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.
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.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
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.
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.
