Artemis of Ephesus is rather the deity who dominates Tatius’ story. She appears in dreams to the heroine and to Leucippe’s father.[194] In her name Leucippe rebukes Thersander for insulting a virgin in the city of the Virgin Goddess.[195] Sostratus arrives at Ephesus as the head of a sacred embassy in honor of Artemis and so finds his daughter.[196] Leucippe has taken refuge in the temple of Artemis and in that temple at last she and Clitophon are reunited.[197] Here the villain of the piece Thersander brutally attacks Clitophon.[198] Thersander’s lawyer in court makes insulting slanders about the fact that Clitophon and Leucippe probably defiled the temple by an amour there.[199] 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 hawk pursuing the swallow.[200] Oracles are respected.[201] And the ordeals of Pan’s pipes and the Styx’s water receive general credence. Festivals to the gods are celebrated.[202] But religion seems rather a matter of 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, for he quotes Homer once[203] and alludes to him five times[204] and he refers to Hesiod twice.[205] The messenger speeches in tragedy undoubtedly suggested the slave’s dramatic narrative of the death of Charicles in a riding accident.[206] 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 Satyrus who deride each other under cover of fables;[207] and the Old in the Aristophanic priest of Artemis who “was no poor hand at speaking, and as good at quip and gibe as the plays of Aristophanes.”[208] 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 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 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 sophist, for Eros teaches even arguments![209]
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 and Philomela to Leucippe.[210] 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 Dionysus.[211] 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 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.