indictment Eriphyle, Philomela, Sthenoboea, 110
Chryseis, Briseis, Candaules’ wife, Helen, Penelope, Phaedra,
[180]
Clytemnestra!

The worship of the kiss is featured in an enchanting story of a magic charm
[181]
breathed on the lover’s lips and a fantastic assertion that if a maiden’s
[182]
kiss is stolen, the maid is raped. Moreover a code of love is presented,
almost as detailed as Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, in instructions given by Clinias
[183] [184]
to Clitophon, by the slave Satyrus to Clitophon, by Clitophon in
[185]
discussion with Menelaus. A delightful part of this Art of Love is telling
[186]
the Lady love-stories, for all womankind is fond of myths. Magic too
plays its part in the technique of love, for incantation works a charm for a
[187] [188]
lover; philtres may bewitch the indifferent; 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
[190]
Aphrodite the most powerful of gods. 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
[191]
mother. 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
[192]
insult to her and he begs her blessing on their marriage. The story of the
[193]
ordeal by the water of the Styx is a merry tale of rivalry between
Artemis and Aphrodite for a young girl’s worship in which Aphrodite 111
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
[194]
appears in dreams to the heroine and to Leucippe’s father. In her name
Leucippe rebukes Thersander for insulting a virgin in the city of the Virgin
[195]
Goddess. Sostratus arrives at Ephesus as the head of a sacred embassy
[196]
in honor of Artemis and so finds his daughter. Leucippe has taken
refuge in the temple of Artemis and in that temple at last she and Clitophon
[197]
are reunited. Here the villain of the piece Thersander brutally attacks
[198]
Clitophon. Thersander’s lawyer in court makes insulting slanders about
the fact that Clitophon and Leucippe probably defiled the temple by an
[199]
amour there. 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.

There is no more aspiration to god in the other cults which are mentioned
incidentally: of Apollo, Hercules of Tyre, the god of the lower world, Pan.
And the cruel goddess Fortune is berated only occasionally. Superstition
recognizes omens in the world of nature: the eagle stealing the sacrifice, the
[200] [201]
hawk pursuing the swallow. Oracles are respected. And the ordeals

of Pan’s pipes and the Styx’s water receive general credence. Festivals to
[202]
the gods are celebrated. But religion seems rather a matter of 112
scrupulous regard for ritual than communion with god or relief to the soul.

As we compare the romances of Chariton and Achilles Tatius we find that
not only has the main interest shifted from love and worship to incidents
and adventures. An even greater change has come about in the style.
Homeric simplicity has given way to rhetorical elaboration. Tatius may well
have been a ῥήτωρ as the scholiast Thomas Magister states, for his whole
style is dyed in the rhetoric of the schools and the speeches delivered in the
various lawsuits in the plot are masterpieces of rhetoric.

Among his acknowledged literary debts, however, he credits most to epic,
[203] [204]
for he quotes Homer once and alludes to him five times and he
[205]
refers to Hesiod twice. The messenger speeches in tragedy undoubtedly
suggested the slave’s dramatic narrative of the death of Charicles in a riding
[206]
accident. Both the New and the Old Attic Comedy contributed much to
his humor: the New in the comic literary contest of the slaves Conops and
[207]
Satyrus who deride each other under cover of fables; and the Old in the
Aristophanic priest of Artemis who “was no poor hand at speaking, and as
[208]
good at quip and gibe as the plays of Aristophanes.” But the training of
the rhetorical schools outweighs all other influences. About half of Books
VII and VIII is devoted to the trial of Clitophon for adultery and self-
confessed murder. The court sits in Ephesus with a jury and a presiding
judge, but their functions are vague. The prosecution speaks first,
Thersander and his ten lawyers, whose speeches fortunately are not
reported. Clitophon answers them by a false narrative accusing 113
himself of the murder of Leucippe and involving Melitte. Clinias gets
the floor and tells the true story: that Clitophon desires only to die, that he
deserves pity rather than condemnation and must be regarded as insane.

In the wild confusion that follows, Thersander’s counsel shouts for a
sentence of murder, Melitte offers her slaves to be questioned on her
innocence and demands that her husband produce Sosthenes who is

probably the murderer. Thersander in a long speech answers Melitte’s
challenge about Sosthenes with the result that the presiding officer
pronounces sentence of death on Clitophon but postpones Melitte’s case.
Clitophon is just on the point of being tortured for evidence when the
arrival of a sacred embassy to Artemis postpones the case of Melitte and the
execution of Clitophon.

Only after the work of the embassy is finished is the case resumed. Then
Thersander speaks first, demanding the execution of the sentence. He
condemns the priest who has released Clitophon and says he has usurped
the function of giving refuge to criminals which belongs to Artemis. He
adds foul personal abuse. He presents a second charge against Melitte for
adultery and a third against his slave girl Leucippe and her father. The priest
in his reply deserves the epithet “Aristophanic” which he has won, for he
pays Thersander back in his own coin of abuse only clothing it in the wit of
Aristophanes with all his double-meaning of words, his biting attack. And
his own arguments point the irony of the situation: Thersander clapped
Clitophon in jail before he was allowed to defend himself. He charged him
with murdering Leucippe but the young lady is alive!

Sopater, counsel for Thersander, next hurls insulting invective at the priest
and whitewashes his noble client who has been betrayed by a 114
faithless wife. Thersander then presents a formal challenge to Melitte
and Leucippe to prove their chastity and on their acceptance of it, the court
adjourns. Next day all reassemble at the cave of Pan and the spring of the
Styx. The ladies are proved innocent. Thersander flees and then is
sentenced to banishment. Clitophon—and Melitte—are acquitted.

This summary of the procedure of the court in Ephesus shows what
opportunity Achilles Tatius made for presenting the rhetorical speeches
which he cherished. They are many. They are full of specious argument,
personal attack, appeal to the emotions, attempted pathos which becomes
bathos and genuine ἦθος. The speakers are true to type: the impassioned
lover, the leal friend, the haughty, imperious, lustful noble, his sophistical
lawyer, the Aristophanic priest. Such agonistic scenes must have entertained
the reader of the time as much as they did the author. Actually this same
favorite rhetorical style is also assigned to the characters in private life:

Melitte in her impassioned speech to Clitophon in prison talks like a
[209]
sophist, for Eros teaches even arguments!

Long mythological narratives are another feature of Tatius’ style. The sight
of a painting makes it necessary for him to relate the whole story of Procne
[210]
and Philomela to Leucippe. The stories of the origins of the two ordeals
to prove chastity are told with equal detail. The discovery of wine is
elaborately related in the Tyrian version on the occasion of the festival of
[211]
Dionysus. These are a few out of many illustrations.

Descriptive writing is employed as much as, perhaps more than, forensic or
narrative. Indeed the purple patches almost overbalance plot, conversation
and oratory. Works of art, setting for scenes, natural phenomena, the 115
wonders of the world are introduced in highly colored digressions
which are clearly the ekphraseis which the students of rhetoric were taught
to compose and deliver.

Achilles Tatius apparently was enamored of wall-paintings. He describes
with gusto five and alludes to another. The subjects of all are myths. Two
are familiar types in the frescoes found at Pompeii: Perseus and
Andromeda, Achilles in women’s clothes among the daughters of King
Lycomedes. One description of a painting opens the romance, a votive
[212]
painting of Europa in the temple of Astarte at Sidon. Sidon is the first
word of the novel and this story is introduced as a tribute to the city where
the first scene was laid, for the stemma on the coins of Sidon is Europa on
the bull, pictured almost as Tatius presents her. The picture is described in
vivid detail even to the flowers in the meadow and the shifting colors of the
sea. Posture and garb of Europa are vividly sketched in words for he sees
her “seated on the bull like a vessel under way, using the veil as a sail.” The
keynote of the picture and the point of its application for Tatius is the little
flying Eros who leads the bull and laughs back at the transformed Zeus.
“Look,” said Clitophon, “how that imp dominates over land and sea.” A
young man standing by exclaims that he too has suffered much from love.
These exclamations are the point of departure for the recounting of love
adventures.

In Book III there is an equally long description of a painting by Evanthes in
[213]
the temple of Zeus Casius. The subjects are Andromeda and
Prometheus and they seem to have been paired because both were chained
to rocks, menaced by beasts and rescued by Argive heroes, Perseus and
Hercules. Design, color, emotion are all described vividly and 116
charmingly, but there is no point in the introduction of the paintings.
The description of them is simply a purple patch of fine writing.

In Book V the description of a painting in a studio depicting the rape of
[214]
Philomela had “a hidden significance.” The whole story was
represented: “the rape of Philomela, the violence employed by Tereus, and
the cutting out of her tongue ... the tapestry, Tereus himself, and the fatal
table.” Ugly realism, terror, insane laughter characterize the treatment. The
hidden meaning is that the sudden sight of the picture is a bad omen
threatening disaster which makes Clitophon postpone his journey to Pharos.
The delay gives him a chance to tell the whole story of Philomela to
Leucippe, for all women love myths.

Small works of art also are described lovingly and minutely: a rock-crystal
[215] [216]
goblet carved in a grape-vine, a jewelled necklace. These enrich the
setting as scattered flowers enrich the backgrounds of Renaissance
tapestries. It is as though Achilles Tatius like Corinthian potters or
Renaissance artists had such an horror vacui that empty spaces in design
were intolerable and interstices had to be crowded with beautiful small
objects. This is due in part to an observant eye that saw and recorded detail.
The specific and the graphic are his tools for clarity. The story of the
attempted amour of Clitophon and Leucippe is vivified by a plan of the
[217]
house as clear as the drawn plans in many modern detective stories. The
garden in which Clitophon’s love-making is once set is described
[218]
elaborately with its porticoes, trees, vines, flowers, spring and birds.
The storm at sea in its violence and coloring is as lurid as a Turner, and its
effects on the shipwrecked passengers are described with a true 117
[219]
psychology of terror and panic.

The long description of the storm is justified by the vital significance of the
shipwreck for the plot, but what of the write-ups of the wonders of the
world which are constantly introduced? The beautiful description of
Alexandria with its pharos is brief and pardonable as this was the birthplace
of the author. But only the love of novelty of the times and bad taste seem
to explain the perpetrations of wordy descriptions of the Nile, the phoenix,
[220]
the hippopotamus, the elephant and the crocodile! The romance at times
tends to become a natural history. Wolff becomes so out of patience with
“the damnable iteration” of irrelevancies in Clitophon and Leucippe that he
can hardly calm himself to analyze them in suggestive groups: irrelevancies
of plot, of characterization, of setting, of science and pseudo-science. The
only justification for such irrelevancies Wolff finds in “a common basis
with paradox. Both defeat expectation.... In both its phases,—irrelevancy
and paradox—this element of the unexpected, prominent in the form as in
the matter of the Greek Romances, deserves attention. To turn aside to the
irrelevant; to strain suspense by retarding the expected outcome; to
introduce by the way—all unlooked for—as many bizarre, ironical,
paradoxical situations and dazzling phrases as possible; and finally to
‘spring’ an issue which is itself a surprising combination of opposites—all
these would seem to be consistent results of adopting the unexpected as the
[221]
principle of the genre.”

After all this is said in criticism of Achilles Tatius’ exuberant style and
unlimited digressions, we go back to his fundamentals: a clear plot, living
human beings, vivid settings for them, and exciting adventures. Achilles
Tatius knew his age and for its disillusions he wrote with ironic 118
tolerance of human frailty and for its weariness he emphasized the
excitement of adventure and the stimulus of the unexpected. To me his
successes chalk up to a longer list than his failures and I end with
Phillimore:

“What a strange thought—that an Alexandrian with the names of Achilles
Tatius (what a pair!), atticizing con furore in the reign of Diocletian,
should write a story which delighted the Byzantine Middle Ages and can
[222]
still be read with interest and amusement!”

119

VI
THE LESBIAN PASTORALS OF DAPHNIS
AND CHLOE
BY LONGUS

The very title of Longus’ romance shows a new departure. These Lesbian
Pastorals in four books form the only pastoral romance in Greek that is
extant. Compared with the other romances that of Longus is unique in type,
characters, setting and structure. Theocritus is the pervading influence.
Most of the leading characters are not nobles but serfs. Even the young hero
and heroine are brought up as shepherds until at the end they are recognized
as children of the great. City life plays little part in the plot. The changing
seasons make the set. Only a few adventures disturb the serenity of the hills
and pasturelands: an onset of pirates, a local war and (of course!) the usual
kidnappings. Country gods are worshipped. The music of Pan’s pipes is the
accompaniment of the story.

Of the author we know nothing. Longus “is not mentioned by any other
writer before the Byzantine age, and himself mentions no historical name or
[223]
event.” From internal evidence of his novel we see that he knew
Mytilene well; he was familiar with Greek and Roman literature and with
works of art; he had received a sophist’s training in the rhetorical 120
schools. He wrote probably in the second century A.D., before
Achilles Tatius.

The early editions and translations show why Longus was so influential in
Elizabethan England and indeed in the modern European literatures. The

first edition of the Greek text was published by the Junta Press in Florence
in 1598, but before that the romance had received its first printing in
Amyot’s French translation in 1559 and in the first English translation by
Angell Daye in 1587. This “earliest English version” which was dedicated
to Queen Elizabeth was more of an adaptation than a translation. Its title-
page demands perusal:

“Daphnis and Chloe excellently describing the weight of affection, the
simplicitie of love, the purport of honest meaning, the resolution of men,
and disposition of Fate, finished in a Pastorall, and interlaced with the
praises of a most peerlesse Princesse, wonderfull in Maiestie, and rare in
perfection, celebrated within the same Pastorall, and therefore termed by
the name of The Shepheards Holidaie. By Angell Daye. Altior fortuna
virtus.”

The title-page of the 1657 translation by “Geo. Thornley, Gent.” was
dubbed “Daphnis and Chloe a most sweet and pleasant pastoral romance for
young ladies” and it too bore a Latin motto: “Humili casa nihil antiquius
nihil nobilius.—Sen. Philos.”

It is this delightful old translation which J. M. Edmonds “revised and
augmented” in his version for The Loeb Classical Library and in his
introduction there Edmonds says that this seems to have been George
Thornley’s only publication. He was a sizar in Christ’s College and received
his Bachelor in Arts from the University of Cambridge. It is this translation
of Edmonds-Thornley which I shall use in my quotations.

Longus wrote a Prooimion to his romance which reveals the occasion and
the purpose of his writing. While hunting in Lesbos he saw in a fair 121
grove of the Nymphs a painted picture which told a tale of ancient
love.

“There were figured in it young women, in the posture, some of teeming,
others of swaddling, little children; babes exposed, and ewes giving them
suck; shepherds taking up foundlings, young persons plighting their
troth; an incursion of thieves, an inroad of armed men.”

And on studying the painting Longus says:

“I had a mighty instigation to write something as to answer that picture.
And therefore, when I had carefully sought and found an interpreter of
the image, I drew up these four books, an oblation to Love and to Pan
and to the Nymphs, and a delightful possession even for all men. For this
will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has
loved, it will remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For there
was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be
any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But
help me that God to write the passions of others; and while I write, keep
me in my own right wits.”

With this delightful prayer, our humorous nympholept Longus begins his
story. We must now outline briefly his four books of Pastorals.

The characters are:

Daphnis, a young goatherd
Lamo, foster-father of Daphnis
Myrtale, foster-mother of Daphnis
Chloe, a young shepherdess
Dryas, foster-father of Chloe
Nape, foster-mother of Chloe
Dorco, an oxherd
Philetas, an aged shepherd and a famous piper
Lycaenium, a city chit married to a swain
Dionysophanes, lord of the manor
Clearista, his wife
Astylus, his son
Gnatho, a parasite of Astylus
Lampis, a herdsman
Tyrian pirates
Young nobles of Methymna

In Lesbos near Mytilene there was a great estate of a great noble. On 122
it once strange things happened for a goatherd Lamo found a fine
baby boy being nursed by a she-goat. Purple was his cloak and near him
was a little golden sword with an ivory handle. Lamo and his wife Myrtale
reared the child and named him Daphnis. Two years later another shepherd

Dryas found in a cave sacred to the nymphs and carved with pictures of
them a baby girl being nursed by a sheep. And beside her were little
possessions, a girdle embroidered in gold, gilded shoes, golden anklets.
Dryas and his wife reared the child and named her Chloe. These are our
hero and heroine.

Now when Daphnis was fifteen and Chloe thirteen, one night both Lamo
and Dryas had the same dream. The nymphs of the cave appeared and gave
Daphnis and Chloe to a certain little winged boy with bow and arrow who
touched them with an arrow and ordered that Daphnis tend a flock of goats
and Chloe a flock of sheep. Their parents were disappointed that they too
were to become herdsmen, for they had given the children a good
education, but they offered sacrifice in the cave to the Boy and obeyed.

The year was at the spring. Birds were singing, lambs gamboling, flowers
blooming. The children too sang and danced together and made garlands of
flowers for the Nymphs. All their joy and work they shared. But into this
paradise came danger. Trap-ditches had been set to catch a marauding wolf
and into one, as he pursued a he-goat, fell Daphnis. He was drawn up all
bloody and must needs wash in the cave of the Nymphs. Chloe as she
washed his back thought she had never seen any-one so fair or touched
anything so soft. Love began here though she knew it not.

Another danger menaced. Dorco an oxherd who had helped draw 123
Daphnis from the pit fell in love with Chloe (he was a full-grown
lad) and when he could not get her by gifts, he and Daphnis held a contest
of words for beauty and Chloe was umpire. When their speeches were
finished, Chloe at once gave to Daphnis her prize—a kiss—and that kiss
made Daphnis fall in love though he did not know what love was.

Defeated Dorco next appealed to Dryas for Chloe as a wife, but Dryas
rejected him. Then he tried a base trick. He dressed up in a wolf-skin and
hid near the spring where the beasts watered, hoping to meet Chloe alone
there. This he did, but the sheep-dogs caught him first and would have
killed him had not Chloe and Daphnis saved him. They thought Dorco’s
disguise was only a game, for they never dreamed of rape in their
innocence.

So through spring and summer Daphnis and Chloe tended their flocks and
played the pipes together. But in the autumn Tyrian pirates descended on
the shore to raven. They wounded Dorco and stole his cows and kidnapped
Daphnis. Dorco dying gave his pipe to Chloe for one kiss at last and bade
her pipe his cows off the ship. And the cows on hearing the call of the pipe
jumped overboard and swam ashore with Daphnis charioted between two
holding to their horns. The boat was upset and the pirates who were all in
armor drowned. Daphnis and Chloe went to poor Dorco’s funeral. They
dedicated his pipe to the Nymphs. They cheered their flocks who lay
mourning for Daphnis on the hills. And all went on as before except that
Daphnis’ heart ached,—why he did not know.

Now (in Book II) came the time of vintage. These charming children helped
pick the grapes, tread the wine-press, fill the vats with the new wine. That
work done, back to their flocks went Daphnis and Chloe. There old 124
Philetas met them and sitting down told them a bright story of how
Eros had appeared to him in his garden, a little winged boy flitting birdlike
from tree to tree. And Philetas tried to teach the children who Eros was and
what was his power, for Philetas had loved Amaryllis in his youth. But
though Philetas as a wise praeceptor amoris instructed them thus: “There is
no medicine for love, neither meat, nor drink, nor any charm, but only
kissing and embracing and lying side by side,” the children did not
understand his teaching and played this game of love without fulfillment.
And as they exchanged childish kisses, disaster again broke upon them.

Some young nobles of Methymna put in at the shore in a gallant boat to
make holiday, fishing and hunting with their dogs. When a country fellow
stole the rope that tied up their ship, they carelessly made another of green
withes. Then their dogs while hunting frightened Daphnis’ goats and drove
them down to the shore and some finding no other fodder ate up the green
cable. At that a strong wind off shore blew the boat out to sea to the great
rage of the young Methymnaean owners. They beat up Daphnis in a fight
with the peasants in which they too were wounded and prosecuted him in
court, but Philetas was the presiding judge and acquitted the goatherd of
any wrong. The incensed young nobles made their way home by land and
persuaded Methymna to avenge their injuries by sending a fleet to the land
of Mytilene in an unannounced war. The army plundered and devastated

and right from the sacred cave of the Nymphs kidnapped Chloe. But such
sacrilege was not to be unavenged by the gods and the Nymphs appearing
in a vision to distraught Daphnis assured him that Pan would protect their
votary. And indeed Pan sent awful omens to the Methymnaeans: the sound
of the clashing of unseen weapons; the sight of ivy sprouting on the 125
horns of Daphnis’ stolen goats and of a crown of pine placed on
Chloe’s head while all her stolen sheep howled like wolves. And the sea had
its marvels: anchors stuck, oars broke, while a strange military piping filled
the air. Finally Pan appeared to the admiral and demanded the return of the
maid stolen from the altar of the Nymphs and the return of her herds and
flocks. So the terrified commandant put about and restored Chloe to the
land. What a story she had to tell Daphnis! What sacrifices and libations the
rustics offered to Pan and the Nymphs! Philetas too arrived to help them.
Lamo told them the story of the invention of Pan’s pipes which a Sicilian
goatherd had sung to him. And on his own great pipes Philetas played the
different calls for the herds and the song of Dionysus. Daphnis and Chloe
acted out Lamo’s story of Pan and Syrinx. The next day back to their flocks
went the children and they talked now of their love for each other and took
mighty oaths of faithfulness for life and death, Chloe swearing by the
Nymphs, Daphnis by Pan. But since Chloe knew Pan for an amorous and
faithless god, she made Daphnis take a second oath by the trusty goats that
he would match her faithfulness with his.

Now (in the beginning of Book III) war enters the story, for the
Mytilenaeans were incensed at the actions of the Methymnaean fleet and
sent a land expedition under Hippasus for reparations. But this war was
conducted in a manner worthy of the golden age without ravaging of
country, with speedy offer of satisfaction, with cordial adjustment of terms.

Winter now arrived, more bitter than war to Daphnis and Chloe. Their
flocks were shut in folds; they were secluded in their separate farm-houses.
But while Chloe learned to spin and found no comfort, Daphnis built a plan
on hope. Braving the snow he struggled to a bird center near Chloe’s 126
home, as if he went fowling. Yet when he had reached his goal and
snared many birds, he dared not approach the farm-house for lack of
excuse. But Dryas chasing a dog who had stolen some meat rushed out-
doors, met Daphnis and brought him home.

Chloe in her glad surprise gave him a kiss; and all made him welcome.
Daphnis was persuaded to spend the night to celebrate with them on the
next day their sacrifice to Dionysus. In the morning the lovers found a few
moments alone in which to renew their troth, and after that Daphnis came
often thither through the winter months.

Then spring came; the flocks were once more sent to pasture. Daphnis and
Chloe crowned their gods with flowers and honored them with piping. They
watched the goats mate and wished to mate too, but knew not how. A city
woman, Lycaenium, married to a swain, heard their childish talk and being
half enamored of Daphnis undertook to complete Philetas’ instruction in the
art of love and having had experience she taught him all. But he put off
using his new knowledge. Instead he told Chloe the story of Echo.

Many suitors now wooed Chloe, and Daphnis in despair told Myrtale, his
foster-mother, how he too longed to wed the girl, but his suit seemed
hopeless until to desperate Daphnis once more the Nymphs appeared and
told him where to find a purse of money that had been cast ashore from the
Methymnaean ship. With the three thousand drachmae in it he won over
Dryas and Nape, who in turn persuaded his father and mother to accept the
match. But Lamo wished the marriage postponed until the lord of the manor
arrived in the autumn to give his consent. Now that they were affianced
Daphnis and Chloe waited happily. Daphnis plucked for Chloe a golden
apple that hung unplucked on top of a tree, the best of all, a symbol of the
victory of love. And in return he received a kiss more precious even 127
than an apple of gold.

Now (in Book IV) with the autumn and the vintage the lord Dionysophanes
was coming with his wife Clearista to inspect his estate. Lamo’s pride was
the beautiful garden he had made, so it was a major disaster when a rejected
suitor of Chloe, churlish Lampis, devastated it for spite. Lamo besought
Astylus, son of Dionysophanes, to appease his father’s wrath and this he
did.

Astylus had a rascally parasite Gnatho with him who tried to corrupt
Daphnis, but in vain; so hoping for the future he persuaded Astylus to
induce his father to take Daphnis back to the city as his son’s servant. At
this menace Lamo decided he must reveal Daphnis’ origin so he brought out

the tokens he had found with the child. They proved that he was the son of
Dionysophanes and Clearista, exposed by them when they were young and
thoughtless and had too many children. So the young shepherd was
transformed into a prince and almost forgot Chloe. Indeed while he was
celebrating she was carried off by Lampis, the herdsman. Gnatho, seeing
Daphnis’ despair, to reinstate himself, dashed off and rescued Chloe just in
time. Now her foster-parents produced her tokens and her nobility too was
assured. All went to Mytilene to find Chloe’s parents. The Nymphs and
Eros appeared to Dionysophanes in a dream and Eros bade him to make a
great marriage feast and there to display Chloe’s tokens. This he did and by
them Chloe too found noble parents. But Daphnis and Chloe chose to have
a country wedding and went back to the fields to their rustic friends.

Indeed most of their lives they lived there in the simple way of shepherds,
worshipping the Nymphs, Pan and Eros, possessing great herds of sheep
and goats, and for food liking best of all apples and milk. There they had a
son and daughter whom a goat and a sheep nursed; Philopoemen and 128
Agelaea were their names. They made the cave into a fair shrine, set
up statues there, raised an altar to Eros the shepherd and gave to Pan the
soldier a temple to dwell in instead of a pine. All this was long afterwards.
Now they had a rustic wedding. The shepherds played their rude pipes for
their Hymenaeus. Daphnis and Chloe slept no more than the birds that night
and Chloe then first learned that all their love-making in the wood was only
the play of children.

This brief epitome of the plot shows its simplicity and its coloring. The
scene is pastoral and a unity of place is observed which distinguishes the
romance. All the action takes place in the country near Mytilene. Only for
the episode of the search for Chloe’s parents do the characters move to the
[224]
city and their sojourn there is short. The main events of the plot are the
double exposures, the adoption and the recognitions of Daphnis and Chloe
and their common life as shepherds. The plot contains the usual features of
a romance but virtually all are adapted to the pastoral tone and there is a
change in their relative importance. The chief interests are the same as in
the other romances: love, adventure, religion. But love is in its springtime:
it buds and blossoms in the lives of two innocent children as the eternal

[225]
miracle of nature. The adventures are for the most part simple country
disasters: Daphnis falling into a trap-ditch set for a wolf; a fair garden
wantonly destroyed by a jealous rival. There are to be sure two kidnappings,
but the rescues are speedy and magical. Daphnis is saved from the Tyrian
pirates by the music of a shepherd’s pipe. Chloe’s return by the 129
Methymnaeans is compelled by Pan himself. Even war is conducted
with noble generosity and given a peaceful solution as if in a golden age.

Adventure indeed plays a far smaller part in the romance than does religion.
Worship is heartfelt and a part of life. The gods honored are deities
naturally worshipped in the country: the Nymphs, Pan, Dionysus and Eros.
They are ever-present.

Longus in his Preface says that he made these four books as a votive to
Eros, the Nymphs and Pan. The baby girl was exposed, nursed by a sheep
[226]
and found by a shepherd in the cave of the Nymphs. At critical
moments in the lives of the hero and heroine the Nymphs appear in visions
to guide or save. In Book I Lamo and Dryas, the foster-fathers, had the
same dream the same night: they saw the Nymphs consign Daphnis and
Chloe to the care of a young winged boy who touched both with the same
[227]
arrow and bade each tend the flocks. After Chloe was kidnapped by the
Methymnaeans from the very cave of the Nymphs, the three goddesses
appeared to Daphnis in a vision by night and told him not to fear, for Pan of
[228]
the pine-tree would rescue the maid. Again when for his poverty
Daphnis saw that Chloe was to be betrothed to some richer suitor, the
[229]
Nymphs appeared and told him where to find a purse of silver. Finally
Chloe’s noble parentage was discovered by the direction of the Nymphs and
Eros who appeared to Dionysophanes in his sleep and bade him make a
wedding feast in Mytilene and at it pass Chloe’s tokens about to all the
[230]
guests.

Such solicitous and tender care had been won by Daphnis and Chloe
through devotion. Out on the hills in the morning first of all they 130
saluted their gods. They gathered flowers to crown their statues.

They made them gifts of grapes and apples or of pipe. They sacrificed to
them kids and lambs, and to the Nymphs and Pan they offered constantly
their prayers and vows. In the cave of the Nymphs Chloe swore to share life
and death with Daphnis. Under the pine Daphnis swore by Pan that he
[231]
would not live a single day without Chloe.

Eros is a less familiar god to the children, but through Philetas’ instruction
[232]
about the merry flying boy they come to be his votaries. Dionysophanes
gives all praise for the care of the children to the united protection of Pan,
[233]
the Nymphs and Eros. The betrothal takes place before the statues of
[234]
the Nymphs. And all their lives Daphnis and Chloe worshipped the
[235]
Nymphs, Pan and Eros for their very present help in time of trouble.
This was no formal ritual: it was a vital faith offered with clean hands and a
pure heart.

The worship of Dionysus also entered into the life of the whole countryside.
The song of the God of Wine is played by Philetas and danced by Dryas.
The festival of Dionysus is celebrated by the sacrifice of a ram, a feast,
libations poured by ivy-crowned worshippers. In the garden of the great
estate of Dionysophanes there are an altar and a shrine to the god, and the
temple had paintings about the life of Dionysus: Semele his mother, the
sleeping Ariadne, the binding of Lycurgus, the rending of Pentheus, the
conquered Indians, the transformed Tyrians, Pan piping to those treading
[236]
the wine-press and to those dancing. On the first day after he arrived at
his estate Dionysophanes made sacrifice to this god for whom he was
named along with the other rural deities, Demeter, Pan, the Nymphs. 131
[237]
And Daphnis for his happiness dedicated his bag and cloak to
Dionysus, to Pan his whistle and his pipe, to the Nymphs his crook and
[238]
milk-pails. The god of the vintage must always have his share of honor
in the country.

So because the gods are omnipresent in country life, religion is as much a
part of the set of the romance as is locality. For the monotony which might

result from the single background of the great estate near Mytilene in
Lesbos is varied not only by descriptions of fair garden, pastures, trees,
hills, seashore, but by the mystic vicinity of the cave of the Nymphs, the
pine-tree of Pan, the grapevine of Dionysus and over all the unseen flying
Eros shooting his darts.

With such a setting, naturally the order of events follows the seasons. In
spring the story begins when the lad of fifteen and the girl of thirteen are
sent out to tend the flocks in meadows and on hills. Summer brings the
adventures of the trap-ditch and the Tyrian pirates. Autumn has its vintage
and the menace of the Methymnaean roisterers. Winter houses and separates
the lovers until Daphnis makes bold to go fowling. Spring returning,
Daphnis finds a purse and wins his shepherdess’ hand. Summer passes in
tending the flocks and making love. Then as autumn again brings the
vintage the lord of the manor comes to his estate. There follows the
recognition of Daphnis as his son and soon Chloe is found to be as noble.
The weather is still fair, so after a royal feast in the city, the wedding is
celebrated in the country for their hearts were rural.

Indeed the characters are for the most part country wights: the worthy
foster-parents, Chloe’s suitors, Philetas the wise old herdsman. They are all
serfs and Daphnis and Chloe were given pastoral names by their 132
foster-parents to make them seem truly theirs. They are noble slaves
full of hospitality and kindness. When corruption menaces and brings
temptation, it comes from the city. Lycaenium is a young bride from the
city. Gnatho is a city parasite. Astylus, the son of Dionysophanes, although
he is a great-hearted youth who pities Lamo for the destruction of his
garden and welcomes his newly found brother Daphnis with open arms,
shows the effects of city life by making his boon companion the worthless
parasite Gnatho whose only thoughts were of eating, drinking and lechery.
Dionysophanes is nobler than his son: though gray-haired, he is still tall,
handsome, able to wrestle with young men, and though wealthy he is good.
Indeed some virtue must be attributed in this fairy-story even to the villains.
Dorco who tried to rape Chloe makes a beautiful end by giving her his pipe
and teaching her how to call the cattle and Daphnis back from the raiders’
ship. Gnatho redeems himself by rescuing Chloe from her second
kidnapping. And even Lampis, the rough herdsman, was deemed worthy of

forgiveness and invited to the wedding. Daphnis and Chloe are brave,
beautiful and virginal. Chloe keeps her chastity to the end. Daphnis sins but
once, to learn what love is that he may teach his maid.

Dalmeyda has pointed out another striking feature of the plot beside the
unity of place and the strictly pastoral coloring. This is its two-part division
of which the first might be entitled “the search for love” and the second
“the marriage of Chloe.” The first part ends with the lesson of Lycaenium,
[239]
the second with the country wedding.

Within this two-part division and the unified pastoral scene, the usual
devices are employed for the pattern of the romance, conversation, 133
soliloquies, oaths, court-room speeches, happy ending, but all are
simplified to a country standard. Typical of what I mean is the breath-taking
conversation that the lovers secure alone after their winter separation,
[240]
λόγων ὁμιλία τερπνή.

“Chloe, I came for thy sake.” “I know it, Daphnis.” “’Tis long of thee that I
destroy the poor birds.” “What wilt thou with me?” “Remember me.” “I
remember thee, by the Nymphs by whom heretofore I have sworn in yonder
cave, whither we will go as soon as ever the snow melts.” “But it lies very
deep, Chloe, and I fear I shall melt before the snow.” “Courage, man; the
Sun burns hot.” “I would it burnt like that fire which now burns my very
heart.” “You do but gibe and cozen me!” “I do not, by the goats by which
thou didst once bid me to swear to thee.”

The soliloquies too are as artless and simple as this talk. At some emotional
crisis the youngsters bemoan to themselves their lot. Chloe, falling in love
with Daphnis when she sees him bathe in the cave of the Nymphs, laments
[241]
the pain in her heart that is worse than a bee-sting. After Daphnis has
been recognized as the son of the great Dionysophanes, Chloe weeps at
being forgotten, is sure Daphnis is breaking his oath of faithfulness and bids
[242]
him farewell since she will surely die. Daphnis makes moan more often.
When the kiss of Chloe has set him on fire, he complains that his heart
leaps up; his soul is weakened; he will waste away with his strange malady.

[243] [244]
Over the sleeping Chloe he murmurs a soft rhapsody. Shut in alone
by winter he takes counsel with himself on what excuse to end their
[245]
134
separation. And when he hears that Lampis has carried Chloe off,
[246]
he seeks solitude in the garden and rails at his bitter loss. Even the
court-room speeches in the prosecution of Daphnis by the Methymnaeans
for the loss of their ship are reduced to short and simple arguments since a
[247]
herdsman sat as judge. The trial of course ends happily for Daphnis as
must inevitably the whole story. Of all the love romances this springtime
love in the country is the most joyous.

As we read this pastoral romance, the unknown author becomes to us a real
personality. His delight in the country is spontaneous and real. He is a
cultured person with genuine appreciation of art, music and literature. Their
influence enriches his story. Longus in his preface tells how a painting
which he chanced to see in the grove of the Nymphs gave the inspiration for
the writing of his novel, for the painting pictured a history of love and he
longed to write something that would correspond to the picture. Paintings
again he mentions in his description of a shrine of Dionysus, paintings
[248]
telling all the myths of the god. The images of the Nymphs in the cave
are described carefully by him: cut out of the rock they were, feet unshod,
arms bare to the shoulders, hair falling on their necks, their garments belted,
[249]
a smile in their eyes. A statue of Pan stood under his sacred pine until at
[250]
the end Daphnis and Chloe built him a shrine. Over and over these
representations are referred to as symbols of very present gods.

The music that fills the romance is the sound of the shepherds’ pipes and the
voice of song. Daphnis makes a pipe of reeds and teaches Chloe how to
[251]
play on it. So well did she learn that on Dorco’s pipe she could call the
[252]
cattle back from the raiders’ ship. When spring brought them out- 135
doors, both Daphnis and Chloe challenged the nightingales with their piping
[253]
and the birds answered. Philetas the old herdsman outdid all in playing

on the great organ-pipe of his father. He played special strains for cows and
oxen, for goats, for sheep. He played too the melody of Dionysus and to it
Dryas footed the dance of the vintage. Daphnis too played on Philetas’ pipe
a love-song and danced with Chloe the story of the origin of the pipe, Pan’s
[254]
wooing of the maid Syrinx.

Daphnis displayed his art for his own father and mother, before he was
recognized as their son, to do them pleasure. He blew the call of the goats;
he blew their soft lullaby; he blew their grazing tune; he blew the alarm for
a wolf; he blew the recall. And the goats responded to all his different
[255]
strains. After the wedding the shepherds piped the bride and groom to
bed and sang outside their door a rude, harsh song, no Hymenaeus, but such
[256]
as they were wont to sing when with their picks they broke the earth.
[257]
For country people sang at all their tasks: the boatman on the river, the
herdsman in the pastureland.

More pervasive than all other influences in the romance is the literary.
Theocritus colors the whole story. There are a few reminiscences of
[258] [259]
Bion and Moschus, but it was the Sicilian goatherd par excellence
[260]
who instructed Longus as he did Lamo in his story. Calderini shows the
various traces of the inspiration which Longus received from the
Alexandrian idyl. There is a continuous alternation of descriptions of nature
with descriptions of emotion all composed with a certain serenity and 136
restraint. The pain is not too violent; the descriptions of nature are
not too detailed or pedantic. There are many special similar motives: the
descriptions of paintings and statues; the fear and the protection of Pan and
the Nymphs; the vengeance of Eros on those who scorn him; the young
lovers who frequent the gymnasia and the palestra; love which is born on
the day of a festival; the woe of love; the violent, brutal love of a scorned
[261]
shepherd; the patron who lives at a distance. The pastoral name
Daphnis is taken from the ideal shepherd of Theocritus and Vergil. Pastoral
setting and pastoral narrative have the flavor of Theocritus. Episodes are
identical: Chloe plaits a tiny cage for a grasshopper as did the young lad

[262]
carved on the bowl of ivy-wood. Daphnis and Chloe as they sit kissing
each other on the hill see a fisherman’s boat passing on the sea and listen to
[263]
his song. So in Theocritus lovers on the land embracing look out at the
[264]
far distant sea. But above all, Longus saw as Theocritus did that in the
lives of herdsmen lay true romance, and while Theocritus sang his short
lays, closely affiliated with the mimes in their use of the comic, Longus
lifted the love of goatherd and shepherd to the realm of pure fiction by
idealization and tenderness. His originality was in making young love grow
with the seasons to maturity. The name of his heroine, Chloe, a young green
[265]
shoot, is symbolic of this growing life. His awareness of his unique
contribution to romance perhaps appears in his title: The Lesbian Pastorals
of Daphnis and Chloe.

Sappho too was known and cherished by Longus. There is a possible
reminiscence in the description of Daphnis turning paler than grass in 137
[266]
its season. There is a sure reminiscence of Sappho’s hyacinth on
the mountains crushed by the feet of the passing shepherds in Lamo’s pity
[267]
for his flowers trodden down by a marauder. And to Sappho Longus
owes the climax of Daphnis’ wooing at the end of Book III when he pulls
“the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,” saved by Fortune
for a shepherd in love, and putting it in Chloe’s bosom makes it a symbol of
[268]
her beauty and his prize.

Drama too had a definite influence on Longus, indeed the word δρᾶμα or
[269]
δραματικόν is applied to these romances by Photius. The two
recognition scenes in which Daphnis and Chloe find parents through the
tokens placed with them when they were exposed as babies are copied from
tragedy. New Comedy furnished at least three characters to the romance,
[270]
Gnatho the parasite, Sophrone the nurse who exposed the baby Daphnis
and the city wench, Lycaenium. Elegiac poetry furnished Philetas, the father
perhaps of erotic elegiacs. Echo repeating the name of Amaryllis suggests

[271]
Vergil. And Ovid perhaps contributed three names: Astylus, Dryas and
[272]
Nape. The influence of the rhetorical schools is slighter than in the
other romances, but appears in the court-room scene with its speeches and
[273]
in the use of parallelism and contrast. Parallelism, as Calderini says,
includes all the plot of the romance and proceeds from the number and
selection of the characters to the variety of the secondary episodes and to
the description of the smallest details. Daphnis and Chloe are both exposed,
both rescued by shepherds. Both are kidnapped. An attack on Chloe is made
by Dorco, on Daphnis by Gnatho. Chloe touches Daphnis when he is 138
bathing and falls in love. Daphnis kisses Chloe and his heart rises to
his lips. Astylus, the city son of Dionysophanes, is sophisticated, Daphnis is
virginal. The oath of Daphnis is matched by the oath of Chloe. On and on
proceeds this balancing. And the parallelism appears not only in plot, but in
details of phrase and sentence structure: balanced rhythmical phrases set off
by rhymes or alliterations; bipartite or tripartite periods, elaborate in their
rhetorical structure. Sometimes indeed Longus’ Pastorals seem written in
[274]
modern verse, indeed they are written in poetic prose.

Out of all these interests in art, music and literature and beyond them
Longus has created a style peculiarly his own and suited to his pastoral
romance. His sentence structure is simple and paratactic. His comparisons
[275]
are drawn from the life of shepherds. Chloe is as restive as a heifer.
Dorco claims he is as white as milk but Daphnis says Dorco is as red as a
[276]
fox. Daphnis and Chloe run about like dogs freed from their leashes.
[277]
Chloe plunders from Daphnis’ mouth a bit of cake as though she were
[278]
a young bird being fed.

Description and narration are as vivid as these little similes. We are made to
see Daphnis at his bath: his hair black and thick, his body sun-burned dark
[279]
as though colored by the shadow of his hair; the coming of spring with
flowers covering the valleys and the mountains, bees humming, birds
warbling, lambs gamboling; the vintage scene with the peasants all busy in

the vineyard with the wine-presses, the hogsheads, the baskets, and the
[280]
grapes; the winter landscape with the deep snow, the rushing torrents,
[281]
the ice, the laden trees; the country wedding with the feast on 139
beds of green boughs before the cave of the Nymphs, the songs of the
reapers and the vintners, the dancing to the pipes, the goats sharing the
[282]
feast, the bridal procession with its piping and singing.

Longus’ art of narration is employed as skillfully as are his descriptions.
This art appears not only in the pattern of the whole romance, but in the
skillful use of stories within the story to diversify and enliven the longer
narrative. After the feast of Dionysus, the old men, their tongues loosed
with wine, fell into reminiscence and told tales to each other:

“how bravely in their youth they had administered the pasturing of their
flocks and herds, how in their time they had escaped very many invasions
and inroads of pirates and thieves. Here one bragged that he had killed a
wolf, here another that he had bin second to Pan alone in the skill and art
[283]
of piping.”

That last was Philetas, the wise old shepherd who told Daphnis and Chloe
the story of the gay little Eros whom he had found playing in his garden
flying like a nightingale from bough to bough of the myrtles, a lovely story
[284]
with a point for Philetas’ ars amatoria. The other inset stories are
mostly short myths. So Daphnis tells Chloe how the mourning dove was
once a maid, very proud of her singing and by her song alone she kept the
cows she tended near her in the wood. But a shepherd lad rivalled her music
and piped off eight of her finest cows to his own herd. And the girl in
despair prayed to become a bird. The gods consented and left her that sweet
[285]
voice so still she calls the cattle home.

At the feast of Dionysus Lamo tells a myth which a Sicilian goatherd had
sung to him, a tiny tale of how the girl Syrinx fleeing Pan’s embraces 140
was changed into a reed and then made by Pan into his pipe, with

[286]
reeds of unequal lengths to symbolize their ill-matched love. All these
stories are very short and simple, bits of folk-lore such as peasants might
relate at their feasts or in the open.

Much of the whole narrative is colored by a humor that is as playful and
tender as the spirit of Philetas’ merry child Eros. In the vintage scene both
Daphnis and Chloe are beset with childish jealousy at the attentions that
[287]
each other receives. The author’s humor plays around them from the
time when they first herded their flocks together to the day of their rural
wedding. And the plot is set with humor, which as Wolff observes, turns on
“the incongruity between the children’s innocence and the piquancy of their
[288]
experiments.”

It is not strange that Longus’ Pastorals with all their charm of plot, setting
and style were the forerunners of much later literature. Todd has a
[289]
paragraph which is a sign-post to the line of his successors.

“Longus invented the pastoral romance, and his influence is found
throughout the pastorals of the modern European literatures: already,
perhaps, at the end of the fifteenth century, in the Arcadia of the
‘Neapolitan Virgil’ Jacopo Sannazaro; in the Aminta of Tasso, in the
Astrée of D’Urfé, in the Gentle Shepherd of Ramsay, in the Paul et
Virginie of Saint-Pierre, and in other writings almost countless.”

S. L. Wolff’s elaborate study of The Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose
Fiction analyzes in detail Longus’ influence on Robert Greene in Manaphon
and Pandost and Shakespeare’s use of Longus in the pastoral setting, the
hunt scene, the exposure motif in The Winter’s Tale. There is rich material
still left in the study of the Greek Romances for the young scholar working
in Comparative Literature. By them, by all students of literature 141
Daphnis and Chloe deserves to be read and reread. For Longus, just
as Theocritus did in the Idyl, immortalized in the realm of fiction the loves
and woes of shepherds.

It is strange that a pastoral romance of such honest and simple charm should
have played a dramatic part in a melodrama of the early nineteenth century.
Yet it did, for it almost caused an international literary warfare; it almost
had a French officer shot for desertion; and it created serious political
complications for him with the Bonaparte family.

Paul Louis Courier (1773-1825) led a bizarre life as a vine-grower, an
officer in the artillery, a liberal pamphleteer, a member of the Legion of
Honor, a prisoner in Sainte-Pélagie, a traveller, a poet, a Hellenist.
Throughout his checkered career, he anticipated Byron in his romantic
passion for the antiquities, the ruins, the beauty of Greece. In 1811 he wrote
from Rome: “The fact is that I wish before I die to see the lantern of
Demosthenes and drink the water of the Ilissus.”

It was this passion combined with his disgust at the butcheries of Wagram
that made him forget that he was a soldier so that in 1809, though he was
the head of a squadron of artillery, he slipped out of military life and in Italy
devoted all his time to those literary studies to which before he had given
his leisure.

Reared in the country (at Méré in Touraine), he had early become fascinated
with the pastoral romance Daphnis and Chloe and now he was determined
to work on a Thirteenth Century Greek manuscript of it which was in the
Laurentian Library. After some difficulty he obtained permission from the
librarian, Francesco Furia, and his work started happily. It was to meet with
the greatest success and the greatest disaster. Courier, amateur that he 142
was, discovered that the Laurentian manuscript contained the text of
the great lacuna in Book I (cc. 12-17). These chapters were lacking in all
other manuscripts. Furia who had worked for years on the manuscript,
which was in parts nearly illegible, had never noticed these hitherto
unknown chapters. They contain the episode of Daphnis tumbling into the
trap-ditch, Chloe’s falling in love with him thereafter, and the contest of
Daphnis and Dorco for Chloe’s kiss.

Close on Courier’s great discovery followed a most unfortunate episode, for
after carefully copying the new chapters Courier obliterated them by a black
ink stain. It was natural that the jealous Furia should believe that Courier
had intentionally upset his ink-pot over them. Courier himself in a letter to

Renouard declared that inadvertently he had used as a marker some paper
which was soaked in ink on the under side, and that made the blot.

The rage of Furia might itself have hindered the publication of Courier’s
discovery and now a political complication arose as a new obstacle. Since
the fame of his work was spreading, Elisa Bonaparte, the sister of
Napoleon, wished to have Courier’s publication dedicated to her and the
prefect of Florence, the Baron Fauchet, announced her gracious wish at a
formal dinner-party! Courier, who by now hated all Bonapartes, cut his
Gordian knot by rushing out at Florence a Greek edition in fifty-two copies
before the French edition which he was publishing at Paris appeared in
1810. The deed was done and neither Furia nor la Bonaparte could undo it.

The fame and scandal of Courier’s work of course came to the ears of the
Ministry of War and orders were sent to General Sorbier, commandant of
the artillery in Italy, to demand from Courier explanations of his absence
from his squadron. Fortunately the general accepted Courier’s 143
affirmation that he had never thought of deserting so that the
Hellenist escaped being shot then, but fate pursued him.

On April 11, 1825, the body of Paul Louis Courier was found in a wood
near his country home at Véretz. He had been assassinated. It was long
believed that this was a political crime, “a kind of epilogue of secret
[290]
vengeance in party politics” as Edmond Pilon puts it. It might also have
been the revenge of a philologist. Actually the shooting was the result of an
embroglio with certain servants on his estate. Courier in 1814 had married
Mlle Herminie Clavier, who managed his estate in his absence. She seems
to have betrayed him both in business matters and affairs of the heart so that
Courier separated from her and made new plans for the management of the
estate. Five years after the murder the Department of Justice found that the
assassins were certain servitors of Courier who had been dismissed because
of their connivance with Madame Courier in her iniquities. Courier, whose
dearest dream had been the pastoral life of Daphnis and Chloe, escaped the
dangers of war and of prison only to be shot in the country he loved for
petty personal spite.

Paul Louis Courier would, I am sure, have been happy to have part of his
fame rest on his precious new chapters of the Pastorals, and to know that his
beautiful translation of their four books lives on in one new edition after
another.

144

VII
LUCIAN AND HIS SATIRIC ROMANCES: THE
TRUE HISTORY AND LUCIUS OR ASS

“Lucian of Samosata [was] surnamed ‘The blasphemer,’ because in his
dialogues he alleges that the things told of the gods are absurd.... He was
at first an advocate in Antioch, but, having ill success in that, he turned to
the composition of discourses, and his writings are innumerable. He is
said to have been killed by dogs, he having been rabid against the truth.
For in his ‘Life of Peregrinus’ he attacks Christianity and, wicked man,
blasphemes against Christ himself. Wherefore for his madness he
suffered meet punishment in this life, and hereafter with Satan he will be
[291]
inheritor of the everlasting fire.”

This is the meagre biography by Suidas of the great satirist who through
nearly all of the second century held up the mirror of his frankness to reflect
images of the Greek and Roman world. Suidas’ misrepresentation of
Lucian’s allusions to the Christians and his fanciful picture of the sophist’s
end vilify much of this traditional vita. From Lucian’s own writings more
facts may be assembled.

Syrian by birth, he wrote in Greek and became a master of an Attic prose
style. As a boy he was apprenticed to a sculptor uncle, but quickly left work
with his hands for work with his tongue, studied rhetoric and oratory,
practiced as an advocate at Antioch, became a professional sophist and
travelled in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Gaul; about A.D. 165
settled at Athens where he lived twenty years, then near the end of his life

took an official post in Egypt under the Emperor and wrote an 145
Apology for so doing. Suidas’ description of his writings as
“innumerable” seems justified by the eighty-two prose works extant to say
nothing of two mock tragedies and fifty-three epigrams, now considered
spurious.

Though the great bulk of Lucian’s writings consists of Platonic and satiric
dialogues, he enters into the scope of this book as a writer of the satiric or
parody romance. For two of his writings, the True History and Lucius or
Ass, establish for us this new type of Greek romance. His True History is a
parody of all travellers’ tales from Odysseus’ to such as those of Antonius
Diogenes in The Wonderful Things beyond Thule. Probably this work of
Lucian had more literary influence than any of his other writings. His other
romance, of which we have only an epitome, Lucius or Ass, is, I believe, a
parody of the romance motivated mainly by religion. Its greatest value in its
present syncopated form is that it outlines a contemporary Greek
counterpart of the famous Latin novel, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, and
furnishes us with a touchstone for testing the pure gold of Apuleius’
originality.

Before, however, we can discuss Lucian’s art of narration in his two
romances, we must reconstruct from his own writings his literary
autobiography and his conceptions of his literary art. Only then when we
have met the critic self-criticized will we be competent to appreciate his
brilliant imaginative flights in his novels.

A dangerous temptation at once assails any one who starts to write on any
subject connected with Lucian. That is to attempt to cover the whole field of
his life and works because of the brilliancy of the many-sided facets of his
genius. A forcible deterrent is the fact that a masterly appreciation of La vie
et les œuvres de Lucien has already been written by Maurice Croiset 146
[292]
in his Essai which in richness and style alike is worthy of its
great theme. All subsequent studies of Lucian are inevitably founded on M.
Croiset’s appreciation.

Gildersleeve, following Croiset, pointed out that Lucian’s life must be
reconstructed from his own writings. And this within the scope of a brief

[293]
essay Gildersleeve did brilliantly for English readers fifty years ago.
From another angle I am attempting to do this same thing now in order to
make us acquainted before we read his stories with Lucian the story-teller.
[294]

Lucian’s early life is pictured in a brief speech called The Dream. This was
probably delivered in his native Syria on his return after his European
lecture-tour which made him famous as a Sophist. In a whimsical mixture
of fact and fancy he describes his choice of a career. As a young lad when
he had just finished school, Lucian was apprenticed to his mother’s brother,
a sculptor, to learn to be “a good stone-cutter, mason and sculptor.” On his
first day he struck a slab of marble so hard that he shattered it. Whereat his
uncle gave him such a violent beating that he ran home to his mother for
comfort. That night he had a vision. Two women were struggling to get
possession of him. They were vastly different in appearance and in the
appeals they made to him, for they were Sculpture and Education.
Sculpture, unkempt, speaking haltingly and like a barbarian, told Lucian
that if he came to her, he would live well, have strong shoulders, would
never go abroad, but would gain such fame as surrounded Phidias, 147
Polyclitus, Myron, Praxiteles. Education in her turn assured him that
even if he became a famous sculptor, he would be only a mechanic, living
by his hands; she herself has much more to offer him.

“If you follow my advice, first of all I shall show you many works of
men of old, tell you their wondrous deeds and words, and make you
conversant with almost all knowledge, and I shall ornament your soul,
which concerns you most, with many noble adornments—temperance,
justice, piety, kindliness, reasonableness, understanding, steadfastness,
love of all that is beautiful, ardour towards all that is sublime; for these
are the truly flawless jewels of the soul. Nothing that came to pass of old
will escape you, and nothing that must now come to pass; nay, you will
even foresee the future with me. In a word, I shall speedily teach you
[295]
everything that there is, whether it pertains to the gods or to man.”

Moreover, he will dress with distinction, will speak with eloquence. Finally
he may became as famous as Demosthenes or Aeschines. He must recall

that Socrates left sculpture for philosophy.

Lucian on hearing these two appeals gave himself to Education, who then
took him in a car with winged horses and from the air showed him the cities
and peoples of the world. After this vision she clothed him suitably and
returned him to his home. Lucian says he has told this dream “in order that
those who are young may take the better direction and cleave to education,
[296]
above all if poverty is making any one of them faint-hearted.”
[297]
Now although this choice of Lucian is based on the choice of Hercules
and although facts are clothed in fantasy, the picture of Lucian’s early
apprenticeship may well be true, for the boy’s delight in modelling little
figures of wax seems to forecast Lucian’s life-long interest in sculpture and
other art forms.

The next crisis in Lucian’s literary life is depicted in The Double 148
Indictment, a dialogue composed when the author was forty. In it
Lucian appears in court to answer two charges: one of the rhetoricians, for
giving up speech-making and essay-writing; the other of the philosophers,
for using their sacred Platonic dialogue for satire. Lucian’s trial takes place
on the Areopagus with Justice presiding, but the dialogue opens in heaven
with a long complaint by Zeus about the hard life of the gods especially his
own, no time for anything. Hermes who is listening tells him frankly that
there are many complaints among mortals on earth because of the slowness
of the law courts. Zeus then sends Hermes down to proclaim a session and
orders Justice to preside at it.

At this court, after various cases have been wittily disposed of, the Syrian is
called to face two indictments: Oratory versus the Syrian for neglect,
Dialogue versus the Syrian for maltreatment. Oratory first relates how she
found the plaintiff as a lad wandering in Ionia, speaking with a foreign
accent, dressed as a Syrian. She educated him and at his eager request
married him although all his dowry was wonderful speeches. Next she had
him made a citizen and then went travelling with him to Greece, Ionia, Italy
and Gaul. As he became famous, he grew indifferent to her, for he was
enamored of a bearded man, Dialogue, said to be the son of Philosophy.

Now he no longer makes speeches, but has a strange way of using short
questions. She sues him for desertion. The Syrian replies that all her facts
are true, but there are others; she lost her modesty, made up like a
courtesan, flirted indiscriminately with many lovers. So he separated from
her and went to live with a respectable gentleman, Dialogue. The Syrian
won the case.

Next Dialogue pleaded. His dignity, his cosmic thoughts, his tragic 149
mask have all been stolen from him. He has been forced to associate
with Jest, Satire, Cynicism, Eupolis and Aristophanes, “terrible men for
mocking at all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right,” finally too even
with Menippus. He has been transformed into a monster not homogeneous
but Centaur-like. The Syrian in reply showed the benefits which he had
bestowed on Dialogue: he taught him to walk like a man, to clean up, to
smile, to be yoked with Comedy. Dialogue resents that the Syrian will not
indulge in endless arguments on subtle themes. The Syrian declares that he
has not taken off Dialogue’s Greek cloak and put him into barbarian garb:
Dialogue is still dressed in his native Greek costume. The Syrian was
unanimously acquitted much to the delight of the audience. This mock-trial
picturesquely portrays Lucian’s change from writing the philosophical
dialogues in the style of Plato to the satiric dialogue, influenced
[298]
successively by New Attic Comedy, Menippus and Old Attic Comedy.
Lucian here is writing an Apology for the new style of satire-dialogue
which he created.

With similar wit but in various modes Lucian in other pieces satirizes now
Rhetoric, now Philosophy. An illuminating series of such dialogues is The
Professor of Oratory, Nigrinus, Philosophies for Sale, The Fisherman.

In The Professor of Oratory ironic advice is given to a young man on how
to become an orator and a sophist. The quest is noble and the way to
success is not difficult. The Lady Rhetoric sits fair and desirable on the top
of a high mountain attended by Wealth, Fame and Power. Thither two roads
lead. One is a narrow, steep and thorny path, the other an easy slope amid
flowers and fountains. Two guides will present themselves to you. One,
vigorous and manly, will point out to you the hard way in the 150
footprints of Demosthenes and Plato and will tell how severe the

training must be for their followers. He will wish, the simpleton, to make
you model yourself on the past.

The other guide is a pretty gentleman, daintily groomed and perfumed, with
an alluring smile and a honey voice. He will tell you that you can become
such an orator as he is if you carry as equipment ignorance, boldness,
shamelessness; if you dress in bright, diaphanous robes and always carry a
book! Your course of study will be the memorizing of a few stock words, a
few learned references for ornaments of your discourse. He will teach you a
high singsong chant and the art of always beginning with stories from the
Iliad.

Your fame will be secured by a well-trained chorus of applauders in your
audiences and by slanders of all your rivals. In private life you must live
fast with dice, wine and women, so you come to be talked of as a deuce of a
fellow, and amours will increase your income. Thus you will be fitted to be
the bridegroom of Rhetoric by driving furiously the winged chariot of
which Plato wrote. Your adviser is already getting out of your way, for he
was defeated when once you chose the primrose path. This picture of The
Perfect Rhetorician has been thought by some critics to be a personal satire
of the contemporary lexicographer Pollux. However that may be, it is
certainly a satire of any pseudo-professor of rhetoric who bases oratory on
cheap externalities and superficial training.

At another time Lucian was to satirize pseudo-philosophers as he had
rhetoricians, but once, perhaps in the beginning of revolt against rhetoric,
he chose to picture a noble type in the dialogue on Nigrinus, a philosopher
unknown except through Lucian. His great tribute to Nigrinus may be set as
a companion piece to the mocking praise of The Perfect Rhetorician. 151
The dialogue is prefaced by an introductory letter in which Lucian
tells Nigrinus that he is not carrying owls to Athens in offering him this
book as if to display his use of words, but he is sending it in thanks for
Nigrinus’ words. In the dialogue itself one man relates to another how by
talking with Nigrinus he was made free instead of a slave, poor instead of
rich. For Nigrinus praised philosophy and the freedom it gives and ridiculed
what men in general exalt: wealth, fame, power, honor. Nigrinus praised
Athens because there Poverty and Philosophy are foster-brothers; there life

is free, noble, harmonious. Rome is the city for those who love wealth and
luxury, wine and women. The Romans have given themselves over to the
pleasures of the senses and have every means of gratifying them. So
Nigrinus in Rome leads a life of retirement, conversing with Philosophy
and with Plato, reflecting on the ridiculous rich, the parasites, the pseudo-
philosophers, the will-hunters, the gourmands, the frequenters of the circus
and the baths. No wonder men come to him for healing.

The tribute to Platonism here, the tribute to Epicurus in Alexander the False
[299]
Prophet, might tempt readers to affiliate Lucian with one or the other of
these philosophical schools. But as if to forestall being labelled, in the spirit
of Horace’s famous line
[300]
nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri,

Lucian turns his satire on all the leading creeds of the time in his
Philosophies for Sale.

Zeus orders an auction of philosophies. Hermes acts as crier and auctioneer.
The buyer questions each person who is put up for sale on his knowledge,
on his creed, on his use. A Pythagorean is put up first by Hermes who 152
asks: “Who wishes to know about the harmony of the world and re-
birth?” The Pythagorean attempts to expound to the buyer the catharsis of
the spirit, the need of music and of geometry, the flux of the cosmos, the
divinity in numbers, the transmigration of souls. An Italian bought him for a
brotherhood in Magna Graecia for ten minas.

A Cynic is next displayed, dirty, morose, ready to bark at everyone. He
declares that Hercules is his model and that like Hercules he is a militant
reformer, working to clear the world of filth. He declares that he will teach
his purchaser to discard luxury, to endure hardship, to drink only water, to
throw his money into the sea, to reject all family ties, to live in a tomb or a
jar. So he will feel no pain even when flogged and will be happier than the
Great King. He will be bold, abusive, savage, shameless. For such a life no
education is necessary. The Cynic is sold for two obols.

The third called is the Cyrenaic, who appears clad in purple and crowned
with a wreath. Hermes announces that his philosophy is the sweetest,
indeed thrice blessed. As the Cyrenaic is too drunk to answer questions,
Hermes describes his virtues: he is pleasant to live with, congenial to drink
with, a companion for amours, and an excellent chef! There was no bid for
him!

Next two are put up together, the one who laughs and the one who cries.
The first explains his laughter on the ground that all men and all their affairs
are ridiculous; all things are folly, a mere drift of atoms. The weeper pities
men because their lives are foreordained and in them nothing is stable; men
themselves are mere pawns in the game of eternity and the gods are only
immortal men. No one bids for the pair.

An Academic next advertises his wares as a teacher of the art of love, 153
but claims that this love is of the soul, not of the body. He affirms
that he lives in a city fashioned by himself, where wives are held in
common, fair boys are prizes for valor, and realities are ideas, visible only
to the wise. He was bought for two talents.

A pupil of the laugher and the drunkard is now offered for sale, namely
Epicurus. The mere description of him as more irreverent than his teachers,
charming, fond of good eating, sells him for two minas.

The sad philosopher of the Porch is now announced by Hermes who
proclaims that he is selling virtue itself and that the Stoic is “the only wise
man, the only handsome man, the only just man, brave man, king, orator,
[301]
rich man, lawgiver, and everything else that there is.” His talk about
himself is full of hair-splitting dialectics and subtle explanations of why
man must devote himself “to the chief natural goods ... wealth, health, and
[301]
the like” and go through much toil for much learning. In spite of all this
he is bought for twenty minas.

The Peripatetic is also sold for twenty minas because he knows everything
but the Sceptic brings in only one mina because he knows nothing! The
auction ends with the announcement by Hermes of another sale the next day
of plain men, workmen, tradesmen.

Inevitably this ironic treatment of the great philosophies of Greece
produced a storm of criticism. This was answered by Lucian in an apology
of sorts under the title The Resurrected or The Fisherman. In it the satirist
under the pseudonym of Frankness faces his accusers. For up from the
dead, led by a militant Socrates, come to Athens Empedocles, Plato,
Aristotle and other phantoms to execute worthy dooms on the worst 154
of maligners. Frankness by rhetoric and argument averts stoning or
crucifixion and secures a fair trial, presided over by Philosophy, who is
attended by Truth, Investigation and Virtue. After Diogenes makes the
speech for the prosecution, Frankness replies in defense of himself—and
Lucian! He wins a unanimous verdict for acquittal by his claim that he
auctioned off, not the great philosophers who now prosecute him, but base
impostors who imitate them. Syllogism now acts as herald and calls from
Athens to court all the philosophers to defend themselves. Frankness by
promising largess secures a crowd of them, Platonists, Stoics, Peripatetics,
Epicureans, Academics. When Philosophy announces that they are to be
tried as impostors by herself, Virtue and Truth, they all disappear in wild
rout. To get them back, Frankness now becomes a fisherman and, with bait
of gold, hooks and hauls back the craven cheats. The head of each school
disowns his imitators and the discarded are thrown down over the cliffs.
Finally Philosophy dismisses the court with an injunction to Frankness to
keep investigating philosophers in order to crown the true and brand the
false.

The genial tone of Philosophies for Sale has entirely vanished in the essay
on The End of Peregrinus. The influence of New Comedy and of Menippus
with their ironic raillery is superseded by Aristophanic denunciation. Bitter
mockery, cruel derision are loosed upon one creed, the Cynic. Lucian
directs his vituperation against the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus, whose
career had been meteoric. In his early life he was converted to Christianity,
and even went to prison for his faith. Later, beliefs of India so possessed
him that he immolated himself at Olympia just after the Olympic games of
A.D. 165. Such self-sacrifice by cremation had been consummated at Susa
by Calanus before Alexander the Great and by Zarmarus after 155
initiation into the mysteries at Athens in the presence of Augustus.

Lucian saw only one possible interpretation of Peregrinus’ self-sacrifice,
desire for notoriety, but there have been many critics of this motivation as
[302]
Harmon points out:

“Lucian believes himself to be exposing a sham, whose zeal was not at
all for truth but only for applause and renown. Many notable modern
critics, including Zeller, Bernays, Croiset, and Wilamowitz, dissent from
his interpretation, discerning in the man an earnest seeker after truth; for
to them thirst for glory is not an adequate explanation of his final act.”

The piece is written as a letter to Cronius who is marked as a Platonist by
the formula of greeting εὖ πράττειν. Lucian begins with the fact of
Peregrinus’ self-imposed death and at once ascribes to him the motive of
love of notoriety. This, he says, is proved by the fact that Peregrinus
selected for the time of his suicide the Olympic festival, which draws great
crowds. Lucian knows that Cronius will have a good laugh at the
foolishness of the old man so he will write his friend just what he himself
saw as he stood near the pyre.

His method is clever. First Theagenes a Cynic proclaimed in the streets of
Elis the glory of virtue and the glory of her follower Proteus (Peregrinus)
and announced that Proteus was about to leave this life by fire in the
manner of Hercules, Aesculapius, Dionysus and Empedocles. Theagenes’
justification of the deed went unheard because of the noise of the crowd,
but another orator (clearly Lucian) stepped forth and made a speech
reviewing Peregrinus’ career. Beginning with Democritean laughter he
narrated the life of Proteus accusing him of adultery as a youth in 156
Armenia, of corrupting a boy in Asia, of strangling his own father, of
becoming a Christian in Palestine, of resigning all his property in Parium on
the Hellespont, of practicing the ascetic life in Egypt, of seeking notoriety
in Greece by denouncing Herodes Atticus for his aqueduct at Olympia and
later recanting. Finally, says Lucian, this Proteus has announced his
intention of cremating himself. The motive is love of fame though he claims
that he wishes thus to teach men to despise death and endure torture. He
plainly hopes that myths and a cult will arise around his memory. Indeed
Theagenes has quoted a prophecy to that effect, but Lucian can match that

oracle with another which orders all the Cynic’s disciples to imitate him
even to the last leap into the flames.

After these speeches, Lucian was on hand when the pyre was kindled at
Harpina near Olympia shortly after midnight. As an eye-witness he saw the
pyre in a pit six feet deep, Peregrinus in the dress of a Cynic bearing a
torch, men lighting the fire, how then Peregrinus stripped to his old shirt
and after crying: “Spirits of my mother and my father, receive me with
goodwill,” leaped into the flames to be seen no more. Even when the other
Cynics stood about the pyre in silent grief, Lucian felt no sympathy, but
taunted them brutally, and actually got into a broil with them before he
departed to meditate on how strange the love of fame is. Lucian had to tell
the story of Peregrinus’ death over and over until to amuse himself, he
invented a vulture that he saw flying from the flames to heaven, crying: “I
have left the earth, I am going to Olympus.” And this invention of his
became part of the growing myth about the hero.

“So ended (wrote Lucian) that poor wretch Proteus, a man who (to put it
briefly) never fixed his gaze on the verities, but always did and said
everything with a view to glory and the praise of the multitude, 157
even to the extent of leaping into fire, when he was sure not to
[303]
enjoy the praise because he could not hear it.”

Lucian concludes with anecdotes about Peregrinus sea-sick, in a fever,
having eye-trouble and trying to cure fever and correct vision as though
Aeacus in the lower world would care about either ailment. He was simply
furnishing Democritus with more cause for laughter. This heartless ridicule
of the Cynic’s action takes no account of the psychology of fanaticism or
the hysteria of martyrdom. Croiset points out that Lucian’s insensitivity to
all mysticism must be viewed with the knowledge that the satirist believed
Peregrinus was a sham and that he was unveiling an impostor. Lucian’s
consistent worship of veracity and frankness then explain his derisive
[304]
attitude towards the apotheosis of a pretender.

The savagery used in exposing a false philosopher was turned by Lucian
upon a religious fraud, Alexander of Abonoteichus. The piece is a letter to a

friend, Celsus, written after A.D. 180, ten years after Alexander’s death.
Lucian’s account gives almost all we know of this Alexander although his
existence and influence are attested by gems, coins and inscriptions. The
letter, however, as Croiset points out, contains more satire than history, for
it does not attempt to distinguish scrupulously between the false and the
true; rather it presents in lively anecdotes and personal reminiscences a
[305]
satiric portrait of an historical prophet. Cumont has commented on the
unique features of Abonoteichus’ version of the worship of Aesculapius: the
giving a serpent a human head and calling it the god incarnate; the issuing
of oracles and advice instead of using incubation or dealing particularly
[306]
with healing.

Lucian exposes all Alexander’s shams and corruptions. He describes 158
his handsome appearance and education, his cleverness in purchasing
a tame serpent and in selecting the site of Abonoteichus for his oracle. He
describes the installation of the serpent, the invention of the human head for
it, the exhibition of it, the methods of giving oracles, the prices, the
publicity, the “autophones,” cunningly contrived to issue from the serpent’s
mouth, the spread of his fame even to Italy. Lucian pictures too the perils
that menaced any critics of the oracle, the burning of the sayings of
Epicurus, the personal danger to himself. Lucian was advised by the
governor of Bithynia and Pontus not to prosecute Alexander for his
attempted murder so after the prophet’s death he wrote this account to
honor Epicurus and to present the truth to thinking minds. Personal revenge
then as well as horror at religious fraud motivated this biography. Lucian,
who derided Epicureans in Philosophies for Sale, chooses now to revere
their founder!

One of Lucian’s greatest works bears the title Parasites for Pay. It was
written and undoubtedly read to the public in the last part of his life before
[307]
he went to Egypt. It is not only very distinguished as a satire, but in it as
[308]
Gildersleeve points out “his sensitiveness for Greek honor, for the
honor of the people as well as for the honor of the literary class, manifests
itself in a way to do infinite credit to Lucian’s heart.” Harmon calls it “a

Hogarthian sketch of the life led by educated Greeks who attached
[309]
themselves to the households of great Roman lords—and ladies.”

The satire is in the form of a letter addressed to a friend Timocles who is
thinking of taking such a post. The case, says Lucian, is the same for 159
philosophers, grammarians, rhetoricians, and musicians. The motives
which apparently led men to accept such positions are poverty and pleasure,
but their recompense is small and they have no share in the luxury that
dazzled them. They overwork; their expenses in clothing and tips eat up
their stipends. Moreover their humiliations are incessant. The first dinner
given in their honor brings the strain of observing proper etiquette. Next
morning the conference about salary disappoints all hopes by the pittance
offered. But a man sells himself and never afterwards can feel free or noble:
he is a monkey with a chain around his neck. For he was not engaged to
discourse on Homer, Demosthenes, Plato, but because it looks well to have
a distinguished Greek philosopher with a long beard and a flowing robe in
his master’s suite. The day’s routine of service is exhausting and
humiliating, and the philosopher’s rivals for his lord’s favor are a gigolo, a
dancing master, an Alexandrian dwarf who recites erotic verses. The night’s
sleep is shattered by meditations on lost freedom and present servitude.

Such is life in the city, but a trip to the country is worse. Thermopolis had to
hold his lady’s puppy for her in the jolting carriage and the miserable little
dog kept licking his beard for relics of yesterday’s dinner and finally laid a
litter of puppies in the philosopher’s cloak. Other services of the parasite
include listening to the rich man’s literary compositions and delivering a
lecture on philosophy to the lady while her hair is being dressed or at the
dinner-table. And in the midst of a discourse on virtue a maid brings her a
letter from a paramour which she answers at once with a yes.

In time, envy and slander or the disabilities of old age cause the parasite’s
downfall and he is discarded on the rubbish heap. Such a career can 160
best be depicted in a symbolic painting of a hill on whose summit
golden Wealth resides. Hope, Deceit, Slavery help the traveller start on the
ascent. But Toil then escorts him on. And finally Old Age, Insolence and
Despair lead him until he is ejected by a hidden back door, naked,
deformed, ruined. Repentance meeting him cannot save him. Timocles is

urged before making his decision about the post offered him to meditate on
this picture and on Plato’s famous words: “God is not at fault; the fault is
[310]
his who maketh the choice.” This essay alone would justify Croiset’s
great tribute to Lucian’s independence of thought: “among his
contemporaries Lucian stands alone as an intelligence of a remarkable force
[311]
and independence which nothing could tame.”

It was natural that, when later Lucian accepted a post in civil service in
Egypt, he should anticipate reminders of his essay on Parasites for Pay on
[312]
the part of his friends and foes. His Apology answers their imaginary
criticisms of his inconsistencies. It is written in the form of a letter to a
friend. Lucian assures this Sabinus that he knows Sabinus enjoyed his
recent essay on Parasites, but now must be full of amazement at his friend’s
accepting a salaried post in Egypt. He imagines receiving an epistle from
[313]
Sabinus to this effect:

“The difference between your precept and practice is infinitely more
ridiculous; you draw a realistic word-picture of that servile life; you pour
contempt on the man who runs into the trap of a rich man’s house, where
a thousand degradations, half of them self-inflicted, await him; and then
in extreme old age, when you are on the border between life and death,
you take this miserable servitude upon you and make a sort of circus
exhibition of your chains. The conspicuousness of your position 161
will only make the more ridiculous that contrast between your
book and your life.”

Lucian in reply suggests various lines of self-defense: the compulsion of
Chance, Fate or Necessity; admiration of his patron’s character; the drive of
poverty, brought on by old age and ill health. But he rejects all these pleas.
His real defense is the difference between being a parasite and slave in the
house of a rich master and entering civil service to work for the state.
Lucian explains the dignity and the responsibility of the post he has
accepted in the service of the Emperor.

“What better use can you make of yourself than if you join forces with
your friends in the cause of progress, come out into the open, and let men
see that you are loyal and zealous and careful of your trust, not what
[314]
Homer calls a vain cumberer of the earth?”

Even this brief review of the writings which make up Lucian’s literary
autobiography shows the conflicting forces which strove for dominance
over his life. Sculpture and the Education of a Sophist first contended for
his favor and his choice of the orator’s training never destroyed his life-long
interest in art. Oratory which secured his service soon disillusionized him
because of her cheap followers. Plato and his philosophical dialogues for a
while controlled his mind and style, but, satire proving stronger in him than
reflective thinking, he created a new form of dialogue allied to Comedy and
Menippus for his medium of comment on the world. This form and the
epistle he used for satirizing sophistry and oratory, philosophy and religion,
always pointing out the counterfeit and the sham and distinguishing them
from the tested gold of verities. This same sort of touch-stone he applied in
his Apology to his own life to vindicate his maintenance of personal
freedom. The traveller, the sophist, the satirist, now become civil 162
servant of the Emperor, admits no chain about his neck.

As regards his literary art he has revealed that his main ideals are frankness,
truth and freedom. In his works he establishes warm human contacts with
his hearer or reader. His Greek style achieves a pure Attic simplicity of
[315]
expression and by it, as Croiset says, he clothes abstract ideas in words
which give them body and form. The main qualities of his style, spirit and
imagination, unite in the effective descriptions and narrations which fill his
works. His wealth of ideas found expression in realistic details noted with
keen observation and assembled in realistic series to give vitality to his
prose.

One work by Lucian is a specific treatise on writing and peculiarly
significant for his literary autobiography. That is the essay on How History
Should Be Written. It was composed as a letter to a friend Philo in the time
of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The occasion was the sudden
spawning of a whole shoal of would-be historians after the Roman victories

in the war with the Parthians (A.D. 165). Outraged by these scribblers,
Lucian sets forth his thoughts on the True Historian.

Since the barbarian war began, says Lucian, everyone is writing history. It
is just as when an epidemic of madness at Abdera made all the people chant
tragedies. It recalls too Diogenes, who, when Corinth was in danger of a
siege from Philip and the citizens were hurrying defense measures, kept
rolling his jar up and down hill that he might seem as busy as the rest of the
world. Lucian’s advice will include the faults of historians which are to be
avoided, the virtues to be cultivated.

History must not be written as panegyric. History must not be written as
poetry. Among the faults of contemporary historians are lack of taste, 163
over-abundance of details, purple patches, inaccuracies about facts.

“There are some ... who leave alone, or deal very cursorily with, all that
is great and memorable; amateurs and not artists, they have no selective
faculty, and loiter over copious laboured descriptions of the various
trifles; it is as if a visitor to Olympia, instead of examining, commending
or describing to his stay-at-home friends the general greatness and beauty
of the Zeus, were to be struck with the exact symmetry and polish of its
footstool, or the proportions of its shoe, and give all his attention to these
[316]
minor points.”

Indispensable qualities of the ideal historian are political insight and ability
[317]
in writing. His “one task is to tell the thing as it happened.” He will be
“fearless, incorruptible, independent, a believer in frankness and veracity;
one that will call a spade a spade, make no concession to likes and dislikes,
nor spare any men for pity or respect or propriety; an impartial judge, kind
to all, but too kind to none; a literary cosmopolite with neither suzerain nor
king, never heeding what this or that man may think, but setting down the
[317]
thing that befell.” Thucydides fulfills this ideal.

In diction and style, the marks of the true historian are frankness and truth,
lucidity and simplicity. The preface should be in proportion to the subject.
“The body of the history ... is nothing from beginning to end but a long

narrative; it must therefore be graced with the narrative virtues—smooth,
level, and consistent progress, neither soaring nor crawling, and the charm
of lucidity.” “Brevity is always desirable.” “Restraint in descriptions of
mountains, walls, rivers, and the like, is very important.” If a speech is
introduced, “the first requirement is that it should suit the character both of
the speaker and of the occasion.” “It may occasionally happen that some
extraordinary story has to be introduced; it should be simply 164
narrated, without guarantee of its truth, thrown down for any-one to
make what he can of it.” The historian should write not for the present, but
for eternity. He should hope to have said of himself: “This was a man
indeed, free and free-spoken; flattery and servility were not in him; he was
[318]
truth all through.”

Gildersleeve was probably right in calling the True History “a comic sequel
[319]
to a brilliant essay entitled ‘How to write History.’” The traditional
manuscript order which places the True History after How History Should
Be Written seems so aptly prompted by Lucianic irony. For this romance in
two books is not history at all and has nothing of Lucian’s primary
requirement for history, that it should be true! It is a work of pure
imagination, one of the earliest accounts of fictitious voyages and as such is
[320]
part of the great tradition from the Odyssey to Gulliver’s Travels.
Lucian’s preface explains both the nature of the piece and his reasons for
[321]
writing it.

The True History like many good stories is told in the first person by Lucian
himself. The author, moreover, preludes and interrupts the narrative to get
in direct touch with his reader. In his introduction, he states that his purpose
in writing is to furnish to students some reading that will give relaxation,
but at the same time “a little food for thought.” The story is bound to charm,
Lucian thinks, because of the novelty of the subject, the humor of the plan,
the plausible lying involved and the comical parodies of such authors as
Ctesias, Iambulus, and Homer in his Odyssey. Lucian confesses to 165
being a liar with the best of them, but affirms that his lying is unique
in being honest because he admits it.

“Be it understood, then, that I am writing about things which I have
neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others—which, in fact,
do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist. Therefore my
[322]
readers should on no account believe in them.”

In spite of this confession, Lucian here and there in his story tries to create
an atmosphere of veracity by protestations of it. As he never saw the Corn
Sparrow forces or the Crane Knights, he does not venture to relate the
[323]
marvellous and incredible stories told about them. When he describes
the magic mirror over a well in the Moon which furnished him television of
his family and country he says that disbelievers by going there will find he
[324]
tells the truth. In the Island of the Wicked, Lucian finds all liars, both
those who had told lies on earth or written them, among the latter Ctesias
and Herodotus. “On seeing them,” he says, “I had good hopes for the future,
[325]
for I have never told a lie that I know of.” The last sentence of the
romance is: “What happened in the other world I shall tell you in the
[326]
succeeding books.” This, a Greek scholiast comments, is the greatest lie
of all!

Now after having seen what a wag Lucian is from his own words, we must
decide how we are going to take him. Are we to seek in him relaxation and
entertainment (the gift of all true romance) or are we going to marshal our
“little learning” to meet his and study all his sources, his parodies of
historians and philosophers, or search for allegories in his fantastic worlds?
The happy way will be along the path of the golden mean. Gildersleeve put
up a sign-board to it and inscribed directions for future travellers. 166

“To enjoy the show properly, it is far better for the reader to give himself
up to this play of Lucian’s fancy than to endeavor to unriddle whatever
satire of contemporary literature may lie concealed in its allegory....
There may be profound meaning in the war which breaks out between the
Sunburghers under Phaêthon, and the Moonburghers under Endymion,
which begins with the attempt of the Moonburghers to found a colony on
the desert planet of Lucifer, and which ends with the victory of the

Sunburghers, Lucifer being declared common property and the
vanquished compelled to pay an annual tribute of ten thousand amphoreis
of dew. But so elastic are all such allegories that they can be stretched to
fit anything, and the war of these Heliotes and Selenites would answer to
describe the conflict between orthodoxy and rationalism, and Lucifer
would stand for the coming man. But how much better to look with
childish interest on the marshalling of Horsevultures and
Chickpeashooters and Garlickfighters and Flea-archers and Wind-
runners, and to watch the huge spiders spin their web from the moon to
[327]
Lucifer.”

So after realizing that we too may visit the Isles of the Blessed and the
Wicked, may soar up to Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland or dive under the
sea in the brother of Jonah’s whale, or see Sinbad’s roc, let us begin at the
beginning. Let the lights go out and the curtain go up. Let us watch
breathlessly an ancient Walt Disney fantasy rush across the screen. The very
names of countries and peoples add to the excitement as the panorama
unrolls. And so vivid are Lucian’s descriptions that as in all good movies
soon we find ourselves participating in his adventures. Having set out from
the Pillars of Hercules with fifty men on a good ship, on the eightieth day
we come to a wooded island. Here huge footprints and an inscription reveal
that Hercules and Dionysus were here before us. And no wonder, for this is
the Isle of Wines: grape-vines produce springs of wine, springs feed rivers,
rivers produce fish that eaten make people drunk. And there is a 167
species of vine that is half grape and half lady like Daphne turning
into a laurel and the kiss of the Vine-woman brings intoxication and her
embrace is a prison. We lost two of our men to that captivity.

As we set sail, a whirlwind lifted the ship and she became a hydroplane,
sailing through the air for seven days and seven nights. The island where
then we landed proved to be the Moon. Endymion is the King so of course
he spoke Greek and we at once joined his forces for he had a war on with
the Men of the Sun, whose King is Phaethon. It was all about which should
colonize the Morning Star. Our fellow Moonites were as strange as their
names: Vulture Knights, Grass Plumes, Pea Shooters, Garlic Warriors, Flea
Bowmen, Wind Aviators, Corn Sparrows and Crane Knights. And
Phaethon’s Heliotes were as fantastic: Ant Knights, Mosquito Aviators,

Dance Aviators, Stalk Mushrooms, Dog-faced Knights, Cloud Centaurs. A
fierce battle we had and the Men of the Sun won because they cut off light
from the Moon so Endymion surrendered. We saw strange marvels in our
stay on the Moon: how men are the child-bearers; how their clothing is
made of glass or bronze; their eyes are removable; they have a mirror over a
well in which they can see what happens in far distant lands.

As we voyaged onward, we came to many other countries: to the Morning
Star which was just being colonized, to Lamp Town where among the
inhabitants Lucian found his own Lamp which gave him news of home, to
Cloudcuckooland which Aristophanes described so truthfully. But after such
interesting scenes, disaster fell upon us. A monstrous whale bore down upon
us and in a trice swallowed us, ship and all.

When we recovered from our terror, we found that life inside a whale 168
is confined but not impossible. We discovered an island where we
beached our boat. The whale opened his mouth once an hour so we could
mark time and get the points of the compass. And we soon met other men
there, a Cypriote called Scintharus and his son. Scintharus told us about the
other inhabitants of the whale, who were savage barbarians, and always
ready to attack them. We thought best to join Scintharus in subduing these
enemies, but the fight was fierce for there were scores of these Lobsters,
Crabhands, Tunnyheads, Seagoats, Crawfish Coots and Solefish. After our
victory, we lived fairly well in the whale for a year and eight months. In the
ninth month, we saw through the teeth of our monster the most terrifying
battle, a sea-fight between men riding on huge islands each of which carried
about one hundred and twenty.

In spite of seeing such dangers outside, we decided finally that we must
escape from our prison. We used fire as a weapon, set the forest at the tail-
end aflame and after twelve days found that the whale was going to die. Just
in time we propped open his mouth with huge beams and the next day when
he expired, out we went on our good ship and felt once more the wind in
our sails. Fair weather did not last long. A terrible northern gale descended
and froze all the sea to a depth of six fathoms. Scintharus, who was now our
ship-master, saved us by directing us to excavate a cave-home in the ice. In
it we lived for thirty days, building a fire and cooking the fish we cut out of

the ice. When food gave out, we dug out the boat and sailed over the ice as
though it were the sea until on the fifth day we came to open water. Now we
kept coming to various islands. We got water at one and at the next one
milk, for this island had grapes whose juice was milk, and its earth was
cheese. It was easy to subsist there! Next we passed the Isle of Cork 169
where the city is built on a cork foundation and the men have feet of
cork so that they can run over the waters as they will, buoyed up by their
own life-preservers!

Happiest of all our stays was that on the Island of the Blessed. Here it is
always spring. Every month the vines yield grapes and the trees fruit. It is a
land flowing with milk and wine. Glass trees furnish goblets which fill
automatically at the banquet. Baked loaves of bread are plucked from trees.
Beside the table are two springs, one of laughter, one of joy, and with
draughts from these the banqueters start their revels. Famous men dwell
there. I saw Socrates surrounded by fair young men arguing with Nestor
and Palamedes. Plato preferred to live in his own Republic. The followers
of Aristippus and Epicurus were considered the best of companions, but
Diogenes the Cynic had reformed, married Lais and taken to dancing. The
Stoics had not yet arrived for they were still toiling up the steep hill of
virtue. Conversation with Homer was one of the greatest pleasures,
especially as he settled the matter of his birthplace by declaring himself a
Babylonian and solved the Homeric question by affirming that he had
written all the lines attributed to him. Beside literary talks, there were
games for the Dead.

Even the Island of the Blessed could not be free from wars, for the Wicked
invaded it and had to be expelled by force. Homer wrote a new epic on the
fight of the dead heroes. The Island had its scandals too all due again to
Helen. For she bewitched Scintharus’ son and tried to elope with him, but
was caught. That episode caused our expulsion from the Island of the
Blessed. Before we left, Homer wrote a couplet for Lucian which he had
carved on a stele of beryl and Odysseus secretly gave him a letter for
Calypso.

We touched at the Isle of the Wicked and at the Isle of Dreams, 170
where we slept thirty days and next we put in at Ogygia. Lucian read

Odysseus’ letter before he delivered it to Calypso and found he had always
regretted leaving her! For Odysseus’ sake, Calypso entertained us royally.

Next we fell into danger from the Pumpkin Pirates and the Hardshell Pirates
and the Dolphin-Riders, but we escaped them all. One night we ran aground
on the marvellous and mighty nest of a king-fisher. And a little further on in
the sea we came to a forest of rootless trees which we could not penetrate.
There was nothing to do but haul the ship up to their tops and take “a forest
cruise” across. More marvellous still we had to cross a water-chasm on a
water bridge, a river-way between two water precipices. After that we came
to the Isle of the Bellowing Bullheads, men like Minotaurs, and had some
skirmishes with them. And then we came to an Island of Fair Ladies who
wished to take us to bed with them, but Lucian discovered that they all had
ass-legs and that they ate strangers when they had cozened them to sleep.
So we departed in haste. At dawn we saw the land which is on the other side
of the world from ours and there we were shipwrecked. What happened
there will be another story.

This review of the two books of Lucian’s True History reveals at once its
startling differences from the other Greek romances of the early Empire.
Romantic love does not figure in it. Religion has little or no place in it.
Adventures are its bones and sinews. These adventures though described
realistically are all figments of the imagination, explorations of the
Wonderful Things beyond Thule as much as those of Antonius Diogenes
must have been. The coloring of the pictures is an amazing mixture 171
of realism and fantasy. The veracity of sense impressions almost
converts doubting Thomases. Lucian comes to seem no mean rival of
Herodotus, the Father of Lies. Only occasionally some satiric laughter
betrays him.

It is perhaps easier for twentieth century readers to accept his wonders than
it was for his contemporaries of the second century. Science has developed
so many of his imaginative forecasts. The monstrous footprints of Hercules
and Dionysus might be rock-prints of dinosaurs. The plunging whale is a
submarine. His ship lifting from the ocean to sail through the air has
become the hydroplane. His island galleys bearing one hundred and twenty
men each are our battleships. The Cloud Centaurs who fight in the air are

our aviators. Arctic explorers have lived in huts made of ice-blocks. Ice-
sailing is a recognized winter sport. Clothing is made not of glass or bronze,
but of cellulose and steel. Removable eyes suggest spectacles, contact
lenses and field-glasses. The Cork-footed Men must have resembled surf
riders. And the magic mirror over the well anticipated the perforated sphere
of television.

But his contemporaries had the advantage of us in recognizing Lucian’s
sources and parodies more readily than we can. For us, Antonius Diogenes,
Ctesias and Iambulus are lost. Yet Photius records that the romance of
Antonius Diogenes, The Wonders beyond Thule, was the chief source of
Lucian’s True History. So many, however, are the sources which Lucian
used to forward his avowed purpose of furnishing relaxation accompanied
by some learning, that scholars have busied themselves for years tracing
[328]
parallels with Greek and Latin authors. Allinson remarks wisely: 172
“In general, it seems safe to conclude that Lucian regarded the writings of
predecessors and contemporaries as an open quarry from which he first
built up his own style and then picked out material to imbed, with an artist’s
[329]
skill, in the parti-coloured mosaic of his satire.”

Some idea of Lucian’s parody of his sources may be gained, even though
Antonius Diogenes is lost, from his incidental flings at great Greeks and
from his constant references to Homer which are a mixture of admiration
and irony. So when he saw Cloudcuckooland he remembered Aristophanes
the poet, “a wise and truthful man whose writings are distrusted without
[330]
reason.” On the Island of the Blessed he did not find Plato for he
preferred to live in the city of his imagination under his own constitution
and laws. Yet he might well have been in Elysium for the inhabitants are
[331]
most Platonic in sharing their wives. The solemn treaty which ended the
wars between the Men of the Sun and the Men of the Moon has a comical
resemblance to the treaty between Athens and Sparta which Thucydides
records though it is signed by Fireman, Hotman, and Burner, by Nightman,
[332]
Moonman and Allbright.

Herodotus comes in for more imitation, for he furnishes stories of ants
[333] [334]
bigger than foxes, of dog-headed men, of men who feed on odors,
[335] [336] [337]
of a feast of lanterns in Egypt, of a floating island, of the sea
[338] [339]
freezing, of a breeze that bears the perfume of Arabia. But when
Lucian solemnly imitates these exaggerations, we feel he has his tongue in
his cheek and our suspicion is confirmed when he consigns Ctesias 173
[340]
and Herodotus to the limbo of Liars in the Island of the Wicked.

Lucian’s treatment of Homer shows his most genial irony. In his preface he
makes Homer’s Odysseus the guide and teacher of all historians of
imaginary travels, Odysseus “who tells Alcinous and his court about winds
in bondage, one-eyed men, cannibals and savages; also about animals with
many heads, and transformations of his comrades wrought with drugs,” and
[341]
with such marvels “humbugged the illiterate Phaeacians.” But in the
Island of the Blessed, Homer is the shade in whose talk Lucian most
delights. Homer indeed is most affable in discussing all the literary
problems of his epics, especially since he had just won a lawsuit in which
[342]
Thersites accused him of libel, through the aid of his lawyer Odysseus.
Homer as a shade is still writing for when there was war in heaven, he
[343]
produced a new epic about the battle of the shades of the heroes, which
Lucian unfortunately lost on the way home, and on Lucian’s departure
Homer composed a commemorative epigram which described him as dear
[344]
to the blessed gods.

Lucian introduces Homer’s characters into his scenes. Achilles is one of the
most honored heroes on the Island of the Blessed, serving as joint judge
[345]
with Theseus at the Games of the Dead. Helen is the leading lady in the
court-room scene where Rhadamanthus had to decide whose wife she
should be in Elysium. She has forgiven Stesichorus for saying she caused
[346]
the Trojan War. But she creates a new scandal by trying to desert
[347]
Menelaus again in an elopement with Scintharus’ son. Calypso on

receiving Odysseus’ letter from Lucian’s hand weeps as she reads 174
that he always regretted giving up his life with her, and then with true
feminine curiosity asks how Penelope is looking now and whether she is as
wise as Odysseus used to boast. Lucian made such replies as he thought
[348]
would gratify her!

Minor episodes are reminiscent of the Odyssey. Rhadamanthus gives
[349]
Lucian a talisman of mallow as Hermes gave Odysseus the moly. To the
Land of Dreams Lucian must erect four gates in place of Homer’s two, one
[350]
of horn, one of ivory. And the Singing Sirens that tried to beguile
Odysseus have been metamorphosed into fair young ladies in long chitons
[351]
which conceal the legs of she-asses. But whatever changes are made in
the source-material taken from the Odyssey, Lucian’s gentle raillery does
not hide his admiration of great Homer. He gives the lie to the myth that
[352]
Homer was blind. And in the contest of the poets at the Games of the
Dead in the Island of the Blessed, he ironically makes Hesiod the victor
though he affirms that in truth Homer was by far the best of poets.

Lucian’s style in his True History illustrates many of his own criteria for
writing history. The short preface is in proportion to the short two-book
True History. The narrative is concise, rapid, lucid and shows consistent
progress, one event following naturally and quickly upon another without
extravagant use of details. The few speeches are short, lively and suited to
the character of the speaker. The descriptions are realistic and pointed.
Extraordinary stories are told simply with an appearance of veracity.

A few typical elements of the Greek Romances appear in the True History.
There is a suggestion of a court-room scene where Rhadamanthus 175
judges Helen’s accomplices in escape. One letter is inserted,
Odysseus’ to Calypso, for the purpose of ironic satire of Homeric
characters. An inscription on bronze is discovered and a laudatory couplet
in hexameter is composed and inscribed on stone. But love and religion, the
commonest themes of the Greek Romances, are eliminated from this tale of
marvellous adventures.

Satire though this story is, it ranks easily first among imaginary voyagings
both in fantasy and style. In his narration Lucian pours all his spirit, his
liveliness of observation, his brilliant imagination, his vivacious wit. His
own enjoyment in his facile, marvellous inventions is contagious. As he
rushes his breathless readers over the earth, through the air, under the sea,
as he introduces us to innumerable natural phenomena and monstrous
beings, he convinces us that this world of fantasy is a real world. He has
made many others wish to record similar travels, for the True History is the
model of all those imaginary voyages with which Rabelais, Cyrano de
Bergerac, Swift, Voltaire and others amused their contemporaries. No work
[353]
of Lucian found so many imitators as this.

The readers of Lucian’s True History on finishing it feel that they have
drunk with him more from his eternal springs of joy and laughter than from
his irony, in fact that his irony gives only a few drops of angostura bitters to
the heady cocktails of his wit. And at the end the readers of this romance
[354]
are ready today to salute the shade of Lucian as Andrew Lang did:

“In what bower, oh Lucian, of your rediscovered Islands Fortunate are
you now reclining; the delight of the fair, the learned, the witty, and the
brave?...

“There, among the vines that bear twelve times in the year, more 176
excellent than all the vineyards of Touraine, while the song-birds
bring you flowers from vales enchanted, and the shapes of the Blessed
come and go, beautiful in wind-woven raiment of sunset hues; there, in a
land that knows not age, nor winter, midnight, nor autumn, nor noon,
where the silver twilight of summer-dawn is perennial, where youth does
not wax spectre-pale and die; there, my Lucian, you are crowned the
Prince of the Paradise of Mirth.”

It may seem anti-climax to turn from the True History to Lucian’s other
romance, the Metamorphoses, for the second exists only in an epitome by
another hand. Since however this epitome is included in all the best
manuscripts and has been proved conclusively by B. E. Perry to be a
condensation of an original Metamorphoses by Lucian on the basis of spirit,

vocabulary, syntax and phraseology, we must try to form some idea of this
[355]
other romance.

As the True History is a satire of travellers’ tales, this epitome, Lucius or
Ass, is primarily a satire of magic and magic rites. Just as in the True
History not only epic poets and historians were parodied, but philosophers
came in for their share of ironic comment, so in Lucius or Ass satire is
directed not merely against magicians, but also against corrupt priests and
frail women. The satire is of the earth, earthy, very near the folk-story from
which it may have originated. Lucius or Ass is Everyman in his credulity,
gullibility and bestiality. The only heroines in his murky world are a witch-
woman and a corrupt maid. This epitome has two great values: it gives us
some idea of Lucian’s lost Metamorphoses, and hence affords a basis for
comparison with Apuleius’ great Latin novel Metamorphoses. It will prove
convenient I hope, to have a rather full outline presented here in English for
purposes of discussion and comparison. This Greek Lucius or Ass 177
like the True History is written in the first person, but Lucius of
Patrae, the hero, not the author, is the narrator. In my brief résumé, I have
found it clearer to write Lucius’ account in the third person.

Once upon a time on a journey to Thessaly Lucius inquires of some fellow
travellers whereabouts in the city of Hypata a man named Hipparchus lives,
for he is carrying a letter of introduction to him. On his arrival he stays at
Hipparchus’ house. Only his wife and a maid Palaestra lived with him. On
his host’s inquiring the object of his travels, Lucius says he is on his way to
Larissa. He conceals the fact that he is searching for women who deal in
magic. While walking around the city, he meets an old friend of his mother
named Abroea, who warns him against the wife of Hipparchus because she
is a witch. Lucius, delighted with this news, returns to Hipparchus’ house
and in the absence of his host and hostess makes love to Palaestra with the
purpose of persuading the maid to acquaint him with her mistress’ magic
powers. At the close of a night of revel, Lucius persuades Palaestra to show
him her mistress at her magic rites.

A few nights later Palaestra fulfills her promise by leading Lucius at dead of
night to the door of her lady’s bedroom where through a crack he can watch
her proceedings. She mutters to her lamp. She strips. She rubs her naked

body with ointment from a little box. Gradually she is transformed into an
owl and flies away to her lover. Lucius then prevails upon Palaestra to let
him attempt the same transformation. By ill luck the maid brings him the
wrong box of ointment so that he is changed not into a bird, but into an ass.
Palaestra soothingly assures him that the antidote is simple, just a meal of
roses, and if her dearest will pass the night quietly in the stable, in the 178
morning she will gather the flowers and recover her Lucius.

But this simple plan gangs a-gley, for in the night robbers raid the house,
secure much booty and to carry it steal also the horse and the real ass of
Hipparchus and Lucius. So the man-ass, heavily burdened, is driven to the
robbers’ home. One old woman is their care-taker. Several days later the
robbers return from one of their forays bringing in as booty a young woman
whom they have kidnapped. Later on in the absence of the brigands the girl
tries to escape riding on the ass, but both are captured by the robbers. On
their return, they find that the old woman in terror has hanged herself.

The robbers plan a dreadful punishment for the culprits: to kill the ass,
disembowel him and sew the girl up alive in his paunch to die by slow
torture. But before they achieve this horror, a company of soldiers arrives,
captures the whole band and carries them off to a magistrate. They had been
conducted to the robbers’ den by the fiancé of the girl. He now escorts her
home on the honored ass Lucius.

After the wedding of the happy pair, the bride persuades her father to
reward the ass her benefactor so he is to be turned out into pasture with the
she-asses. But the servant to whom the care of the ass is intrusted wickedly
takes him home and makes him labor first in a mill, then carrying fagots on
a steep mountain, where a cruel driver mistreats him. In the midst of his
sufferings, news comes that the bride and groom have been drowned on the
seashore. So since their new masters are dead, the servants all flee, taking
the ass with them. They sell him in a city of Macedonia to a eunuch priest
of a Syrian goddess. In his life with the priests, Lucius is so horrified by
their impure practices that he brays loudly in protest. The noise 179
brings up some passing peasants who go off to tell the village the
obscenities they have witnessed. The priests have to flee for their lives, but
first they nearly kill the ass by beating him for his braying.

Lucius is in danger of his life again at the house of a rich man where they
stop. For the servants who have lost the meat of a wild ass which was to be
the dinner (the dogs stole it), plot to kill Lucius and serve up his flesh. He
saves himself only by running away from the cook. The priests are now
arrested because they are found in possession of a golden phiale which they
stole from a temple, and the ass is sold to a baker. In the mill Lucius is so
worn down by the hard work that he is sold as worthless to an old gardener.
On the way to town, this gardener has a quarrel with a soldier and nearly
kills him so the gardener and the ass have to go into hiding. Stupid Lucius
betrays their hiding place by putting his head out of an upper window to see
what is going on. Captured he is given to the soldier, but he soon sells him
to a cook. Now Lucius fattens on good food by surreptitious filching of
choice portions which the cook and his brother had reserved for themselves.
By a little detective work the brothers discover that the thief is the ass. They
show him eating men’s food to their master, who promptly buys the ass, has
a servant train him to act like a man (easy lessons for Lucius!) and exhibits
him for admission fees. A woman buys a night with him and has intercourse
with him.

Then his master purposes to exhibit him couched with a woman (a
condemned criminal) at a public festival. The scene is all set when some
one comes up to Lucius and the woman at the banquet table bearing, among
other flowers, roses. At last the ass has his meal of restorative flowers 180
and becomes once more Lucius. He appeals to the magistrate for
protection against those who cry he is a magician and must be killed. He
informs the governor that his name is Lucius, he has a brother Gaius, both
have the same two other names; that he himself is a writer of stories and his
brother is an elegiac poet and a good prophet. The magistrate believing his
story gives him hospitality. Lucius’ brother comes to take him home, but
first Lucius thought it fitting to call on the woman who had given him her
love when he was an ass. He is chagrined to find that as a man he has no
charm for her! He sails with his brother to Patrae and there sacrifices to the
gods who have saved him.

No other work attributed to Lucian has aroused greater controversy than
Lucius or Ass. All the literature about it is reviewed in Ben Edwin Perry’s
epoch-making book The Metamorphoses Ascribed to Lucius of Patrae,

which conclusively proves that Lucius or Ass is an epitome of Lucian’s
Metamorphoses, made by another writer. Perry analyzes Photius’
description of the lost Greek Metamorphoses with its theory of the three
[356]
versions of the ass-story, and proves that Photius’ one mistake was in
thinking that the name Lucius of Patrae referred to an author of a third
Metamorphoses, which was probably the original of Lucian’s and Apuleius’
stories: Lucius of Patrae in Lucius or Ass is the hero-narrator, not the author.
Perry then with convincing logic reconstructs the probable content of the
Metamorphoses of which Lucius or Ass is an epitome and with the same
irrefutable reasoning discusses the nature of this original Greek novel. The
basis of it was a folk-lore story of a transformation. The style was plain, the
narrative rapid, the tone ironic. The narrator keeps the character of the hero
of the adventures and never identifies himself with the author. The 181
character of the hero is that of “an unique clown” with an absorbing
and credulous interest in strange phenomena especially transformations.
The final proof that the Metamorphoses was satirical is “the simple fact that
the Eselmensch is a litterateur and an investigator of marvels.” “The generic
title shows that the author regarded his story as a kind of commentary on
the subject of metamorphoses, and writers who interested themselves in
[357]
such things.”

This author, “second century Atticist, humorist, and satirist,” can be none
other than Lucian himself, for the Greek Metamorphoses is Lucianic in
type, is a relaxation from serious work as is the True History; it shows the
same satire of credulity that other works of Lucian (for example the
Alexander) did; and it is colored by the same ironic humor. The epitome
contains a striking Lucianic element although this is overlaid by
philological errors. Perry also analyzes resemblances and differences
between the reconstructed Metamorphoses of Lucian and Apuleius’ novel,
but this discussion I shall reserve for the next chapter.

Lucius or Ass is valuable in proving that Lucian wrote not one but two
romances; that in both he developed a new type of romance, the satiric; that
in each he maintained the same great qualities which mark his other
writings: the quest for truth, intolerance of fraud and credulity; keen
observation and realistic description; condensation, rapidity, clarity;

dramatic irony. The two romances also show more than any other of
Lucian’s writings his brilliant imaginative powers.

A postscript to this discussion of Lucian’s satiric romances may well
include an account of a novel in miniature which appears in one of his
dialogues. Writing in the second century he was of course thoroughly 182
familiar with the conventional type of the Greek romance. Though
this statement might be accepted a priori, certain evidence of it is furnished
by his insertion in his Toxaris of an epitome of a Scythian romance of love
and adventure. The Toxaris is a Platonic dialogue written probably about
A.D. 165, in Lucian’s period of transition from purely rhetorical writings to
[358]
those of moral or religious satire. In it a Greek Mnesippus and a
Scythian Toxaris discuss friendship each giving five illustrations of famous
instances in his own country. The longest one related is a Scythian romance
[359]
told by Toxaris. Rostovtzeff has shown that Lucian probably had in his
hands a Greek romance with a Scythian background, for papyri fragments
furnish incontrovertible evidence of a similar Scythian romance in Greek
[360]
dating from the second century A.D.

The story as told by Lucian is melodramatic. It relates the devotion of three
Scythians, Macentes, Lonchates and Arsacomas, who had pledged to each
other friendship for life and death in the old Scythian way of shedding some
of their blood into a cup and quaffing it together. Now Arsacomas, who had
gone on a mission to Leucanor, king of Bosporus, there fell madly in love at
first sight with his daughter Mazaea. At a banquet when suitors were
bidding for the hand of the princess with proud lists of their possessions, all
Arsacomas could boast of was his two fair, brave friends. The Bosporans
laughed him to scorn and the girl was awarded to Adyrmachus, who the
next day was to convey his bride to the land of the Machlyans.

The outraged Arsacomas rushing home told his friends how he and 183
their friendship had been ridiculed and the three as one man planned
immediate vengeance. Lonchates promised to bring Arsacomas the head of
Leucanor. Macentes was to kidnap the bride. Arsacomas was to stay at
home and raise an army on the ox-hide for the war that would surely follow.
All proceeded according to schedule. Arsacomas slew an ox, cut up and

cooked the meat, spread the hide on the ground and sat on it with his hands
held behind him. This is the greatest appeal for aid possible for a man who
desires to secure help for vengeance. His friends and kinsmen coming
accepted each a portion of the meat, set right foot on the hide and pledged
as much aid as he could. So a goodly army was raised.

Lonchates went to Bosporus, pretending he had come as a friend to offer aid
against Arsacomas’ planned invasion. King Leucanor alarmed by the news
of an imminent Scythian attack was lured alone into the temple of Ares to
take a secret oath of friendship with Lonchates. There Lonchates murdered
him, cut off his head and escaped with it under his cloak before the guards
outside knew what had happened.

Macentes too used subterfuge, for hurrying to the Machlyans he reported
King Leucanor’s death, said falsely that the Bosporans called Adyrmachus
as his son-in-law to be their king, and offered while Adyrmachus rode at
full speed to them, to escort after him his bride Mazaea in the wagon-train,
for she, he claimed, was a relative of his own. This plan worked so
smoothly that Macentes, when night came on, took Mazaea from her
carriage, put her on his horse with himself and galloped off with her to
Arsacomas. The horse dropped dead at the end but the kidnapped bride was
delivered. Then all three friends united in the battle against Adyrmachus,
slew him on the field, and by nightfall had won a victory. The next 184
day peace was negotiated. Such are the deeds of daring which
Scythians perform for their friends.

In the papyrus fragments a lady in distress is weeping and lamenting in the
tent of a general Eubiotus. He clears his tent because of her woe, hears her
declare that she wishes she had never seen Eraseinus (apparently her lover)
and prevents her attempted suicide by wresting her sword from her. She
then tells Eubiotus that she is not the Amazon Themisto though she is so
disguised, but a Greek girl Calligone. Here the fragments end. The only
points in common with Lucian’s story are the geographical background and
the name Eubiotus (in Lucian the illegitimate brother of Leucanor and an
[361]
aspirant to his throne), but both stories as Rostovtzeff points out look to
history for characters and setting as the Ninus Romance did.

In the Toxaris the coloring is only quasi-historical through the mention of
names of kings and their lineage: the story is not history, but an historical
novel. And the connection of the Scythians with the Sarmatians, the Alans,
the Maeotians and the Bosporans corresponds only in part with their actual
relations at the time. The Sauromatians are a relic of the past; the Alans
represent actual conditions in the time of the author. The geographical
coloring is likewise only partly historical. The picture of the Scythians even
with its tendency to idealization represents the people fairly. They are
nomadic, poor, with a free democratic political organization without kings,
and they are warriors. Their gods are the sword and the wind. Their customs
are primitive. They make war on their neighbors and have special relations
with the Greek states on the Bosporus and Olbia and visit those on 185
the south side of the Black Sea.

Lucian in composing his Toxaris probably had in hand a Greek romance
with a Scythian background, containing certain historical and
ethnographical material. This he worked over making his story represent
what his public then knew or could know of the Scythians and their
neighbors. The discovery of the papyrus fragments of the Calligone novel
[362]
confirms this thesis. The type of the Toxaris story and the papyrus story
is the same. Both were love romances, though in each the erotic motif is
subordinated to adventure. The interest of the age in the unfamiliar, the
strange is manifested in the selection of Scythia for the background.

Lucian’s narrative is intensely exciting as well as picturesque and although
it is only a miniature story it gives us an idea of another love romance of a
wild type with a king’s head cut off for vengeance, a bride kidnapped on
horseback and an army raised on the ox-hide. The whole Toxaris indeed, as
[363]
Croiset remarked, with its ten anecdotes furnishes rich examples of
Lucian’s art of narration.

186

VIII
A COMPARISON OF THE GREEK ROMANCES
AND APULEIUS’ METAMORPHOSES

Apuleius, the author of the greatest ancient novel extant, might, if he had
chosen, written his book in Greek instead of Latin. Though he was born in
North Africa (at Madaura) he was educated in Athens as well as Roman
Carthage and Rome, indeed was completely bi-lingual. The letter from his
wife produced as evidence in his trial for having won her affections by
magic was in Greek. And private correspondence demonstrates fluency in
the language even more than does the fact of his translation of a work by
Plato and his Latin style richly colored by Greek syntax and vocabulary.
[364]
Some reader may now ask as Apuleius anticipated: “Who is this man?”
So I must refer all to my other writings about him and briefly characterize
[365]
him here for the uninformed. Apuleius was born about A.D. 125 in the
Roman colony of Madaura where his father was a leading citizen and
official. He was educated at Carthage, Athens and Rome, was certainly bi-
lingual and probably tri-lingual as he must have known Punic as well as
Latin and Greek. Returning to Africa, he practiced successfully the 187
art of a sophist, giving public discourses, many of them impromptu.
Specimens of these are extant in a collection of extracts from his speeches
called the Florida. He married a wealthy widow, mother of a university
friend at Athens, and was promptly sued by his in-laws for having gained
her hand by magic practices. The brilliant speech in which he defended
himself at Sabrata against their charges, the Apologia, is extant and

constitutes his autobiography. St. Augustine called him a Platonist and he
did indeed try to convey Plato’s ideas to his contemporaries in works on
The God of Socrates, Plato and his Doctrine and other lost writings. His
fame when he was alive rested on his oratory and it was so great that he was
honored by statues and made priest of Aesculapius at Carthage. But his
undying glory comes from his novel, the Metamorphoses. The date of its
composition is uncertain as indeed are most of the dates of his life. He lived
from about A.D. 125 to A.D. 171, that is, in the time of Antoninus Pius and
Marcus Aurelius. He was therefore a contemporary of Lucian and may have
met him as Walter Pater imagines in Marius the Epicurean. What concerns
us here is his novel and its relation to the Greek Romances.

The Metamorphoses of Apuleius is a long story written in eleven books. It
is an ego-romance with Lucius a Greek acting as narrator and hero.

“The plot is simple. The hero Lucius who is greatly interested in magic is
enabled by the aid of the maid-servant of a witch to achieve
transformation. But a mistake in the use of the unguents changes him not
into a bird as he had planned, but into an ass. Although he knows that the
antidote is a meal of roses, he is kept by Fortune from securing release
through long months and meets various adventures until at last through
the aid of the goddess Isis Lucius the Ass becomes again Lucius the
[366]
Man.”

The similarity of this plot to that of the Greek Lucius or Ass is 188
apparent at once. But its unique differences caused by diversification
of anecdotes and long additions become clear as we read the narrative.

Lucius in the beginning was travelling in Thessaly riding his white horse
over the high mountains when he fell in with two other travellers. One of
these as they rode on together related a horrible story of how his friend
Socrates saw a companion murdered by a witch. The scene of the story was
set in Hypata, the very city to which Lucius was going. And the narrative of
it by its effect on Lucius reveals all his credulity and curiosity about
witchcraft.

Lucius was entertained at the house of Milo to whom he brought a letter of
introduction and soon he learned from a relative in Hypata, named
Byrrhaena, that Milo’s wife Pamphile was a witch. Hypata was full of
stories of marvellous happenings and soon Lucius heard another of these
thrillers at a dinner-party given by Byrrhaena. It was the story told by a
guest Tlelyphron of how he watched a corpse for pay and thereby suffered
mutilation of his face by a foul beldam. It was on the way home from the
party that Lucius, jittery and drunk, fought his fatal battle with three bold
robbers who afterwards, at his trial for murder at the Festival of Risus, god
of laughter, were proved to be wine-skins!

Now Lucius was determined to investigate magic rites by personal
experience so he made ardent love to Pamphile’s servant Fotis until the
enamored girl consented to let him peer through a crack in the door of
Pamphile’s bed-room and see her mistress transform herself into an owl.
This marvel witnessed, nothing would satisfy Lucius but to attempt a
similar transformation. Unfortunately Fotis gave him the wrong unguent for
the necessary lubrication of his body and he became not a bird, but an ass!
The careless maid swore that the antidote was simple, merely a meal 189
of roses, and if he would quietly spend the night in the stable, in the
morning she would bring him a breakfast of the flowers. Unfortunately
before dawn robbers arrived, pillaged the house and stole, along with
Lucius’ own horse and Milo’s ass, Lucius the ass to carry the plunder. This
was the beginning of a long series of adventures for the man-ass before he
could achieve re-transformation.

In the robbers’ hide-out in the mountains Lucius heard the robbers tell three
fine stories of their brave chieftains. There too he saw a band of robbers
bring in a captive beauty Charite and heard her piteous tale of how she was
kidnapped on her wedding-night for ransom. To cheer this weeping girl the
old woman who cooked for the robbers told in their absence the story of
Cupid and Psyche.

An old wives’ tale she called it, but Apuleius lifted the folk-tale to the realm
of the Olympian gods by making it the love romance of Venus’ son Cupid
and Psyche, a mortal maid. Venus herself was the cruel step-mother who
tried to separate the lovers and set all sorts of impossible tasks for Psyche.

But the heroine triumphed over every task by the aid of Cupid’s minions on
earth and in air. Finally the king of heaven, Jupiter himself, called Psyche to
his high throne to receive the gift of immortality and summoned all the
great gods and goddesses to celebrate her nuptials with the god of love
himself.

This happy love romance diverted Charite only briefly, but soon her lover
disguised as a robber came and rescued her and after causing the
destruction of all the robber band carried her away with Lucius to safety.
Charite’s story, however, unlike Psyche’s was not to end happily. For after
her marriage to her Tlepolemus, a former suitor Thrasyllus because of
jealousy made way with her husband in a boar hunt, pretending his 190
death was an accident. Later when the villain was making ardent love
to the widow, the shade of her husband appeared and recounted his murder
at the hands of his friend. Charite by subtle plans was able to put out
Thrasyllus’ eyes for vengeance and then stabbed herself over her husband’s
tomb. Thrasyllus in repentance starved himself to death.

Lucius the Ass again left to the mercy of Fortune had a series of degrading
adventures which tended to make him a pessimist. He witnessed the
obscene orgies of a lewd band of Syrian priests. He heard four naughty
Milesian Tales of corrupt women: “The Lover under the Tub,” “The Baker’s
Wife,” “The Sandals under the Bed,” “The Fuller’s Wife.” These Milesian
Tales of triangular sex episodes are succeeded in the novel by another group
of tragic stories which stir deeper waters. The first is a record of the terrible
oppression of the poor by an arrogant young nobleman and how three fine
young brothers who went to the defense of the poor family lost their lives in
a noble cause. Then follows a tragic story of an amorous step-mother and
her attempt to poison her unresponsive step-son. And finally comes the
awful narrative of five murders committed by one sadistic woman. Book
Ten concludes with the plan to display Lucius the ass in obscene union with
this condemned criminal at a public exhibition. To avoid this horror, Lucius
ran away from Corinth to the sea-shore at Cenchreae and there found his
salvation.

For lying asleep on the sea-shore that night he had a vision in the moonlight
of the goddess Isis. In all her refulgent beauty she told him of herself and

gave him hope. For she assured him that at the spring festival of the
launching of her sacred vessel she would give him certain aid. And indeed it
was at that festival in the midst of all its brilliant pageantry that the 191
priest of Isis offered the ass a garland of roses and munching them he
became man again. No wonder that after that Lucius had only one desire: to
serve his savior.

Night after night he had new visions of the goddess and under the direction
of her priest he fulfilled all the arduous preparations for the initiation into
her rites. Finally one night left alone in her temple he was vouchsafed that
mystic experience which only the elect may achieve, death, rebirth,
revelation.

“I approached the borderland of death, trod the threshold of Proserpina,
was borne through all the elements and returned; at midnight I saw the
sun shining with a brilliant light; I approached the gods of the nether and
[367]
the upper world and adored them in person near at hand.”

After such exaltation Lucius consecrated himself forever to the service of
Isis. Soon going to Rome he continued his worship at her temple there and
by her direction was twice initiated into the mysteries of the god Osiris
though the expense was great for “this poor man of Madaura.” Under the
blessing of Osiris he prospered greatly as an advocate in the Roman Forum
and finally under the god’s direction he was allowed to become one of the
Pastophores or high-priests of the cult. So ends his metamorphosis and the
novel.

Let us now return to the beginning. In the first chapter Apuleius announced
that he is telling a Greek story. The main outline of his plot is indeed
identical with that of the Greek Lucius or Ass, which as we have seen, is an
epitome of the Greek Metamorphoses by Lucian. Apuleius’ novel is clearly
later than Lucian’s because of rich and notable additions to the plot of the
epitome Lucius or Ass. These additions are Milesian Tales, the Cupid and
Psyche story and the great eleventh book portraying the worship of 192
Isis, who redeemed Lucius from ass to human shape.

The change in the tone of telling the whole story is significant for while the
earthy character of the original folk-tale occasionally appears and there are
recurrent glimpses of Lucianic wit and satire, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses is
neither a comic romance nor a satire as Lucian’s clearly was. Apuleius
wrote a serious novel, a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress of the Ass-Man in his
quest for knowledge of marvels. Whereas Lucian through satire degraded a
simple folk-tale, Apuleius exalted it by making the journeyings of Lucius a
search for the spiritual meaning of life. His hero walks alone. The love
romance in his story, the Cupid and Psyche tale, starts with the Platonic
conception of the relation of Eros and Psyche, Love and the Soul, and
therefrom is lifted to the realm of the Olympian gods. And finally the
retransformation of Lucius is no chance event, but a salvation wrought out
by the mystic worship of Isis.

The subjectivity infused in the plot by these additions is enhanced by the
fact that the hero-narrator Lucius is identified with the author, implicitly at
first in the Preface and in incidental comment of author to reader; in the last
book by the identification of Lucius with “the poor man of Madaura” so
that the whole narrative becomes personal experience. This fact involves
another difference from the structure of the Greek love romances. The
[368]
action of these love romances, as Riefstahl points out, is a “closed” one:
in the misfortunes which threaten the lovers through Fortune, they must
always remain faithful to each other and stout-hearted in order to be re-
united. So the circle of the action is “closed,” for it is a great cycle in 193
the life of the hero which places him at the end just where he was in
the beginning. The action in Apuleius is “open,” for the hero is bound and
pledged to nothing. He goes through his adventures with a light heart. He
does not need to prove his faith to any one. He does not need to stand up to
a test or even to remain true to himself. He must needs wander, but there is
no set purpose in his journeyings. His sufferings are as spiritual as
corporeal. He is aware too of the misery of others in the world. And in
profound despair he must beg divine aid.

It is absurd to compare the plot of the whole novel with the typical pattern
of the Greek love romances and Fotis with their heroines as Riefstahl does.
[369]
The only great human love-story in Apuleius’ main plot, that of

Charite, is a tragedy. It is like the Greek Romances in being a story of high
life and in this too is unique among Apuleius’ novelle. But it is utterly
different from the Greek love romances in structure and tone. The only
parallel to them is to be found in the inset story of Cupid and Psyche. Here
the tale is of two young lovers unhappily separated by the cruelty not of
Fortune but of a greater goddess, Venus herself. And only after the hard
testing of one of the pair, this time the lady, are the two lovers reunited.
Thus the conventional happy ending of the plot is achieved. But for the
author’s philosophical mind such a beautiful story must start with a touch of
Platonic symbolism in the very names of the lovers, Cupid and Psyche, and
must be concluded in high heaven, for only among the immortals may such
perfect happiness be won forever.

From this account of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses it is already clear that his
great novel is a synthesis of various types of Greek Romances. Its closest
parallel is in the Greek Lucius or Ass, for the bare outline of the plot 194
of the first ten books is like that of the Greek work. But all recent
research tends to prove that Lucian’s original Metamorphoses was satiric in
character, therefore very different in tone from Apuleius’ serious work. So
although they share the characteristics of a romance of adventure, with
stories of magic and of robbers forming principal episodes, the motivation
and the aim of the two romances are utterly different. This difference is
emphasized by Apuleius’ two longest and most startling additions to the
plot, the love-story of Cupid and Psyche and the story of Lucius and Isis.

Apuleius writes a love romance like the Greek only in the story of Cupid
and Psyche. For the episode with Fotis is a sex-story of convenience and the
Milesian Tales added to the plot of Lucius or Ass carry out this Fotis-motif
[370]
of sex and lechery. The one long love-story of human beings, Charite’s
story, is indeed a love romance of a noble lady and her noble lord, but it is a
complete tragedy in episodes, tone and ending. Only the Cupid and Psyche
story is the true type of Greek love romances.

The third great interest in the Greek Romances besides adventure and love
was religion. To this Apuleius gave a new emphasis and a new importance.
In the center of his novel in the inset story of Cupid and Psyche he pictures
the old familiar Olympian gods in their conventional mythological

characters, but as realistically and with as implicit a satire as Lucian used in
his “Dialogues of the Gods.” Venus is a very jealous and cruel step-mother.
Jupiter is a lusty, amorous, irresistible king. Cupid is at first undutiful,
mischievous and wanton. The story of Lucius and Isis is, however, a serious
story of a great religious experience. Through prayer, visions, priestly 195
instruction, ceremonials, initiation and communion Apuleius
becomes one with the goddess to whom he is to devote the rest of his life.
The worship of Isis is pictured spiritually from the depths of experience by
Apuleius who according to his own statements had actually been many
[371]
times initiated in her cult.

Throughout these three parts of Apuleius’ novel with their successive
emphasis on adventure, love and religion, virtually all the conventional
devices of the Greek Romances are employed. In the stories of adventure
there are rapidly shifting scenes, though in a more limited spatial area. The
Greek love romances lie according to the time of their action in the
geography of the colonies of great Greece or within the boundaries of the
hellenistic-oriental world from Byzantium to Egypt, from Sicily to Babylon.
The action is carried out through long sea voyages, varied with storms and
shipwreck. The wide world, the spatial separations are overcome only
through the faithfulness of the lovers. The Ass-story takes place in narrower
compass, in old Greece between Patrae, Hypata and Corinth. To Lucian’s
geographical set Apuleius adds Rome. In these two versions of the Ass-
story all the life of mankind is represented concretely and in close
perspective. The action concerns little people living in one locality or for
[372]
purposes of trade taking short journeys hither and thither on land. Other
conventional devices in Apuleius’ stories of adventure are the introduction
as important characters of robbers and robber chieftains, narratives with
emphasis on external events, descriptions like that of the robbers’ cave.

In the love-story of Charite the interest centers in a lover and his lass; both
are persons in high life, both are faithful. A dream furnishes an 196
apparition of the dead husband. But the villainy of a treacherous
friend makes the story a tragedy involving murder and suicide. The story of
Cupid and Psyche, true to the type of the Greek love romance, starts with a
religious beginning, the worship of a mortal girl Psyche as the goddess of

love; is motivated by a Greek oracle; describes at length the proving of the
heroine in tasks imposed by the will of an unfriendly deity; depicts Psyche’s
apparent sleep of death; and finally consummates a happy ending for the
lovers through a saving god, who is Cupid the hero himself. A pastoral note
which affiliates the story with Daphnis and Chloe is introduced by the
presence of the friendly god Pan, who acts as a wise old adviser and
comforter to Psyche in her great despair. And the conventional use of
excursus creates a new pictorial character in brilliant descriptions of Venus
charioted over the sea, of the Palace of Cupid, of Cupid asleep, of the
wedding banquet of the lovers.

In the story of Lucius and Isis in Book Eleven, many of the conventional
devices of the Greek Romances appear: dreams, epiphanies, religious
festivals, a dea ex machina. So in Chariton Aphrodite and Fortune contend
for the control of the lovers; in Xenophon of Ephesus Artemis and Isis are
the two saving goddesses; in Heliodorus Apollo and Isis are prominent
though the philosophies of the Gymnosophists and of the Neo-Pythagoreans
have a share in the plot; in Achilles Tatius Artemis reigns supreme; in
Longus Pan and the Nymphs guide the destinies of the young lovers. The
difference in Apuleius is that the whole quest of the hero is for some
meaning in life and when magic, adventure, mythology and human amours
can not supply it, he finds through conversion a union with a mystic
goddess who sublimates his emotion and absorbs his life into her service.

The greater subjectivity of the Apuleius’ romance as compared to the 197
Greek Romances is attained by the aloneness of the hero, his quest
and its implicit meaning, his individual satisfaction. This subjectivity is
intensified by the complete adoption of the ego-narrative. Far more
attention is paid by Apuleius than by the Greek romancers to the narrator
and to his point of view in telling the whole romance. Achilles Tatius was
afterwards to attempt the use of this device of narration in the first person,
but he soon lost sight of the narrator in the narrative and even at the end he
never let him reappear. Lucian adopted completely the ich-roman form, but,
as far as can be known, without rich characterization of the teller. Apuleius
uses to the full the advantage of having a man-ass as narrator, for his
composite hero has a duplex view-point of man and animal and displays a
double humor, of man and beast. All this keeps the hero-narrator before our

eyes and we become ever more and more interested in the effect of the
events narrated on his inner life and on his final solution of life.

Riefstahl points out that in the Greek love romances there is some striving
after subjectivity in the presentation of external events. The possibility of
expression is not yet rich, but by soliloquies, by descriptions of emotions,
by reflections on events expressed in γνῶμαι the romancers are working
from objective to subjective presentation of their material. The soul is
treated as an individual entity separated from the body and contrasted to it.
On this foundation in the love romances rests the inner structural arch of
spatial separation and spiritual fidelity. The relation of the objective and the
subjective creates somehow the scale on which all these romances take their
place. The love romances are at the objective end of the scale, the older
ones particularly, dynamic events holding writer and reader spell- 198
bound. In Longus a peaceful atmosphere is created because there are
few exciting events, little travel, only the study of the development of love
in two adolescents in a quiet pastoral setting, but the expression is not
adequate. Longus senses the dual conception of Eros, in man and in nature,
for the love of the two young shepherds is set in the teeming, growing life
of the outer world, but he does not develop fully this subtle implication.
Achilles Tatius inclines toward the subjective direction through his
attempted use of the ego-narrative. But the fullest subjective treatment is
found in Apuleius. In Achilles Tatius as in Apuleius, the aim of the hero is a
μυστήριον but with him it is the μυστήριον of love; in Apuleius it is the
[373]
sacrorum arcana. The powerful cosmic force of love appears only in
Apuleius and there it is embodied in the personality of Isis. The goddess
describes herself to Lucius as “the natural mother of all things, mistress and
governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of the
powers divine, queen of all that are in hell, the principal of them that dwell
in heaven, manifested above and under one form of all the gods and
[374]
goddesses.”

The whole story of Apuleius pictures, according to Riefstahl, the striving of
the individual towards the All. The cosmic Eros has taken the place of the
ancient Greek Eros, who was a terrible power, often identified with the
blind, cruel Τύχη. To this cosmic Eros Apuleius has given the name of Isis.

[375]
Riefstahl to be sure pushes too far his theory of an underlying
philosophical content in Apuleius, representing the romance “as an artistic
unit ... and as an issue of the writer’s intellectual interests and personality,”
“ein künstlerisch gestaltetes Anschauungsbild der existenziellen 199
[376]
Lebensgrundlage des Neuplatonismus.” Yet he does point out
astutely the fundamental difference in Apuleius which makes his
Metamorphoses another distinct type of romance, the subjective
philosophical.

A word now in retrospect. By the end of the second century A.D., this new
genre of literature, the romance, had developed to full stature. Already
besides the author of the Ninus romance, Chariton, Lucian and Apuleius
had written their stories, and perhaps also Xenophon of Ephesus. The
different types of romance were already established: the historical romance,
the love romance with its secondary interests of adventure and religion,
satirical romance, the subjective philosophical romance. The pastoral was
soon to be added. That is, in the second century of our era, a new type of
literature was created, a type which was to be the most popular in the
[377]
modern world.

It is strange to find that so distinguished and perceptive an historian as
Rostovtzeff in his histories of Rome does not recognize the significance for
the early empire of this new literary form. In describing the second century,
[378]
he writes:

“Except for the troubled reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Empire
under the Antonines enjoyed profound peace, broken only by distant wars
on the frontier. Within the empire life appeared to be, as it had been in the
first century, a steady forward movement for the diffusion and
enrichment of civilization. The creative power of Rome seemed to have
reached its zenith. There was, however, one disquieting symptom: 200
after the brilliant age of the Flavians we note an almost complete
sterility in literature and art. After Tacitus, and after the artists who
worked for Trajan ... the decades that followed failed to produce a single
great writer or a single notable monument of art....

“Even before the time of war and pestilence in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius, we mark in the whole of intellectual life not merely a pause but
even a backward movement. The only exception is a revival of Greek
rhetorical prose, perfect in form but monotonous in substance. Its chief
representative is the sophist and rhetorician, Aristides, and his best work
is his Panegyric on Rome. The Dialogues of Lucian are witty and
interesting; he was a sceptic and a humorist who mocked all ideals both
new and old. In the West there are only two names to be quoted, that of
the satirist Juvenal, a gloomy and bitter observer of the dark side of
human life, and that of Pliny the Younger, a shallow orator and a brilliant
representative of the epistolary style. The rest both in Greece and in Italy
are writers of handbooks, text-books, and of miscellaneous collections of
entertaining stories for the amusement and instruction of the reader.”

Rostovtzeff’s omission of all reference to the Greek Romances (even to
Lucian’s) and to Apuleius shows how completely they have been
disregarded. Yet for a picture of the social life of the second and the third
centuries and of the psychology of the men of the time the Greek Romances
and Apuleius are a revelation.

The Roman empire had checked both political activity and oratory, indeed
the orator had been succeeded by the rhetor in Greece and Rome. In the
unified Mediterranean world trade had developed greatly and travellers had
followed traders from one country to another, among them the lecturing
sophists. The new lands visited had their curiosities and splendors so
travellers’ tales multiplied with descriptions often worthy of a natural
history. Men, diverted from the aims of personal ambition which military
conquest or a democratic state had afforded, now sought release and
excitement in the personal relations. Women achieved a new freedom and a
new importance. The emotional life came to have a new interest and 201
this led to the development of the prose romance.

From the east came, with rich material resources, a wealth of new ideas, a
mingling of superstition, magic, religion and philosophy. Just as man’s
emotions were turned inward so was his thought. The greatest new
adventure became the quest for a solution of life itself. The romances of the
early empire whatever their type reflect the age: its craving for excitement,

its desire for adventure, its dread of brigands, its curiosity about the new, its
interest in art, its wish for fulfillment of emotion in romantic love, its
awareness of unsolved mysteries in man and the universe. With even the
partial re-dating of the Greek Romances all sorts of subjects open up for
investigation such as the apparatus of religion in the use of oracles, dreams,
epiphanies; the interest in works of art; the new position of women. At any
time in the future new fragments of romances may be discovered, or new
dating of some of the old ones may be made possible. But even now while
archaeological discoveries are suspended and publication of new editions is
delayed, we may read and re-read these amazing old stories and see what
escape literature was in the second and third centuries. The Greek
Romances have much to tell us of the psychology of their authors, their
characters, and their readers. They have a deep human value.

“Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto.”

203

FOOTNOTES

[1]
Translated by George Thornley, revised by J. M. Edmonds, in Daphnis
and Chloe by Longus in The Loeb Classical Library.

[2]
By Stephen Gaselee, “Appendix on the Greek Novel,” in Daphnis and
Chloe in The Loeb Classical Library, New York, 1916, pp. 410-11.

[3]
R. M. Rattenbury in New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature,
Third Series, Oxford, 1933, p. 211.

[4]
P. D. Huet, Traité de l’origine des Romans, 1671.

[5]
J. Dunlop, The History of Fiction, Edinburgh, 1816.

[6]
A. Chassang, Histoire du roman ... dans l’antiquité grecque et latine,
Paris, 1862.

[7]
V. Chauvin, Les romanciérs grecs et latins, 1864.

[8]
Caritone di Afrodisia, Le Avventure di Cherea e Calliroe, romanzo
tradotto da Aristide Calderini, Torino, 1913.

[9]
Her. I. 8-12.

[10]
Her. II. 121.

[11]
Her. IX. 108-13.

[12]
L. Whibley, A Companion to Greek Studies, Cambridge, 1916, p. 155.
For a discussion of these stories and the novelle see E. H. Haight,
Essays on Ancient Fiction, New York, 1936.

[13]
Alfred Croiset and Maurice Croiset, An Abridged History of Greek
Literature, translated by G. F. Heffelbower, New York, 1904, p. 517.

[14]
H. Bornecque, Les Déclamations et les Déclamateurs d’après Sénèque
le père, Lille, 1902, p. 130.

[15]
Caritone di Afrodisia, Le Avventure di Cherea e Calliroe, Aristide
Calderini, Torino, 1913.

[16]
New York, 1916.

[17]
Oxford, 1933.

[18]
Op. cit., pp. 212-13.

[19]
Op. cit., p. 385.

[20]
Op. cit., pp. 387-93.

[21]
Ibid., pp. 397-99.

[22]
Op. cit., pp. 219-23.

[23]
Op. cit., pp. 223-254.

[24]
See Notes.

[25]
Pap. Fayûm, London, 1900, I (pp. 74 ff.) and Pap. Oxyrh. 1019 (vol.
VII. 1910, pp. 143 ff.), both of the early III century, found in 1906 and
1910.

[26]
Preface to Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe, Ann Arbor and London,
1939. Throughout this chapter I use this translation of Chariton by
Warren E. Blake and the Greek text edited by him, Charitonis
Aphrodisiensis, de Chaerea et Callirhoe amatoriarum narrationum libri
octo, Oxford, 1938.

[27]
IV. 4, 7-10; IV. 5, 8; IV. 6, 4; IV. 6, 8 (2 letters); VIII. 4, 2-3; VIII. 4, 5-6.

[28]
III. 2.

[29]
II. 1.

[30]
II. 9.

[31]
V. 5.

[32]
VI. 2.

[33]
I. 1.

[34]
I. 6.

[35]
III. 2.

[36]
VI. 4.

[37]
III. 3.

[38]
VII. 4.

[39]
II. 5.

[40]
IV. 3.

[41]
VIII. 7, 8.

[42]
VII. 1 = Il. X. 540.

[43]
VI. 2 = Il. I. 317.

[44]
VII. 4 = Il. XIII. 131.

[45]
VII. 4 = Il. X. 483.

[46]
V. 4 = Il. IV. 1.

[47]
II. 9 = Il. XXIII. 66-67.

[48]
V. 5 = Il. III. 146.

[49]
V. 5 = Odys. I. 366. See also IV. 7 = Odys. XVII. 37; VI. 4 = Odys. VI.
102.

[50]
II. 3 = Odys. XVII. 485, 487; IV. 1 = Il. XXIII. 71; IV. 1 = Odys. XXIV.
83; VI. 4 = Odys. XV. 21; VII. 2 = Il. XXII. 304-5.

[51]
I. 1 = Il. XXI. 114.

[52]
I. 4 = Il. XVIII. 23-25.

[53]
III. 5 = Il. XXII. 82-83.

[54]
IV. 5 = Il. XXI. 114.

[55]
VI. 1 = Il. XXIV. 10-11.

[56]
VIII. 1 = Odys. XXIII. 296.

[57]
III. 5 = Il. XXII. 82-83.

[58]
II. 9 = Il. XXIII. 66-67.

[59]
V. 5 = Il. III. 146.

[60]
Aristide Calderini, Caritone di Afrodisia, Le avventure di Cherea e
Calliroe, Torino, 1913, pp. 154-58.

[61]
Calderini, op. cit., pp. 159-60; V. 8.

[62]
IV. 4.

[63]
Calderini, op. cit., pp. 163-64.

[64]
Xenophon of Ephesus, Ephesiaca, V. 1.

[65]
III. 12; IV. 2.

[66]
II. 13, G. Dalmeyda, Xénophon d’Éphèse, Les Éphésiaques, Paris, 1926,
p. 33, n. 1.

[67]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xiii-xiv.

[68]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xii-xv, xxxviii-ix.

[69]
V. 8.

[70]
V. 14.

[71]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., p. xxiii, for example in the love-story of Aegialeus,
V. 1, 4, for the climax: καὶ ἀπηλαύσομεν ὦν ἕνεκα συνήλθομεν.

[72]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xvi-xviii; Calderini, op. cit., p. 85.

[73]
I. 8.

[74]
V. 10.

[75]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xxiv-xxv.

[76]
I. 11.

[77]
IV. 2.

[78]
I. 12.

[79]
V. 10-11.

[80]
V. 4.

[81]
II. 13; III. 3.

[82]
III. 11-12.

[83]
IV. 3.

[84]
V. 4.

[85]
V. 13.

[86]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xvi-xviii.

[87]
Calderini, op. cit., pp. 120-25.

[88]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xviii-xxiv.

[89]
Calderini, op. cit., p. 113.

[90]
See the story of the old Spartan and his mummy, V. 1.

[91]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., p. xxvii.

[92]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xxviii-ix.

[93]
I. 2; I. 8.

[94]
I. 6, V. 4; II. 1, II. 12; III. 2, I. 12, V. 11.

[95]
V. 15.

[96]
V. 1.

[97]
I. 14.

[98]
Chariton, III. 5. See Dalmeyda, op. cit., p. xxx.

[99]
II. 4. Chariton, V. 10.

[100]
Iliad, XXII, 389-90; Dalmeyda, op. cit., p. xxix.

[101]
III. 7; Chariton, I. 6; IV. 1.

[102]
V. 8; Chariton, V. 10.

[103]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xxxii-iii.

[104]
For this introduction to Heliodorus I am largely indebted to the edition
of Les Éthiopiques edited by R. M. Rattenbury. T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon,
Paris, vol. I, 1935; vol. II, 1938. For the Testimonia see Heliodori
Aethiopica by Aristides Colonna, Rome, 1938, pp. 361-72.

[105]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, ix-xi.

[106]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, xiii-xv.

[107]
Aristide Calderini, Le Avventure di Cherea e Calliroe, Torino, 1913, pp.
176-77.

[108]
II. 35, translated by the Rev. Rowland Smith, in The Greek Romances of
Heliodorus, Longus, and Achilles Tatius, London, 1855, pp. 61-62. It is
impossible to reproduce in English the Greek’s hidden references to the
names of Chariclea, Famed-for-her-Grace, and of Theagenes, the
Goddess-Born.

[109]
Translated by the Rev. Rowland Smith, op. cit., pp. 196-97.

[110]
Calderini, op. cit., pp. 118-25.

[111]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, lxxxviii-ix.

[112]
Calasiris in II and III; Cnemon in I, II and VI; Achaemenes in VIII;
Sisimithres and Charicles in X.

[113]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., II, 87, n. 1.

[114]
IV. 3, Il. XXII. 108-897: VII. 4-6, Il. III. 88-244 and Il. XXII. 136-436;
V. 5, Odys. XIX. 392-94; VI. 14, Odys. XI.

[115]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, lxxxix-xcii.

[116]
S. L. Wolff, The Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction, New
York, 1912, pp. 150-52.

[117]
Calderini, op. cit., pp. 106-7.

[118]
Arsace is not an historical character.

“Le personnage féminin d’Arsacé semble bien être de l’invention
d’Héliodore, mais il se peut qu’il se soit souvenu, en créant son nom,
d’Arsacés, le fondateur de l’empire des Parthes, et des Arsacides, ainsi
que d’Arsamés, grandpère de Darius (Hér. I, 209). D’après Suidas (s.d.
Θεοκλυτήσαντες) Darius avait une fille nommée Arsamé.”

R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., II, 113, n. 1.

[119]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, lxxxv-viii.

[120]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, xviii-xx.

[121]
“Héliodore pratique avec une réelle habileté l’art des suspensions et des
retours. L’unité du récit n’est jamais compromise.”

R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., II, 37, n. 3.

[122]
R. M. Rattenbury, T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, xx-xxi and lxxxv-
viii; A. Calderini, op. cit., pp. 176-77.

[123]
See The Cambridge Ancient History, Cambridge (Eng.), 1934, X, 506-
11; 1936, XI, 700-1; Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana
translated by F. C. Conybeare in The Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols.
New York, 1912.

[124]
Translated by the Rev. Rowland Smith, op. cit., p. 259.

[125]
p. 78.

[126]
III. 12-15.

[127]
V. 22, Odys. XIII. 332, XVIII. 66-70, Il. XIX. 47-49.

[128]
V. 11, Odys. VI. 180; V. 15, Il. III. 65; VII. 10, Il. VI. 235-36.

[129]
VII. 9, Il. XXIV. 3-12; VI. 5, Il. I. 106-7; IV. 7, Il. XVI. 21.

[130]
J. W. H. Walden, Stage-terms in Heliodorus’s Aethiopica, in “Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology,” V (1894), 1-43.

[131]
V. 6, II. 11, I. 3, II. 4 and 23, VI. 12, IX. 5, VI. 14.

[132]
X. 12, VII. 6-8, VIII. 17. Calderini, op. cit., pp. 159-63.

[133]
On the style of Heliodorus, see Maillon in R. M. Rattenbury, T. W.
Lumb, J. Maillon, op. cit., I, xcii-xciii.

[134]
IV. 4. Translated by the Rev. Rowland Smith, op. cit., p. 81.

[135]
Aristide Calderini, Caritone di Afrodisia, Le Avventure di Cherea e
Calliroe, Torino, 1913, p. 191.

[136]
From the introduction to Achilles Tatius with an English translation by
S. Gaselee, in The Loeb Classical Library. The translations used in this
chapter are from this volume.

[137]
GH in Grenfell and Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, X, 135, no. 1250.

[138]
R. T. Rattenbury, New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature:
Third Series: Oxford, 1933, pp. 254-57.

[139]
F. A. Todd, Some Ancient Novels, Oxford, 1940, p. 33; S. Gaselee, op.
cit., pp. xv-xvi.

[140]
F. A. Todd, op. cit., p. 33; S. L. Wolff, The Greek Romances in
Elizabethan Prose Fiction, New York, 1912, pp. 248-56.

[141]
Pal. Anth. IX. 203.

[142]
J. S. Phillimore, “The Greek Romances,” in English Literature and the
Classics, Oxford, 1912, pp. 108-15.

[143]
J. S. Phillimore, op. cit., p. 115.

[144]
S. Gaselee, op. cit., p. 455.

[145]
II. 5.

[146]
III. 10.

[147]
VI. 16.

[148]
VII. 5.

[149]
I. 3.

[150]
V. 18-20.

[151]
V. 25-27.

[152]
VIII. 7.

[153]
II. 11-17.

[154]
II. 23.

[155]
IV. 1.

[156]
VII. 12, 14. Compare also the dream in I. 3.

[157]
III. 15; V. 7; VII. 3-5.

[158]
VIII. 4-5, 15-17.

[159]
II. 13, 15-18.

[160]
VIII. 17-18.

[161]
V. 11, 13.

[162]
V. 22.

[163]
V. 14.

[164]
V. 16.

[165]
V. 25-27.

[166]
VI. 9-11.

[167]
V. 17, 22.

[168]
VI. 1-2.

[169]
VIII. 5.

[170]
R. M. Rattenbury, op. cit., pp. 256-57.

[171]
III. 14.

[172]
VI. 7.

[173]
VII. 9.

[174]
V. 17.

[175]
VIII. 17-19.

[176]
I. 4.

[177]
I. 9. Compare V. 13.

[178]
I. 16-18.

[179]
II. 35-38.

[180]
I. 8.

[181]
II. 7-8.

[182]
IV. 8.

[183]
I. 10.

[184]
II. 4.

[185]
II. 37.

[186]
V. 5.

[187]
II. 7-8.

[188]
IV. 8-10, 15-17, V. 22, 26.

[189]
VIII. 5-7, 11-14.

[190]
II. 19.

[191]
V. 16.

[192]
VIII. 5.

[193]
VIII. 11-12.

[194]
IV. 1; VII. 12.

[195]
VI. 21.

[196]
VII. 12.

[197]
VII. 12.

[198]
VIII. 1-3.

[199]
VIII. 1-3, 5, 10.

[200]
II. 12; V. 3.

[201]
II. 14.

[202]
II. 2; V. 2; VI. 3-4.

[203]
II. 36.

[204]
I. 8; II. 1, 15, 23, 34.

[205]
I. 8; IV. 4-5.

[206]
I. 12.

[207]
II. 20-22.

[208]
VIII. 9.

[209]
V. 27.

[210]
V. 5.

[211]
II. 2.

[212]
I. 1-2.

[213]
III. 6-8.

[214]
V. 3-5.

[215]
II. 3.

[216]
II. 11.

[217]
II. 19.

[218]
I. 15.

[219]
III. 1-5.

[220]
IV. 11-12; III. 24-25; IV. 2-3, 4, 19.

[221]
S. L. Wolff, op. cit., pp. 202-11.

[222]
J. S. Phillimore, op. cit., pp. 115-16.

[223]
F. A. Todd, Some Ancient Novels, London, 1940, p. 35.

[224]
G. Dalmeyda, Longus, Pastorales (Daphnis et Chloé), Paris, 1934, pp.
xxi-xxii.

[225]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., p. xxiv, “un des plus grands charmes de son roman
est le cadre de nature, et l’intime union du décor et des personnages:
dans ce sol plaisant et fertile, les deux héros semblent avoir leurs racines
comme de jeunes plantes.”

[226]
I. 4-5.

[227]
I. 7.

[228]
II. 23.

[229]
III. 27.

[230]
IV. 34.

[231]
II. 39.

[232]
II. 4-7.

[233]
IV. 36.

[234]
IV. 37.

[235]
IV. 39.

[236]
IV. 3.

[237]
IV. 13.

[238]
IV. 26.

[239]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xxvii-xxxi.

[240]
III. 10.

[241]
I. 14.

[242]
IV. 27.

[243]
I. 18.

[244]
I. 25.

[245]
III. 6.

[246]
IV. 28.

[247]
II. 15-17.

[248]
IV. 3.

[249]
I. 4; II. 23.

[250]
II. 23-24; IV. 39.

[251]
I. 10 and 24.

[252]
I. 30.

[253]
III. 12.

[254]
II. 35-37.

[255]
IV. 15.

[256]
IV. 40.

[257]
III. 21.

[258]
Cp. II. 4 with Bion IV.

[259]
Cp. I. 18 with Moschus I. 27.

[260]
II. 33. See on the bucolic tradition, Dalmeyda, op. cit., p. xxiii with n. 4.

[261]
Calderini, op. cit., pp. 169-70.

[262]
Theoc. I. 45-56.

[263]
III. 21.

[264]
Theoc. VIII. 53-56.

[265]
Horace is the only other ancient writer who uses the name Chloe, C. I.
23; III. 7, 9, 26.

[266]
I. 17, with Courier’s excellent emendation of the ms. χλόης (for χλόας)
to πόας, Sappho 2.

[267]
IV. 8, Sappho 94.

[268]
III. 33-34. Sappho 93.

[269]
J. M. Edmonds, Daphnis and Chloe in The Loeb Classical Library, p.
xi, n. 1.

[270]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xxxiv-v.

[271]
II. 7, Vergil Ec. I. 5.

[272]
J. M. Edmonds, op. cit., p. ix.

[273]
Calderini, op. cit., pp. 145-47.

[274]
Dalmeyda, op. cit., pp. xxxviii-xlii.

[275]
I. 13.

[276]
I. 16.

[277]
II. 2.

[278]
III. 20.

[279]
I. 13.

[280]
II. 1-2.

[281]
III. 3.

[282]
IV. 37-39.

[283]
II. 32.

[284]
II. 3-6.

[285]
I. 27.

[286]
II. 34.

[287]
II. 2.

[288]
S. L. Wolff, op. cit., p. 162.

[289]
F. A. Todd, op. cit., p. 64.

[290]
Paul-Louis Courier, Les Pastorales de Longus ou Daphnis et Chloé,
traduction de Messire Jacques Amyot revue, corrigée, complétée et de
nouveau refaite in grande partie, Paris, 1925, Preface, p. xxii. See also
Bibliographie.

[291]
Suidas, as quoted in the Enc. Brit. XIV. Vol. 14, p. 460.

[292]
Maurice Croiset, Essai sur la vie et les œuvres de Lucien, Paris, 1882.

[293]
Basil L. Gildersleeve, Essays and Studies, Baltimore, 1890.

[294]
For a concise tabular classification of Lucian’s works, based on
Croiset’s arrangement, see H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, The Works of
Lucian of Samosata, 4 vols. Oxford, 1905, I, xiv-xviii. To be specially

noted are the influences in definite periods of the rhetoricians, of
philosophy, of New Comedy, of Menippus, of Old Comedy.

[295]
Translated by A. M. Harmon, in Lucian, in The Loeb Classical Library,
III, 223, 225.

[296]
Harmon, op. cit., III, 231, 233.

[297]
Xenophon, Memorabilia, II, 1, 21.

[298]
See M. Croiset, op. cit., Chap. II.

[299]
C. 47.

[300]
Horace, Ep. I. 1, 14.

[301]
Harmon, op. cit., II, 487, 495.

[302]
Harmon, op. cit., V, 1.

[303]
Harmon, op. cit., V, 47-49.

[304]
M. Croiset, op. cit., pp. 140-43, 188-92.

[305]
M. Croiset, op. cit., p. 82.

[306]
F. Cumont in the Mémoires couronnées de l’académie de Belgique, Vol.
XL (1887), summarized by Harmon, op. cit., IV, 173.

[307]
M. Croiset, op. cit., p. 131.

[308]
Gildersleeve, op. cit., p. 327.

[309]
Harmon, op. cit., III, 411.

[310]
Harmon, op. cit., III, 481.

[311]
M. Croiset, op. cit., p. 176.

[312]
Teubner text, I (1896), 319-27; H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, The
Works of Lucian, II, 27-34.

[313]
H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, op. cit., II, 29.

[314]
H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, op. cit., II, 33.

[315]
M. Croiset, op. cit., p. 303.

[316]
H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, op. cit., II, 123, C. 27.

[317]
H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, op. cit., II, 128-29, CC. 39, 41.

[318]
H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, op. cit., II, 133-35, CC. 54-61.

[319]
Gildersleeve, op. cit., p. 316.

[320]
See Philip Babcock Gove, The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction, New
York, 1941.

[321]
A secondary Preface to Book II may be found in Babble Beforehand:
Dionysus. In it Lucian speaks of a literary novelty he is producing under
the influence of Dionysus and Silenus, an old man’s lengthy babbling.

[322]
I. 4. The translations of the True History are from A. M. Harmon,
Lucian, I, 247-357 in The Loeb Classical Library.

[323]
I. 13.

[324]
I. 26.

[325]
II. 31.

[326]
II. 47.

[327]
Gildersleeve, op. cit., pp. 318-19.

[328]
See E. Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, Leipzig, 1914, pp. 204-209;
242-50, 260 ff.; C. S. Jerram, Luciani Vera Historia, Oxford, 1887, I,
120 and passim; H. W. L. Hime, Lucian the Syrian Satirist, London,

1900, app. pp. 91-95; F. W. Householder, Jr., Literary Quotation and
Allusion in Lucian, New York, 1941.

[329]
F. G. Allinson, Lucian Satirist and Artist, Boston, 1926, p. 123.

[330]
I. 29.

[331]
II. 17 and 19.

[332]
I. 20, Thuc. V. 18.

[333]
I. 16, Her. III. 102.

[334]
I. 16, Her. IV. 191.

[335]
I. 23, Her. I. 202; IV. 75.

[336]
I. 29, Her. II. 62.

[337]
I. 40, Her. II. 156.

[338]
II. 2, Her. IV. 28.

[339]
II. 5, Her. III. 113.

[340]
II. 31.

[341]
I. 3.

[342]
II. 20.

[343]
II. 24.

[344]
II. 28.

[345]
II. 22.

[346]
II. 15.

[347]
II. 25-26.

[348]
II. 35-36.

[349]
II. 28, Odys. X. 302-306.

[350]
II. 33, Odys. XIX. 562-67.

[351]
II. 46, Odys. XII. 37-200.

[352]
II. 20.

[353]
See M. Croiset, op. cit., C. XII, “La fantaisie chez Lucien”; and F. G.
Allinson, op. cit., passim.

[354]
Andrew Lang, Letters to Dead Authors, New York, 1893, pp. 53-54.

[355]
Ben Edwin Perry, The Metamorphoses Ascribed to Lucius of Patrae,
Princeton, 1920.

[356]
Bibl. Cod. 129, Migne.

[357]
B. E. Perry, op. cit., pp. 52-55.

[358]
M. Croiset, op. cit., p. 48.

[359]
Harmon, op. cit., V, 101-207.

[360]
M. Rostovtzeff, Seminarium Kondakovianum, II, 135-38, Prague, 1928;
Papyri Greci e Latini, VIII. No. 981. For a different point of view see F.
Zimmermann, “Lukians Toxaris und das Kairener Romanfragment” in
Philologische Wochenschrift, 55 (1935), 1211-16.

[361]
R. M. Rattenbury, “Romance: the Greek Novel” in New Chapters in the
History of Greek Literature, Third Series, pp. 240-44.

[362]
M. Rostovtzeff, Scythien und der Bosporus, Berlin, 1931, I, 96-99.

[363]
M. Croiset, op. cit., p. 51.

[364]
Quis ille? Met. I. 1.

[365]
E. H. Haight, Apuleius and his Influence, New York, 1927; “The Myth
of Cupid and Psyche in Ancient Art” in Art and Archaeology, III (1916),
43-52, 87-97; “The Myth of Cupid and Psyche in Renaissance Art,”
“The Vassar College Psyche Tapestries,” in Art and Archaeology, XV
(1923), 107-116; “Apuleius’ Art of Story-Telling” in Essays on Ancient
Fiction, New York, 1936.

[366]
From E. H. Haight, “Apuleius’ Art of Story-Telling,” in Essays on
Ancient Fiction, New York, 1936, p. 152.

[367]
Met. XI, 23.

[368]
Hermann Riefstahl, Der Roman des Apuleius, Frankfurt am Main, 1938,
pp. 83-84.

[369]
Riefstahl, op. cit., p. 85.

[370]
For an account of Aristides and the Milesian Tales see L. C. Purser, The
Story of Cupid and Psyche as related by Apuleius, London, 1910,
Excursus I.

[371]
Apologia, 55, 56.

[372]
Riefstahl, op. cit., pp. 84-85.

[373]
Met. XI. 22.

[374]
S. Gaselee, Apuleius the Golden Ass being the Metamorphoses of
Lucius Apuleius, in The Loeb Classical Library, XI. 4.

[375]
For Riefstahl’s whole theory of “Apuleius und die griechischen
Liebesromane” see op. cit., pp. 82-95.

[376]
See the review of Riefstahl’s work by H. W. Prescott in A.J.P., 61
(1940), pp. 115-17.

[377]
To complete the list of different types of novels, we might add the
realistic novel of low life, Petronius’ Satyricon. Since its affiliations are
with the Menippean satire and not with the Greek Romances, I have
omitted any study of it here. See E. H. Haight, Apuleius and his
Influence, pp. 7-8; “Satire and the Latin Novel” in Essays on Ancient
Fiction, pp. 86-120. For a recent review of the literature about the
Satyricon and a brilliant re-interpretation of it see Gilbert Highet
“Petronius the Moralist” in T.P.A.P.A., LXXII (1941), 176-94.

[378]
M. Rostovtzeff, A History of the Ancient World, Volume II. Rome,
Oxford, 1927, pp. 239-41. Yet see pp. 181-85 for Rostovtzeff’s
knowledge of the Greek Romances.

INDEX

A
Achilles, 11, 20, 35, 78, 90, 115, 173
Achilles Tatius, 10, 11, 12, 13, 62, 63, 95-118, 120, 196, 197, 198
Clitophon and Leucippe, 95-118, list of characters, 97-98
Aeschines, 147
Aesculapius, 155, 187
Aethiopica, 61-94
Africa, 186, 187
Alcinous, 79, 173
Alexander Romance, 11, 12
Alexandria, 45, 46, 47, 95, 99, 101, 117
Allinson, F. G., ix, 172, 175
Amyot, Jacques, 120, 143
Andromeda, 75, 93, 115
Antioch, 144
Antonius Diogenes, The Wonderful Things beyond Thule, 12, 145, 170, 171,
172
Apollonius of Tyre, 12
Apollonius of Tyana, 62, 88, 89
Apparent deaths, 100, 103-4, 196
Anthia, 12, 38-60, 93
Antinous, 92
Antoninus Pius, 187
Aphrodite, 8, 10, 16, 20, 21, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33, 51, 103, 107, 110, 196
Apis, 52, 55
Apollo, 42, 51, 55, 67, 68, 78, 82, 86, 87, 88, 111, 196

Apollonius Rhodius, 4
Apuleius, viii, 6, 13, 54, 145, 186-201
Metamorphoses, 176, 180, 181, 186-99
Cupid and Psyche, 186, 189, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196
Apologia, 187, 195
Florida, 187
Plato and his Doctrine, 187
The God of Socrates, 187
Aradus, 19, 20, 32, 35
Ares, 44, 51, 53, 183 204
Aristaenetus, 108
Aristides, author of Milesian Tales, 5, 194
Aristides, author of Panegyric on Rome, 200
Aristippus, 169
Aristophanes, 113, 149, 166, 167, 172
Aristotle, 153
Armenia, 156
Artemis, 40, 42, 51, 53, 103, 111, 112, 113, 196
Asia Minor, 14, 15, 53, 144
Astarte, 115
Athenagoras, 15
Athens, 77, 151, 153, 155, 186
Augustine, Saint, 187
Augustus, 40, 155
Aurelian, 62

B
Babylon, 10, 20, 26, 29, 32, 33, 34
Bardèche, Maurice, 59
Berytus, 98, 101
Bessa, 70, 77
Bias, 27
Bion, 135
Bithynia, 158
Blake, Warren E., viii, 14
Bonaparte, Elisa, 142
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 142

Borden, Fanny, ix
Bornecque, H., 6
Burton, William, 96
Byron, Lord G. G. N., 141
Byzantium, 98, 101, 105, 195

C
Calderini, Aristide, 4, 6, 13, 35, 36, 51, 54, 63, 76, 80, 88, 91, 95, 135, 136,
137
Callimachus, 3 205
Callirhoe, 12, 14-37, 57, 93, 97
Callisthenes, pseudo-, Alexander Romance, 11, 12
Calydon, 84
Calypso, 169, 170, 173, 175
Cappadocia, 45, 54
Caria, 15, 20
Carthage, 186, 187
Cenchreae, 190
Chaereas, 12, 14-37, 57, 93, 97
Charicles, 1, 12
Chariton, viii, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14-37, 40, 57, 58, 62, 63, 90, 91, 95, 96,
108, 112, 196, 199
Chaereas and Callirhoe, 14-37, list of characters, 15-16
Chassang, A., 3
Chauvin, V., 3
Chemmis, 66, 70, 77, 85
Chloe, 12, 93, 119-43
Christianity, 61, 62, 95, 96, 144, 154, 156
Cilicia, 40, 41, 44, 54
Cinema, 58, 59, 60, 83, 84, 101
Clarendon Press, viii
Claros, 42, 51, 55
Clitophon, 12, 93, 95-118
Colonna, Aristides, 61
Constantinus Manasses, Aristander and Callithea, 12
Controversiae, 6, 36
Conversation, use of, 27, 84, 101, 114, 133

Conybeare, F. C., 88
Corinth, 162, 190, 195
Cornelius Gallus, 5
Cornelius Sisenna, 5
Courier, Paul Louis, 137, 141-43
Court-room scenes, 18, 20, 23, 26, 36, 55, 59, 85, 100, 101, 111, 112-14,
133, 134, 137, 148, 149, 174
Croiset, Alfred, 6
Croiset, Maurice, 6, 146, 149, 157, 158, 160, 162, 175, 182, 185
Ctesias, 164, 165, 171, 173
Cumont, F., 157
Cyprus, 32
Cyrano de Bergerac, 175
Cyrus the Great, 16

D
Dalmeyda, G., 13, 40, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 128, 132, 135, 137,
138
Daphnis, 12, 93, 119-43 206
Daphnis and Chloe, 119-43
Daye, Angell, 120
Deaths, apparent, 17, 29, 45, 84, 97, 99, 100, 103, 104
Declamationes, 36
Delphi, 66, 69, 76, 77, 78, 82, 84, 86, 87, 88
Democritus, 157
Demosthenes, 141, 147, 150
Descriptions, use of, 29, 84, 114-17, 136, 138, 139, 174, 195, 196
Diana, 64, 67, 86
Diocletian, 118
Diogenes, 154, 162, 169
Dionysus, 114, 126, 129, 131, 134, 139, 155, 166, 171
Disney, Walt, 166
Dosicles and Rhodanthe, 12
Dreams, 18, 28, 29, 43, 50, 55, 59, 73, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 103, 111, 122,
129, 196
Drusilla, 1, 12
Dunlop, J., 3

D’Urfé, Honoré, 140

E
Edmonds, J. M., viii, 120, 137
Egypt, 15, 16, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 54, 64, 66, 67, 69, 77, 82, 86, 87, 145,
156, 158, 160, 195
Elephantine, 74, 77
Emesa, 61, 62, 88
Empedocles, 153, 155
Ending, happy, 2, 30, 49, 50, 55, 60, 93, 104, 128, 133, 189, 192, 193, 196
Ephesiaca, by Xenophon of Ephesus, 38-60
Ephesus, 5, 40, 41, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 99, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106,
111, 112
Epicurus, 153, 158, 169
Epiphanies, 67, 73, 84, 85, 86, 87, 103, 125, 196, 201
Eros, 10, 28, 42, 49, 51, 105, 110, 115, 122, 124, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131,
136, 139, 140, 192, 198
Ethiopia, 11, 46, 47, 73, 77, 85, 86, 87, 88
Ethiopians, 68, 72, 73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 87, 89
Euphrates, 27, 31
Eupolis, 149
Euripides, 58, 79, 108 207
Eustathius, Hysmine and Hysminias, 12
Exposures, 66, 68, 75, 122, 127, 128, 137

F
Fortune, 1, 19, 20, 31, 32, 36, 109, 111, 137, 187, 190, 192, 193, 196
Fowler, H. W. and F. G., ix, 146, 160, 161, 163, 164
Furia, Francesco, 141, 142

G
Gaselee, Stephen, 6, 7, 95, 96, 101, 198
Gaul, 144, 148
Gildersleeve, Basil L., 146, 158, 165, 166
Gove, P. B., 164
Greece, 3, 82, 88, 89, 141, 144, 148, 153, 156, 195, 200
Greek Romances, re-dating, 1-13

chronological list, 12
influence of elegiac poetry, 137
influence of New Attic Comedy, 112, 137, 146, 149
influence of Old Attic Comedy, 112, 146, 149
influence of the Pastoral, 119-43, 196
influence of rhetorical schools, 36, 37, 84, 85, 90, 91, 112, 114, 137-
38, 149
likeness to drama, 26, 36, 37, 58, 77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 91, 137
likeness to epic, 35-36, 58, 77, 78, 79, 83, 84, 90, 91, 112
Greene, Robert, 97, 140
Gulliver’s Travels, 164
Gymnosophists, 74, 79, 81, 82, 89, 93, 196

H
Habrocomes, 12, 38-60, 93
Habrocomes and Anthia, 38-60
Hadrian, 40, 92
Harmon, A. M., 147, 153, 155, 157, 158, 160, 165, 182
Harvard University Press, viii
Heffelbower, G. F., 6
Helen, 21, 34, 78, 110, 169, 173, 175
Heliodorus, 3, 10, 12, 13, 61-94, 96, 196 208
Aethiopica or Theagenes and Chariclea, 61-94, list of characters,
63
Heliogabalus, 62
Helios, 46, 48, 52, 61, 62, 79, 87, 88
Hercules, 111, 115, 147, 155, 166, 171
Hermes, 69, 87, 148, 151, 153, 174
Herodes Atticus, 156
Herodotus, 4, 36, 77, 165, 171, 172, 173
Hesiod, 112, 174
Highet, Gilbert, 199
Hime, H. W. L., 171
Hippolytus, 20, 58, 64, 79, 82
Homer, 33, 34, 37, 57, 78, 90, 92, 94, 112, 159, 161, 164, 169, 172, 173,
174
Hooker, Blanche Ferry, v

Horace, 136, 151
Householder, F. W., 171
Huet, P. D., 3
Hysmine and Hysminias, 12

I
Iamblichus, Babyloniaca or Rhodanes and Sinonis, 12
Iambulus, 164, 171
Iliad, 4, 33, 34, 35, 78, 90, 91
India, 41, 46, 154
Ionia, 148
Isis, 42, 45, 47, 51, 53, 54, 64, 66, 71, 82, 86, 87, 88, 99, 187, 190, 191,
192, 194, 195, 196, 198
Italy, 46, 47, 48, 54, 58, 141, 144, 148, 200

J
Jacobs, Lewis, 59
Jerram, C. S., 171
Jupiter, 189, 194
Juvenal, 200

L
Lang, Andrew, 175
Lavagnini, Bruno, 2, 3, 4
Lesbos, 122, 131
Letters, 18, 22, 23, 27, 28, 44, 55, 56, 65, 66, 68, 75, 79, 81, 84, 85, 102,
106, 175
Love-Letters of Aristaenetus, 108
Leucippe, 12, 93, 95-118 209
Loeb, The Loeb Classical Library, viii, 6, 95, 120, 137, 147, 198
Longmans, Green and Co., ix
Longus, viii, 12, 13, 196, 198
Daphnis and Chloe, 119-43, list of characters, 121
Lucian, viii, ix, 12, 13, 144-85, 187, 197, 199, 200
on oratory and rhetoric, 148-50
on philosophies, 150-54
autobiography in works, 146-62