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 arbitrariness when imitated by his eunuch Euphrates becomes sadistic tyranny over prisoners given to his care.
Arsace his wife finds her escape in intrigue and amours.[118] 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 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 interests probably represents Heliodorus himself.[119]
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 Chariclea in whom we have been interested from the first.[120]
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 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 facilitate the plot.[121] Conversation is used constantly on the battle field or in the boudoir, in palaces, in dungeons. Turn over the pages of 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 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 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.