He gave
large contributions to the state.
large contributions to the state.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
[129]
These are but a few illustrations of Heliodorus’ constant use of Homeric
diction.
No less did he use the language of the theater. [130] We have already
seen how much his plot owes to the structure of Greek tragedy. From
drama he took also a vocabulary of pungent metaphors to describe the
progress of events in his story. Repeatedly the action is referred to as
a tragedy. [131] And certain scenes by their wording imply a recognition,
a _deus ex machina_, a prologue and a change from tragedy to comedy.
These may, as Calderini suggests, be reminiscences of contemporary plays
now lost, which readers of the time would recognize. [132] Certainly
structure and language of the romance attest Heliodorus’ deep interest
in the theater.
The third striking element in the diction of Heliodorus is the
rhetorical. He often uses all the artifices taught in the schools:
alliterations, antitheses, set phrases. He loves the grand style. A
speech, even one uttered by his charming heroine, is an opportunity for
pomposity. He uses in excess that fine writing for descriptive passages
which the schools taught and he scatters throughout his narrative pithy
truisms or _sententiae_ which were part of the capital of the
rhetorician.
But these lapses into over-refined phrases, laborious symmetry and
decorative rhetoric are less of a barrier to a modern reader than is his
syntax. His sentence structure in general is not paratactic as is so
much of Chariton and of Xenophon, but complex. Moreover these complex
sentences are often exceedingly long with a kind of agglutinative
accumulation of participial constructions that demands re-reading for
comprehension. Yet he can be simple and pellucid in rapid narrative and
emotional crises as the final Book shows. And it is just because much of
his narrative is so exciting that we fall into resentful criticism when
Homer nods in dull drowsiness. [133]
Although we cannot date the _Aethiopica_ more exactly than somewhere in
the third century (probably in the first half), the romance reflects in
general the life of the times in which Heliodorus lived. The east daubs
its brilliant colors upon the story as the power of oriental rulers
impinges on the life of the Greeks. The absolutism of the Great King of
Persia is the model for minor courts of viceroys and their queens who
demand of their subjects and captives the obeisance that they must
render to their Super-Ruler. Military officers and eunuchs are the
descending steps in this hierarchy of tyranny.
Adventures center in war and travel. Cities and tribes revolt. Heroes
must display military virtues. Merchants, priests and women travel
widely, braving the dangers of storms at sea and of attacks by pirates.
Women have found a new freedom and are leaders in courage and endurance
as the story of Chariclea shows. Women take part in banquets and
religious ceremonies as well as in adventures. Romantic friendship
between men and admiration of young men’s beauty are a counterpart of
the famous relation between Hadrian and Antinous. Slaves and captives
may become court favorites or be subjected to indignities, imprisonment,
torture.
The times are characterized too by an eager search for the new, the
unfamiliar, by scientific curiosity, by an interest in art. So
descriptions of strange countries and peoples, accounts of strange
adventures and sights are part of the novelist’s stock in trade. He
describes vividly the island city in the Nile’s delta, its water-ways
through the reeds, its cave refuge with its secret entrance; or he gives
a technical account of the engineering processes by which a city is
besieged by threat of inundation; or he pictures such a curiosity in the
animal world as a giraffe. Works of art are featured with admiring care:
Theagenes’ embroidered robe and its clasp, Chariclea’s robe and its
girdle, the amethyst ring with its carved scene, the painting of Perseus
and Andromeda, nude, shining, chained to the rock.
And part of the picture of the times centers in man’s quest for new
values for life itself. Ethical standards for conduct are weighed and
emphasized in contrasts between Greeks and barbarians. Aspiration
towards the higher life is portrayed in the worship of the gods and its
ceremonials and in the philosophical discussions in which the priests
take part. The Gymnosophists and Calasiris share a large humanity.
The primary interests of the romance, however, far outweighing its
philosophy and its adventures, is love. Once more two enchanting young
people meet at a festival of a god, fall in love at first sight, plight
their troth, accompany each other through world-wide adventures,
preserve their faith and their chastity and for their piety are at last
united in perfect happiness. Theagenes and Chariclea join Chaereas and
Callirhoe, Habrocomes and Anthia, Clitophon and Leucippe, Daphnis and
Chloe in the undying annals of true love. And the reader closes
Heliodorus’ novel with Cnemon’s comment:
“I am at feud with Homer, father, for saying that love, as well as
everything else, brings satiety in the end; for my part I am never
tired either of feeling it myself, or hearing of its influence on
others; and lives there the man of so iron and adamantine an heart, as
not to be enchanted with listening to the loves of Theagenes and
Chariclea, though the story were to last a year? ”[134]
V
THE ADVENTURES OF LEUCIPPE AND CLITOPHON
_BY ACHILLES TATIUS_
“Every romance,” says Aristide Calderini in writing of the Greek novels,
“represents successively a new advance or a new type in its genre. Now
the closest affiliation is with history, now with pastoral poetry, now
with philosophy. While certain common elements persist, the general
pattern of the whole changes; often the content is varied; often the
limits. ”[135]
The variation within this new form of literature is richly illustrated
by the novel we are now to study, the one which was probably written
last of the extant Greek Romances as Chariton’s was the first. This is
_The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon_ of Achilles Tatius.
We know little of the author. Suidas, the lexicographer of the tenth
century, wrote his brief biography:
“Achilles Statius” (note the incorrect form of the name ‘Tatius’) “of
Alexandria: the writer of the story of Leucippe and Clitophon, as well
as other episodes of love, in eight books. He finally became a
Christian and a bishop. He also wrote a treatise on the sphere, and
works on etymology, and a mixed narration telling of many great and
marvellous men. His novel is in all respects like that of the other
writers of love-romances. ”[136]
Now though Suidas used earlier material and essayed accuracy, two
statements in this biography are manifestly incorrect. There is nothing
whatever in the romance to indicate that Tatius was ever a Christian and
the story about his conversion and bishopric probably duplicates the
similar tradition about his predecessor, Heliodorus, who was identified
with a bishop of Tricca who bore his name. Moreover Tatius’ novel is
very different in many particulars from all the romances which are now
known. And it is these contrasts rather than the similarities which make
him in our studies so excellent a foil for Chariton.
The date of about A. D. 300 is probably right for the novel because the
author seems to imitate the style of certain romancers of the third
century and because a recently discovered papyrus fragment[137] shows
that for palaeographical reasons this earliest manuscript could not have
been written later than the first half of the fourth century. This
evidence about the lateness of Achilles Tatius we shall find borne out
by a deterioration in style from Chariton’s simplicity to an
over-elaboration and exaggeration and a change in spirit from sincerity
to ironic parody. [138]
One important reason for knowing Achilles Tatius is “his contributions
to Elizabethan prose fiction and, through this, to the making of the
modern novel. ”[139] The first Greek text was not published until 1601
but before this he was made known to the sixteenth century by
translations in Latin, Italian and French. And in 1597 the first English
translation, that of William Burton, appeared. Todd succinctly states
his resulting influence:
“With Heliodorus, though in less measure, he furnished structure and
material for Sidney’s Arcadia, and thus was among the influences that
formed the novels of Richardson and Walter Scott; of Greene, as Dr. S.
L. Wolff puts it, he was the ‘first and latest love’; in Lyly himself,
and not only in him, we recognize Tatius as one of the sources of
English Euphuism. ”[140]
My plan in taking up Achilles Tatius is first to analyze briefly his
plot and then summarize its similarities to _Chaereas and Callirhoe_ and
the other Greek novels. Then I shall discuss more in detail the unique
features in Tatius and his special characteristics.
An epigram in the Palatine Anthology, attributed to Photius, patriarch
of Constantinople, but by some to Leon the philosopher gives a bird’s
eye view of the story. [141]
“The story of Clitophon reveals to the eyes, as it were, a bitter love
but a virtuous life. The very virtuous life of Leucippe puts all in
ecstasy, (for the story tells) how she was beaten and shorn of her
hair and clothed pitiably, and—the greatest point—having died three
times she endured to the end. And if you too wish to be virtuous,
friend, do not consider the side issues of the plot, but learn first
the outcome of the story, for it joins in marriage those who love
sanely. ”
For the expansion of this epitome it is necessary to have before us a
list of the many characters in the romance.
Chief characters:
_Clitophon_, a Greek of Tyre, son of Hippias
_Leucippe_, daughter of Sostratus of Byzantium, the uncle of Clitophon
_Clinias_ of Sidon, cousin of Clitophon
_Chaereas_ of Pharos, a fisherman
_Melitte_, a woman of Ephesus
_Thersander_, the husband of Melitte
_Callisthenes_ of Byzantium
_Calligone_, the half-sister of Clitophon
Minor characters:
_Sostratus_, of Byzantium, father of Leucippe
_Panthea_, his wife
_Hippias_, a Tyrian, father of Clitophon and Calligone
_Charicles_, the _amicus_ of Clinias
_Menelaus_, an Egyptian
_Sosthenes_, the bailiff of Thersander
_Satyrus_, a slave of Clitophon
_Clio_, Leucippe’s chambermaid, in love with Satyrus
_Charmides_, an Egyptian general
_Gorgias_, an Egyptian soldier
For the plot I condense Phillimore’s well-written summary. [142] The
author begins with a description of Sidon. He has reached Sidon in his
travels and is touring the city, looking at the temples. He describes a
painting of Zeus and Europa, also a statue of Eros. He was reflecting on
the Eros: “Think of such a brat being lord of earth and sea! ” When a
young man near testifies to Eros’ power which he has felt, the author
invites him to tell his story. In a Platonic scene under a plane-tree
near a stream they sit down.
The stranger, Clitophon, a Greek of Tyre, tells his story in the first
person. Clitophon has been unwillingly betrothed at nineteen to his
half-sister, Calligone. Now his uncle, Sostratus, writes that he is
sending his daughter Leucippe and her mother from their home in
Byzantium to Tyre for safety during a war. Clitophon at once falls in
love with Leucippe. He makes his cousin, Clinias, his confidant. Clinias
is sympathetic because he had a tragic love affair with a youth who was
killed by a fall from a horse which Clinias gave him. (Here is
introduced a purple patch on the driving accident. )
Encouraged by Clinias, Clitophon makes love constantly. Various scenes
of his wooing, for example a garden, are described in detail. Finally
the lovers elope, find a ship at Berytus, embark and start to
Alexandria. They meet an Egyptian fellow-passenger, Menelaus. There
comes a great storm. Hero and heroine are cast on shore at Pelusium near
the temple of Zeus Casius. Enter black brigands. Soldiers rescue
Clitophon, but Leucippe is kidnapped. Clitophon joins in an attempt to
save her, but it is baulked by a deep, impassable canal between the
rescuing party and the ten thousand brigands. Across it Clitophon
watches the bandits perform a human sacrifice by disembowelling the
victim before an altar. It is Leucippe. The body is put in a coffin.
The next day the canal is diked and crossed. Clitophon resolves to die
on Leucippe’s body, but suddenly he meets his slave Satyrus and
Menelaus, both saved from the wreck, who assure him that Leucippe is
alive. On the coffin being opened, she comes out—“Gashed open and minus
all viscera. ” But the murderers had been deceived by a sheepskin full of
animal entrails attached to her and by a stage sword which never
penetrated her body. Clinias too was saved from the wreck. Now a
punitive expedition under Charmides, the Egyptian, starts, but
unfortunately he falls in love with Leucippe and has a philtre given her
which drives her insane. On her recovery they go to Alexandria. There a
new rival, Chaereas, abducts Leucippe. Clitophon pursues on a ship of
war, but has to endure seeing Leucippe beheaded on the deck of the
enemy’s vessel. Clitophon recovers the head from the sea and gives it
burial.
Six months later Clitophon meets Clinias again. Clinias who had been
home in Sidon reports that “the cruel parent had actually betrothed the
loving cousins” so Clitophon and Leucippe might have married in peace.
Clitophon who naturally believes Leucippe dead is pursued by Melitte, a
lovely, wealthy and amorous widow of Ephesus. He finally yields to her;
they are betrothed in the temple of Isis and are to be married when they
reach Ephesus. On their arrival, Melitte drives Clitophon around her
great estates. There he has the overwhelming surprise of encountering
Leucippe who is working in the garden as a miserable slave. This
difficult situation is made more complicated by the sudden reappearance
of Melitte’s husband, Thersander, who had been falsely reported drowned
at sea. Thersander beats up Clitophon as an adulterer with his wife and
has him imprisoned.
Sosthenes, the bailiff of Thersander, interests his master in Leucippe,
so he tries to seduce her, but unsuccessfully. Clitophon in prison is
told a false story that both Leucippe and Melitte are faithless to him.
Clitophon resolves to denounce Melitte as an accomplice in a plot for
the murder of Leucippe and then to die. He is tried for adultery and
self-confessed murder, but Clinias foils his attempt by telling the
whole truth in court. Sosthenes departs, leaving Leucippe free.
Leucippe’s father, Sostratus, by good fortune arrives in Ephesus on a
sacred embassy just in time to assist his daughter. The trial of
Clitophon is resumed in a long court scene in which finally Thersander
challenges Leucippe and Melitte to tests of chastity by the magic pipes
of Pan and the magic spring of Rhodopis. Both pass the ordeals.
Thersander, since everything is going against him, for his slave,
Sosthenes, has been captured and will be forced to confess the truth,
flees. Sosthenes confesses. Clitophon is acquitted. Leucippe tells her
whole story: how the bandits beheaded another woman dressed in her
clothes to prevent Clitophon from following; how a quarrel over her
arose among them in which Chaereas was slain; then she was sold by the
other pirates to Sosthenes, who bought her for Thersander. Sostratus
then relates the secondary romance of Callisthenes and Calligone. The
novel ends with a happy reunion of all at Tyre where prayers and
sacrifices are offered in behalf of the lasting felicity of Clitophon
and Leucippe, of Callisthenes and Calligone.
Such is the story which Phillimore characterizes as “a breathless
succession of improbable incident. ”[143] The settings move with the same
cinematic rapidity which Chariton employed: from Sidon to Berytus, to
the sea and shipwreck, to Pelusium and Alexandria, to Ephesus and the
great court scene, to Byzantium and back again to Tyre.
In one point particularly the structure of the plot differs from
Chariton’s and indeed from the plots of all the other Greek Romances.
The author in the beginning hands over the story to a narrator, the
hero, Clitophon, who then tells the events in the first person. Very
soon, however, the reader has forgotten this device: so many other
characters are given the floor to relate their own tales. And at the end
the author too has forgotten this beginning, for Clitophon does not
round up his narrative with a polite farewell. He does not even explain
how he happened to be at Sidon where he started the tale. And the author
does not express his appreciation of the entertainment Clitophon has
given him. [144]
The chief interests of the romance are again love, adventure and
religion. There are two love-stories of primary interest instead of one.
Yet the bulk of the plot turns on adventure rather than on sex or
worship. And delight in adventure adds to the typical travellers’ tales
a flaming curiosity which demands description of many strange novelties.
In general the technical devices common to all the romances are used.
There is much conversation. There are many soliloquies. Clitophon
upbraids himself for swerving from Calligone to Leucippe. [145] Later he
bemoans Leucippe’s fate when she has been kidnapped by the blacks. [146]
Leucippe, sold as a slave, laments her whole sad love-story while
lustful Thersander is eavesdropping outside the door. [147] Clitophon, on
hearing in prison the false story that Leucippe has been murdered by
Melitte, voices his horror over her death and over the fact that he had
kissed her slayer. [148] These soliloquies are employed to reveal the
intense feelings of hero and heroine at emotional crises.
Three letters are used. The first is a brief business letter which
serves to develop the plot, for in it Sostratus writes to his brother
Hippias that he is sending his daughter Leucippe and his wife Panthea to
him for safe-keeping until the war between the Byzantines and the
Thracians is over. [149] The other two are love-letters. One is
Leucippe’s to Clitophon telling him that she has been sold as a slave,
begging for ransom money, wishing him happiness in his coming nuptials
with Melitte, and assuring him she is still a virgin. The other is
Clitophon’s answer declaring that he has “imitated her virginity, if
there be any virginity in men,” begging her not to judge him until he
can explain all, but to pity him. [150] Leucippe’s letter is found by
Melitte and helps motivate the plot in its emotional aspects, for it
works Melitte up through jealousy and despair to such passionate ardor
that she persuades Clitophon to sleep one night with her. [151]
Oaths are not important in the structure of the plot. Once Leucippe
swears to her father by Artemis that she has told him a true story about
being still a maid. [152] Dreams are frequent and are significant. Four
are reported which are vital factors in the plot. Clitophon’s father
dreams that while he is conducting the wedding ceremonies of his son and
Calligone the torches are extinguished. This dream leads him to hasten
the marriage so distasteful to Clitophon and it would have been
consummated at once had not Calligone been kidnapped by Callisthenes
under the impression that she was Leucippe. [153] Then Clitophon had
persuaded Leucippe to let him spend the night with her and with the aid
of Satyrus was already in her bedroom. Leucippe’s mother who had just
had a dream that a robber with a naked sword was playing the part of
Jack the Ripper with her daughter, rushed in and interrupted the
amour. [154] Later on, Leucippe and Clitophon on the same night have
similar dreams. A goddess appears and warns each that their love must
not be consummated until the goddess decks the bride and opens her
temple to the bridegroom. This apparition makes them postpone the rites
of Aphrodite. [155] In Book VII Sostratus, Leucippe’s father, sees in a
dream an apparition of Artemis who tells him that he will find Leucippe
and Clitophon in Ephesus. He goes to Ephesus then on a sacred embassy
and finds that Artemis does not lie. [156]
This tendency to a repeated use of the same device for forwarding the
plot is seen in greater extravagance and exaggeration in the use of
apparent deaths. Leucippe is supposed to meet violent death three times,
twice before the eyes of her lover, once in vivid narrative told to him
in prison. First she is sacrificed by brigands by being disembowelled
before an altar. Second she is beheaded on the deck of a ship by black
pirates and her head tossed into the ocean. Third she is murdered by an
assassin hired by Melitte. [157] In the first two cases ghastly details
make the executions seem real, but Leucippe always survives and
reappears with a plausible but exotic story. Surely in this exaggeration
Achilles Tatius is using thinly veiled satire of the device of
improbable reappearances in the Greek romance.
The same exuberance appears in the use of the forensic speeches, of
long, mythological narratives and of wordy descriptions. All these will
be considered in the study of the style of the romance. Two more
technical devices of the plot must be mentioned here: the use of résumés
and the usual happy ending. Book VIII is crowded with résumés: Clitophon
tells all his adventures to Sostratus and the priest of Artemis.
Leucippe relates to Sostratus how the pirates decapitated another woman
in her place. Finally Sostratus relates to his daughter and to Clitophon
the romance of Callisthenes and Calligone. [158] The romances of both
pairs of lovers, Clitophon and Leucippe, Callisthenes and Calligone, are
concluded by happy weddings. And among the leading characters only
Melitte suffers final disappointment. Achilles Tatius ironically grants
her at least one memorable embrace on a prison floor!
The character drawing is much less elaborate than the plot. While plot
and counterplot of the two romances interplay, the young hero Clitophon
and the beautiful Leucippe are more or less conventional figures who
move glamorously, weeping, fainting, dreaming, voyaging, through
preposterous adventures. But Callisthenes, the secondary hero, is far
more interesting than Clitophon because his character shows startling
development. And Melitte, though she plays the part of temptress, is a
great human creation.
In Book II Callisthenes first appears as a wealthy orphan, who is
notoriously dissipated and extravagant. Wishing to marry beauty and
having a strange streak of romanticism he asked Sostratus for the hand
of the beautiful Leucippe although he had never seen her. Rejected by
Sostratus as a suitor because of his bad reputation he plotted vengeance
in his willful and violent way. He journeyed to Tyre, saw Calligone at a
festival, mistook her for Leucippe, fell in love at first sight, hired
some gangsters to kidnap her and sailed off with his prize. [159]
Callisthenes does not reappear until in the end of Book VIII Sostratus
tells the story of his reform. [160] On the voyage Callisthenes found
himself madly in love with Calligone, revealed to her that he was no
pirate but a wealthy Byzantine noble, offered her honorable marriage and
a large dowry, and promised to respect her chastity as long as she
desired. At Byzantium, love transformed him so that he appeared
courteous, virtuous, self-controlled. He showed great respect for his
elders. He was no longer extravagant, but became philanthropic.
He gave
large contributions to the state. He trained for military service and
won distinction in actual warfare. In this changed guise he secured
Sostratus as an advocate to persuade Hippias to give him the hand of
Calligone, whose chastity he had scrupulously respected. Eros thus
salvaged Callisthenes and then rewarded him.
Melitte the widow of Ephesus is the most elaborately drawn character in
the romance. There is even a long personal description of her: she is as
beautiful as a statue with skin like milk, cheeks roses, hair thick,
long, golden, and about her the radiance of Aphrodite. Clitophon admits
he saw her with pleasure. Indeed she is so magnetic that the kisses she
was pleased to bestow on him stirred him. [161] She knew what she wanted
and how to get it. During four months she had to woo Clitophon though
she was rich and young and her husband has been lost at sea. Finally
since Clitophon was convinced that Leucippe was really dead, he yielded
and agreed to marry her, though on condition that they should not be
united until they arrived at Ephesus. She was as passionate as Clitophon
was cold. On the ship she made ardent love to him while he begged her to
philosophize on love’s nature. After Clitophon secretly received
Leucippe’s letter, he had to pretend illness to postpone the fulfillment
of her desires. Then Melitte sent for her so-called Thessalian slave
Lacaena (really Leucippe) and begged her to concoct a philtre that would
arouse Clitophon’s feeling. She is very outspoken about the fact that
Clitophon seems made of iron or wood; that indeed she seemed to love a
statue. [162] And she had the ability to express to Clitophon every
feeling she had without inhibition and in most picturesque language. At
her wedding breakfast in Alexandria she punned merrily about the
postponement of their union. “I’ve heard of a cenotaph but never before
of a cenogam. ”[163] The bellying sail on the ship she compared to a
pregnant woman’s body; indeed she converted the whole ship into symbols
of marriage. [164] She also compared herself to thirsty Tantalus standing
by a river but not allowed to drink. She could match Clitophon’s
arguments and his quibbles did not deceive her: “You are playing the
sophist, dearest! ” she commented. When from the discovery of Leucippe’s
letter to Clitophon and her husband’s safe return she knew that she had
lost Clitophon, she visited him secretly in prison and poured out on him
all her wrath and all her passion. Her denunciation of him as eunuch,
hermaphrodite, senile nonentity shifted to adoration; and passion
finally concentrated into so ardent and well argued an appeal for one
embrace that she was victorious. Clitophon admitted ironically that love
had taught her rhetoric and that he was vanquished, so he gave the
remedy to a sick soul and even on the prison floor enjoyed her! [165]
Melitte was no less subtle and plausible in the speech in which she made
her peace with her enraged husband Thersander: Clitophon was only one of
many refugees whom she aided in memory of her husband lost at sea;
indeed she had helped Clitophon to find his wife. [166] When Thersander
challenged her by the ordeal of the water of the Styx, Melitte at once
accepted the test on a quibble because her husband had demanded from her
an oath that she had not fulfilled the rites of Aphrodite with the
stranger _during the time while he himself was abroad_. And it was just
that unfortunate stipulation which makes her last appearance in the
romance unforgettable. She is led out of the water of the Styx by the
judge, proved by indisputable ordeal a chaste woman! Achilles Tatius has
won his readers by this time to rejoice in Melitte’s vindication. For
besides charm and cleverness he has given her humanity and generosity.
She was always merciful to her slaves and was kindness itself to
Lacaena-Leucippe. [167] After she had won her desire, she contrived the
escape of Clitophon from prison dressed in her clothes, and financed by
her. She did not even forget the jailer, but gave him money to go away
for a time to avoid punishment. [168] Clitophon omitted in his final
narrative of his adventures his succumbing to Melitte[169] but he had
the grace to admit to himself her charms.
It is clear that in the ethics of the romance there is a new point of
view. Achilles Tatius is definitely less idealistic than Chariton in his
treatment of the erotic theme. As Rattenbury has pointed out:
“Achilles Tatius seems to have felt that the fetish of chastity in the
average romance was absurd, and tries to humanize romance by creating
characters that are reasonably, not unreasonably, moral. . . . Leucippe
comes through safe and sound, it is true, but it was by good luck rather
than by good intention. ” Clitophon is chaste as far as men can be and
succumbs to Melitte only once. “Achilles Tatius,” continues Rattenbury,
“did not exactly parody his predecessors, but it is suggested that by
attempting to humanize romance he not only showed up the absurdities of
the usual stories, but was also responsible for the overthrow of the
literary form. . . . Achilles Tatius seems to have been to Greek Romance
what Euripides was to Greek Tragedy. He broke down the conventions, and
drove the essential and permanent elements to seek refuge elsewhere. The
erotic element did not die, but found an outlet in ‘Love-Letters,’ a
contemporary literary form of which Aristaenetus was an exponent in the
fifth century, but the idealized love story of a superhumanly modest
hero and heroine vanished, and Greek Romance hibernated until it was
revived some centuries later by the Byzantine writers. ”[170]
Not inconsistent with Tatius’ slightly ironic treatment of amours is his
emphasis on the virtue of pity and his tendency to introduce long
philosophical discussions of conduct or the nature of love. Clitophon’s
story moves an Egyptian general to pity, tears and aid, for
“When a man hears of another’s misfortune, he is inclined towards
pity, and pity is often the introduction to friendship; the heart is
softened by grief for what it hears, and gradually feeling the same
emotions at the mournful story converts its commiseration into
friendship and the grief into pity. ”[171]
In the midst of Thersander’s attempt to rape the weeping Leucippe, there
is a long digression on tears and the pity they arouse. [172] Clinias
appeals to the court not to put to death “a man who deserves pity rather
than punishment. ”[173] Leucippe, disguised as a slave, begs Melitte as a
woman to pity a woman and to pity one once free, now through Fortune’s
will a slave. [174]
Tatius has presented also in Callisthenes a picture of a noble young
hero who was converted from the wildness of youth to self-control,
respect, patriotism and service by chivalrous love. [175] And this
portrait of Callisthenes becomes an embodiment of an ideal latent in the
philosophical discussions of love which flavor the romance. “Love,” says
Clitophon, “inspired by beauty enters the heart through the eyes. ”[176]
Later Clinias tells Clitophon that he is greatly fortunate in being able
to see his lady, for when eyes of lovers meet, the emanations of their
beauty wed in a spiritual union that transcends bodily embrace. [177]
Clitophon, wooing Leucippe in a fair garden, discourses to her on the
power of love over birds, creeping things, plants, even iron which
responds to the magnet, over water (for Arethusa and Alpheus wed). [178]
To cheer up Menelaus and Clinias on ship-board and divert them from
their sorrows, Clitophon starts a philosophic discussion on love of
women compared with love of men, untranslatable in its openness. [179]
Menelaus takes up the cudgels for the love of men, probably much to
Clinias’ satisfaction for he had previously denounced to his dear
Charicles the love of women who, if they love, kill and had arraigned
for his indictment Eriphyle, Philomela, Sthenoboea, Chryseis, Briseis,
Candaules’ wife, Helen, Penelope, Phaedra, Clytemnestra! [180]
The worship of the kiss is featured in an enchanting story of a magic
charm breathed on the lover’s lips[181] and a fantastic assertion that
if a maiden’s kiss is stolen, the maid is raped. [182] Moreover a code of
love is presented, almost as detailed as Ovid’s _Ars Amatoria_, in
instructions given by Clinias to Clitophon,[183] by the slave Satyrus to
Clitophon,[184] by Clitophon in discussion with Menelaus. [185] A
delightful part of this Art of Love is telling the Lady love-stories,
for all womankind is fond of myths. [186] Magic too plays its part in the
technique of love, for incantation works a charm for a lover;[187]
philtres may bewitch the indifferent;[188] and ordeals test
chastity. [189]
Closely akin to the philosophical discussions of love, its power, its
art, its magic is the worship of Aphrodite, the mother of Eros. Yet
there are few references to her cult. Her dominance is hinted:
initiation into love makes Aphrodite the most powerful of gods. [190]
Melitte wishes to have her nuptials on the sea, for Aphrodite is the
sea’s daughter and she wishes to propitiate her as the goddess of
marriage by thus honoring the sea, her mother. [191] Clitophon at the end
of his separation from Leucippe prays to Lady Aphrodite to forgive the
long delay in their union, for it was due to no insult to her and he
begs her blessing on their marriage. [192] The story of the ordeal by the
water of the Styx[193] is a merry tale of rivalry between Artemis and
Aphrodite for a young girl’s worship in which Aphrodite made young
Rhodopis break her oath of chastity but Artemis changed her into a
spring in the very cave where she lost her virginity. Yet Achilles
Tatius presents no such deep-seated reverence for the goddess of Love as
that which permeates Chariton’s romance.
Artemis of Ephesus is rather the deity who dominates Tatius’ story. She
appears in dreams to the heroine and to Leucippe’s father. [194] In her
name Leucippe rebukes Thersander for insulting a virgin in the city of
the Virgin Goddess. [195] Sostratus arrives at Ephesus as the head of a
sacred embassy in honor of Artemis and so finds his daughter. [196]
Leucippe has taken refuge in the temple of Artemis and in that temple at
last she and Clitophon are reunited. [197] Here the villain of the piece
Thersander brutally attacks Clitophon. [198] Thersander’s lawyer in court
makes insulting slanders about the fact that Clitophon and Leucippe
probably defiled the temple by an amour there. [199] But Artemis is
proved to be no liar, and there is implicit recognition of her
protection of Leucippe though Achilles Tatius does not end with
thanksgiving to her. Her cult forms an objective background of religious
tradition for the action. No deep religious feeling for her is
manifested.
There is no more aspiration to god in the other cults which are
mentioned incidentally: of Apollo, Hercules of Tyre, the god of the
lower world, Pan. And the cruel goddess Fortune is berated only
occasionally. Superstition recognizes omens in the world of nature: the
eagle stealing the sacrifice, the hawk pursuing the swallow. [200]
Oracles are respected. [201] And the ordeals of Pan’s pipes and the
Styx’s water receive general credence. Festivals to the gods are
celebrated. [202] But religion seems rather a matter of scrupulous regard
for ritual than communion with god or relief to the soul.
As we compare the romances of Chariton and Achilles Tatius we find that
not only has the main interest shifted from love and worship to
incidents and adventures. An even greater change has come about in the
style. Homeric simplicity has given way to rhetorical elaboration.
Tatius may well have been a ῥήτωρ as the scholiast Thomas Magister
states, for his whole style is dyed in the rhetoric of the schools and
the speeches delivered in the various lawsuits in the plot are
masterpieces of rhetoric.
Among his acknowledged literary debts, however, he credits most to epic,
for he quotes Homer once[203] and alludes to him five times[204] and he
refers to Hesiod twice. [205] The messenger speeches in tragedy
undoubtedly suggested the slave’s dramatic narrative of the death of
Charicles in a riding accident. [206] Both the New and the Old Attic
Comedy contributed much to his humor: the New in the comic literary
contest of the slaves Conops and Satyrus who deride each other under
cover of fables;[207] and the Old in the Aristophanic priest of Artemis
who “was no poor hand at speaking, and as good at quip and gibe as the
plays of Aristophanes. ”[208] But the training of the rhetorical schools
outweighs all other influences. About half of Books VII and VIII is
devoted to the trial of Clitophon for adultery and self-confessed
murder. The court sits in Ephesus with a jury and a presiding judge, but
their functions are vague. The prosecution speaks first, Thersander and
his ten lawyers, whose speeches fortunately are not reported. Clitophon
answers them by a false narrative accusing himself of the murder of
Leucippe and involving Melitte. Clinias gets the floor and tells the
true story: that Clitophon desires only to die, that he deserves pity
rather than condemnation and must be regarded as insane.
In the wild confusion that follows, Thersander’s counsel shouts for a
sentence of murder, Melitte offers her slaves to be questioned on her
innocence and demands that her husband produce Sosthenes who is probably
the murderer. Thersander in a long speech answers Melitte’s challenge
about Sosthenes with the result that the presiding officer pronounces
sentence of death on Clitophon but postpones Melitte’s case. Clitophon
is just on the point of being tortured for evidence when the arrival of
a sacred embassy to Artemis postpones the case of Melitte and the
execution of Clitophon.
Only after the work of the embassy is finished is the case resumed. Then
Thersander speaks first, demanding the execution of the sentence. He
condemns the priest who has released Clitophon and says he has usurped
the function of giving refuge to criminals which belongs to Artemis. He
adds foul personal abuse. He presents a second charge against Melitte
for adultery and a third against his slave girl Leucippe and her father.
The priest in his reply deserves the epithet “Aristophanic” which he has
won, for he pays Thersander back in his own coin of abuse only clothing
it in the wit of Aristophanes with all his double-meaning of words, his
biting attack. And his own arguments point the irony of the situation:
Thersander clapped Clitophon in jail before he was allowed to defend
himself. He charged him with murdering Leucippe but the young lady is
alive!
Sopater, counsel for Thersander, next hurls insulting invective at the
priest and whitewashes his noble client who has been betrayed by a
faithless wife. Thersander then presents a formal challenge to Melitte
and Leucippe to prove their chastity and on their acceptance of it, the
court adjourns. Next day all reassemble at the cave of Pan and the
spring of the Styx. The ladies are proved innocent. Thersander flees and
then is sentenced to banishment. Clitophon—and Melitte—are acquitted.
This summary of the procedure of the court in Ephesus shows what
opportunity Achilles Tatius made for presenting the rhetorical speeches
which he cherished. They are many. They are full of specious argument,
personal attack, appeal to the emotions, attempted pathos which becomes
bathos and genuine ἦθος. The speakers are true to type: the impassioned
lover, the leal friend, the haughty, imperious, lustful noble, his
sophistical lawyer, the Aristophanic priest. Such agonistic scenes must
have entertained the reader of the time as much as they did the author.
Actually this same favorite rhetorical style is also assigned to the
characters in private life: Melitte in her impassioned speech to
Clitophon in prison talks like a sophist, for Eros teaches even
arguments! [209]
Long mythological narratives are another feature of Tatius’ style. The
sight of a painting makes it necessary for him to relate the whole story
of Procne and Philomela to Leucippe. [210] The stories of the origins of
the two ordeals to prove chastity are told with equal detail. The
discovery of wine is elaborately related in the Tyrian version on the
occasion of the festival of Dionysus. [211] These are a few out of many
illustrations.
Descriptive writing is employed as much as, perhaps more than, forensic
or narrative. Indeed the purple patches almost overbalance plot,
conversation and oratory. Works of art, setting for scenes, natural
phenomena, the wonders of the world are introduced in highly colored
digressions which are clearly the ekphraseis which the students of
rhetoric were taught to compose and deliver.
Achilles Tatius apparently was enamored of wall-paintings. He describes
with gusto five and alludes to another. The subjects of all are myths.
Two are familiar types in the frescoes found at Pompeii: Perseus and
Andromeda, Achilles in women’s clothes among the daughters of King
Lycomedes. One description of a painting opens the romance, a votive
painting of Europa in the temple of Astarte at Sidon. [212] Sidon is the
first word of the novel and this story is introduced as a tribute to the
city where the first scene was laid, for the stemma on the coins of
Sidon is Europa on the bull, pictured almost as Tatius presents her. The
picture is described in vivid detail even to the flowers in the meadow
and the shifting colors of the sea. Posture and garb of Europa are
vividly sketched in words for he sees her “seated on the bull like a
vessel under way, using the veil as a sail. ” The keynote of the picture
and the point of its application for Tatius is the little flying Eros
who leads the bull and laughs back at the transformed Zeus. “Look,” said
Clitophon, “how that imp dominates over land and sea. ” A young man
standing by exclaims that he too has suffered much from love. These
exclamations are the point of departure for the recounting of love
adventures.
In Book III there is an equally long description of a painting by
Evanthes in the temple of Zeus Casius. [213] The subjects are Andromeda
and Prometheus and they seem to have been paired because both were
chained to rocks, menaced by beasts and rescued by Argive heroes,
Perseus and Hercules. Design, color, emotion are all described vividly
and charmingly, but there is no point in the introduction of the
paintings. The description of them is simply a purple patch of fine
writing.
In Book V the description of a painting in a studio depicting the rape
of Philomela had “a hidden significance. ”[214] The whole story was
represented: “the rape of Philomela, the violence employed by Tereus,
and the cutting out of her tongue . . . the tapestry, Tereus himself, and
the fatal table. ” Ugly realism, terror, insane laughter characterize the
treatment. The hidden meaning is that the sudden sight of the picture is
a bad omen threatening disaster which makes Clitophon postpone his
journey to Pharos. The delay gives him a chance to tell the whole story
of Philomela to Leucippe, for all women love myths.
Small works of art also are described lovingly and minutely: a
rock-crystal goblet carved in a grape-vine,[215] a jewelled
necklace. [216] These enrich the setting as scattered flowers enrich the
backgrounds of Renaissance tapestries. It is as though Achilles Tatius
like Corinthian potters or Renaissance artists had such an _horror
vacui_ that empty spaces in design were intolerable and interstices had
to be crowded with beautiful small objects. This is due in part to an
observant eye that saw and recorded detail. The specific and the graphic
are his tools for clarity. The story of the attempted amour of Clitophon
and Leucippe is vivified by a plan of the house as clear as the drawn
plans in many modern detective stories. [217] The garden in which
Clitophon’s love-making is once set is described elaborately with its
porticoes, trees, vines, flowers, spring and birds. [218] The storm at
sea in its violence and coloring is as lurid as a Turner, and its
effects on the shipwrecked passengers are described with a true
psychology of terror and panic. [219]
The long description of the storm is justified by the vital significance
of the shipwreck for the plot, but what of the write-ups of the wonders
of the world which are constantly introduced? The beautiful description
of Alexandria with its pharos is brief and pardonable as this was the
birthplace of the author. But only the love of novelty of the times and
bad taste seem to explain the perpetrations of wordy descriptions of the
Nile, the phoenix, the hippopotamus, the elephant and the
crocodile! [220] The romance at times tends to become a natural history.
Wolff becomes so out of patience with “the damnable iteration” of
irrelevancies in _Clitophon and Leucippe_ that he can hardly calm
himself to analyze them in suggestive groups: irrelevancies of plot, of
characterization, of setting, of science and pseudo-science. The only
justification for such irrelevancies Wolff finds in “a common basis with
paradox. Both defeat expectation. . . . In both its phases,—irrelevancy and
paradox—this element of _the unexpected_, prominent in the form as in
the matter of the Greek Romances, deserves attention. To turn aside to
the irrelevant; to strain suspense by retarding the expected outcome; to
introduce by the way—all unlooked for—as many bizarre, ironical,
paradoxical situations and dazzling phrases as possible; and finally to
‘spring’ an issue which is itself a surprising combination of
opposites—all these would seem to be consistent results of adopting the
unexpected as the principle of the genre. ”[221]
After all this is said in criticism of Achilles Tatius’ exuberant style
and unlimited digressions, we go back to his fundamentals: a clear plot,
living human beings, vivid settings for them, and exciting adventures.
Achilles Tatius knew his age and for its disillusions he wrote with
ironic tolerance of human frailty and for its weariness he emphasized
the excitement of adventure and the stimulus of the unexpected. To me
his successes chalk up to a longer list than his failures and I end with
Phillimore:
“What a strange thought—that an Alexandrian with the names of Achilles
Tatius (what a pair! ), atticizing _con furore_ in the reign of
Diocletian, should write a story which delighted the Byzantine Middle
Ages and can still be read with interest and amusement! ”[222]
VI
THE LESBIAN PASTORALS OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE
_BY LONGUS_
The very title of Longus’ romance shows a new departure. These Lesbian
Pastorals in four books form the only pastoral romance in Greek that is
extant. Compared with the other romances that of Longus is unique in
type, characters, setting and structure. Theocritus is the pervading
influence. Most of the leading characters are not nobles but serfs. Even
the young hero and heroine are brought up as shepherds until at the end
they are recognized as children of the great. City life plays little
part in the plot. The changing seasons make the set. Only a few
adventures disturb the serenity of the hills and pasturelands: an onset
of pirates, a local war and (of course! ) the usual kidnappings. Country
gods are worshipped. The music of Pan’s pipes is the accompaniment of
the story.
Of the author we know nothing. Longus “is not mentioned by any other
writer before the Byzantine age, and himself mentions no historical name
or event. ”[223] From internal evidence of his novel we see that he knew
Mytilene well; he was familiar with Greek and Roman literature and with
works of art; he had received a sophist’s training in the rhetorical
schools. He wrote probably in the second century A. D. , before Achilles
Tatius.
These are but a few illustrations of Heliodorus’ constant use of Homeric
diction.
No less did he use the language of the theater. [130] We have already
seen how much his plot owes to the structure of Greek tragedy. From
drama he took also a vocabulary of pungent metaphors to describe the
progress of events in his story. Repeatedly the action is referred to as
a tragedy. [131] And certain scenes by their wording imply a recognition,
a _deus ex machina_, a prologue and a change from tragedy to comedy.
These may, as Calderini suggests, be reminiscences of contemporary plays
now lost, which readers of the time would recognize. [132] Certainly
structure and language of the romance attest Heliodorus’ deep interest
in the theater.
The third striking element in the diction of Heliodorus is the
rhetorical. He often uses all the artifices taught in the schools:
alliterations, antitheses, set phrases. He loves the grand style. A
speech, even one uttered by his charming heroine, is an opportunity for
pomposity. He uses in excess that fine writing for descriptive passages
which the schools taught and he scatters throughout his narrative pithy
truisms or _sententiae_ which were part of the capital of the
rhetorician.
But these lapses into over-refined phrases, laborious symmetry and
decorative rhetoric are less of a barrier to a modern reader than is his
syntax. His sentence structure in general is not paratactic as is so
much of Chariton and of Xenophon, but complex. Moreover these complex
sentences are often exceedingly long with a kind of agglutinative
accumulation of participial constructions that demands re-reading for
comprehension. Yet he can be simple and pellucid in rapid narrative and
emotional crises as the final Book shows. And it is just because much of
his narrative is so exciting that we fall into resentful criticism when
Homer nods in dull drowsiness. [133]
Although we cannot date the _Aethiopica_ more exactly than somewhere in
the third century (probably in the first half), the romance reflects in
general the life of the times in which Heliodorus lived. The east daubs
its brilliant colors upon the story as the power of oriental rulers
impinges on the life of the Greeks. The absolutism of the Great King of
Persia is the model for minor courts of viceroys and their queens who
demand of their subjects and captives the obeisance that they must
render to their Super-Ruler. Military officers and eunuchs are the
descending steps in this hierarchy of tyranny.
Adventures center in war and travel. Cities and tribes revolt. Heroes
must display military virtues. Merchants, priests and women travel
widely, braving the dangers of storms at sea and of attacks by pirates.
Women have found a new freedom and are leaders in courage and endurance
as the story of Chariclea shows. Women take part in banquets and
religious ceremonies as well as in adventures. Romantic friendship
between men and admiration of young men’s beauty are a counterpart of
the famous relation between Hadrian and Antinous. Slaves and captives
may become court favorites or be subjected to indignities, imprisonment,
torture.
The times are characterized too by an eager search for the new, the
unfamiliar, by scientific curiosity, by an interest in art. So
descriptions of strange countries and peoples, accounts of strange
adventures and sights are part of the novelist’s stock in trade. He
describes vividly the island city in the Nile’s delta, its water-ways
through the reeds, its cave refuge with its secret entrance; or he gives
a technical account of the engineering processes by which a city is
besieged by threat of inundation; or he pictures such a curiosity in the
animal world as a giraffe. Works of art are featured with admiring care:
Theagenes’ embroidered robe and its clasp, Chariclea’s robe and its
girdle, the amethyst ring with its carved scene, the painting of Perseus
and Andromeda, nude, shining, chained to the rock.
And part of the picture of the times centers in man’s quest for new
values for life itself. Ethical standards for conduct are weighed and
emphasized in contrasts between Greeks and barbarians. Aspiration
towards the higher life is portrayed in the worship of the gods and its
ceremonials and in the philosophical discussions in which the priests
take part. The Gymnosophists and Calasiris share a large humanity.
The primary interests of the romance, however, far outweighing its
philosophy and its adventures, is love. Once more two enchanting young
people meet at a festival of a god, fall in love at first sight, plight
their troth, accompany each other through world-wide adventures,
preserve their faith and their chastity and for their piety are at last
united in perfect happiness. Theagenes and Chariclea join Chaereas and
Callirhoe, Habrocomes and Anthia, Clitophon and Leucippe, Daphnis and
Chloe in the undying annals of true love. And the reader closes
Heliodorus’ novel with Cnemon’s comment:
“I am at feud with Homer, father, for saying that love, as well as
everything else, brings satiety in the end; for my part I am never
tired either of feeling it myself, or hearing of its influence on
others; and lives there the man of so iron and adamantine an heart, as
not to be enchanted with listening to the loves of Theagenes and
Chariclea, though the story were to last a year? ”[134]
V
THE ADVENTURES OF LEUCIPPE AND CLITOPHON
_BY ACHILLES TATIUS_
“Every romance,” says Aristide Calderini in writing of the Greek novels,
“represents successively a new advance or a new type in its genre. Now
the closest affiliation is with history, now with pastoral poetry, now
with philosophy. While certain common elements persist, the general
pattern of the whole changes; often the content is varied; often the
limits. ”[135]
The variation within this new form of literature is richly illustrated
by the novel we are now to study, the one which was probably written
last of the extant Greek Romances as Chariton’s was the first. This is
_The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon_ of Achilles Tatius.
We know little of the author. Suidas, the lexicographer of the tenth
century, wrote his brief biography:
“Achilles Statius” (note the incorrect form of the name ‘Tatius’) “of
Alexandria: the writer of the story of Leucippe and Clitophon, as well
as other episodes of love, in eight books. He finally became a
Christian and a bishop. He also wrote a treatise on the sphere, and
works on etymology, and a mixed narration telling of many great and
marvellous men. His novel is in all respects like that of the other
writers of love-romances. ”[136]
Now though Suidas used earlier material and essayed accuracy, two
statements in this biography are manifestly incorrect. There is nothing
whatever in the romance to indicate that Tatius was ever a Christian and
the story about his conversion and bishopric probably duplicates the
similar tradition about his predecessor, Heliodorus, who was identified
with a bishop of Tricca who bore his name. Moreover Tatius’ novel is
very different in many particulars from all the romances which are now
known. And it is these contrasts rather than the similarities which make
him in our studies so excellent a foil for Chariton.
The date of about A. D. 300 is probably right for the novel because the
author seems to imitate the style of certain romancers of the third
century and because a recently discovered papyrus fragment[137] shows
that for palaeographical reasons this earliest manuscript could not have
been written later than the first half of the fourth century. This
evidence about the lateness of Achilles Tatius we shall find borne out
by a deterioration in style from Chariton’s simplicity to an
over-elaboration and exaggeration and a change in spirit from sincerity
to ironic parody. [138]
One important reason for knowing Achilles Tatius is “his contributions
to Elizabethan prose fiction and, through this, to the making of the
modern novel. ”[139] The first Greek text was not published until 1601
but before this he was made known to the sixteenth century by
translations in Latin, Italian and French. And in 1597 the first English
translation, that of William Burton, appeared. Todd succinctly states
his resulting influence:
“With Heliodorus, though in less measure, he furnished structure and
material for Sidney’s Arcadia, and thus was among the influences that
formed the novels of Richardson and Walter Scott; of Greene, as Dr. S.
L. Wolff puts it, he was the ‘first and latest love’; in Lyly himself,
and not only in him, we recognize Tatius as one of the sources of
English Euphuism. ”[140]
My plan in taking up Achilles Tatius is first to analyze briefly his
plot and then summarize its similarities to _Chaereas and Callirhoe_ and
the other Greek novels. Then I shall discuss more in detail the unique
features in Tatius and his special characteristics.
An epigram in the Palatine Anthology, attributed to Photius, patriarch
of Constantinople, but by some to Leon the philosopher gives a bird’s
eye view of the story. [141]
“The story of Clitophon reveals to the eyes, as it were, a bitter love
but a virtuous life. The very virtuous life of Leucippe puts all in
ecstasy, (for the story tells) how she was beaten and shorn of her
hair and clothed pitiably, and—the greatest point—having died three
times she endured to the end. And if you too wish to be virtuous,
friend, do not consider the side issues of the plot, but learn first
the outcome of the story, for it joins in marriage those who love
sanely. ”
For the expansion of this epitome it is necessary to have before us a
list of the many characters in the romance.
Chief characters:
_Clitophon_, a Greek of Tyre, son of Hippias
_Leucippe_, daughter of Sostratus of Byzantium, the uncle of Clitophon
_Clinias_ of Sidon, cousin of Clitophon
_Chaereas_ of Pharos, a fisherman
_Melitte_, a woman of Ephesus
_Thersander_, the husband of Melitte
_Callisthenes_ of Byzantium
_Calligone_, the half-sister of Clitophon
Minor characters:
_Sostratus_, of Byzantium, father of Leucippe
_Panthea_, his wife
_Hippias_, a Tyrian, father of Clitophon and Calligone
_Charicles_, the _amicus_ of Clinias
_Menelaus_, an Egyptian
_Sosthenes_, the bailiff of Thersander
_Satyrus_, a slave of Clitophon
_Clio_, Leucippe’s chambermaid, in love with Satyrus
_Charmides_, an Egyptian general
_Gorgias_, an Egyptian soldier
For the plot I condense Phillimore’s well-written summary. [142] The
author begins with a description of Sidon. He has reached Sidon in his
travels and is touring the city, looking at the temples. He describes a
painting of Zeus and Europa, also a statue of Eros. He was reflecting on
the Eros: “Think of such a brat being lord of earth and sea! ” When a
young man near testifies to Eros’ power which he has felt, the author
invites him to tell his story. In a Platonic scene under a plane-tree
near a stream they sit down.
The stranger, Clitophon, a Greek of Tyre, tells his story in the first
person. Clitophon has been unwillingly betrothed at nineteen to his
half-sister, Calligone. Now his uncle, Sostratus, writes that he is
sending his daughter Leucippe and her mother from their home in
Byzantium to Tyre for safety during a war. Clitophon at once falls in
love with Leucippe. He makes his cousin, Clinias, his confidant. Clinias
is sympathetic because he had a tragic love affair with a youth who was
killed by a fall from a horse which Clinias gave him. (Here is
introduced a purple patch on the driving accident. )
Encouraged by Clinias, Clitophon makes love constantly. Various scenes
of his wooing, for example a garden, are described in detail. Finally
the lovers elope, find a ship at Berytus, embark and start to
Alexandria. They meet an Egyptian fellow-passenger, Menelaus. There
comes a great storm. Hero and heroine are cast on shore at Pelusium near
the temple of Zeus Casius. Enter black brigands. Soldiers rescue
Clitophon, but Leucippe is kidnapped. Clitophon joins in an attempt to
save her, but it is baulked by a deep, impassable canal between the
rescuing party and the ten thousand brigands. Across it Clitophon
watches the bandits perform a human sacrifice by disembowelling the
victim before an altar. It is Leucippe. The body is put in a coffin.
The next day the canal is diked and crossed. Clitophon resolves to die
on Leucippe’s body, but suddenly he meets his slave Satyrus and
Menelaus, both saved from the wreck, who assure him that Leucippe is
alive. On the coffin being opened, she comes out—“Gashed open and minus
all viscera. ” But the murderers had been deceived by a sheepskin full of
animal entrails attached to her and by a stage sword which never
penetrated her body. Clinias too was saved from the wreck. Now a
punitive expedition under Charmides, the Egyptian, starts, but
unfortunately he falls in love with Leucippe and has a philtre given her
which drives her insane. On her recovery they go to Alexandria. There a
new rival, Chaereas, abducts Leucippe. Clitophon pursues on a ship of
war, but has to endure seeing Leucippe beheaded on the deck of the
enemy’s vessel. Clitophon recovers the head from the sea and gives it
burial.
Six months later Clitophon meets Clinias again. Clinias who had been
home in Sidon reports that “the cruel parent had actually betrothed the
loving cousins” so Clitophon and Leucippe might have married in peace.
Clitophon who naturally believes Leucippe dead is pursued by Melitte, a
lovely, wealthy and amorous widow of Ephesus. He finally yields to her;
they are betrothed in the temple of Isis and are to be married when they
reach Ephesus. On their arrival, Melitte drives Clitophon around her
great estates. There he has the overwhelming surprise of encountering
Leucippe who is working in the garden as a miserable slave. This
difficult situation is made more complicated by the sudden reappearance
of Melitte’s husband, Thersander, who had been falsely reported drowned
at sea. Thersander beats up Clitophon as an adulterer with his wife and
has him imprisoned.
Sosthenes, the bailiff of Thersander, interests his master in Leucippe,
so he tries to seduce her, but unsuccessfully. Clitophon in prison is
told a false story that both Leucippe and Melitte are faithless to him.
Clitophon resolves to denounce Melitte as an accomplice in a plot for
the murder of Leucippe and then to die. He is tried for adultery and
self-confessed murder, but Clinias foils his attempt by telling the
whole truth in court. Sosthenes departs, leaving Leucippe free.
Leucippe’s father, Sostratus, by good fortune arrives in Ephesus on a
sacred embassy just in time to assist his daughter. The trial of
Clitophon is resumed in a long court scene in which finally Thersander
challenges Leucippe and Melitte to tests of chastity by the magic pipes
of Pan and the magic spring of Rhodopis. Both pass the ordeals.
Thersander, since everything is going against him, for his slave,
Sosthenes, has been captured and will be forced to confess the truth,
flees. Sosthenes confesses. Clitophon is acquitted. Leucippe tells her
whole story: how the bandits beheaded another woman dressed in her
clothes to prevent Clitophon from following; how a quarrel over her
arose among them in which Chaereas was slain; then she was sold by the
other pirates to Sosthenes, who bought her for Thersander. Sostratus
then relates the secondary romance of Callisthenes and Calligone. The
novel ends with a happy reunion of all at Tyre where prayers and
sacrifices are offered in behalf of the lasting felicity of Clitophon
and Leucippe, of Callisthenes and Calligone.
Such is the story which Phillimore characterizes as “a breathless
succession of improbable incident. ”[143] The settings move with the same
cinematic rapidity which Chariton employed: from Sidon to Berytus, to
the sea and shipwreck, to Pelusium and Alexandria, to Ephesus and the
great court scene, to Byzantium and back again to Tyre.
In one point particularly the structure of the plot differs from
Chariton’s and indeed from the plots of all the other Greek Romances.
The author in the beginning hands over the story to a narrator, the
hero, Clitophon, who then tells the events in the first person. Very
soon, however, the reader has forgotten this device: so many other
characters are given the floor to relate their own tales. And at the end
the author too has forgotten this beginning, for Clitophon does not
round up his narrative with a polite farewell. He does not even explain
how he happened to be at Sidon where he started the tale. And the author
does not express his appreciation of the entertainment Clitophon has
given him. [144]
The chief interests of the romance are again love, adventure and
religion. There are two love-stories of primary interest instead of one.
Yet the bulk of the plot turns on adventure rather than on sex or
worship. And delight in adventure adds to the typical travellers’ tales
a flaming curiosity which demands description of many strange novelties.
In general the technical devices common to all the romances are used.
There is much conversation. There are many soliloquies. Clitophon
upbraids himself for swerving from Calligone to Leucippe. [145] Later he
bemoans Leucippe’s fate when she has been kidnapped by the blacks. [146]
Leucippe, sold as a slave, laments her whole sad love-story while
lustful Thersander is eavesdropping outside the door. [147] Clitophon, on
hearing in prison the false story that Leucippe has been murdered by
Melitte, voices his horror over her death and over the fact that he had
kissed her slayer. [148] These soliloquies are employed to reveal the
intense feelings of hero and heroine at emotional crises.
Three letters are used. The first is a brief business letter which
serves to develop the plot, for in it Sostratus writes to his brother
Hippias that he is sending his daughter Leucippe and his wife Panthea to
him for safe-keeping until the war between the Byzantines and the
Thracians is over. [149] The other two are love-letters. One is
Leucippe’s to Clitophon telling him that she has been sold as a slave,
begging for ransom money, wishing him happiness in his coming nuptials
with Melitte, and assuring him she is still a virgin. The other is
Clitophon’s answer declaring that he has “imitated her virginity, if
there be any virginity in men,” begging her not to judge him until he
can explain all, but to pity him. [150] Leucippe’s letter is found by
Melitte and helps motivate the plot in its emotional aspects, for it
works Melitte up through jealousy and despair to such passionate ardor
that she persuades Clitophon to sleep one night with her. [151]
Oaths are not important in the structure of the plot. Once Leucippe
swears to her father by Artemis that she has told him a true story about
being still a maid. [152] Dreams are frequent and are significant. Four
are reported which are vital factors in the plot. Clitophon’s father
dreams that while he is conducting the wedding ceremonies of his son and
Calligone the torches are extinguished. This dream leads him to hasten
the marriage so distasteful to Clitophon and it would have been
consummated at once had not Calligone been kidnapped by Callisthenes
under the impression that she was Leucippe. [153] Then Clitophon had
persuaded Leucippe to let him spend the night with her and with the aid
of Satyrus was already in her bedroom. Leucippe’s mother who had just
had a dream that a robber with a naked sword was playing the part of
Jack the Ripper with her daughter, rushed in and interrupted the
amour. [154] Later on, Leucippe and Clitophon on the same night have
similar dreams. A goddess appears and warns each that their love must
not be consummated until the goddess decks the bride and opens her
temple to the bridegroom. This apparition makes them postpone the rites
of Aphrodite. [155] In Book VII Sostratus, Leucippe’s father, sees in a
dream an apparition of Artemis who tells him that he will find Leucippe
and Clitophon in Ephesus. He goes to Ephesus then on a sacred embassy
and finds that Artemis does not lie. [156]
This tendency to a repeated use of the same device for forwarding the
plot is seen in greater extravagance and exaggeration in the use of
apparent deaths. Leucippe is supposed to meet violent death three times,
twice before the eyes of her lover, once in vivid narrative told to him
in prison. First she is sacrificed by brigands by being disembowelled
before an altar. Second she is beheaded on the deck of a ship by black
pirates and her head tossed into the ocean. Third she is murdered by an
assassin hired by Melitte. [157] In the first two cases ghastly details
make the executions seem real, but Leucippe always survives and
reappears with a plausible but exotic story. Surely in this exaggeration
Achilles Tatius is using thinly veiled satire of the device of
improbable reappearances in the Greek romance.
The same exuberance appears in the use of the forensic speeches, of
long, mythological narratives and of wordy descriptions. All these will
be considered in the study of the style of the romance. Two more
technical devices of the plot must be mentioned here: the use of résumés
and the usual happy ending. Book VIII is crowded with résumés: Clitophon
tells all his adventures to Sostratus and the priest of Artemis.
Leucippe relates to Sostratus how the pirates decapitated another woman
in her place. Finally Sostratus relates to his daughter and to Clitophon
the romance of Callisthenes and Calligone. [158] The romances of both
pairs of lovers, Clitophon and Leucippe, Callisthenes and Calligone, are
concluded by happy weddings. And among the leading characters only
Melitte suffers final disappointment. Achilles Tatius ironically grants
her at least one memorable embrace on a prison floor!
The character drawing is much less elaborate than the plot. While plot
and counterplot of the two romances interplay, the young hero Clitophon
and the beautiful Leucippe are more or less conventional figures who
move glamorously, weeping, fainting, dreaming, voyaging, through
preposterous adventures. But Callisthenes, the secondary hero, is far
more interesting than Clitophon because his character shows startling
development. And Melitte, though she plays the part of temptress, is a
great human creation.
In Book II Callisthenes first appears as a wealthy orphan, who is
notoriously dissipated and extravagant. Wishing to marry beauty and
having a strange streak of romanticism he asked Sostratus for the hand
of the beautiful Leucippe although he had never seen her. Rejected by
Sostratus as a suitor because of his bad reputation he plotted vengeance
in his willful and violent way. He journeyed to Tyre, saw Calligone at a
festival, mistook her for Leucippe, fell in love at first sight, hired
some gangsters to kidnap her and sailed off with his prize. [159]
Callisthenes does not reappear until in the end of Book VIII Sostratus
tells the story of his reform. [160] On the voyage Callisthenes found
himself madly in love with Calligone, revealed to her that he was no
pirate but a wealthy Byzantine noble, offered her honorable marriage and
a large dowry, and promised to respect her chastity as long as she
desired. At Byzantium, love transformed him so that he appeared
courteous, virtuous, self-controlled. He showed great respect for his
elders. He was no longer extravagant, but became philanthropic.
He gave
large contributions to the state. He trained for military service and
won distinction in actual warfare. In this changed guise he secured
Sostratus as an advocate to persuade Hippias to give him the hand of
Calligone, whose chastity he had scrupulously respected. Eros thus
salvaged Callisthenes and then rewarded him.
Melitte the widow of Ephesus is the most elaborately drawn character in
the romance. There is even a long personal description of her: she is as
beautiful as a statue with skin like milk, cheeks roses, hair thick,
long, golden, and about her the radiance of Aphrodite. Clitophon admits
he saw her with pleasure. Indeed she is so magnetic that the kisses she
was pleased to bestow on him stirred him. [161] She knew what she wanted
and how to get it. During four months she had to woo Clitophon though
she was rich and young and her husband has been lost at sea. Finally
since Clitophon was convinced that Leucippe was really dead, he yielded
and agreed to marry her, though on condition that they should not be
united until they arrived at Ephesus. She was as passionate as Clitophon
was cold. On the ship she made ardent love to him while he begged her to
philosophize on love’s nature. After Clitophon secretly received
Leucippe’s letter, he had to pretend illness to postpone the fulfillment
of her desires. Then Melitte sent for her so-called Thessalian slave
Lacaena (really Leucippe) and begged her to concoct a philtre that would
arouse Clitophon’s feeling. She is very outspoken about the fact that
Clitophon seems made of iron or wood; that indeed she seemed to love a
statue. [162] And she had the ability to express to Clitophon every
feeling she had without inhibition and in most picturesque language. At
her wedding breakfast in Alexandria she punned merrily about the
postponement of their union. “I’ve heard of a cenotaph but never before
of a cenogam. ”[163] The bellying sail on the ship she compared to a
pregnant woman’s body; indeed she converted the whole ship into symbols
of marriage. [164] She also compared herself to thirsty Tantalus standing
by a river but not allowed to drink. She could match Clitophon’s
arguments and his quibbles did not deceive her: “You are playing the
sophist, dearest! ” she commented. When from the discovery of Leucippe’s
letter to Clitophon and her husband’s safe return she knew that she had
lost Clitophon, she visited him secretly in prison and poured out on him
all her wrath and all her passion. Her denunciation of him as eunuch,
hermaphrodite, senile nonentity shifted to adoration; and passion
finally concentrated into so ardent and well argued an appeal for one
embrace that she was victorious. Clitophon admitted ironically that love
had taught her rhetoric and that he was vanquished, so he gave the
remedy to a sick soul and even on the prison floor enjoyed her! [165]
Melitte was no less subtle and plausible in the speech in which she made
her peace with her enraged husband Thersander: Clitophon was only one of
many refugees whom she aided in memory of her husband lost at sea;
indeed she had helped Clitophon to find his wife. [166] When Thersander
challenged her by the ordeal of the water of the Styx, Melitte at once
accepted the test on a quibble because her husband had demanded from her
an oath that she had not fulfilled the rites of Aphrodite with the
stranger _during the time while he himself was abroad_. And it was just
that unfortunate stipulation which makes her last appearance in the
romance unforgettable. She is led out of the water of the Styx by the
judge, proved by indisputable ordeal a chaste woman! Achilles Tatius has
won his readers by this time to rejoice in Melitte’s vindication. For
besides charm and cleverness he has given her humanity and generosity.
She was always merciful to her slaves and was kindness itself to
Lacaena-Leucippe. [167] After she had won her desire, she contrived the
escape of Clitophon from prison dressed in her clothes, and financed by
her. She did not even forget the jailer, but gave him money to go away
for a time to avoid punishment. [168] Clitophon omitted in his final
narrative of his adventures his succumbing to Melitte[169] but he had
the grace to admit to himself her charms.
It is clear that in the ethics of the romance there is a new point of
view. Achilles Tatius is definitely less idealistic than Chariton in his
treatment of the erotic theme. As Rattenbury has pointed out:
“Achilles Tatius seems to have felt that the fetish of chastity in the
average romance was absurd, and tries to humanize romance by creating
characters that are reasonably, not unreasonably, moral. . . . Leucippe
comes through safe and sound, it is true, but it was by good luck rather
than by good intention. ” Clitophon is chaste as far as men can be and
succumbs to Melitte only once. “Achilles Tatius,” continues Rattenbury,
“did not exactly parody his predecessors, but it is suggested that by
attempting to humanize romance he not only showed up the absurdities of
the usual stories, but was also responsible for the overthrow of the
literary form. . . . Achilles Tatius seems to have been to Greek Romance
what Euripides was to Greek Tragedy. He broke down the conventions, and
drove the essential and permanent elements to seek refuge elsewhere. The
erotic element did not die, but found an outlet in ‘Love-Letters,’ a
contemporary literary form of which Aristaenetus was an exponent in the
fifth century, but the idealized love story of a superhumanly modest
hero and heroine vanished, and Greek Romance hibernated until it was
revived some centuries later by the Byzantine writers. ”[170]
Not inconsistent with Tatius’ slightly ironic treatment of amours is his
emphasis on the virtue of pity and his tendency to introduce long
philosophical discussions of conduct or the nature of love. Clitophon’s
story moves an Egyptian general to pity, tears and aid, for
“When a man hears of another’s misfortune, he is inclined towards
pity, and pity is often the introduction to friendship; the heart is
softened by grief for what it hears, and gradually feeling the same
emotions at the mournful story converts its commiseration into
friendship and the grief into pity. ”[171]
In the midst of Thersander’s attempt to rape the weeping Leucippe, there
is a long digression on tears and the pity they arouse. [172] Clinias
appeals to the court not to put to death “a man who deserves pity rather
than punishment. ”[173] Leucippe, disguised as a slave, begs Melitte as a
woman to pity a woman and to pity one once free, now through Fortune’s
will a slave. [174]
Tatius has presented also in Callisthenes a picture of a noble young
hero who was converted from the wildness of youth to self-control,
respect, patriotism and service by chivalrous love. [175] And this
portrait of Callisthenes becomes an embodiment of an ideal latent in the
philosophical discussions of love which flavor the romance. “Love,” says
Clitophon, “inspired by beauty enters the heart through the eyes. ”[176]
Later Clinias tells Clitophon that he is greatly fortunate in being able
to see his lady, for when eyes of lovers meet, the emanations of their
beauty wed in a spiritual union that transcends bodily embrace. [177]
Clitophon, wooing Leucippe in a fair garden, discourses to her on the
power of love over birds, creeping things, plants, even iron which
responds to the magnet, over water (for Arethusa and Alpheus wed). [178]
To cheer up Menelaus and Clinias on ship-board and divert them from
their sorrows, Clitophon starts a philosophic discussion on love of
women compared with love of men, untranslatable in its openness. [179]
Menelaus takes up the cudgels for the love of men, probably much to
Clinias’ satisfaction for he had previously denounced to his dear
Charicles the love of women who, if they love, kill and had arraigned
for his indictment Eriphyle, Philomela, Sthenoboea, Chryseis, Briseis,
Candaules’ wife, Helen, Penelope, Phaedra, Clytemnestra! [180]
The worship of the kiss is featured in an enchanting story of a magic
charm breathed on the lover’s lips[181] and a fantastic assertion that
if a maiden’s kiss is stolen, the maid is raped. [182] Moreover a code of
love is presented, almost as detailed as Ovid’s _Ars Amatoria_, in
instructions given by Clinias to Clitophon,[183] by the slave Satyrus to
Clitophon,[184] by Clitophon in discussion with Menelaus. [185] A
delightful part of this Art of Love is telling the Lady love-stories,
for all womankind is fond of myths. [186] Magic too plays its part in the
technique of love, for incantation works a charm for a lover;[187]
philtres may bewitch the indifferent;[188] and ordeals test
chastity. [189]
Closely akin to the philosophical discussions of love, its power, its
art, its magic is the worship of Aphrodite, the mother of Eros. Yet
there are few references to her cult. Her dominance is hinted:
initiation into love makes Aphrodite the most powerful of gods. [190]
Melitte wishes to have her nuptials on the sea, for Aphrodite is the
sea’s daughter and she wishes to propitiate her as the goddess of
marriage by thus honoring the sea, her mother. [191] Clitophon at the end
of his separation from Leucippe prays to Lady Aphrodite to forgive the
long delay in their union, for it was due to no insult to her and he
begs her blessing on their marriage. [192] The story of the ordeal by the
water of the Styx[193] is a merry tale of rivalry between Artemis and
Aphrodite for a young girl’s worship in which Aphrodite made young
Rhodopis break her oath of chastity but Artemis changed her into a
spring in the very cave where she lost her virginity. Yet Achilles
Tatius presents no such deep-seated reverence for the goddess of Love as
that which permeates Chariton’s romance.
Artemis of Ephesus is rather the deity who dominates Tatius’ story. She
appears in dreams to the heroine and to Leucippe’s father. [194] In her
name Leucippe rebukes Thersander for insulting a virgin in the city of
the Virgin Goddess. [195] Sostratus arrives at Ephesus as the head of a
sacred embassy in honor of Artemis and so finds his daughter. [196]
Leucippe has taken refuge in the temple of Artemis and in that temple at
last she and Clitophon are reunited. [197] Here the villain of the piece
Thersander brutally attacks Clitophon. [198] Thersander’s lawyer in court
makes insulting slanders about the fact that Clitophon and Leucippe
probably defiled the temple by an amour there. [199] But Artemis is
proved to be no liar, and there is implicit recognition of her
protection of Leucippe though Achilles Tatius does not end with
thanksgiving to her. Her cult forms an objective background of religious
tradition for the action. No deep religious feeling for her is
manifested.
There is no more aspiration to god in the other cults which are
mentioned incidentally: of Apollo, Hercules of Tyre, the god of the
lower world, Pan. And the cruel goddess Fortune is berated only
occasionally. Superstition recognizes omens in the world of nature: the
eagle stealing the sacrifice, the hawk pursuing the swallow. [200]
Oracles are respected. [201] And the ordeals of Pan’s pipes and the
Styx’s water receive general credence. Festivals to the gods are
celebrated. [202] But religion seems rather a matter of scrupulous regard
for ritual than communion with god or relief to the soul.
As we compare the romances of Chariton and Achilles Tatius we find that
not only has the main interest shifted from love and worship to
incidents and adventures. An even greater change has come about in the
style. Homeric simplicity has given way to rhetorical elaboration.
Tatius may well have been a ῥήτωρ as the scholiast Thomas Magister
states, for his whole style is dyed in the rhetoric of the schools and
the speeches delivered in the various lawsuits in the plot are
masterpieces of rhetoric.
Among his acknowledged literary debts, however, he credits most to epic,
for he quotes Homer once[203] and alludes to him five times[204] and he
refers to Hesiod twice. [205] The messenger speeches in tragedy
undoubtedly suggested the slave’s dramatic narrative of the death of
Charicles in a riding accident. [206] Both the New and the Old Attic
Comedy contributed much to his humor: the New in the comic literary
contest of the slaves Conops and Satyrus who deride each other under
cover of fables;[207] and the Old in the Aristophanic priest of Artemis
who “was no poor hand at speaking, and as good at quip and gibe as the
plays of Aristophanes. ”[208] But the training of the rhetorical schools
outweighs all other influences. About half of Books VII and VIII is
devoted to the trial of Clitophon for adultery and self-confessed
murder. The court sits in Ephesus with a jury and a presiding judge, but
their functions are vague. The prosecution speaks first, Thersander and
his ten lawyers, whose speeches fortunately are not reported. Clitophon
answers them by a false narrative accusing himself of the murder of
Leucippe and involving Melitte. Clinias gets the floor and tells the
true story: that Clitophon desires only to die, that he deserves pity
rather than condemnation and must be regarded as insane.
In the wild confusion that follows, Thersander’s counsel shouts for a
sentence of murder, Melitte offers her slaves to be questioned on her
innocence and demands that her husband produce Sosthenes who is probably
the murderer. Thersander in a long speech answers Melitte’s challenge
about Sosthenes with the result that the presiding officer pronounces
sentence of death on Clitophon but postpones Melitte’s case. Clitophon
is just on the point of being tortured for evidence when the arrival of
a sacred embassy to Artemis postpones the case of Melitte and the
execution of Clitophon.
Only after the work of the embassy is finished is the case resumed. Then
Thersander speaks first, demanding the execution of the sentence. He
condemns the priest who has released Clitophon and says he has usurped
the function of giving refuge to criminals which belongs to Artemis. He
adds foul personal abuse. He presents a second charge against Melitte
for adultery and a third against his slave girl Leucippe and her father.
The priest in his reply deserves the epithet “Aristophanic” which he has
won, for he pays Thersander back in his own coin of abuse only clothing
it in the wit of Aristophanes with all his double-meaning of words, his
biting attack. And his own arguments point the irony of the situation:
Thersander clapped Clitophon in jail before he was allowed to defend
himself. He charged him with murdering Leucippe but the young lady is
alive!
Sopater, counsel for Thersander, next hurls insulting invective at the
priest and whitewashes his noble client who has been betrayed by a
faithless wife. Thersander then presents a formal challenge to Melitte
and Leucippe to prove their chastity and on their acceptance of it, the
court adjourns. Next day all reassemble at the cave of Pan and the
spring of the Styx. The ladies are proved innocent. Thersander flees and
then is sentenced to banishment. Clitophon—and Melitte—are acquitted.
This summary of the procedure of the court in Ephesus shows what
opportunity Achilles Tatius made for presenting the rhetorical speeches
which he cherished. They are many. They are full of specious argument,
personal attack, appeal to the emotions, attempted pathos which becomes
bathos and genuine ἦθος. The speakers are true to type: the impassioned
lover, the leal friend, the haughty, imperious, lustful noble, his
sophistical lawyer, the Aristophanic priest. Such agonistic scenes must
have entertained the reader of the time as much as they did the author.
Actually this same favorite rhetorical style is also assigned to the
characters in private life: Melitte in her impassioned speech to
Clitophon in prison talks like a sophist, for Eros teaches even
arguments! [209]
Long mythological narratives are another feature of Tatius’ style. The
sight of a painting makes it necessary for him to relate the whole story
of Procne and Philomela to Leucippe. [210] The stories of the origins of
the two ordeals to prove chastity are told with equal detail. The
discovery of wine is elaborately related in the Tyrian version on the
occasion of the festival of Dionysus. [211] These are a few out of many
illustrations.
Descriptive writing is employed as much as, perhaps more than, forensic
or narrative. Indeed the purple patches almost overbalance plot,
conversation and oratory. Works of art, setting for scenes, natural
phenomena, the wonders of the world are introduced in highly colored
digressions which are clearly the ekphraseis which the students of
rhetoric were taught to compose and deliver.
Achilles Tatius apparently was enamored of wall-paintings. He describes
with gusto five and alludes to another. The subjects of all are myths.
Two are familiar types in the frescoes found at Pompeii: Perseus and
Andromeda, Achilles in women’s clothes among the daughters of King
Lycomedes. One description of a painting opens the romance, a votive
painting of Europa in the temple of Astarte at Sidon. [212] Sidon is the
first word of the novel and this story is introduced as a tribute to the
city where the first scene was laid, for the stemma on the coins of
Sidon is Europa on the bull, pictured almost as Tatius presents her. The
picture is described in vivid detail even to the flowers in the meadow
and the shifting colors of the sea. Posture and garb of Europa are
vividly sketched in words for he sees her “seated on the bull like a
vessel under way, using the veil as a sail. ” The keynote of the picture
and the point of its application for Tatius is the little flying Eros
who leads the bull and laughs back at the transformed Zeus. “Look,” said
Clitophon, “how that imp dominates over land and sea. ” A young man
standing by exclaims that he too has suffered much from love. These
exclamations are the point of departure for the recounting of love
adventures.
In Book III there is an equally long description of a painting by
Evanthes in the temple of Zeus Casius. [213] The subjects are Andromeda
and Prometheus and they seem to have been paired because both were
chained to rocks, menaced by beasts and rescued by Argive heroes,
Perseus and Hercules. Design, color, emotion are all described vividly
and charmingly, but there is no point in the introduction of the
paintings. The description of them is simply a purple patch of fine
writing.
In Book V the description of a painting in a studio depicting the rape
of Philomela had “a hidden significance. ”[214] The whole story was
represented: “the rape of Philomela, the violence employed by Tereus,
and the cutting out of her tongue . . . the tapestry, Tereus himself, and
the fatal table. ” Ugly realism, terror, insane laughter characterize the
treatment. The hidden meaning is that the sudden sight of the picture is
a bad omen threatening disaster which makes Clitophon postpone his
journey to Pharos. The delay gives him a chance to tell the whole story
of Philomela to Leucippe, for all women love myths.
Small works of art also are described lovingly and minutely: a
rock-crystal goblet carved in a grape-vine,[215] a jewelled
necklace. [216] These enrich the setting as scattered flowers enrich the
backgrounds of Renaissance tapestries. It is as though Achilles Tatius
like Corinthian potters or Renaissance artists had such an _horror
vacui_ that empty spaces in design were intolerable and interstices had
to be crowded with beautiful small objects. This is due in part to an
observant eye that saw and recorded detail. The specific and the graphic
are his tools for clarity. The story of the attempted amour of Clitophon
and Leucippe is vivified by a plan of the house as clear as the drawn
plans in many modern detective stories. [217] The garden in which
Clitophon’s love-making is once set is described elaborately with its
porticoes, trees, vines, flowers, spring and birds. [218] The storm at
sea in its violence and coloring is as lurid as a Turner, and its
effects on the shipwrecked passengers are described with a true
psychology of terror and panic. [219]
The long description of the storm is justified by the vital significance
of the shipwreck for the plot, but what of the write-ups of the wonders
of the world which are constantly introduced? The beautiful description
of Alexandria with its pharos is brief and pardonable as this was the
birthplace of the author. But only the love of novelty of the times and
bad taste seem to explain the perpetrations of wordy descriptions of the
Nile, the phoenix, the hippopotamus, the elephant and the
crocodile! [220] The romance at times tends to become a natural history.
Wolff becomes so out of patience with “the damnable iteration” of
irrelevancies in _Clitophon and Leucippe_ that he can hardly calm
himself to analyze them in suggestive groups: irrelevancies of plot, of
characterization, of setting, of science and pseudo-science. The only
justification for such irrelevancies Wolff finds in “a common basis with
paradox. Both defeat expectation. . . . In both its phases,—irrelevancy and
paradox—this element of _the unexpected_, prominent in the form as in
the matter of the Greek Romances, deserves attention. To turn aside to
the irrelevant; to strain suspense by retarding the expected outcome; to
introduce by the way—all unlooked for—as many bizarre, ironical,
paradoxical situations and dazzling phrases as possible; and finally to
‘spring’ an issue which is itself a surprising combination of
opposites—all these would seem to be consistent results of adopting the
unexpected as the principle of the genre. ”[221]
After all this is said in criticism of Achilles Tatius’ exuberant style
and unlimited digressions, we go back to his fundamentals: a clear plot,
living human beings, vivid settings for them, and exciting adventures.
Achilles Tatius knew his age and for its disillusions he wrote with
ironic tolerance of human frailty and for its weariness he emphasized
the excitement of adventure and the stimulus of the unexpected. To me
his successes chalk up to a longer list than his failures and I end with
Phillimore:
“What a strange thought—that an Alexandrian with the names of Achilles
Tatius (what a pair! ), atticizing _con furore_ in the reign of
Diocletian, should write a story which delighted the Byzantine Middle
Ages and can still be read with interest and amusement! ”[222]
VI
THE LESBIAN PASTORALS OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE
_BY LONGUS_
The very title of Longus’ romance shows a new departure. These Lesbian
Pastorals in four books form the only pastoral romance in Greek that is
extant. Compared with the other romances that of Longus is unique in
type, characters, setting and structure. Theocritus is the pervading
influence. Most of the leading characters are not nobles but serfs. Even
the young hero and heroine are brought up as shepherds until at the end
they are recognized as children of the great. City life plays little
part in the plot. The changing seasons make the set. Only a few
adventures disturb the serenity of the hills and pasturelands: an onset
of pirates, a local war and (of course! ) the usual kidnappings. Country
gods are worshipped. The music of Pan’s pipes is the accompaniment of
the story.
Of the author we know nothing. Longus “is not mentioned by any other
writer before the Byzantine age, and himself mentions no historical name
or event. ”[223] From internal evidence of his novel we see that he knew
Mytilene well; he was familiar with Greek and Roman literature and with
works of art; he had received a sophist’s training in the rhetorical
schools. He wrote probably in the second century A. D. , before Achilles
Tatius.
