Ares appears only in Xenophon. This is strange when war plays such 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 was rescued.[81]
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 she was a consecrated priestess of Isis so the rajah respected her person.[82] At Memphis in her temple, Anthia appealed to Isis who had preserved her chastity in the past to grant her salvation and restore her to Habrocomes.[83] 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 and pity for Anthia promised to respect her.[84] Finally near that temple of Isis Habrocomes and Anthia found each other and in the same temple they offered prayers of thanksgiving.[85] 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 Artemis.[86] 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 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 which are often wrong.[87] 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 characters.[88] 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 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 suicides testify to their despair.[89] 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 maintains faithfulness in the face of death, or outlives death itself.[90]
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 the “naked simplicity” of the style is not due to the redactor.[91] This characteristic is so distinctive of the author that it seems to 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 delicacy their joy which is both tender and passionate.[92]
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 Habrocomes and Anthia are notable.[93] 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 letters, one memorial and two votive inscriptions, all directly quoted,[94] 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 drowning.[95] Aegialeus, the Spartan living with the mummy of his wife, tells how his love for her has outlasted death.[96] Both these narratives are colorful, dramatic and poignant from the very qualities which characterize all the romance. These are brevity, sincerity and restrained emotion.