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 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 of résumés.[112] 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 them (V. 11).[113]
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 Homeric Νέκυια.[114]
Even more prominent than his debt to epic poetry is Heliodorus’ use 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 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 who can talk, lament and complain, but are without life.[115] 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 discouraged.[116] 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 and both she displayed.[117] 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 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.