Parthenius is regarded as a connecting link of the Alexandrian school
with the Roman poets on one side, and on the other with the romances
which constitute the last phase of Greek erotic literature.[329] In
these romances too, a number of my critics professed to discover
romantic love. The reviewer of my book in _Nature_ (London) asked me
to see whether Heliodorus's account of the loves of Theagenes and
Chariclea does not come up to my standard. I am sorry to say it does
not. Jowett perhaps dismisses this story somewhat too curtly as "silly
and obscene"; but it certainly is far from being a love-story in the
modern sense of the word, though its moral tone is doubtless superior
to that of the other Greek romances. The notion that it indicates an
advance in erotic literature may no doubt be traced to the legend that
Heliodorus was a bishop, and that he introduced Christian ideas into
his romance--a theory which Professor Rohde has scuttled and sent to
the bottom of the sea.[330] The preservation of the heroine's
virginity amid incredible perils and temptations is one of the tricks
of the Greek novelists, the real object of which is made most apparent
in _Daphnis and Chloe_. The extraordinary emphasis placed on it on
every possible occasion is not only very indelicate, but it shows how
novel and remarkable such an idea was considered at the time. It was
one of the tricks of the Sophists (with whom Heliodorus must be
classed), who were in the habit of treating a moral question like a
mathematical problem. "Given a maiden's innocence, how can it be
preserved to the end of the story?" is the artificial, silly, and
vulgar leading motive of this Greek romance, as of others. Huet,
Villemain, and many other critics have been duped by this
sophistico-mathematical aspect of the story into descanting on the
peculiar purity and delicacy of its moral tone; but one need only read
a few of the heroine's speeches to see how absurd this judgment is.
When she says to her lover,
"I resigned myself to you, not as to a paramour, but as to a
legitimate husband, and I have preserved my chastity with
you, resisting your urgent solicitations because I always
had in mind the lawful marriage to which we pledged
ourselves,"
she uses the language of a shrewd hetaira, not of an innocent girl;
nor could the author have made her say the following had his subject
been romantic love: [Greek: _Hormaen gar, hos oistha, kratousaes
epithumias machae men antitupos epipeinei, logos d' eikon kai pros to
boulaema syntrechon taen protaen kai zeousan phoran esteile kai to
katoxu taes orezeos to haedei taes epaggelias kateunase.]
The story of Heliodorus is full of such coarse remarks, and his idea
of love is plainly enough revealed when he moralizes that "a lover
inclines to drink and one who is drunk is inclined to love."
It is not only on account of this coarseness that the story of
Theagenes and Chariclea fails to come up to the standard of romantic
love. When Arsace (VIII., 9) imprisons the lovers together, with the
idea that the sight of their chains will increase the sufferings of
each, we have an intimation of crude sympathy; but apart from that the
symptoms of love referred to in the course of the romance are the same
that I have previously enumerated, as peculiar to Alexandrian
literature. The maxims, "dread the revenge that follows neglected
love;" "love soon finds its end in satiety;" and "the greatest
happiness is to be free from love," take us back to the oldest Greek
times. Peculiarly Greek, too, is the scene in which the women, unable
to restrain their feelings, fling fruits and flowers at a young man
because he is so beautiful; although on the same page we are surprised
by the admission that woman's beauty is even more alluring than man's,
which is not a Greek sentiment.
In this last respect, as in some others, the romance of Heliodorus
differs favorably from that of Achilles Tatius, which relates the
adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon; but I need not dwell on this
amazingly obscene and licentious narrative, as its author's whole
philosophy of love, like that of Heliodorus, is summed up in this
passage:
"As the wine produced its effect I cast lawless glances at
Leucippe: for Love and Bacchus are violent gods, they invade
the soul and so inflame it that they forget modesty, and
while one kindles the flame the other supplies the fuel; for
wine is the food of love."
Nor need I dwell on the stories of Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, or
the epic _Dionysiaca_ of Nonnus, as they yield us no new points of
view. The romance of Longus, however, calls for some remarks, as it is
the best known of the Greek novels and has often been pronounced a
story of refined love worthy of a modern writer.