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Title: Essays on the Greek Romances Author: Elizabeth Hazelton Haight Release Date: October 2, 2014 [EBook #47022] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON THE GREEK ROMANCES *** Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net 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 THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO viii v vi vii 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 ix CHAPTER I. The Greek Romances and Their Re-dating. II. Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe. III. The Ephesiaca or Habrocomes and Anthia by Xenophon of Ephesus. IV. The Aethiopica of Heliodorus. V. The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius. VI. The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe by Longus. VII. Lucian and his Satiric Romances: the True History and Lucius or Ass. VIII. A Comparison of the Greek Romances and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. Index xi 1 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 PAGE 1 14 38 61 95 119 144 186 203 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 2 3 4 5 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: Ἐφεσιακά by Xenophon of Ephesus, Βαβυλωνιακά by Xenophon of Antioch, Αἰθιοπικά by Heliodorus, Κυπριακά by Xenophon of Cyprus, Ῥοδιακά, Κωακά, Θασιακά by 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 6 7 8 9 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 10 11 12 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: The Greek Romances Date Author Title I Century B.C. Unknown The Ninus Romance (frag.) Before A.D. 150 Chariton of Aphrodisias Chaereas and Callirhoe II Century A.D. Lucian of Samosata A True History Lucius or Ass (an epitome of the lost Metamorphoses) II-III Centuries A.D. Xenophon of Ephesus Ephesiaca, Habrocomes and Anthia II-III Centuries A.D. Heliodorus of Emesa Aethiopica, Theagenes and Chariclea II-III Centuries A.D. Longus Daphnis and Chloe 15 13 14 About A.D. 300 Achilles Tatius of Alexandria Clitophon and Leucippe Byzantine XII Century A.D. Eustathius Hysmine and Hysminias XII Century A.D. Nicetas Eugenianus Charicles and Drusilla (verse) XII Century A.D. Theodorus Prodromus Dosicles and Rhodanthe (verse) XII Century A.D. Constantine Manasses Aristander and Callithea (verse) Also known by translation or abstract II-III Centuries A.D. Unknown Apollonius of Tyre (Latin translation) II-III Centuries A.D. Iamblichus, a Syrian Babyloniaca, Rhodanes and Sinonis (abstract in Photius) II-III Centuries A.D. Antonius Diogenes The Wonderful Things beyond Thule (abstract in Photius) Not before A.D. 300 pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance 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: 16 17 18 19 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. 20 21 22 23 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. 24 25 26 27 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...