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 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:
“while the words were yet on his lips.”[42]
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
“the sweet savor arose to heaven eddying amid the smoke.”[43]
Men are pictured fighting and in their close array
“buckler pressed on buckler, helm on helm, and man on man.”[44]
And as the conflict joined and Chaereas rushed against his enemies, he
“smote them right and left and there rose a hideous moaning.”[45]
Artaxerxes in his court is compared to Zeus among the assembled gods.[46] A phantom of Chaereas appears to Callirhoe resembling him