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.

This structural element fits in with the religious-philosophical

coloring of the whole background. Dreams and epiphanies, miracles and

necromancy are partial manifestations of a deep-seated interest in cults

and philosophies that is a phenomenon of the times. There is a long

description of the festival of Neoptolemus at Delphi with its pageantry,

sacrifices, hymn, dance, libations and the lighting of the pyre. It is

here that Theagenes and Chariclea meet and at first sight fall in love.

Nausicles the merchant must sacrifice to Hermes, god of trade. The

festival of the overflowing of the Nile is celebrated in Egypt. And

among the Ethiopians the first fruits of victory in war are offered in

the form of sacrifice of human captives to their gods. The most

prominent cults are those of Apollo-Helios of Delphi, Egypt and Ethiopia

and of the Egyptian Isis. These are savior gods to whom mortals offer

petitions for salvation.

Opinions differ as to whether the representation of the cult of Helios

is the usual conventional religious background of a Greek romance or

whether it is the author’s glorification of the cult of his native city

with which he and his family had some official connection. At the

antipodes in criticism are Rattenbury who perceives only the usual

religious conventions and Calderini who thinks the unique feature of the

_Aethiopica_ is its rich philosophical coloring.[122] All would agree on

marked influence in Heliodorus of Neo-Pythagoreanism and the teachings

of Apollonius of Tyana as recorded by Philostratus.[123] Maillon in his

preface gives this discriminating summary of his own position towards

Heliodorus’ philosophical interests. He says that the Pantheon of

Heliodorus does not contain many deities. He refers to the gods under

the Neo-Pythagorean name of οἱ κρείττονες. Calasiris whose role is most

important may well represent the author’s state of mind. This priest of

Isis practices a large eclecticism. He goes to Delphi and divides his

time between the service of the temple and theological discussion. He

worships especially one god, Apollo of Delphi, Helios of Emesa. Apollo

directs the drama of his story, Helios crowns it in Ethiopia. One sees

in Heliodorus the intention of simplifying and unifying mythology and of

bringing back religion to its eastern and Egyptian origins. Instead of

wishing to discredit pagan stories, he treats them philosophically to

make them acceptable to an age which was becoming emancipated and more

severe and to a new faith which wished to reconcile the philosophical

tradition and the sense of the divine and the mysterious.

Neo-Pythagoreanism was a curious attempt to found a religion which would

satisfy both the critical spirit and the people. At the beginning of the

third century appeared _The Life of Apollonius of Tyana_, a magician and

a disciple of Pythagoras. Philostratus takes his hero to the Orient,

Ethiopia, Greece, Rome. He writes a real romance. And that of Heliodorus

recalls it often. Both authors show the same admiration for the

Gymnosophists, the same distinction between magic and theurgy. Both

Apollonius and Calasiris are opposed to impure sacrifices. The story of

the magical Pantarbè jewel appears in both Philostratus and Heliodorus.

Calasiris like Apollonius is a model of Pythagorean asceticism.

Apollonius defends himself about working miracles and lets a doubt

appear about his theurgic powers. Calasiris shows in daily life a common

wisdom and reserves for exceptional cases an appeal to great demons.

In the _Aethiopica_ dreams play a more important role than the demons.

Communications with the invisible world are constant, but only

exceptional human beings who have had long experience in divine matters

and a life mortified and purified by expiation know the mysteries of the

invisible world.

This paraphrase of Maillon’s paragraphs shows how completely logical is

the conclusion of the romance where the noble Gymnosophist Sisimithres

persuades the king of the Ethiopians and his people to renounce human

sacrifice and accept the divine blessing on the loves of Theagenes and

Chariclea.