ESSAYS ON
THE GREEK ROMANCES

BY
ELIZABETH HAZELTON HAIGHT
Professor Emeritus of Latin, Vassar College

NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
M D CCCC XLIII

HAIGHT
ESSAYS ON THE GREEK ROMANCES

COPYRIGHT · 1943
BY LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE
RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR
ANY PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM

PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN
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LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO

FIRST EDITION

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To
BLANCHE FERRY HOOKER
IN HONOR AND FRIENDSHIP

The Publication
of this book was made possible
by the
J. LEVERETT MOORE RESEARCH FUND
IN CLASSICS
and the
LUCY MAYNARD SALMON FUND
FOR RESEARCH
established at Vassar College
in 1926

PREFACE

If all the world loves a lover, as the old proverb says, then this my book should win wide fame. For these Greek Romances of the first to the fourth century of our era seem still to be singing the immemorial refrain from the old spring-time song of “The Vigil of Venus”:

Cras amet qui numquam amavit,

quique amavit cras amet.

“Let those love now, who never lov’d before;

Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.”

At a time when fiction is the most popular form of literature, these wonderful old Greek stories of love, adventure and worship are half forgotten and rarely read except by the scholar. Yet here, as in epic, lyric, elegy, drama, oratory and history, the Greeks were pioneers. In the second and third centuries they had created four different types of romance (of love, of adventure, the pastoral, the satiric) which were to have great influence on French, Italian and English fiction. The student of comparative literature, the student of the history of fiction cannot afford to neglect these pioneer Greek novels.

Their appeal, however, should be just as great for the general reader as for the scholar. For here are stories that mirror the life of the Mediterranean world in the Roman Empire with all its new excitements of travel, piracy, kidnapping, the new feminism, the new religious cults. And through all the different types of romance except the satiric the Love-God holds supreme sway over the hearts of men. So human, so vivacious are the love-stories that I offer to my readers Longus’ assurance of profit in his introduction to his Pastoral Romance:

“I drew up these four books, an oblation to Love and to Pan and to the Nymphs, and a delightful possession even for all men. For this will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has loved, it will remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For there was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that God to write the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my own right wits.”[1]

My hope in writing on the Greek Romances is that I may lure readers back to them. My essays aim to be guideposts pointing the way. I venture to suggest that along with my book readers should peruse at least four novels of different types for which good translations are available. These are Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe by Warren E. Blake (beautiful in English and format) and three volumes of The Loeb Classical Library: Daphnis and Chloe by Longus, Lucian’s True History (in Lucian vol. I) and the Latin novel which combines the different Greek types into one great synthesis, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. If I can win new readers for these my favorites, my writing will be as successful as it has been happy!

It is a pleasure once again to express grateful thanks to publishers and authors who have allowed me to quote material. I am indebted to the Harvard University Press for its courtesy in allowing me to quote freely from volumes in The Loeb Classical Library; to the Clarendon Press, Oxford for the use of material from R. M. Rattenbury, “Romance: the Greek Novel,” in New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature, Third Series, from F. A. Todd, Some Ancient Novels, from J. S. Phillimore, “Greek Romances” in English Literature and the Classics, and from The Works of Lucian of Samosata translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler; to Longmans, Green and Co., for the use of a quotation from F. G. Allinson, Lucian Satirist and Artist; to the University of Michigan Press for the use of Warren E. Blake’s translation of Chariton; to the Columbia University Press for permission to quote from S. L. Wolff’s The Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction; and for generous permissions for quotations from Professor M. Rostovtzeff and Professor B. E. Perry.

My writing has been greatly facilitated by the cooperation of the staff of the Vassar Library, especially of Miss Fanny Borden, Librarian, who has provided me with a study in the Library, patiently borrowed many books from other libraries for me and shown unfailing interest in my work. A constant stimulus to my writing has been the appreciation of my colleagues and students expressed in invitations to read different chapters of this volume to the Classical Journal Club and to the Classical Society. Finally my profound gratitude is due to the donors of the funds which made possible the publication of these Essays.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I. The Greek Romances and Their Re-dating.] 1 [II. Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe.] 14 [III. The Ephesiaca or Habrocomes and Anthia by Xenophon of Ephesus.] 38 [IV. The Aethiopica of Heliodorus.] 61 [V. The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius.] 95 [VI. The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe by Longus.] 119 [VII. Lucian and his Satiric Romances: the True History and Lucius or Ass.] 144 [VIII. A Comparison of the Greek Romances and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.] 186 [Index] 203

ESSAYS ON
THE GREEK ROMANCES

I
THE GREEK ROMANCES AND THEIR RE-DATING

The term “Greek Romances” is applied to long stories in Greek prose, written from the end of the first to the beginning of the fourth century before Christ and later imitated by Byzantine writers. It was one of these last, Nicetas Eugenianus, who prefixed to his own romance a prelude of verses which described their content:

“Here read Drusilla’s fate and Charicles’—

Flight, wandering, captures, rescues, roaring seas,

Robbers and prisons, pirates, hunger’s grip;

Dungeons so deep that never sun could dip

His rays at noon-day to their dark recess,

Chained hands and feet; and, greater heaviness,

Pitiful partings. Last the story tells

Marriage, though late, and ends with wedding bells.”[2]

The subjects listed in these lines are typical of nearly all the novels. An author selected new names for his hero and heroine and portrayed the same quest for love and adventure. The young pair always marvellously handsome fall desperately in love and plight their eternal fidelity in a sacred oath. Soon they are separated by misadventure or the cruel will of Fortune and suffer alone every misfortune and temptation, but by superhuman effort and often by the aid of the gods, they at last emerge triumphant and chaste and fall in exultation into each other’s arms.

It was just because of this similarity of pattern that it became the fashion for critics to belittle these melodramas, to emphasize their similarities, and to disregard their individual characteristics and enthralling style. Erwin Rohde’s great critical study, Der griechische Roman, was perhaps the first to treat them with the serious consideration which they deserve. Now Rohde’s theories have to be in large part rejected because of new discoveries in papyri which have necessitated the re-dating of the extant novels and adding to their study fragments of novels hitherto unknown which help establish new types and give a basis for a new critique.

My own discussion is to be concerned with the novels themselves, their individual characteristics, their literary qualities, viewed on the basis of their new dating. For this reason I shall spend little time on the famous theories of the origins of the Greek Romances and on their precursors. For my purpose of intensive, literary study it is enough to present these in outline.

In regard to the origins of the Greek Romances, two special theories must be mentioned since they have had more vogue than any others. These are the theories of Erwin Rohde and of Bruno Lavagnini. Erwin Rohde in Der griechische Roman, which first appeared in 1876, recognized two essential elements in the Greek Romances: stories of love and stories of travel. He studied the precursors of these two types. He finally affirmed that the synthesis of the two, the romance, is a direct product of the rhetorical schools of the Second Sophistry which flourished in Greece during the Empire. Rohde based his work on the extant romances and the summaries of Photius (Patriarch of Constantinople, 858-886) and believing that none of this material antedated the second century of our era, he constructed his theory that “Greek romance was a product of the Zweite Sophistik, and had no direct connection either with the short story as represented by the Milesian Tales or with any Greek or Alexandrian literary form.”[3] W. Schmid in the third edition of Rohde (1914) summarized in an Appendix the new discoveries and theories after Rohde’s death.

I omit a résumé of the work of Huet,[4] Dunlop,[5] Chassang[6] and of Chauvin,[7] all significant in their times, to present a theory which is now more striking. In 1921 Bruno Lavagnini in a learned monograph, Le Origini del Romanzo Greco, traced the development of the Greek romance from local legends of Magna Graecia, Greece proper, the Greek Islands and Asia Minor. He found support for his theory in the titles of many of them:

a Philippus of Amphipolis, which Suidas mentioned. In his study he took into account the novelle or short stories which Rohde believed had no influence on the novel, and studied the Μιλησιακά, the short Love Romances of Parthenius, the fragment of the Aitia of Callimachus, Acontius and Cydippe. He showed that Rohde had entirely neglected the important influence of the novella in the Greek romance and had been mistaken in his insistence on the fundamentally different character of the two. Rohde claimed that the novella was realistic, the romance idealistic and hence declared that any derivation of the romance from the novella was impossible. Lavagnini recognized other influences in the development of the romance, especially those of satire and of the new comedy, but he maintained that an essential feature was the historical. He admitted that in the use of his local legends the events are projected into an ideal and remote past.

The tendency in the new criticism of the Greek Romances, notably in the work of Aristide Calderini,[8] is not to seek for any one main source for their “origins,” but rather to consider all possible precursors in the field of fiction who directly or indirectly influenced them. Their name is legion and they appear in the fields of both poetry and prose. For from the earliest times of Greek literature the art of narration was in use. Epics presented narratives of war in the Iliad, of adventure in the Odyssey, of love in Apollonius Rhodius. Drama produced narrative speeches particularly in tragedy in the role of the messenger. Elegiac poetry developed subjective-erotic stories, based on myths, or history, or real life, and written in lyric mood in narratives or letters. Idyls finally portrayed against a pastoral setting the outdoor loves of shepherds.

In prose, there are full-grown novelettes combining love and adventure embedded in the Greek historians: Herodotus’ story of Candaules’ wife,[9] the story of Rhampsinitus’ treasure,[10] the story of the love of Xerxes,[11] the story of Abradatas of Susa and Panthea in Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus which Whibley calls “the first love-story in European prose.”[12] Short stories or novelle in prose are known from the accounts of the Milesian Tales and from Parthenius’ miniature Love Romances. The Μιλησιακά were written in the second century B.C., by Aristides of Miletus and a collection of them was translated into Latin by Cornelius Sisenna who died 57 B.C. Their character was definite: they were erotic stories of a lascivious type. Their philosophy of life was that all men—and women—are sinners, and this belief was embodied in episodes from every-day life. Their amorality was such that the Parthian Surena was horrified when in the Parthian War of 53 B.C., a copy of the Milesian Tales was found in the pack of a Roman officer. Other short local tales, for example those of Sybaris and of Ephesus, shared these characteristics of realism, irony and disillusion.

Parthenius of Nicaea wrote a collection of short Love Romances of a very different type. This Greek elegiac poet of the Augustan Age wrote his Love Romances in Greek prose as a storehouse for his friend, Cornelius Gallus, to draw upon for material for epic or elegiac verse; and for this reason he put them forth in the briefest and simplest form possible. Most of them are unfamiliar stories even when they are about well-known mythological characters. In many the love tales are set against a background of war. Short as they are, both their subject matter and style are significant for the development of Greek prose fiction.

Moreover, the work of the rhetorical schools must be considered among the forerunners of the novel, both in Greek and Latin. Although we know now that the Greek Romances were being written before the time of the New or Second Sophistry which Rohde postulated to be their origin, still in the Greek Romances as well as in the Satyricon and in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, there are many illustrations of the influence of the practice cases of the rhetorical schools. A study of the Controversiae in Seneca the Elder and in the pseudo-Quintilian, a study of The Lives of the Sophists by Philostratus demonstrates that in these school exercises where “oratory became a theatrical fiction”[13] lay many first drafts of a new literary genre, the romance.[14]

It is a pity that Erwin Rohde could not have lived to revise himself his great work on the Greek Romances in the light of the new discoveries about them. No scholar has yet arisen equipped with his tremendous erudition and penetrating criticism to succeed him worthily. Perhaps indeed the time has not yet come to write a new critical history of the Greek romance, for at any time added discoveries may demand still further revision of dates and consideration of types. But at this stage it is essential to review the new discoveries and to try to estimate their significance. This outline is based on three important summaries: the introduction by Aristide Calderini to his translation of Chariton;[15] the “Appendix on the Greek Novel” by Stephen Gaselee in the edition of Daphnis and Chloe and Parthenius in The Loeb Classical Library;[16] and the chapter on “Romance: the Greek Novel” by R. M. Rattenbury in New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature, Third Series.[17]

Most spectacular and important of the new discoveries was that of the fragments of the Ninus Romance, first published in 1893. They were found on an Egyptian papyrus, on the back of which are written some accounts of A.D. 101. The writing of the romance is so clear and beautiful that it is dated by experts as belonging to the first century B.C. As Rattenbury says: “The Ninus Romance is therefore the only pre-Christian specimen of its kind; it is indisputably two centuries earlier than the earliest of the completely extant romances (Charito), and probably as much earlier than any of the known fragments.”[18] The remains consist of two separate fragments with parts of five columns on the first and of three on the second. Gaselee writes of the content:[19] “in the first (A) the hero, Ninus, and the heroine (unnamed), deeply in love with one another, approach each the other’s mother and set forth their love, asking for a speedy marriage; in the second (B) the young couple seem to be together at the beginning, but almost immediately Ninus is found leading an army of his Assyrians, with Greek and Carian allies, against the Armenian enemy.”

Fragment A is short enough so that we can read Gaselee’s translation of it:[20]

Ninus and the maiden were both equally anxious for an immediate marriage. Neither of them dared to approach their own mothers—Thambe and Derceia, two sisters, the former Ninus’ mother, the latter the mother of the girl—but preferred each to address themselves to the mother of the other: for each felt more confidence towards their aunts than towards their own parents. So Ninus spoke to Derceia: “Mother,” said he, “with my oath kept true do I come into thy sight and to the embrace of my most sweet cousin. This let the gods know first of all—yes, they do know it, and I will prove it to you now as I speak. I have travelled over so many lands and been lord over so many nations, both those subdued by my own spear and those who, as the result of my father’s might, serve and worship me, that I might have tasted of every enjoyment to satiety—and, had I done so, perhaps my passion for my cousin would have been less violent: but now that I have come back uncorrupted I am worsted by the god of love and by my age; I am, as thou knowest, in my seventeenth year, and already a year ago have I been accounted as having come to man’s estate. Up to now I have been nought but a boy, a child: and if I had had no experience of the power of Aphrodite, I should have been happy in my firm strength. But now that I have been taken prisoner—thy daughter’s prisoner, in no shameful wise, but agreeably to the desires both of thee and her, how long must I bear refusal?

“That men of this age of mine are ripe for marriage, is clear enough: how many have kept themselves unspotted until their fifteenth year? But I am injured by a law, not a written law, but one sanctified by foolish custom, that among our people virgins generally marry at fifteen years. Yet what sane man could deny that nature is the best law for unions such as this? Why, women of fourteen years can conceive, and some, I vow, even bear children at that age. Then is not thy daughter to be wed? ‘Let us wait for two years,’ you will say: let us be patient, mother, but will Fate wait? I am a mortal man and betrothed to a mortal maid: and I am subject not merely to the common fortunes of all men—diseases, I mean, and that Fate which often carries off those who stay quietly at home by their own fire-sides; but sea-voyages are waiting for me, and wars after wars, and I am not the one to shew any lack of daring and to employ cowardice to afford me safety, but I am what you know I am, to avoid vulgar boasting. Let the fact that I am a king, my strong desire, the unstable and incalculable future that awaits me, let all these hasten our union, let the fact that we are each of us only children be provided for and anticipated, so that if Fate wills us anything amiss, we may at least leave you some pledge of our affection. Perhaps you will call me shameless for speaking to you of this: but I should indeed have been shameless if I had privily approached the maiden, trying to snatch a secret enjoyment, and satisfying our common passion by the intermediaries of night or wine, or servants, or tutors: but there is nothing shameful in me speaking to thee, a mother, about thy daughter’s marriage that has been so long the object of thy vows, and asking for what thou hast promised, and beseeching that the prayers both of our house and of the whole kingdom may not lack fulfilment beyond the present time.”

So did he speak to the willing Derceia, and easily compelled her to come to terms on the matter: and when she had for a while dissembled, she promised to act as his advocate. Meanwhile although the maiden’s passion was equally great, yet her speech with Thambe was not equally ready and free; she had ever lived within the women’s apartments, and could not so well speak for herself in a fair shew of words: she asked for an audience—wept, and desired to speak, but ceased as soon as she had begun. As soon as she had shewn that she was desirous of pleading, she would open her lips and look up as if about to speak, but could finally utter nothing: she heaved with broken sobs, her cheeks reddened in shame at what she must say, and then as she tried to improvise a beginning, grew pale again: and her fear was something between alarm and desire and shame as she shrank from the avowal; and then, as her affections got the mastery of her and her purpose failed, she kept swaying with inward disturbance between her varying emotions. But Thambe wiped away her tears with her hands and bade her boldly speak out whatever she wished to say. But when she could not succeed, and the maiden was still held back by her sorrow, “This,” cried Thambe, “I like better than any words thou couldst utter. Blame not my son at all: he has made no over-bold advance, and he has not come back from his successes and his victories like a warrior with any mad and insolent intention against thee: I trust that thou hast not seen any such intention in his eyes. Is the law about the time of marriage too tardy for such a happy pair? Truly my son is in all haste to wed: nor needest thou weep for this that any will try to force thee at all”: and at the same time with a smile she embraced and kissed her. Yet not even then could the maiden venture to speak, so great was her fear (or, her joy), but she rested her beating heart against the other’s bosom, and kissing her more closely still seemed almost ready to speak freely of her desires through her former tears and her present joy. The two sisters therefore met together, and Derceia spoke first. “As to the actual (marriage?),” said she....”

In fragment B the seventeen-year-old warrior is found marshalling his forces, “seventy thousand chosen Assyrian foot and thirty thousand horse, and a hundred and fifty elephants,” and at the end beginning the advance at the head of his cavalry:

And stretching out his hands as if (offering sacrifice?), “This,” he cried, “is the foundation and crisis of my hopes: from this day I shall begin some greater career, or I shall fall from the power I now possess.”[21]

In this Ninus Romance as we have it, the name of the heroine is not mentioned, but her mother’s name is Derceia and that is a close variant of Derceto, the name of the divine mother of Semiramis in the usual legend. So although the type is different from that of the queen of Babylon, the character is probably hers. It seems evident that this early novelist was, then, building his romance around historical characters. Rattenbury points this out and also shows conclusively that the characteristics of all the other romances are indisputably present in this early fragmentary story:[22]

“The impetuous but honest Ninus reappears clearly enough in the Theagenes of Heliodorus, and the lovesick maiden of unassailable virtue and almost intolerable modesty might be the heroine of any Greek romance.”

Ninus pledges his faith as later heroes take an oath. He like them is the toy of Eros or Aphrodite. In the extant romances,

“The characters, the treatment, and even the plots are almost stereotyped; and yet one difference is observable—a tendency to abandon an ostensibly historical background in favour of a purely fictitious setting. The relative dates of the authors are by no means certain, but the fortunate discovery of papyrus fragments of Charito and Achilles Tatius supports the view, probable on other grounds, that Charito is to be considered the earliest, and Achilles Tatius the latest. It is therefore of interest to notice that Charito, though his hero and heroine are creatures of his imagination, introduces some historical characters and some historical events; his main story is fictitious, but he seems to have been at pains to lend it a historical flavour. Heliodorus, somewhat later, presents a picture of a fairly definite historical period, but no more; his characters are all fictitious and there is no historical authority for the sequence of events which he describes. Achilles Tatius degrades romance from the realm of princes to the level of the bourgeoisie. His story is frankly fictitious, and he evidently had no feeling that romance should be related to history.”

Rattenbury goes on to illustrate his theory of the change from the semi-historical to the purely fictitious romance by a study of the Alexander Romance and the new fragments of other stories. The pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance in the oldest version extant is dated about A.D. 300. But papyrus fragments indicate that a large part of the material in it goes back to a time shortly after Alexander’s death. From the evidence of our late pseudo-Callisthenes version which probably followed tradition it would seem that history was treated as fiction and little attention paid to the love-story of Roxane which could have furnished such a lively erotic interest. New fragments of other romances show other great rulers used as heroes.[23] One is the Egyptian prince, Sesonchosis, called by the Greeks Sesostris. Mythological characters too become protagonists in romances: Achilles and Polyxena; the Egyptian Tefnut, daughter of Phre, the sun-god, who took her adventures in the shape of a cat wandering in the desert of Ethiopia. Other fragments run true to the general type of the Greek Romances in manifesting now this, now that characteristic.

The sum total of all the fragments discovered up to date gives convincing evidence of two important facts: first, the extant Greek Romances are only a small part of the output of this genre; second, the dating of all the fragments places them between the end of the first and the beginning of the fourth century of our era. The Ninus Romance is the earliest fragment, Chariton’s the earliest complete romance, that of Achilles Tatius the latest. On this framework a chronological list of the extant novels arranged on the basis of proved data and the probabilities of internal evidence and comparisons, shapes like this:

It is to be observed that from internal evidence Xenophon of Ephesus probably came before Heliodorus. Longus is sui generis, and so stands apart from the typical genre of the novels; in fact is a unique specimen of another type, the pastoral romance.

The new discoveries from the papyri with the consequent re-dating of all known material has given a strong impetus to new study of Greek Romances; new editions of text with translation are being brought out by English, French, Italian and American scholars.[24] The introductions to some of these editions, especially those of Calderini and Dalmeyda, are the first distinguished literary work in the field since Rohde with the exception of Samuel Lee Wolff’s monograph on The Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction, New York, 1912.

The time has now come for a literary study in English which will make available foreign criticism and present perhaps some new ideas. I plan to discuss in successive chapters Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius and Longus, and to suggest something of their influence. Then I shall take up the Λούκιος ἢ ὄνος attributed to Lucian and his True History and finally I shall show the synthesis of the novel of adventure and the true Greek romance of love in the great Latin novel, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.

II
CHARITON’S CHAEREAS AND CALLIRHOE

There are two reasons for beginning a perusal of the Greek Romances with Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe. It is “the earliest Greek romance of which the text has been completely preserved.” It is “a lively tale of adventure in which a nobly born heroine is kidnapped across the sea from Syracuse to Asia Minor, where her beauty causes many complications and she is finally rescued by her dashing lover.” I quote from Warren E. Blake whose publication of the Greek text and a literary translation of it are a monument to American scholarship.

The date of the manuscript of this novel has been proved to be not later than the middle of the second century A.D., by the recent discoveries of papyrus fragments of it.[25] Warren Blake comments on the significance of these discoveries:[26]

“In view of the complete absence in ancient literature of any certain allusion to Chariton, he was long supposed to be the latest of the authors of Greek romance, and was dated, purely by conjecture, about 500 A.D. But by a turn of fortune as truly remarkable as any attributed by Chariton himself to that fickle goddess, three scraps of his book have been turned up in Egypt during the last forty years. One of these scraps was found in company with some business documents which date from about the end of the second century of our era. Inasmuch as the place of discovery was a small country town to which new works of literature would not likely penetrate immediately on publication, and since in any case an expensive book is almost sure to be preserved longer than day-by-day business papers, we seem quite justified in setting the date of publication back some twenty-five or even fifty years. Thus it is probable that this novel was written at least as early as the middle of the second century, only about one hundred years later than most of the books of the New Testament.”

The identity of the author is made known by the first sentence: “I am Chariton of Aphrodisia, secretary to the advocate Athenagoras.” Aphrodisia was a town in Caria in southern Asia Minor. Its locality helps little in expanding the autobiography of the author out of this one crisp sentence. But the romance itself reveals more of his personality. His fondness for court-room scenes and his elaborate descriptions of them are what we would expect from a secretary to a ῥήτωρ or advocate. His learning is evident from his many literary and mythological references. And occasionally he steps out of the role of the impersonal narrator into his own character and speaks in the first person to his reader. We will come to feel rather sure of his interests and tastes as we read his πάθος ἐρωτικόν.

Before proceeding to outline the plot of the eight books of this romance, it will be well to clarify the story by presenting a list of the characters.

The chief characters are:

Chaereas, the handsome young Greek hero, son of Ariston of Syracuse Callirhoe, the beautiful young Greek heroine, daughter of Hermocrates, a famous general of Syracuse Polycharmus, a young Greek, the devoted friend of Chaereas Hermocrates, the general of Syracuse Theron, a pirate Dionysius, the governor of Miletus Mithridates, satrap of Caria Artaxerxes, king of the Persians Statira, his wife, queen of the Persians Pharnaces, the governor of Lydia and Ionia Rhodogyne, the sister of Pharnaces, daughter of Zopyrus, wife of Megabyzus, a Persian beauty.

The minor characters of importance are:

Leonas, a slave-dealer of Miletus Plangon, a female slave of Dionysius Phocas, slave and overseer of Dionysius, husband of Plangon Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes Hyginus, a servant of Mithridates.

The list of characters reveals at once a connection of Chariton’s novel with the Ninus Romance because of the use of historical characters. Hermocrates, the great general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians in the naval battle, 414 B.C., is the father of the heroine and is referred to repeatedly with the greatest pride. Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians, appears in person in courts and in wars. Historical events too are mentioned as if to give a background of reality: the contests between the Syracusans and the Athenians; the war between the Greeks and the Persians; the rebellion of Egypt against Persia; the merit of Cyrus the Great in organizing the army.

Against such a background of plausible reality, the plot develops along three main lines of interest: love, adventure and religion. The story begins with the introduction of the radiant young hero and heroine of Syracuse when they fall in love at first sight at a festival of Aphrodite. Almost immediately they are married, but their ecstatic happiness is short, for Callirhoe’s many other suitors, angry at her choice, plot revenge. They make her husband jealous by false stories of a lover whom his bride favors, and, by staging a surreptitious admission to his house of a lover of Callirhoe’s maid, convince Chaereas that his wife is faithless. In passionate fury he dashes to his wife’s room and when Callirhoe overjoyed at his unexpected return rushes to meet him, he kicks her with such violence in the middle of her body that she falls down, to all appearance dead. Chaereas is tried for murder and pleads for his own condemnation, but is acquitted against his will by the appeal of Hermocrates.

Callirhoe is now given a magnificent funeral and buried with much treasure. The heroine, however, who had only fainted, soon revives, but while she is bemoaning her sad fate, a band of pirates, led by Theron, breaks open the tomb, steals the treasure, kidnaps the girl, then sets sail with all speed for the east. At Miletus, Theron sells Callirhoe as a slave to Dionysius, a noble Ionian prince. He soon falls in love with his slave, but learning her story (except the fact that she was already married which Callirhoe omits) respects her tragic position and woos her with delicacy and consideration. Callirhoe, on finding that she is two months with child, decides to accept the advice of the maid Plangon and marry Dionysius to give her baby a father. Plangon assures Callirhoe that the child will be considered a premature seven months baby, and she secures from Dionysius a promise to bring up as his honored children any sons of the marriage. Book III tells how Chaereas found the tomb empty; how Theron was captured, forced to tell the truth by torture and crucified; how Chaereas and his bosom friend Polycharmus went on a warship to Miletus in search of Callirhoe but were captured and sold as slaves to Mithridates, satrap of Caria.

Now Mithridates too had fallen in love with Callirhoe on seeing her at Miletus. On returning to Caria he discovers the identity of his slave Chaereas just in time to save him from crucifixion because of an uprising of his fellow-slaves, and tells him that his wife is now married to Dionysius. Chaereas writes a letter to Callirhoe full of penitence and of love and Mithridates forwards it by Hyginus, his faithful slave, adding another letter of his own promising Chaereas and Callirhoe his aid. Unfortunately these letters fall into the hands of Dionysius himself and that noble prince, in his mad passion for his wife, conceals from her the news that Chaereas is alive and makes a plot for the protection of his own interests. He appeals to Pharnaces, governor of Lydia and Ionia, who is also in love with Callirhoe, to help a scheme he has made. Pharnaces thus prompted writes a letter to Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, accusing Mithridates of trying to corrupt Dionysius’ wife. The great King then summons Mithridates to a trial for plotting adultery and sends also for Dionysius and Callirhoe.

The court scene is full of magnificence and surprises. Mithridates has no fear because in answer to the denunciations of Dionysius he is able to produce as a witness Chaereas who swears to his innocence and friendship. Mithridates is acquitted and departs. Then the King dismisses the court for five days before adjudging whose wife Callirhoe is to be since now she has two living husbands. Meanwhile he intrusts the lady for safe keeping to his wife, Statira. Dionysius is torn between the promptings of passion and reason. Chaereas is in despair at the possibility of losing Callirhoe again. And Artaxerxes, the King, like all the other great gentlemen in the story, falls madly in love with Callirhoe for her beauty.

The King’s passion makes him postpone the court trial a month on the pretext of a dream which demanded sacrifice to the gods. His eunuch tries to persuade the heroine to do herself the honor of submitting to the King’s embraces, but only horrifies and offends her purity. Now Fortune again takes a hand in separating once more Chaereas and Callirhoe, for a revolt of the Egyptians is announced, the King must be off to war, and as usual the queen and her suite go with him. Callirhoe accompanies the queen by royal orders.

Dionysius of course serves as one of the King’s generals. He has a crafty piece of news conveyed to Chaereas that in reward for his faithful service the King had given him Callirhoe. Chaereas, believing this false story, and no longer caring to live, enlists with the faithful Polycharmus in the Egyptian army to fight against his rival. He is allowed to collect an army of three hundred Greeks in memory of Thermopylae and with them captures Tyre. News of this loss makes the Persian King so anxious that he decides not to travel with all his retinue, but to leave the women on the little island of Aradus. Chaereas who is proving a valiant warrior soon takes the island and discovers Callirhoe among his captives. Both faint on seeing each other but since joy never kills, they soon recover and reunited tell all and forgive all.

Word suddenly comes that the Persian King has defeated the Egyptians and their King is dead. Chaereas and his men decide to sail home to Syracuse, but first in response to the plea of Callirhoe Chaereas sends his prisoner, the queen Statira, back to the King because she had befriended Callirhoe in her woes. Callirhoe without the knowledge of Chaereas writes a beautiful and affectionate letter of farewell to Dionysius, intrusting to him the care of her son. (Dionysius still believes he is the boy’s father!) The ship of Chaereas is driven by fair winds to Sicily where Hermocrates and the people of Syracuse receive the hero and heroine in amazement and joy. Chaereas tells the story of all their adventures and Callirhoe ends the tale with a prayer to Aphrodite: “I beg thee, never again part me from Chaereas, but grant us both a happy life, and death together.”

With this simple outline of the plot before us let us study the way in which the story is told. Notable first of all are the shifting scenes, for the action moves rapidly from Syracuse, to Miletus, to Caria, to Babylon, to the sea, to Tyre, to the island of Aradus and then at last back to Syracuse after the full circle of adventures. The contrast between the free Greek city of Syracuse and the oriental kingdoms is constantly emphasized, but it is the love of adventure for adventure’s sake that spices the narrative. The settings include, besides picturesque descriptions of localities, court-room scenes which are full of contrasts: the murder-trial of Chaereas in Syracuse and the trial of Theron also; the arraignment of Mithridates for adultery before the Great King in Babylon. Pageantry of weddings and of religious ceremonies also enrich the plot.

The characters are painted in bold, rich colors. Hero and heroine are so beautiful that they can be compared only to great works of art: Chaereas resembles the pictures and statues of Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus, Alcibiades. Callirhoe is now Aphrodite incarnate, now Artemis. Love is enflamed by their great beauty and enters through their eyes at their first sight of each other. Chaereas is proud and arrogant because of his looks and so passionate that he is unrestrained in his anger when he believes Callirhoe false. The kick which he gave his bride is a blot on his character which the reader finds harder to condone than Callirhoe did. She declares that cruel Fortune forced her husband to this act, for he never before had struck even a slave. He is also so mercurial that he repeatedly gives way to despair and is repeatedly saved from committing suicide by his devoted friend and companion, Polycharmus. He appears in more heroic guise as a warrior when he joins the Egyptians against Artaxerxes and Dionysius, resolved to die in battle, and wins a great naval victory. He is generous in sending the captive queen back to her lord. And he fulfills the ideals of romantic chivalry by declaring to Callirhoe at the end that she is the mistress of his soul.

Callirhoe like Helen had the gift of fatal beauty so that all men who saw her fell in love with her and she incurred for a time the jealousy of Aphrodite. But in spite of every temptation her spirit remained virginal and she was persuaded to marry Dionysius only to give a nominal father to her unborn child. She meets misfortune with natural tears, but with more fortitude than Chaereas shows. And she rules her anger even when the eunuch of King Artaxerxes makes insulting proposals to her by remembering that she had been well brought up and as a Greek taught self-control. She handles difficult situations with a woman’s intuitive tact as when she writes a consoling farewell letter to Dionysius, without letting her husband have the pain of knowing of it and its tenderness. By it she secures Dionysius’ care for the son he still believes his own. She wins from Chaereas with gentle tact a promise to send back the captives Statira and the beautiful Rhodogyne to the Persians. And in meek devotion at the end she essays to win even the goddess Aphrodite to complete reconciliation.

Polycharmus is a type more than an individual, for he is to Chaereas what Achates was to Aeneas, the faithful friend who accompanies him through all adventures. With boyish zeal, he hides from his parents in Syracuse his plan to go with Chaereas on his search for Callirhoe, but he appears on the stern of the ship as it sails in time to wave a farewell to his father and mother. His chief function is to encourage Chaereas and prevent his suicide. At the end on their return to Syracuse he is rewarded by being given Chaereas’ sister for a bride and a part of the spoils of war for a dowry.

Dionysius is a sympathetic and noble character; indeed his sins are all for love. He is in deep mourning for his dead wife when Callirhoe is purchased as a slave by his manager. Although he believes that no person who is not free-born can be truly beautiful, he is overwhelmed with love at the first sight of Callirhoe. With tactful sympathy he draws out her story and believes it. He never forces his passion upon her, but woos her delicately through his maid-servant, Plangon, and is overjoyed when Callirhoe finally consents to legal marriage for the purpose of raising a family. Even then in spite of his desire he delays the marriage that he may do Callirhoe the honor of a great wedding in the city. His happiness is complete to his mind when after seven months a son is born. So it is because of his sincere love that when he hears that a Syracusan warship has arrived to demand Callirhoe back, he commends his slave Phocas who out of loyalty to his master had persuaded barbarians to destroy the ship and its crew. Dionysius’ only anxiety is that since some of the men escaped, Chaereas may still be alive. This last fact he conceals from Callirhoe and to comfort her for Chaereas’ supposed death persuades her to erect a cenotaph to her first husband’s memory. Later when he receives the intercepted letter of Chaereas to Callirhoe, he faints with grief and fear, but coming to he believes the letter forged as part of a plot of Mithridates to win the favor of his bride, so he accuses Mithridates to the Great King. Summoned to Babylon to the trial he is in constant terror, for “he looked on all men as his rivals” knowing the devastating effects of Callirhoe’s beauty. When Chaereas is produced alive in the trial, he argues valiantly for the retention of his wife with some telling thrusts at Chaereas, but finally when he has lost his love, he bears his grief like a man, having remarkable self-control, treasuring Callirhoe’s affectionate letter as true solace, and devoting himself to her son. Dionysius, as Callirhoe reminds him once, is a Greek with a Greek education.

Among the orientals, resplendent princes appear often only to be numbered among the disconsolate lovers of Callirhoe and because of their passion to assist in furthering the complications of the plot. Such are Mithridates and Pharnaces. More individualized portraits are painted of King Artaxerxes and Queen Statira. Oriental magnificence is the aura of the Great King’s personality whether he appears presiding in the court-room, or hunting in Tyrian purple with golden dagger and elegant bow and arrow on his caparisoned horse, or riding to war with his great army and his retinue: his queen, her attendants, his eunuchs, all their gold and silver and fine raiment. Yet through this rich setting appears a wise ruler who takes counsel of his advisers in times of crises, listens judiciously to evidence in the court-room, and in war follows the military traditions of Cyrus the Great. But he has his human side: is influenced by wine, loneliness and the dark, and succumbs to Callirhoe’s beauty though he is married to a great and subtle queen. Hoping to win the object of his passion he is not above machinations with his eunuch who acts as his go-between and with optimistic hope of success even has Callirhoe taken along with the queen when he goes to war. Yet when Statira is restored to him by Chaereas’ magnanimity, he welcomes her warmly although her news that Callirhoe is with Chaereas is like “a fresh blow upon an old wound.” He appears most human after hearing Statira’s story of all that happened, for he is filled with varied emotions: wrath at the capture of his dear ones, sorrow at the departure of Chaereas, and final gratitude that Chaereas had ended the possibility of his seeing Callirhoe. Out of his own conflict of emotions, he breaks gently to Dionysius the news of his loss of Callirhoe and calls him away from personal sorrow by giving him higher responsibility in the realm. Artaxerxes is really made to appear in the novel as the Great King.

Statira is no less the queen. She is delighted when her husband suddenly intrusts Callirhoe to her care, regarding his action as an honor and a sign of confidence. She encourages Callirhoe with tactful sympathy and secures needed rest for her, keeping away the curious ladies who hurry to the palace to call. After a few days Statira can not resist asking Callirhoe which husband she preferred, but her curiosity is not rewarded for Callirhoe only weeps. As time goes on Statira’s jealousy is aroused because Callirhoe’s beauty outshines her own and because she is fully aware of the significance of the King’s more frequent visits to the women’s quarters. So when Artaxerxes is preparing to start off for war, the queen does not ask what will become of Callirhoe because she does not wish to have to take her, but the King at the end demands her presence. Apparently Statira never betrayed her jealousy to Callirhoe, for after Chaereas took captive all the women in Aradus, Callirhoe has only praise for her kindness to relate to Chaereas and calls Statira her dearest friend. Her generous happiness in being able to return Statira’s courtesy by sending her back to her husband wins from Statira a just encomium: “You have shown a noble nature, one that is worthy of your beauty. It was a happy sponsorship indeed which the King intrusted to me.” Callirhoe on parting commends her child to the queen’s care and secretly consigns to the queen her letter to Dionysius. Statira is still a subtle enough woman to enjoy telling the King at once on her return without her rival: “You have me as a gift from Callirhoe.”

Set off against the Great King of the Persians is Hermocrates, the general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians. His greatness as an admiral is matched by his leadership as a citizen. At the trial of Chaereas for the murder of Callirhoe it is Hermocrates whose generous plea in his daughter’s name secures from the people a vote of acquittal. He listens to the wish of the people assembled when they urge him to marry his daughter to Chaereas. When Theron, the pirate, is captured and the crowd at Syracuse is milling about him, Hermocrates insists on a public trial for him in accordance with the laws and after the evidence is presented it is by a vote of the people that he is condemned. Then Hermocrates asks the people to vote to send a ship in search of his kidnapped daughter as a reward for his patriotic services. Callirhoe’s pride centers in her father no less than in her Greek blood. Her reunion with her father at the end of the romance is almost as moving as her restoral to Chaereas. Hermocrates shines forth in untarnished glory as a patriotic admiral, a leader of thought in a democratic state, and a devoted father.

The minor parts are painted with less subtlety. Theron, the villain of the story, is a black-hearted pirate dominated only by gain and self-interest, ready to save his life at the expense of his fellow-sailors. Slaves are presented as vivaciously as they are in comedy. Plangon, the maid of Dionysius, is a shrewd, cunning opportunist, ready to serve her master’s interests but not without kindness to the distraught Callirhoe in her plight of pregnancy. Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes, is venal, wily, complaisant and low-minded. As the confidant of Artaxerxes he takes his cues from his master’s words, and solicits his favor by an attempt to seduce Callirhoe’s heart for him. As a eunuch, a slave and a barbarian (says Chariton) he could not conceive that Callirhoe would not yield to the wishes of the King. When he is unable to persuade her by flattery, he threatens her with the King’s vengeance. And when her words betray her love for Chaereas, Artaxates can call her only a poor, foolish girl for preferring a slave to the Great King of the Persians.

The use of the crowd by Chariton is another link between his romance and drama, for it often fulfills the function assumed by the chorus in tragedy, that is, the part of the spectator who comments on the action and interprets it. It is the people of Syracuse in assembly that persuades Hermocrates to wed his daughter to Chaereas. The crowd votes the crucifixion of Theron and attends it. At Miletus the crowd joins in Dionysius’ prayer to Aphrodite to protect Callirhoe and her son. The crowd at Babylon is struck dumb with amazement at the radiance of Callirhoe. And when the Great King is to decide whether Chaereas or Dionysius is to be her husband, all Babylon becomes a court-room as the people discuss the rival partners. At the end of the romance, all the harbor of Syracuse is filled with men to watch the ship come in, and when Chaereas and Callirhoe are revealed on it, the crowd bursts into tears. All rush to the theater and demand that there at once Chaereas tell them his adventures. “Tell us everything,” they keep shouting. They groan at his misfortunes. They offer prayers for the future of his son. They shout assent to his proposal to make his three hundred valiant Greek soldiers fellow-citizens of Syracuse. Indeed the crowd is constantly the background of the action of the romance.

Various mechanical devices used in the development of the plot show Chariton’s art of narration. Conversation as any novel demands is constantly used. Soliloquies are introduced frequently: at some emotional crisis, Chariton, instead of describing the thoughts and feelings of his characters, has them burst into speech to themselves. Callirhoe on hearing of the supposed loss of Chaereas with the warship laments his death and the destruction of her father’s gallant vessel. Later beside the Euphrates river when she can no longer see “the ocean which led back to Syracuse,” she upbraids cruel Fortune for driving her farther and farther from home. Again, in horror at the proposals of the eunuch, she laments all her misfortunes and expresses her resolve to die as befits Hermocrates’ daughter rather than become the mistress of the Great King. So too Dionysius on the return of Chaereas, after attempts at self-control, bursts forth with despair and jealousy into a lament over the imminent loss of his love. At the same time Chaereas, believing that Callirhoe loves Dionysius and will never return to him from the wealthy Ionian, utters a bitter lament before attempting to hang himself.

Letters also are an important means of developing the plot in the Greek Romances, especially in Chariton. He uses seven letters.[27] Chaereas’ first letter to Callirhoe is an impassioned love-letter with an appeal for forgiveness and for an assurance that she still loves him. This is a crucial letter in the plot because it is sent by Bias of Priene to Dionysius himself who conceals it from Callirhoe. Bias sends a brief business letter with it. Pharnaces, governor of Lydia, on the instigation of Dionysius writes a letter to Artaxerxes accusing Mithridates of trying to seduce Dionysius’ wife. This letter is important for the plot, because it motivates the trial of Mithridates. The Great King on receiving it dispatches two laconic business letters to Pharnaces summoning Dionysius and to Mithridates calling him to trial. The other two letters do not affect the plot, but reveal the characters of the senders. These are the letters in Book VIII of Chaereas to Artaxerxes and of Callirhoe to Dionysius. Chaereas proudly sends back Statira unharmed as the gift of Callirhoe to the Great King. Callirhoe with a woman’s intuition comforts Dionysius for her loss by gratitude for his protection, by assuring him that she is with him in spirit in the presence of her son whom she intrusts to his care. She begs him not to marry again, but to bring up the daughter of his first wife and her own son, eventually marry them to each other and send him to Syracuse to see his grandfather. She includes a message to Plangon and ends with an appeal to good Dionysius to remember his Callirhoe. It is hardly strange that Callirhoe concealed this masterpiece of epistolography from her jealous husband, Chaereas.

The taking of an oath is often an important feature of Greek Romances. In Chariton, Dionysius swears solemnly by the sea, by Aphrodite and by Eros that he will marry Callirhoe according to the Greek laws “for the begetting of children” and will bring up any child she bears.[28] Dreams too play their part in the plot. In a dream Dionysius sees an apparition of his dead wife as she looked on her wedding-day. His slave Leonas interprets the dream as prophetic of his coming happiness with the newly purchased slave, Callirhoe.[29] Callirhoe in her sleep sees a phantom of Chaereas who says to her: “My wife, I intrust our son to you.” This dream determines her to bring up her baby and so to marry Dionysius.[30] In Babylon when she is dreading having to appear in court, she has a dream of her happy wedding to Chaereas in Syracuse. The maid Plangon interprets the dream as a good omen for future happiness.[31] King Artaxerxes had a dream of gods demanding sacrifice so he proclaimed a festival of thirty days throughout Asia. This delayed his decision between Chaereas and Dionysius, hence was most important for the plot because wars arose before the court was held and in them Chaereas and Callirhoe came together.[32]

Apparent deaths are a common device of the Greek novelists and Chariton’s plot turns on two, the supposed death of Callirhoe from Chaereas’ blow and her subsequent burial; the reported death of Chaereas on his warship. Concomitant with such deaths are the unexpected reappearances which add the element of surprise, so essential for the characters and the crowd.

Descriptive passages are few and brief in Chariton and are often worked out in a suggestive simile rather than in a conspicuous purple patch. Chaereas was as “radiant as a star. The flush of exercise bloomed on his glowing face like gold on silver.” Callirhoe, recognizing her lover, became more stately and lovely than ever, as a flickering lamp again flares up when oil is poured in.[33] Public ceremonies are described at more length: the funeral procession of Callirhoe,[34] her wedding to Dionysius.[35] Space is given too to the description of Artaxerxes’ hunt, that favorite ancient sport;[36] to storm at sea;[37] to war.[38] But all these descriptions are concise in their picturesqueness.

Finally clarity in the narrative is secured by repeated résumés of the story either by the characters or by the author himself. Callirhoe tells her tragic tale to Dionysius with such sincerity that he believes it and honors her as a free-born woman.[39] Polycharmus relates his adventures with Chaereas to Mithridates and thereby saves his friend and himself from crucifixion.[40] Chaereas at the end unfolds the whole Odyssey of his wanderings to the populace in the theater of Syracuse.[41] At the beginning of Book V Chariton epitomizes all the preceding part of the novel and at the beginning of Book VIII he recapitulates the preceding book and reassures his audience about the final book.

“Furthermore, I think that this last book will be the most pleasant of all to my readers, and in fact will serve as an antidote to the tragic events of the former ones. No more piracy or slavery or court trials or battles or suicide or war or capture here, but true love and lawful marriage! And so I am going to tell you how the goddess brought the truth to light and revealed the unsuspecting lovers to each other.”

The happy ending which Chariton here forecasts is an essential feature of a Greek romance. For in this type of literature in which Chariton is a pioneer, virtue must triumph. The ethics demands that the hero and heroine must be noble in character as well as in station and that therefore justice must be done to virtue. The hero we have seen must possess personal courage and military courage. He must be capable of emotional devotion, first of all to his lady, then to his friend, and always to his father. His faults are those of pride, arrogance and passion and his moments of brutality are condoned by his contemporaries on account of his passionate temperament. He can be generous to his foes. He can show pity to the unfortunate. But his sympathies, even when the type is embodied in as noble a character as Dionysius, are evoked by the free-born in distress, rarely by slaves. The virtues of the heroine are first of all chastity, then loyal devotion to parents, husband and child, pride of family, generosity of spirit and sympathy. She is capable of resolute decision and heroic action if her chastity is menaced or her dear ones are in danger. Standards different from our own best ones appear in the general attitude towards slaves as an inferior class and in the brutality manifested in the hero’s kick, in executions on the cross, in torture of witnesses. Cleverness and deception are traits which are prized more highly than we admit now. The noblest sentiments expressed are in behalf of liberty and patriotism.

Religion plays so important a part in the romance that it demands a full treatment. Chariton’s novel is dominated by two cults: the worship of the abstract goddess Fortune, the worship of the goddess of love, Aphrodite. At the end of Book I Callirhoe, just after she has been sold as a slave, in a soliloquy, upbraids cruel Fortune for all her troubles, for the goddess made her lover her murderer, surrendered her to tomb-robbers and now has let her be sold as a slave. Again Callirhoe, when she finds that she is pregnant, reproaches Fortune for letting her bear a child to be a slave. And on the banks of the Euphrates in another soliloquy Callirhoe again charges Fortune with all her miseries and blames her for taking “delight in persecuting one lone girl.” Mithridates tells Chaereas: “The whims of Fortune have involved you in this melancholy drama.” Queen Statira, when captured, exclaims that Fortune has preserved her to see this day of slavery. And the author of the romance as well as the characters repeatedly attributes to Fortune the strange and sad misadventures of his hero and heroine. Callirhoe, Chariton says, “was overcome by the stratagems of Fortune, against whom alone human reason has no power. She is a divinity who loves opposition, and there is nothing which may not be expected of her.” Throughout the romance Fortune seems to be conceived not as blind chance, but as a baleful goddess, who takes delight in cruelty and torture.

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

“in stature, and fair eyes, and voice, and the raiment of his body was the same.”[47]

When Callirhoe came into the court-room in Babylon,

“she looked just as the divine poet says that Helen did, when she appeared to ‘them that were with Priam and Panthöos and Thymoëtes ... being elders of the people.’[48] At the sight of her, admiring silence fell, ‘and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her bedfellow.’”[49]

Besides this use of Homeric phrases in descriptions, quotations are frequently introduced in conversations as if Chariton found only Homer’s words expressive to convey the thought of one character to another.[50] But far more important than such uses of Homeric phraseology is the intensification of emotional coloring by a quotation from Homer at a crisis of poignant feeling. When Callirhoe’s nurse calls her to get up for it is her wedding day,

“her knees and heart were unstrung,”

because she did not know whom she was to marry.[51] When Chaereas is told that his wife is an adulteress,

“a black cloud of grief enwrapped him, and with both hands he took dark dust and poured it over his head and defiled his comely face.”[52]

When Chaereas is determined to set sail in winter in search of his kidnapped bride, his mother begged him to take her with him and cried in Homer’s words:

“My child, have regard unto this bosom and pity me if ever I gave thee consolation of my breast.”[53]

When Dionysius suddenly learned at a banquet that Chaereas was alive from reading his letter to Callirhoe,

“his knees and his heart were unstrung.”[54]

When Artaxerxes was smitten with love for Callirhoe, he lay awake all night,

“now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face.”[55]

When Chaereas and Callirhoe had their ecstatic reunion on Aradus,

“when they had had their fill of tears and story-telling, embracing each other,

‘they came gladly to the rites of their bed, as of old.’”[56]

Enough illustrations of Chariton’s use of Homer have been given to show the manner of it. Different explanations of Chariton’s constant use have been advanced. Schmid thinks it is an indication of the influence of the Menippean satire with its mingling of prose and verse. Jacob believes it due to Chariton’s desire to make his style poetic. Calderini is more understanding. He thinks that Chariton, thoroughly familiar with Homer, quoted him to express worthily some noble thought and that he saw the peculiar emphasis which a quotation from Homer could give to the expression of a sudden, violent emotion. He also uses episodes from Homer (the appeal of Hecuba from the wall to Hector,[57] the apparition of Patroclus before Achilles,[58] the Homeric τειχοσκοπία).[59] More than all, his style is usually Homeric in its brevity and simplicity; and in his use of quotations, of scenes and of style he is the first example of those relations between epic and romance which became so important in the mediaeval literature of the west.[60]

Other literary influences are apparent. The Milesian Tales may have suggested Miletus as the locality for the love-story of Dionysius. The Ninus Romance is the precursor of the historical element which paints a background of realism through the use of historical characters, notably Hermocrates and Artaxerxes, and through allusions to actual wars. Drama contributed the language of the stage to the description of the action. And at one crisis when Chaereas, who is believed dead, is produced by Mithridates in court, Chariton explains:

“Who could worthily tell of the appearance of the courtroom then? What dramatist ever produced so incredible a situation on the stage? Indeed, you might have thought that you were in a theater, filled with a multitude of conflicting passions.”[61] In another passage Mithridates says Fortune has forced the lovers to enact a very sad tragedy.[62] New comedy contributed types of characters (particularly the slaves), spicy dialogue and at least two quotations.[63] The influence of history and especially of Herodotus is apparent in the use of local history, in narratives of adventure, in depiction of the adulation of the eastern sovereign, in the reflection of the great struggle between the west and the east. The influence of the rhetorical schools is seen in the court scenes which in both their cases and speeches are strangely like those of the Controversiae of Seneca and the Declamationes of Quintilian.

All these different literary forces combined to produce a style of narration in Chariton which is at the same time simple and ingenuous, yet rhetorical. His startling baroque effects are achieved by just this variation from simple concise epic narrative with strong Homeric coloring, to intense dramatic moments of high tragedy, to comic scenes of slaves’ intrigues, to love passages which before had found expression only in poetry. Probably Chariton learned the effective use of parallelism, contrast and surprise from the schools of rhetoric, but he wields all his various tools with such success that he has carved out a new form of literature in his prose romance.

III
THE EPHESIACA OR HABROCOMES AND ANTHIA
BY XENOPHON OF EPHESUS

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

Love’s not Time’s Fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.”

Shakespeare’s famous CXVI sonnet is the lyric credo of those who believe that love can triumph over adversity, old age and even death itself. The lines just quoted are the quintessence of lyric romance.

Suppose now that the romantic novel or the modern cinema wishes to feature this same theme: “True love lasts.” How would either one convey the idea? I am going to show you by a concrete and melodramatic illustration. Here is a script for it.[64]

A young Greek who has been seeking over the world his kidnapped bride has come to Sicily, his resources nearly gone. An old fisherman Aegialeus gives him hospitality. It is night. The young man and the old man tell each other their sad love stories. The old man is now speaking:

“I was a wealthy young Spartan and loved a Spartan girl, Thelxinoe. She returned my love and presently we had, no one knowing it, our heart’s desire. But my darling’s parents proposed to marry her to another Spartan. So we fled secretly together and Sparta pronounced sentence of death on us both. We managed to travel to Sicily. Here we lived in dire poverty, but in our happiness we forgot all else because we were together. Soon my dear died, but her body was not buried. I have her with me and I love her always and I am with her.” After these words he led Habrocomes into an inner room and showed him the mummy that had been Thelxinoe. She was old now, but she appeared beautiful to her husband. “To her,” said he, “I always talk as if she were alive. I sleep here with her; I eat near her. If I come back tired from my fishing, the sight of her comforts me. For I do not see her as you do, my son. I see her as she was in Lacedemon, as she was when we fled. I see the night of our first love. I see our flight together.”

The young Greek exclaims:

“O my own dearest love, shall I ever find you even dead? Here to Aegialeus the body of Thelxinoe is the great comfort of his life. Now I have learned that age sets no bounds to true love.”

This story of the second or third century A.D. might seem too macabre to be possible if the New York Times of Nov. 12, 1940 had not recorded such a case at Key West, Florida. Karl Tanzler van Cosel, aged X-ray technician, had removed the body of Elena Hoyas Mesa from its crypt and had kept it in his bed-room for seven years. He said he had hoped to restore it to life. Perhaps Xenophon of Ephesus who wrote this story of Aegialeus and his mummy had heard some such “true story” which he embodied in his novel. In any case, he has given us here an illustration of how the theme “true love is eternal” may be pictured in a realistic romance. Think how dramatic this scene would be in a movie: the small inner bed-room of the fisherman’s hut suddenly lighted; the old man getting his young friend to help him remove the front of the coffin, then looking rapturously at the mummy inside and reaffirming before it his life-long love. That is my illustration of the heart of a realistic Greek romance.

Almost nothing is known about Xenophon of Ephesus who wrote it. Suidas mentions his romance the Ephesiaca in ten books (instead of the present eight) and speaks also of a work he wrote on the city of Ephesus. Xenophon probably was a native of Ephesus, for he shows intimate acquaintance with many details of the cult of Artemis there. His date can be given only approximately, but considerable internal evidence helps us to place him. He imitates certain passages in Chariton, so he must be later than the second century A.D. Certain references are very important. He is later than Augustus, for he refers to the prefect of Egypt and of course there was none until after 30 B.C.[65] He mentions the Irenarch of Cilicia, and this official was not known before Hadrian.[66] He refers to the Artemision of Ephesus as if it were at the height of its glory and contemporary.[67] It was pillaged and burned by the Gauls in 263 and only in part rebuilt. But, as Dalmeyda points out,[68] these details give us only vague indications of the date. Until some fragment of papyrus which can be dated is discovered, we can place Xenophon merely with some probability about the end of the second century of our era.

The novel itself is simple in language and brief in scope, but complicated in plot from many kaleidoscopic changes of scenes. There are so many exits and reentries of the characters that we lose track of them. The brevity of the narrative, the laconic expressions of emotion in it have made certain critics maintain the theory that it is only an epitome of a story, or a kind of scenario written as a preliminary sketch of a longer work. It seems to me possibly an intentionally short romance written briefly and simply by an author whose taste was akin to that of Chariton and who perhaps was intentionally showing a definite reaction against the verbosity of other novelists.

Partly because of the brevity of the romance a synopsis of the plot has to be long. So much is crowded into small space, so many rapid transitions from scene to scene are made, that a full sequential outline must be given before we can study the significance and color of the romance. Here then is the plot. The chief characters are:

Habrocomes of Ephesus, the handsome hero Anthia of Ephesus, the beautiful heroine Apsyrtos, a pirate chieftain Manto, the daughter of Apsyrtos Moeris, a Syrian, husband of Manto Lampon, a goatherd, slave of Manto Hippothoos, a brigand Perilaos, a high police official of Cilicia Eudoxos, a physician Psammis, a rajah of India Araxos, an old soldier in Egypt Cyno, his wicked wife Aegialeus, a Syracusan who kept a mummy Polyidos, a captain in Egypt Rhenaea, his jealous wife A procurer of Taras Leucon, a male slave of Habrocomes and Anthia Rhode, a female slave, his wife

In Ephesus lived a lad named Habrocomes who was sixteen years old. The beauty of his person was matched by the nobility of his soul. He had one great fault, pride. And he scorned Eros as less handsome than himself and unable to control a man against his will. Eros enraged armed himself against this arrogant boy. It was the time of the festival of Artemis. At this festival it was the custom to select fiancés. There was a great procession of young men and women. Anthia, daughter of Megamedes and Evippe, led the girls, and she was garbed as Artemis. She was so beautiful that the crowd forgot handsome Habrocomes though a few exclaimed: “What a couple Habrocomes and Anthia would make!” Here was Eros’ opportunity. After the procession broke up and all were attending the sacrifice in the temple, the two saw each other and were vanquished.

Day by day, night by night love dominated them until both were worn out by longing. Their parents not knowing what this strange malady was sent embassies to the oracle of Apollo at Claros. The god diagnosed their illnesses as the same, needing the same cure; he foretold long suffering for both, dangerous travel by sea, kidnapping, imprisonment, death and burial, but he promised final salvation through the goddess Isis and happy days.

The parents of Habrocomes and Anthia, puzzled and grieved by the oracle, decided that at least they must use the remedy suggested by the god. So Habrocomes and Anthia were married, and they did not fear the future because of their present joy. As time went on, however, it seemed necessary to the happy pair and to their parents that they should fulfill the oracle by going on a journey. On the ensuing voyage both swore mighty oaths (Anthia by Artemis) to be faithful to each other always. Next they put in at Rhodes for rest. Habrocomes and Anthia hand in hand visited all the city and dedicated golden armor to the sun-god in his temple. Then they sailed to Egypt, but the ship was becalmed and one night Habrocomes had a frightful dream. A giantess clad in red appeared to him who set fire to the ship, destroyed all the sailors and saved only himself and Anthia. He awoke in terror and terror became reality. Phoenician pirates arriving in a great trireme boarded the ship and drove the sailors into the sea where they drowned. Then they fired the ship, but took captive Habrocomes and Anthia and bore them off to the country near Tyre. Corymbos, one of the pirates, became enamored of Habrocomes; his bosom companion fell in love with Anthia, but before they could accomplish their wicked designs on them, the chief of the pirate band Apsyrtos arrived and appropriating the handsome young pair as part of his booty took them to Tyre.

This was the beginning of worse troubles, for while Apsyrtos was away on business, his daughter Manto fell in love with Habrocomes and made advances to him through a slave and a letter. When he refused to satisfy her desires, for vengeance she accused him to her father of having tried to rape her. Apsyrtos had Habrocomes flogged, tortured and cast into prison. Anthia contriving a secret visit to her husband told him she had been given as a slave to Manto and must accompany her to Syria, where Manto’s newly acquired husband Moeris lived. The two slaves of Habrocomes and Anthia, Leucon and Rhode, were sold into a distant land. Manto to disgrace Anthia as much as possible married her to one of her humblest slaves, Lampon, a goatherd. But Lampon pitying Anthia on hearing from her own lips her story respected her and never made her his actual wife. In Tyre Apsyrtos happened to find the love-letter which his daughter had written to Habrocomes. Learning from it his unjust treatment of Habrocomes he released him from prison, gave him his freedom, and made him steward of his house.

Meanwhile in Syria Anthia’s fatal beauty had inflamed Manto’s husband Moeris with a mad passion for her. He confided this to the goatherd Lampon begging for his aid. Lampon to save Anthia went secretly and told Manto her husband’s designs. Manto in jealous fury ordered Lampon to kill the woman. In sorrow he told Anthia all and together they planned that instead of killing her he should sell her as a slave in some remote district. He managed to hide this transaction and saved her life by selling her to some Cilician merchants. But their ship was wrecked in a storm. A few (among them Anthia) came to land on a raft and after wandering all night in the woods were captured by the brigand Hippothoos.

Manto meanwhile wrote to her father a letter made up of truth and lies, saying that the slave Anthia had been so troublesome she had given the girl to a goatherd and afterwards when Moeris became enamored of the woman, she had sold both the goatherd and his wife in Syria. Habrocomes at once started out in search for Anthia and finding Lampon and learning the true story from him, he set forth for Cilicia.

There, however, Anthia had been in great danger. Hippothoos and his brigands were about to sacrifice her to Ares, but she was rescued by a high police official of the district, Perilaos, who captured all the brigands except Hippothoos. He took her to Tarsus and of course soon fell in love with her. He offered her honorable marriage, wealth, children and she fearing his violent passion forced herself to consent but asked for a month’s delay.

Now Habrocomes riding through Cilicia on his quest met by chance Hippothoos who begged to be allowed to travel with him. They went into Cappadocia and there dining together told each other their life histories, Hippothoos his love of a beautiful lad and the loss of him, Habrocomes his love for the beautiful Anthia and his loss of her. The description of Anthia made Hippothoos relate his capture of a fair maiden and her rescue. Habrocomes, convinced that the girl was Anthia, persuaded Hippothoos to join him in his search.

But the preparations for the wedding of Perilaos and Anthia were going on apace, and it would have been consummated had not Anthia found a friend in an Ephesian physician Eudoxos to whom she confided her tragedy. She begged him to give her poison so that she might die faithful. She promised him silver so that he might return to Ephesus. Eudoxos gave her not poison but a sleeping potion, then hurriedly departed. The very night of her wedding, in the nuptial chamber, Anthia took what she believed poison. Perilaos coming to his bride found a corpse. To do her all honor, the bereft bridegroom had her placed in a magnificent tomb with splendid funeral gifts.

Robbers broke in the tomb for the treasure just as Anthia awoke. They carried her off with them to Alexandria. No one else knew she was alive. Habrocomes heard from an old woman the story of Anthia’s death, of the pillaging of her tomb and the carrying off of her body. So leaving Hippothoos he started off alone by ship for Egypt hoping to find the brigands who had committed such sacrilege. The bandits had already sold Anthia to a rajah named Psammis, but Anthia saved herself from his amorousness by telling him that she was a consecrated priestess of Isis so he respected her.

Habrocomes’ ship missed its course to Alexandria and landed in Phoenicia. There the inhabitants set upon the strangers and capturing them sold them as slaves at Pelusium, Habrocomes to an old soldier, Araxos. This soldier had a hideous and wicked wife Cyno who, falling in love with Habrocomes, offered to kill her husband and marry him. When he refused, she herself killed her husband and accused Habrocomes of the murder. He was sent to Alexandria to be tried. Hippothoos meanwhile had gathered a new band and in his travels had come to Egypt and made the mountains near the frontiers of Ethiopia his center for expeditions. Habrocomes was condemned to death by the Prefect of Egypt, but his execution was twice frustrated by miracles caused by the Nile river when he appealed to the sun-god Helios for aid against injustice. So he was cast into prison.

At this time Psammis started home to India with a great camel train taking Anthia with him. At Memphis Anthia offered prayers to Isis begging her aid. As they neared the borders of Ethiopia, Hippothoos with his band fell upon their caravan and, slaying Psammis and many men, seized his treasure and took captive Anthia. Hippothoos and Anthia did not recognize each other.

The Prefect of Egypt, on giving Habrocomes a new hearing, was convinced of his innocence, freed him and gave him money. So Habrocomes took ship again and went to Italy to make inquiries there about Anthia. Cyno was executed.

Anthia was again in danger because of the lust of one of the bandits, Anchialos. He, while Hippothoos was away, tried to do violence to her, but she stabbed him fatally with a sword which she had found. Hippothoos on his return decided, in vengeance for the death of his companion, to kill her in a horrible way: to put her in a deep trench with two fierce dogs. But the bandit set to guard the trench from pity secretly conveyed food to her so that she fed and tamed the beasts.

Habrocomes on arriving at Syracuse in Sicily lived with a poor old fisherman named Aegialeus who treated him like a son and told him his own sad love-story. This is the story of the Mummy in the House. Hippothoos left Ethiopia to go to Alexandria and believing Anthia dead made no inquiries about her. The bandit left to guard her, now in love with her, hid in a cave with a good store of provisions until the caravan had gone, then released Anthia and the devoted dogs. He swore by the Sun and the gods of Egypt to respect her until she voluntarily came to his arms, so dogs and all they started on their travels.

The Prefect of Egypt had sent a company of soldiers under Polyidos to disperse the bandits of whose marauding he had heard. Hippothoos’ band was broken up; indeed he alone escaped. He embarked on a ship for Sicily. Polyidos next captured Anthia and her escort. Polyidos although he had a wife in Alexandria at once fell in love with Anthia and when they reached Memphis, tried to rape her, but she fled to the temple of Isis as a suppliant. Polyidos then swore that he would respect her if she would return to him, saying that to see her and speak to her would satisfy his love, so she went back to his care. On their arrival at Alexandria, Rhenaea the wife of Polyidos was nearly insane with jealousy of the girl her husband had brought home. One day in her husband’s absence she beat and reviled poor Anthia, then gave her to a faithful slave with orders to take her to Italy and sell her there to a procurer. This he did at Taras.

Hippothoos by this time had reached Sicily and was staying at Tauromenium. Habrocomes at Syracuse in despair planned to go to Italy and if he found no news of Anthia there, to return to Ephesus. The parents of the young pair in their anxiety over them had died. The slaves Leucon and Rhode who had been sold in Lycia had, on the death of their master, inherited his wealth. They were on their way back to Ephesus but were staying at Rhodes.

The procurer now forced Anthia to stand in front of his brothel, magnificently arrayed, to attract customers. When many had gathered because of her beauty, Anthia feigned a seizure and fell down in the sight of all in convulsions. Later when she declared to the procurer that she had had this malady since childhood, he treated her kindly.

Hippothoos in Tauromenium had come into great need. So when an elderly woman fell in love with him, constrained by poverty, he married her. Very shortly she died, leaving him all her possessions. So he set sail for Italy always hoping to find his dear Habrocomes. Arriving at Taras he saw Anthia in the slave market where the procurer because of her illness was exhibiting her for sale. Hippothoos, recognizing her, learned from her lips her story, pitied her, bought her and offered her marriage. Finally Anthia told him that she was the wife of Habrocomes whom she had lost. Hippothoos on hearing this revealed his devotion to Habrocomes and promised to help her find her husband.

Habrocomes also had come to Italy, but in despair had given up his quest and started back to Ephesus. Stopping at Rhodes on his voyage he was discovered by Leucon and Rhode, who now took care of him. Next Hippothoos also arrived at Rhodes, for he was taking Anthia back to Ephesus. It was the time of a great festival to Helios. At the temple Anthia dedicated locks of her hair with an inscription:

“In behalf of her husband Habrocomes Anthia dedicates her locks to the god.”

This inscription was seen by Leucon and Rhode and the next day they found Anthia herself in the temple and told her that Habrocomes was alive and near and faithful. The good news spread through the city. A Rhodian carried the word to Habrocomes and he came running like a madman through the crowd, crying: “Anthia!” Near the temple of Isis he found her, and they fell into each other’s arms. Then while the people cheered, they went into the temple of Isis and offered thanks to the goddess for their salvation. Then they went to the house of Leucon and at a banquet that night told all their adventures.

When at last Habrocomes and Anthia were got to bed, they assured each other that they had kept their oaths of faithfulness. The next day all sailed to Ephesus. There in the temple of Artemis Habrocomes and Anthia offered prayers and sacrifices; also they put up an inscription telling what they had suffered and achieved. They erected magnificent sepulchres for their parents. And they passed the rest of their lives together as though every day were a festival. Leucon and Rhode shared all their happiness and Hippothoos too established himself in Ephesus to be near them.

From this summary of the plot, it is at once apparent that the chief interests of the romance are love, adventure and religion. The three are used by Xenophon with almost equal distribution of interest and emphasis. Two divinely beautiful young people (the lad only sixteen) fell in love with each other at first sight at the festival of Artemis. Habrocomes had been too proud of his appearance and in his arrogance had scorned the beautiful god of Love as his inferior. So Eros brought him low and made the pair suffer many misfortunes through separation. However they were married first and through all their troubles they were true to their oaths of mutual faithfulness. Temptations and adventures could not nullify their chastity, but their victories were often superhuman and made possible only by miracles and the aid of protecting gods. Anthia after a dream of seeing Habrocomes drawn away from her by another fair lady awoke to utter the belief that if he had broken faith, he had been forced by necessity; and for herself she would die before losing her virtue.[69] At the end, when Anthia had proudly recounted the lovers she had escaped, Moeris, Perilaos, Psammis, Polyidos, Anchialos, the ruler of Taras, Habrocomes was able to reply that no other lady had ever seemed to him fair or desirable: his Anthia found him as she had left him in the prison at Tyre.[70] So hero and heroine shine as types of perfect virtue. The nobility of the romance, as Dalmeyda points out, appears not only in the purity of Habrocomes and Anthia, but in a restrained expression of the sentiments and the acts of love.[71]

The course of this true love was proverbially unsmooth and after the pair were separated, the plot seesaws between the adventures of hero and heroine. These are varied, exciting and often closely paralleled. Both were assailed by amorous lovers, Anthia by at least nine, Habrocomes by Corymbos, a pirate, by Manto, daughter of the chief of the pirate band, and by Cyno, the lewd wife of an old soldier. Both were shipwrecked, Anthia twice. Both nearly met death: Anthia as a human sacrifice, by taking poison, by being thrown in a trench with fierce dogs; Habrocomes by crucifixion and pyre. Bandits and pirates captured both. Both were nearly executed for murder, Anthia for actually killing a bandit who attacked her, Habrocomes on the false charge of Cyno. Both were sold into slavery, Habrocomes once, Anthia over and over again. Strangely enough among their adventures war played little part: the only wars described are official expeditions against bandits.

From most of these adventures the pair were saved by their piety. Never did they lose an opportunity of offering prayer, thanksgiving, vows and sacrifices to the gods. The story begins with the festival of Artemis at Ephesus at which Habrocomes and Anthia fell in love and ends with their return to her temple to offer thanksgiving for a happy ending out of all their misfortunes. At the festival Anthia appeared as the priestess of Artemis and led a procession of maidens in which she alone was garbed as Artemis. This may be a symbol of her resolute chastity. Many details of the worship of the goddess are given which seem based on reality.[72] Artemis appears not as the Ephesian goddess of fertility, but as the protectress of chastity and in this function joins with Isis in safeguarding the purity of the heroine.

Eros is the offended god who undoubtedly in vengeance caused the violent love of Habrocomes, the separation and the miseries of the unhappy pair. There are few references to Aphrodite: to her son rather than to herself is given the function of inspiring love. On the Babylonian baldequin over the marriage bed of Habrocomes and Anthia there had been woven a scene in which Aphrodite appeared attended by little Loves and Ares unarmed was coming towards her led by Eros bearing a lighted torch.[73] Habrocomes at Cyprus offered prayers to Aphrodite.[74]

The oracle of Apollo at Claros determined the plot by ordering the marriage of Habrocomes and Anthia and predicting their voyaging, their separation, their disasters, their reunion. But its clauses are not sufficiently explained: we are never told why the young bride and groom and their parents feel they must start out on their fateful journey. Some think the obscurity is due to Xenophon’s epitomizer. There are other possible explanations. The action may be an abandoning of themselves to the will of the gods; or a bold step towards their final promised safety; or a flight from the city where they had suffered so much. An oracle is the traditional prelude to a voyage of adventure. Xenophon uses it, says Dalmeyda, to pique curiosity, to render the misfortunes of the two more dramatic by the prophecy of them and to reassure his readers about a happy ending.[75]

In happiness or distress both the young lovers honored the god of the place in which they found themselves. In the first part of their journey together they offered sacrifice to Hera in her sanctuary at Samos.[76] At Rhodes, Habrocomes’ prayer to Helios saved him from crucifixion and burning through the miracles of the Nile.[77] Perhaps Helios was rewarding Habrocomes for the golden armor which he and Anthia had jointly dedicated to him at Rhodes in his temple.[78] This votive had another certain part in the plot because when Habrocomes returned there alone to pray near his votive, Leucon and Rhode, who had been reading the inscription set up near it by their masters, recognized him and revealed themselves.[79] At Memphis Anthia appealing to the pity of the god Apis received from his famous oracle a promise that she would find Habrocomes.[80]

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.

The influence of Chariton is clearly seen in Xenophon both in direct imitation and in qualities of style. When the Phoenician pirates had kidnapped Habrocomes and Anthia on their trireme and fired their captives’ vessel leaving many to perish in the sea, an old slave, as he swam, pitifully called to Habrocomes to save his aged paedagogue or at least kill him and bury him.[97] In view of the situation this is a ridiculous appeal, but it is a clear imitation of a passage in Chariton where, when Chaereas resolves to go to sea to search for Callirhoe, his father Ariston begs his son not to desert him, but to take him on his trireme,[98] or to wait a few days for his father’s death and burial. Anthia, when Manto, the daughter of the brigand chief, demands Habrocomes’ submission to her passion, begs her husband to save his life in this way and swears that she will leave him free by killing herself, only asking from him burial, one last kiss, and a place in his memory. This is in direct imitation of Chariton and of Chaereas’ words when he finds Callirhoe married to Dionysius.[99] Here Xenophon is simpler than his model, for he does not transfer the effective lines from Homer which Chariton quotes.[100] The burial of Anthia with its rich funeral gifts resembles the burial of Callirhoe and also the lavish equipment of the cenotaph for Chaereas.[101] The language of Chariton is adapted for the lament of Habrocomes in Italy at the failure of his quest and his renewed pledge of faithfulness unto death.[102]

These clear indications of imitation of detail serve to corroborate the evidence of general imitation of style. Indeed Dalmeyda sees in the whole temperament of Xenophon a close affinity to Chariton. Xenophon introduces the most startling events without fanfare. Characteristic of his style are accumulated questions, pathetic résumés, oaths, invocations of the gods, apostrophes of men and of things particularly of that fatal beauty which the young hero and heroine deplore because of their misery. Xenophon’s relation to Chariton in all this is striking.[103]

The plot of the novel has seemed to some critics epic in its chronological narrative of successive adventures. Others find the structure a tragic plot with an angry god demanding satisfaction for the sin of arrogance and the guilty hero involving in his own nemesis the one most dear to him. It is true that this and other resemblances to tragedy exist. The story of Manto and her false denunciation of Habrocomes for an attempt to rape her after she has failed to win his love goes back to the Phaedra story of Euripides’ Hippolytus. The noble goatherd husband of Anthia finds his prototype in Electra’s peasant husband in Euripides’ play. The scene where Anthia on her wedding-night takes poison which proves to be a sleeping potion, to avoid a new marriage and keep her troth to her lost love seems to be the antecedent of the poison scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

To me, however, this novelette finds its closest affiliation in another successor. Both the structure and the devices used to arouse emotion anticipate the modern cinema. This contemporary form of amusement is such an accepted part of modern life that we hardly need to read the books about the cinema by Allerdyce Nicoll, Lewis Jacobs, Maurice Bardèche and others to understand “the Rise of the American Film.” Personally I go to the movies to escape from routine and from painful thoughts of our own times. Occasionally I allow myself to be educated about Steel or The River. I prefer to industrial films or films of social problems like lynching, prison conditions, housing, films with biographies of great historical characters: Pasteur, Zola, Rembrandt. I like films set in local history such as Maryland or Kentucky or Gone with the Wind or The Howards of Virginia or The North West Mounted Police. I have to shut my eyes during the fighting and the cruelties of Sea Hawk and All This and Heaven Too. But I like the cinematic rapidity of changes of scene, the control by the camera of space and magnitude, the extension of the time-limit, the fade-ins and fade-outs which can create fantastic visions, the value of the flash-back to recall what has been already seen, the concentration of interest achieved by close-ups.

Many of these devices I recognize in the Greek Romances and especially in Xenophon of Ephesus. His narrative is as condensed as that of a scenario with lacunae, abrupt transitions, failures in an adequate vocabulary of emotion. The local history of Ephesus is emphasized and depicted. Scenes shift with cinematic rapidity. Hair-raising adventures succeed each other at an exciting pace. Bandits and pirates achieve robbery and kidnapping. High police officials or officers like G-Men perform valiant rescues. Court-room scenes as in many films vie with shipwrecks in interest. Documents like letters are presented to the reader’s eye as on the screen. Visions and dreams are made to seem as real as in fade-ins and fade-outs.

There is a clear morality in the opposition of good and bad characters and in the final victory of the good. Hero and heroine captivate by their extraordinary beauty and maintain their chastity and fidelity against terrific odds. Hence their phenomenal virtue is rewarded by reunion in the end. Religion often plays a saving part (as on the screen for example in Brother Orchid). The Reader like the audience at the movie goes away with a sense of having been enlivened, entertained and vastly improved. For the function of the Greek romance in the second and third centuries A.D., when the universal rule of the Roman Empire gave scant scope for great oratory or tragedy under the blessings of an enforced peace, was to entertain and to edify. The Greek romance substituted for the adventures of the mind new themes: the excitements of passion, the interests of travel, and the consolations of religion. It was lifted out of the ranks of the trivial and the second-rate by its great central theme: that there is such a thing as true love; that weighed in the balance against it all the world is nothing; and that it outlives time and even death.

Our own age in America, bleeding internally from the agony of a war which it is powerless to end, fearful for its own menaced security, demands from the cinema not only temporary oblivion and excitement, but encouragement to believe that love lasts even unto death, that heroes ride again and are victorious, and that finally, by the help of God, the right will conquer.

IV
THE AETHIOPICA OF HELIODORUS

The life of Heliodorus is as obscure as that of each of the other writers of Greek romance, but in the tradition of his there is a special point of controversy. Was Heliodorus a pagan novelist or a Christian bishop? Or by some strange metamorphosis did the writer of the romantic Aethiopica become in later and staider years the Bishop of Tricca? The only certain facts are found in the autobiographical sentence which concludes the romance, that he was a Phoenician of Emesa, of a family descended from Helios, the son of Theodosius.

It was Socrates who, in the fifth century A.D., stated that the custom of celibacy for the clergy was introduced in Thessaly by Heliodorus when he became bishop of Tricca. He added that Heliodorus wrote in his youth a love-story, which he called Aethiopica.[104] Photius in the ninth century says that he received the bishopric later, that is after writing the romance. Nicephorus Callistus in the fourteenth century after quoting the remark of Socrates adds that the Aethiopica created such a scandal Heliodorus had to choose between his bishopric and the destruction of his romance so he abandoned his charge, but this is probably mere embellishment of the story. As Rattenbury points out,[105] neither Socrates, Photius nor Nicephorus declares that Heliodorus was a Christian when he wrote his romance, but they imply clearly that he became a bishop afterwards. And if the author of the romance was a devout pagan as he seems to have been, that state of mind could have made possible his conversion to Christianity. This seems a reasonable explanation of the strong tradition continuing from the fifth century that Heliodorus became bishop of Tricca.

As to his date, there are some certainties but no exactitude. The Bishop of Tricca must have lived before Socrates wrote his Historia Ecclesiastica which covered the period 306-439. There is no external evidence on the time of the writer of the romance, but from the general conclusions about the dating of the Greek Romances, he probably wrote not later than the end of the third century. His native city Emesa was the birthplace of two Roman Emperors, Heliogabalus (218-222) and Alexander Severus (222-235). About the middle of the century Emesa was conquered by Zenobia of Palmyra, but was freed by Aurelian in 272. Heliodorus may have written in its most flourishing period, 220-240. It is generally agreed that Heliodorus is later than Chariton who could not have written after 150 and earlier than Achilles Tatius who wrote about the beginning of the fourth century.

Rattenbury thinks that a possible reconstruction of Heliodorus’ life is this. He was born in Emesa in Phoenician Syria. His family was connected with the cult of the Sun. In his youth, perhaps between 220 and 240, he wrote a romance in which the influence of the cult of Helios appears, also the neo-Pythagoreanism of Apollonius of Tyana. It is not impossible that finally he was converted to Christianity, became bishop of Tricca and in that office introduced in his diocese celibacy for the clergy.[106] Calderini has shown with discrimination and perspicacity that the special characteristic of the Aethiopica is the interest in philosophy which distinguishes it and its author from Chariton, the writer of historical romance, and from Achilles Tatius, the writer of romance tinged with science.[107] A study of the Aethiopica itself will show how deeply infused the novel is with this religious philosophical coloring.

Before outlining the narrative, I will give as usual a list of the principal characters. These are:

Theagenes, the young Greek hero

Chariclea, the young heroine, supposed to be a Greek

Hydaspes, king of Ethiopia

Persinna, queen of Ethiopia

Calasiris, of Memphis, priest of Isis and his sons:

Thyamis, in exile, a pirate captain

Petosiris, priest of Isis

Charicles, priest of Apollo at Delphi

Alcamenes, nephew of Charicles

Trachinus, a pirate

Pelorus, a pirate and officer of Trachinus

Cnemon, a young Athenian, son of

Aristippus, an Athenian, a stupid husband

Demaeneta, the amorous step-mother of Cnemon

Thisbe, the scheming maid of Demaeneta

Arsinoe, a slave-girl, a friend of Thisbe

Nausicles, a merchant

Thermuthis, an officer under Thyamis

Oroondates, viceroy of the Great King of the Persians

Mithranes, viceroy of Oroondates

Arsace, wife of Oroondates

Cybele, the maid of Arsace

Achaemenes, son of Cybele

Euphrates, the chief eunuch of Oroondates

Sisimithres, an Ethiopian Gymnosophist

Meroebus, nephew of Hydaspes

The opening scene of the romance is startling and mysterious. In Egypt, from a mountain near the mouth of the Nile a band of pirates get a view of the seashore. They behold a heavily laden ship without a crew, a plain strewn with dead bodies and the remains of an ill-fated banquet. A wounded youth is lying on the ground. He is being cared for by a beautiful young woman dressed in a religious garb which makes her seem a priestess or a goddess, Diana or Isis. Indeed a divine effulgence emanates from her. The pirates though at first overawed descend and collect rich booty. Their captain then courteously conveys the maiden and the youth to their pirate home. This was called “The Pasture” and was a sort of island in a delta of the Nile. Some of the pirates lived in huts made of reeds, some in boats. The water was their fortification. Their streets were winding water-ways cut through the reeds.

The pirate chief assigned the care of his two captives to a young Greek, Cnemon, who was his interpreter. The prisoners were overjoyed on finding their custodian a Greek. He promised to heal the wounds of Theagenes, who had now revealed his own name and that of Chariclea, and on their urgent request, he told him his own story.

“I,” he said, “am the son of Aristippus, an Athenian. After my brother’s death, my father married again a woman named Demaeneta, who was a mischief-maker. Like Phaedra she fell in love with me, her step-son, indeed called me her dear Hippolytus. When I repelled her advances she accused me to my father of attempted rape. He had me scourged. Worse than that, Thisbe, the maid of Demaeneta, on her mistress’ orders involved me in an amorous intrigue with herself and later promised to show me my step-mother with an adulterer. Sword in hand I followed her to the bed-room and just as I was about to murder her paramour, I found he was my father. Aristippus charged me in court with attempted parricide. Only a divided vote spared my life and sent me into exile. Lately I received news that my father through Thisbe had found out his wife’s corruption; she had killed herself; and now Aristippus is trying to obtain from the people his son’s pardon.”

The next day Thyamis the pirate leader although he was warned in a dream that having Chariclea, he would not have her, announced to his band his intention of marrying her. She pretended to consent, but asked that their marriage be postponed until they reached Memphis so that there she could resign her priesthood of Diana. Thyamis accepted this condition. Theagenes was horrified until Chariclea explained that this agreement was made only to secure more time for their plans for safety. A hostile band of brigands was now seen approaching. Thyamis had Cnemon hide Chariclea in a secret cave. When the terrible battle began to go against him, Thyamis rushed back to the cave and killed a woman in the dark whom he believed Chariclea. In battle he was then taken alive. The victorious brigands fired the huts on the island but did not find the cave. Cnemon and Theagenes, who had escaped in little boats, returned to the island. When Cnemon conducted Theagenes to the cave by its secret entrance, they found in its dark gloom the body of a dead woman. Theagenes believing it Chariclea burst into lamentation and planned suicide. But Cnemon took away his sword, got a torch lighted and found that the woman was Thisbe and in her dead hand was a letter. They soon found Chariclea alive.

After the first joy of reunion Chariclea wished to know who the dead woman was. Cnemon revealed that she was Thisbe and related all her story: how after her plot against him, Arsinoe, a rival courtesan whose lover Nausicles she had stolen, revealed Thisbe’s machinations against Demaeneta; how Cnemon’s father was exiled on the ground of complicity and Thisbe fled. The letter in Thisbe’s hand proved to be to Cnemon, a petition to save her from the pirates who had stolen her. Just then Thermuthis, her pirate captor, arrived to reclaim her, only to find her dead. The sword in her wound proved to him that she was slain by Thyamis.

Theagenes and Chariclea, Cnemon and Thermuthis now started out in separate pairs towards Chemmis, a rich city on the Nile, to get food. The menace of Thermuthis was conveniently removed as he died from the bite of an asp. Near Chemmis Cnemon met an old man who entertained him at his home. He proved to be Calasiris, the foster-father of Theagenes and Chariclea. This he revealed to Cnemon in a long narrative of his own life: how though a priest of Isis he had gone into voluntary exile to break off the wiles of a courtesan; how he had sojourned at Delphi, attending the ceremonies and talking with the philosophers. One, Charicles, related how in his own travels in Egypt he had had intrusted to him by an Ethiopian merchant a beautiful child. The merchant had found her exposed with a bag of jewels and an inscribed fillet. These too he gave to Charicles making him promise to guard her freedom and wed her to a free man. He had named her Chariclea and brought her up in Greece but now, though she was very beautiful, she refused to marry.

Calasiris also described to Cnemon the sacrifice to Neoptolemus offered by the Aenianians and the Delphic oracle which he had heard there.

“Delphians, regard with reverential care,

Both him the goddess-born, and her the fair;

“Grace” is the sound which ushers in her name,

The syllable wherewith it ends, is “Fame.”

They both my fane shall leave, and oceans past,

In regions torrid shall arrive at last;

There shall the gods reward their pious vows,

And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows.”[108]

Calasiris at the urgent request of Cnemon described all the ceremonies attendant on the sacrifice to Neoptolemus: the hecatomb and the other victims, the Thracian maidens bearing offerings, the hymn to the Hero, the dance, the procession of the fifty armed horsemen led by Theagenes, the radiant appearance of Chariclea in a chariot. All this description was the brilliant setting for the meeting of Theagenes and Chariclea, for when Theagenes took from the priestess’ hand the torch to light the sacrificial pyre, in them both the flame of first love was kindled.

The next day Chariclea lay abed very ill in her apartment in the temple. Calasiris feared it was due to “fascinatio.” Calasiris after meeting Theagenes had a vision in which Apollo and Diana consigned Theagenes and Chariclea to his care and bade him take them to Egypt. The next morning Theagenes confessed to Calasiris his love and besought his aid. Charicles begged him to heal his daughter. This enabled him to talk to her.

Chariclea recovered sufficiently the next day to attend the contest of the men in armor and to award the palm to the victor, Theagenes. But her passion and her illness increased after this second meeting and Calasiris was again summoned to treat her. Her disease was diagnosed as love and Calasiris persuaded her father to let him see the fillet found with the exposed baby. Calasiris was able to read the inscription on it. It was a letter from her mother, Persinna, queen of the Ethiopians, revealing that she had borne a white daughter because at her conception she had been looking at a picture of Andromeda; then fearing the charge of adultery she had exposed her baby with the fillet and the jewels. All this Calasiris told to Chariclea. Calasiris then made a plot with her by which she was to pretend to become affianced to Alcamenes, the nephew of Charicles, as her foster-father wished. Charicles was delighted although he was nervous because of a dream in which an eagle from the hand of Apollo bore his daughter away. He gave her all the jewels.

Then Calasiris persuaded some Phoenician merchants to take him and two friends on their ship as far as Sicily; and he ordered Theagenes and his young friends to kidnap Chariclea. She consented to the plan after Theagenes had bound himself by an oath never to force her love. After they were off, Charicles roused the city to pursuit of them. Calasiris after telling of the arrival of the Phoenician ship at Zacynthos interrupted his narrative to rest. Nausicles returned to the house and unknown to the others had brought Chariclea with him.

(Here the author himself gave a résumé of the adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea from the time they parted with Cnemon. In the cave the lovers had a long talk and made an agreement as to what they would do in case fortune again separated them: they would inscribe on temple, statue, herm or boundary stone, Theagenes the name Pythicus, Chariclea Pythias; the direction in which each departed; to what place or people; also the time of writing. For recognition if they met disguised they decided to use as signs Chariclea’s ring and Theagenes’ scar from a boar. Their watchwords were to be a lamp for her, a palm-tree for him. They sealed this covenant in kisses, then left the cave taking Chariclea’s sacred robes, her bow and quiver and her jewels.

Soon they met an armed band and were taken prisoners. The commander was Mithranes, an officer of Oroondates, viceroy of Egypt. Nausicles had persuaded him for pay to make this expedition to the island in search of his Thisbe. Nausicles on seeing Theagenes and Chariclea cleverly pretended that Chariclea was Thisbe, the object of his quest. Mithranes demanded Theagenes as his prize and despatched him to Oroondates as a fine youth for service with the Great King.)

The next day Calasiris and Cnemon heard all Nausicles’ story from himself, saw Chariclea and made a plan to ransom Theagenes. After Nausicles had celebrated a sacrifice in the temple of Hermes, the god of gain, Calasiris on request continued his narrative of the voyage from Delphi. At Zacynthos a deaf old fisherman Tyrrhenus gave them lodging. The Tyrian merchant who won the victory at the Pythian games now sued for Chariclea’s hand. Tyrrhenus discovered an ambush of pirates waiting for the Phoenician ship to sail. Calasiris without revealing this persuaded the Tyrian captain to sail that night. The pirate crew under Trachinus pursued them and engaged them in a terrible battle so finally the Phoenicians had to surrender. Trachinus demanded marriage with Chariclea and she deceitfully promised her hand if he would spare Calasiris and “her brother” Theagenes. With difficulty the pirates maneuvered the boat to land near the mouth of the Nile. Trachinus told Calasiris that he proposed to marry Chariclea that day. Calasiris, ingenious as ever, persuaded him to let Chariclea go on the ship to attire herself for the wedding and be left undisturbed there. Calasiris then plotted with Pelorus, second in command of the pirates, telling him Chariclea loved him. Pelorus since he had been the first to board the Phoenician ship demanded, as his right of first choice of the booty, the girl. A terrible battle ensued in which Trachinus was killed, Pelorus wounded by Theagenes and put to flight and Theagenes badly wounded. In the morning Egyptian pirates arrived and carried them both off. Calasiris had spent his days mourning for them until this present recovery of Chariclea.

The next day Calasiris, Cnemon and Nausicles set out to find Theagenes. An acquaintance informed Nausicles that Mithranes had sent his troops on an expedition against the men of Bessa, commanded by Thyamis, because they had stolen a captive Greek youth. So Nausicles and his friends returned to Chemmis and told all to Chariclea. Nausicles gave a farewell dinner-party since the season favorable for navigation compelled him to sail for Greece. Cnemon after a struggle with himself decided to go with him and was permitted to marry his daughter, Nausiclea.

Calasiris and Chariclea disguised as beggars started for Bessa to seek Theagenes. Near Bessa they found many corpses lying on the ground. An old woman told them there had been a battle between Mithranes’ forces and the men of Bessa in which the men of Bessa had been victorious and Mithranes had been killed. The victors had now set out to Memphis against Oroondates. The old woman had lost her son in battle. That night Calasiris and Chariclea secretly watched her magic rites by which she raised him to give her news of her other son. The shade also revealed that there were two witnesses to her wicked necromancy; that Chariclea should be happily reunited with Theagenes and that his own mother would meet her death by the sword. This soon happened, for she fell on an upright sword on the battle-field.

Calasiris and Chariclea arrived at Memphis just as Thyamis and his brigands began a siege of it. The people of Memphis in the absence of Oroondates consulted the queen Arsace about the wisdom of going out to attack the enemy. Thyamis had been driven into exile by the slanders of his brother Petosiris who swore there was an amour between Thyamis and Arsace. Petosiris had then succeeded his brother in the priesthood of Isis. Arsace after looking at the enemy from the wall ordered a single combat between Thyamis and Petosiris to decide the war. In this combat Petosiris was forced to flee. As he was running around the city walls the third time, Calasiris arrived and saw the combat between his two sons that an oracle had foretold. Rushing between them he ended the contest.

Chariclea discovered Theagenes and suddenly threw her arms about him. Her hero disgusted at her beggar’s rags threw her off and did not recognize her until she whispered: “Pythias, have you forgotten the torch?” Then he took her to his arms, while Arsace and the other watchers on the wall marvelled at the scene as though it were on the stage. So peace was made by the father and the lovers were reunited. All went to the temple of Isis. Calasiris restored his son Thyamis to the priesthood.

Arsace had fallen madly in love with Theagenes on seeing him twice and confided this to her aged maid, Cybele. This maid on going to the temple of Isis to offer prayers for her mistress learned that Calasiris had died there during the night and that no one except the priests could enter the temple for seven days on account of the funeral rites. Thereupon Cybele craftily secured permission to entertain the two young Greeks who were staying there in Arsace’s palace and took them home. When they found that they were in the palace, they became suspicious for they had noticed the queen’s interest in Theagenes the day before. So at Chariclea’s suggestion, Theagenes said they were brother and sister. Cybele went to Arsace’s apartment to tell her all, locking the guests in their room. In her absence, her son Achaemenes came home, listened at their door and from their talk and from a glimpse at Theagenes realized that this was the very youth who had been taken from him by Thyamis.

As the days passed, Arsace tried to win the love of Theagenes first through subtle allurement, then through open confession of her passion and at last through domination. Achaemenes finally told Arsace who they were so the queen informed Theagenes that they were now her slaves as they had been the captive slaves of Mithranes and he must obey her. Then in the presence of Cybele Theagenes promised himself to Arsace on condition that she would never give Chariclea to Achaemenes, who had demanded her. He confessed that Chariclea was not his sister but his fiancée. On hearing this Achaemenes rode away to inform Oroondates of all.

Oroondates was engaged in a campaign against Hydaspes, King of the Ethiopians, who had got possession of Philae. On hearing Achaemenes’ report Oroondates despatched his eunuch Bagoas with fifty horsemen to Memphis to bring Theagenes and Chariclea to his camp. He sent two letters to this effect to Arsace and to his chief eunuch. Achaemenes he kept with himself.

In Memphis Thyamis had been unable to procure the release of the young Greeks from Arsace. Moreover the frustrated queen had begun to try imprisonment and torture on Theagenes. When he was still obstinate, Cybele advised getting rid of Chariclea to free his heart and she prepared to poison the girl. Fortunately a maid exchanged the goblets. Cybele herself drank the poison and expired, but with her last breath she declared Chariclea had murdered her. So Arsace threw the girl into the prison where Theagenes was and had her tried. In the court-room Chariclea pleaded guilty, for this was the plan that she and her lover had agreed on in the prison, that they might die together. The Supreme Council ordered that she be burned alive. Chariclea was saved by a miracle, for the flames on the pyre refused to touch her person. Arsace then consigned her again to prison on the ground that she was a witch.

In prison, Chariclea and Theagenes had a long talk about the dream-visions they had each seen. To each Calasiris had appeared and given a metrical prophecy. To Chariclea he had said:

“Bearing Pantarbè, fear not flames, fair maid,

Fate, to whom naught is hard, shall bring thee aid.”

And to Theagenes:

“From Arsace, the morrow sets thee free—

To Aethiopia with the virgin flee.”[109]

Chariclea interpreted these oracles to mean that her jewel, the Pantarbè, was protecting her; and that on the next day they would be freed from Arsace and go to Ethiopia.

Meanwhile Bagoas arrived at Memphis and Euphrates on receiving the letter of Oroondates sent Theagenes and Chariclea off secretly with Bagoas. On their journey they received first the news that Arsace had killed herself and second that Oroondates had gone to Syene. Later on the way they were seized by a band of Troglodite Ethiopians who took Bagoas and the two Greeks to their king, Hydaspes. He planned to save them as victims to be sacrificed to the gods.

Hydaspes was besieging Syene. Oroondates had got inside the city before the blockade and was directing the defense. But Hydaspes used a new weapon against him, inundation. His army dug a great trench around Syene with earth-works encircling it. This trench he connected with the river Nile by a long canal, fifty feet wide, banked by high walls. When the works were finished, he cut away the embankment between his canal and the Nile and let the river in. Syene became an island city and the pressure of the water on the walls threatened inundation. So Oroondates and the people of Syene had to sue for peace. This was granted, and Hydaspes built up again the embankment between his canal and the Nile and proceeded to drain off the water.

During the festival of the overflowing of the Nile Oroondates and his army slipped away in the night, bridging the mud swamps about Syene by planks, and went to Elephantine, which revolted with him against Hydaspes. In the new battle Hydaspes was again victorious and took Oroondates prisoner, but the Ethiopian was a generous conqueror and sent Oroondates back to be again viceroy of his province.

Hydaspes on his way home stopped two days at Philae and from there sent home letters announcing his victory to Persinna and the Gymnosophists. Persinna recalled a dream that she had brought forth a full-grown daughter and interpreted the daughter as this victory. The people assembled for the celebration at the island city of Meroe and according to their traditions demanded human sacrifice of foreign captives of war. The prisoners now underwent the test of chastity by ascending the altar of fire and of course Theagenes and Chariclea passed the test.

The Gymnosophists through their leader Sisimithres refused to witness human sacrifice and foretold that this one would never be consummated. Chariclea begged them to stay and hear her case. (She had recognized Sisimithres’ name as that of the one who had given her to Charicles at Catadupa). Chariclea declared that she was a native, not a foreigner, and produced her fillet and her jewels, among them the mystic ring, Pantarbé. Sisimithres narrated his part in her story. Hydaspes was puzzled over how he could have a white child, but Sisimithres explained that Persinna at the time of conception had fixed her eyes on a picture of the naked, white Andromeda. When the picture was brought in as evidence, Chariclea’s resemblance to its Andromeda was found startling. Moreover a birthmark of a black ring around Chariclea’s arm attested her black blood.

The people now refused to have Chariclea sacrificed, but the fate of Theagenes still hung in the balance. Chariclea begged that if he were to be sacrificed, she might perform the deed. (Apparently she planned to carry out a kind of suicide pact.) Hydaspes thought his daughter was insane and sent her into a tent with her mother while he received ambassadors and their gifts of victory. His nephew Meroebus brought a mighty athlete. Hydaspes as a joke gave him in return an elephant, but also promised him the hand of Chariclea. The Axiomitae presented a giraffe, an animal so strange that it terrified some of the natives. Moreover, one bull and two horses broke their fetters and dashed madly around the inside of the circle of guards. Theagenes mounted another horse, pursued the bull, wore it out and finally downed it. The enchanted spectators now demanded that he be matched with the champion Meroebus. Him too he vanquished. Oroondates crowned Theagenes as victor, but nevertheless prepared to sacrifice him.

At that moment ambassadors from Syene arrived with a letter from Oroondates. He begged that a young woman captive be sent to him with her father who was one of the ambassadors. This was Charicles. He recognized Theagenes and accused him of having stolen his daughter at Delphi. Theagenes revealed that Chariclea was the one demanded. Sisimithres told the rest of the story. Chariclea rushing out of the tent begged Charicles to forgive her elopement. Persinna told Hydaspes that she had learned that Chariclea was betrothed to Theagenes.

Sisimithres speaking not in Greek but in Ethiopian for all the people to hear ordered Hydaspes to submit to the will of the gods who had saved the two young lovers and who did not approve of human sacrifice and exhorted him to end human sacrifices forever. So Hydaspes asked the people to observe the will of the gods and to sanction the marriage of Theagenes and Chariclea. This they did. Then Hydaspes consecrated the two as priest and priestess of the Sun and the Moon and on their heads he placed the mitres which he and Persinna had worn as symbols of their offices. Thus was fulfilled the oracle:

“In regions torrid shall arrive at last;

There shall the gods reward their pious vows,

And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows.”

Then a great procession escorted them to Meroe there to fulfill the more mystic parts of wedlock.

In this brief re-telling of Heliodorus’ long story, certain striking features of his structure appear. Geography and ethnography are important as in the other novelists. The eastern basin of the Mediterranean is the center of the adventures, the district which for centuries was the scene of the conflict for power between many nations. As in Xenophon, many geographical details are given, often with little accuracy.[110] As Maillon points out, imagination and fantasy falsify the historical and geographical allusions. Heliodorus gathers everything that can satisfy the taste for the strange and the marvellous. At a time when the critical spirit was so little developed in the historians, a writer of romance would naturally produce marvellous narratives and vague descriptions. Heliodorus confuses the Ethiopia of Herodotus with that of the Ptolemies and imagines an Ethiopian empire which did not exist during the domination of Egypt by the Persians.[111] As in Chariton, the superiority of the Greeks over the barbarians is part of the author’s faith.

In the development of the plot Heliodorus makes his set more unified, less cinematic than Xenophon had done. The scene of action lies almost entirely in Egypt with a shift to Ethiopia for the final climax. This Egyptian set is to be sure varied by different local scenes: the Nile, an island village in its delta, towns such as Chemmis, Memphis, Syene and Philae, the battle-fields of Bessa and Elephantine, but nearly the whole plot develops in Egypt. The exceptions are in the sub-plot presented in Cnemon’s narrative of his life-history which is laid in Athens, and in Calasiris’ long account of his visit to Delphi. These however are clearly set off as insets in the unity of the Egyptian scene.

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.

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.