In prison, Chariclea and
Theagenes
had a long talk about the
dream-visions they had each seen.
dream-visions they had each seen.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
High police officials or officers like G-Men
perform valiant rescues. Court-room scenes as in many films vie with
shipwrecks in interest. Documents like letters are presented to the
reader’s eye as on the screen. Visions and dreams are made to seem as
real as in fade-ins and fade-outs.
There is a clear morality in the opposition of good and bad characters
and in the final victory of the good. Hero and heroine captivate by
their extraordinary beauty and maintain their chastity and fidelity
against terrific odds. Hence their phenomenal virtue is rewarded by
reunion in the end. Religion often plays a saving part (as on the screen
for example in _Brother Orchid_). The Reader like the audience at the
movie goes away with a sense of having been enlivened, entertained and
vastly improved. For the function of the Greek romance in the second and
third centuries A. D. , when the universal rule of the Roman Empire gave
scant scope for great oratory or tragedy under the blessings of an
enforced peace, was to entertain and to edify. The Greek romance
substituted for the adventures of the mind new themes: the excitements
of passion, the interests of travel, and the consolations of religion.
It was lifted out of the ranks of the trivial and the second-rate by its
great central theme: that there is such a thing as true love; that
weighed in the balance against it all the world is nothing; and that it
outlives time and even death.
Our own age in America, bleeding internally from the agony of a war
which it is powerless to end, fearful for its own menaced security,
demands from the cinema not only temporary oblivion and excitement, but
encouragement to believe that love lasts even unto death, that heroes
ride again and are victorious, and that finally, by the help of God, the
right will conquer.
IV
_THE_ AETHIOPICA _OF HELIODORUS_
The life of Heliodorus is as obscure as that of each of the other
writers of Greek romance, but in the tradition of his there is a special
point of controversy. Was Heliodorus a pagan novelist or a Christian
bishop? Or by some strange metamorphosis did the writer of the romantic
_Aethiopica_ become in later and staider years the Bishop of Tricca? The
only certain facts are found in the autobiographical sentence which
concludes the romance, that he was a Phoenician of Emesa, of a family
descended from Helios, the son of Theodosius.
It was Socrates who, in the fifth century A. D. , stated that the custom
of celibacy for the clergy was introduced in Thessaly by Heliodorus when
he became bishop of Tricca. He added that Heliodorus wrote in his youth
a love-story, which he called _Aethiopica_. [104] Photius in the ninth
century says that he received the bishopric later, that is after writing
the romance. Nicephorus Callistus in the fourteenth century after
quoting the remark of Socrates adds that the _Aethiopica_ created such a
scandal Heliodorus had to choose between his bishopric and the
destruction of his romance so he abandoned his charge, but this is
probably mere embellishment of the story. As Rattenbury points out,[105]
neither Socrates, Photius nor Nicephorus declares that Heliodorus was a
Christian when he wrote his romance, but they imply clearly that he
became a bishop afterwards. And if the author of the romance was a
devout pagan as he seems to have been, that state of mind could have
made possible his conversion to Christianity. This seems a reasonable
explanation of the strong tradition continuing from the fifth century
that Heliodorus became bishop of Tricca.
As to his date, there are some certainties but no exactitude. The Bishop
of Tricca must have lived before Socrates wrote his _Historia
Ecclesiastica_ which covered the period 306-439. There is no external
evidence on the time of the writer of the romance, but from the general
conclusions about the dating of the Greek Romances, he probably wrote
not later than the end of the third century. His native city Emesa was
the birthplace of two Roman Emperors, Heliogabalus (218-222) and
Alexander Severus (222-235). About the middle of the century Emesa was
conquered by Zenobia of Palmyra, but was freed by Aurelian in 272.
Heliodorus may have written in its most flourishing period, 220-240. It
is generally agreed that Heliodorus is later than Chariton who could not
have written after 150 and earlier than Achilles Tatius who wrote about
the beginning of the fourth century.
Rattenbury thinks that a possible reconstruction of Heliodorus’ life is
this. He was born in Emesa in Phoenician Syria. His family was connected
with the cult of the Sun. In his youth, perhaps between 220 and 240, he
wrote a romance in which the influence of the cult of Helios appears,
also the neo-Pythagoreanism of Apollonius of Tyana. It is not impossible
that finally he was converted to Christianity, became bishop of Tricca
and in that office introduced in his diocese celibacy for the
clergy. [106] Calderini has shown with discrimination and perspicacity
that the special characteristic of the _Aethiopica_ is the interest in
philosophy which distinguishes it and its author from Chariton, the
writer of historical romance, and from Achilles Tatius, the writer of
romance tinged with science. [107] A study of the _Aethiopica_ itself
will show how deeply infused the novel is with this religious
philosophical coloring.
Before outlining the narrative, I will give as usual a list of the
principal characters. These are:
_Theagenes_, the young Greek hero
_Chariclea_, the young heroine, supposed to be a Greek
_Hydaspes_, king of Ethiopia
_Persinna_, queen of Ethiopia
_Calasiris_, of Memphis, priest of Isis and his sons:
_Thyamis_, in exile, a pirate captain
_Petosiris_, priest of Isis
_Charicles_, priest of Apollo at Delphi
_Alcamenes_, nephew of Charicles
_Trachinus_, a pirate
_Pelorus_, a pirate and officer of Trachinus
_Cnemon_, a young Athenian, son of
_Aristippus_, an Athenian, a stupid husband
_Demaeneta_, the amorous step-mother of Cnemon
_Thisbe_, the scheming maid of Demaeneta
_Arsinoe_, a slave-girl, a friend of Thisbe
_Nausicles_, a merchant
_Thermuthis_, an officer under Thyamis
_Oroondates_, viceroy of the Great King of the Persians
_Mithranes_, viceroy of Oroondates
_Arsace_, wife of Oroondates
_Cybele_, the maid of Arsace
_Achaemenes_, son of Cybele
_Euphrates_, the chief eunuch of Oroondates
_Sisimithres_, an Ethiopian Gymnosophist
_Meroebus_, nephew of Hydaspes
The opening scene of the romance is startling and mysterious. In Egypt,
from a mountain near the mouth of the Nile a band of pirates get a view
of the seashore. They behold a heavily laden ship without a crew, a
plain strewn with dead bodies and the remains of an ill-fated banquet. A
wounded youth is lying on the ground. He is being cared for by a
beautiful young woman dressed in a religious garb which makes her seem a
priestess or a goddess, Diana or Isis. Indeed a divine effulgence
emanates from her. The pirates though at first overawed descend and
collect rich booty. Their captain then courteously conveys the maiden
and the youth to their pirate home. This was called “The Pasture” and
was a sort of island in a delta of the Nile. Some of the pirates lived
in huts made of reeds, some in boats. The water was their fortification.
Their streets were winding water-ways cut through the reeds.
The pirate chief assigned the care of his two captives to a young Greek,
Cnemon, who was his interpreter. The prisoners were overjoyed on finding
their custodian a Greek. He promised to heal the wounds of Theagenes,
who had now revealed his own name and that of Chariclea, and on their
urgent request, he told him his own story.
“I,” he said, “am the son of Aristippus, an Athenian. After my brother’s
death, my father married again a woman named Demaeneta, who was a
mischief-maker. Like Phaedra she fell in love with me, her step-son,
indeed called me her dear Hippolytus. When I repelled her advances she
accused me to my father of attempted rape. He had me scourged. Worse
than that, Thisbe, the maid of Demaeneta, on her mistress’ orders
involved me in an amorous intrigue with herself and later promised to
show me my step-mother with an adulterer. Sword in hand I followed her
to the bed-room and just as I was about to murder her paramour, I found
he was my father. Aristippus charged me in court with attempted
parricide. Only a divided vote spared my life and sent me into exile.
Lately I received news that my father through Thisbe had found out his
wife’s corruption; she had killed herself; and now Aristippus is trying
to obtain from the people his son’s pardon. ”
The next day Thyamis the pirate leader although he was warned in a dream
that having Chariclea, he would not have her, announced to his band his
intention of marrying her. She pretended to consent, but asked that
their marriage be postponed until they reached Memphis so that there she
could resign her priesthood of Diana. Thyamis accepted this condition.
Theagenes was horrified until Chariclea explained that this agreement
was made only to secure more time for their plans for safety. A hostile
band of brigands was now seen approaching. Thyamis had Cnemon hide
Chariclea in a secret cave. When the terrible battle began to go against
him, Thyamis rushed back to the cave and killed a woman in the dark whom
he believed Chariclea. In battle he was then taken alive. The victorious
brigands fired the huts on the island but did not find the cave. Cnemon
and Theagenes, who had escaped in little boats, returned to the island.
When Cnemon conducted Theagenes to the cave by its secret entrance, they
found in its dark gloom the body of a dead woman. Theagenes believing it
Chariclea burst into lamentation and planned suicide. But Cnemon took
away his sword, got a torch lighted and found that the woman was Thisbe
and in her dead hand was a letter. They soon found Chariclea alive.
After the first joy of reunion Chariclea wished to know who the dead
woman was. Cnemon revealed that she was Thisbe and related all her
story: how after her plot against him, Arsinoe, a rival courtesan whose
lover Nausicles she had stolen, revealed Thisbe’s machinations against
Demaeneta; how Cnemon’s father was exiled on the ground of complicity
and Thisbe fled. The letter in Thisbe’s hand proved to be to Cnemon, a
petition to save her from the pirates who had stolen her. Just then
Thermuthis, her pirate captor, arrived to reclaim her, only to find her
dead. The sword in her wound proved to him that she was slain by
Thyamis.
Theagenes and Chariclea, Cnemon and Thermuthis now started out in
separate pairs towards Chemmis, a rich city on the Nile, to get food.
The menace of Thermuthis was conveniently removed as he died from the
bite of an asp. Near Chemmis Cnemon met an old man who entertained him
at his home. He proved to be Calasiris, the foster-father of Theagenes
and Chariclea. This he revealed to Cnemon in a long narrative of his own
life: how though a priest of Isis he had gone into voluntary exile to
break off the wiles of a courtesan; how he had sojourned at Delphi,
attending the ceremonies and talking with the philosophers. One,
Charicles, related how in his own travels in Egypt he had had intrusted
to him by an Ethiopian merchant a beautiful child. The merchant had
found her exposed with a bag of jewels and an inscribed fillet. These
too he gave to Charicles making him promise to guard her freedom and wed
her to a free man. He had named her Chariclea and brought her up in
Greece but now, though she was very beautiful, she refused to marry.
Calasiris also described to Cnemon the sacrifice to Neoptolemus offered
by the Aenianians and the Delphic oracle which he had heard there.
“Delphians, regard with reverential care,
Both him the goddess-born, and her the fair;
“_Grace_” is the sound which ushers in her name,
The syllable wherewith it ends, is “_Fame_. ”
They both my fane shall leave, and oceans past,
In regions torrid shall arrive at last;
There shall the gods reward their pious vows,
And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows. ”[108]
Calasiris at the urgent request of Cnemon described all the ceremonies
attendant on the sacrifice to Neoptolemus: the hecatomb and the other
victims, the Thracian maidens bearing offerings, the hymn to the Hero,
the dance, the procession of the fifty armed horsemen led by Theagenes,
the radiant appearance of Chariclea in a chariot. All this description
was the brilliant setting for the meeting of Theagenes and Chariclea,
for when Theagenes took from the priestess’ hand the torch to light the
sacrificial pyre, in them both the flame of first love was kindled.
The next day Chariclea lay abed very ill in her apartment in the temple.
Calasiris feared it was due to “_fascinatio_. ” Calasiris after meeting
Theagenes had a vision in which Apollo and Diana consigned Theagenes and
Chariclea to his care and bade him take them to Egypt. The next morning
Theagenes confessed to Calasiris his love and besought his aid.
Charicles begged him to heal his daughter. This enabled him to talk to
her.
Chariclea recovered sufficiently the next day to attend the contest of
the men in armor and to award the palm to the victor, Theagenes. But her
passion and her illness increased after this second meeting and
Calasiris was again summoned to treat her. Her disease was diagnosed as
love and Calasiris persuaded her father to let him see the fillet found
with the exposed baby. Calasiris was able to read the inscription on it.
It was a letter from her mother, Persinna, queen of the Ethiopians,
revealing that she had borne a white daughter because at her conception
she had been looking at a picture of Andromeda; then fearing the charge
of adultery she had exposed her baby with the fillet and the jewels. All
this Calasiris told to Chariclea. Calasiris then made a plot with her by
which she was to pretend to become affianced to Alcamenes, the nephew of
Charicles, as her foster-father wished. Charicles was delighted although
he was nervous because of a dream in which an eagle from the hand of
Apollo bore his daughter away. He gave her all the jewels.
Then Calasiris persuaded some Phoenician merchants to take him and two
friends on their ship as far as Sicily; and he ordered Theagenes and his
young friends to kidnap Chariclea. She consented to the plan after
Theagenes had bound himself by an oath never to force her love. After
they were off, Charicles roused the city to pursuit of them. Calasiris
after telling of the arrival of the Phoenician ship at Zacynthos
interrupted his narrative to rest. Nausicles returned to the house and
unknown to the others had brought Chariclea with him.
(Here the author himself gave a résumé of the adventures of Theagenes
and Chariclea from the time they parted with Cnemon. In the cave the
lovers had a long talk and made an agreement as to what they would do in
case fortune again separated them: they would inscribe on temple,
statue, herm or boundary stone, Theagenes the name Pythicus, Chariclea
Pythias; the direction in which each departed; to what place or people;
also the time of writing. For recognition if they met disguised they
decided to use as signs Chariclea’s ring and Theagenes’ scar from a
boar. Their watchwords were to be a lamp for her, a palm-tree for him.
They sealed this covenant in kisses, then left the cave taking
Chariclea’s sacred robes, her bow and quiver and her jewels.
Soon they met an armed band and were taken prisoners. The commander was
Mithranes, an officer of Oroondates, viceroy of Egypt. Nausicles had
persuaded him for pay to make this expedition to the island in search of
his Thisbe. Nausicles on seeing Theagenes and Chariclea cleverly
pretended that Chariclea was Thisbe, the object of his quest. Mithranes
demanded Theagenes as his prize and despatched him to Oroondates as a
fine youth for service with the Great King. )
The next day Calasiris and Cnemon heard all Nausicles’ story from
himself, saw Chariclea and made a plan to ransom Theagenes. After
Nausicles had celebrated a sacrifice in the temple of Hermes, the god of
gain, Calasiris on request continued his narrative of the voyage from
Delphi. At Zacynthos a deaf old fisherman Tyrrhenus gave them lodging.
The Tyrian merchant who won the victory at the Pythian games now sued
for Chariclea’s hand. Tyrrhenus discovered an ambush of pirates waiting
for the Phoenician ship to sail. Calasiris without revealing this
persuaded the Tyrian captain to sail that night. The pirate crew under
Trachinus pursued them and engaged them in a terrible battle so finally
the Phoenicians had to surrender. Trachinus demanded marriage with
Chariclea and she deceitfully promised her hand if he would spare
Calasiris and “her brother” Theagenes. With difficulty the pirates
maneuvered the boat to land near the mouth of the Nile. Trachinus told
Calasiris that he proposed to marry Chariclea that day. Calasiris,
ingenious as ever, persuaded him to let Chariclea go on the ship to
attire herself for the wedding and be left undisturbed there. Calasiris
then plotted with Pelorus, second in command of the pirates, telling him
Chariclea loved him. Pelorus since he had been the first to board the
Phoenician ship demanded, as his right of first choice of the booty, the
girl. A terrible battle ensued in which Trachinus was killed, Pelorus
wounded by Theagenes and put to flight and Theagenes badly wounded. In
the morning Egyptian pirates arrived and carried them both off.
Calasiris had spent his days mourning for them until this present
recovery of Chariclea.
The next day Calasiris, Cnemon and Nausicles set out to find Theagenes.
An acquaintance informed Nausicles that Mithranes had sent his troops on
an expedition against the men of Bessa, commanded by Thyamis, because
they had stolen a captive Greek youth. So Nausicles and his friends
returned to Chemmis and told all to Chariclea. Nausicles gave a farewell
dinner-party since the season favorable for navigation compelled him to
sail for Greece. Cnemon after a struggle with himself decided to go with
him and was permitted to marry his daughter, Nausiclea.
Calasiris and Chariclea disguised as beggars started for Bessa to seek
Theagenes. Near Bessa they found many corpses lying on the ground. An
old woman told them there had been a battle between Mithranes’ forces
and the men of Bessa in which the men of Bessa had been victorious and
Mithranes had been killed. The victors had now set out to Memphis
against Oroondates. The old woman had lost her son in battle. That night
Calasiris and Chariclea secretly watched her magic rites by which she
raised him to give her news of her other son. The shade also revealed
that there were two witnesses to her wicked necromancy; that Chariclea
should be happily reunited with Theagenes and that his own mother would
meet her death by the sword. This soon happened, for she fell on an
upright sword on the battle-field.
Calasiris and Chariclea arrived at Memphis just as Thyamis and his
brigands began a siege of it. The people of Memphis in the absence of
Oroondates consulted the queen Arsace about the wisdom of going out to
attack the enemy. Thyamis had been driven into exile by the slanders of
his brother Petosiris who swore there was an amour between Thyamis and
Arsace. Petosiris had then succeeded his brother in the priesthood of
Isis. Arsace after looking at the enemy from the wall ordered a single
combat between Thyamis and Petosiris to decide the war. In this combat
Petosiris was forced to flee. As he was running around the city walls
the third time, Calasiris arrived and saw the combat between his two
sons that an oracle had foretold. Rushing between them he ended the
contest.
Chariclea discovered Theagenes and suddenly threw her arms about him.
Her hero disgusted at her beggar’s rags threw her off and did not
recognize her until she whispered: “Pythias, have you forgotten the
torch? ” Then he took her to his arms, while Arsace and the other
watchers on the wall marvelled at the scene as though it were on the
stage. So peace was made by the father and the lovers were reunited. All
went to the temple of Isis. Calasiris restored his son Thyamis to the
priesthood.
Arsace had fallen madly in love with Theagenes on seeing him twice and
confided this to her aged maid, Cybele. This maid on going to the temple
of Isis to offer prayers for her mistress learned that Calasiris had
died there during the night and that no one except the priests could
enter the temple for seven days on account of the funeral rites.
Thereupon Cybele craftily secured permission to entertain the two young
Greeks who were staying there in Arsace’s palace and took them home.
When they found that they were in the palace, they became suspicious for
they had noticed the queen’s interest in Theagenes the day before. So at
Chariclea’s suggestion, Theagenes said they were brother and sister.
Cybele went to Arsace’s apartment to tell her all, locking the guests in
their room. In her absence, her son Achaemenes came home, listened at
their door and from their talk and from a glimpse at Theagenes realized
that this was the very youth who had been taken from him by Thyamis.
As the days passed, Arsace tried to win the love of Theagenes first
through subtle allurement, then through open confession of her passion
and at last through domination. Achaemenes finally told Arsace who they
were so the queen informed Theagenes that they were now her slaves as
they had been the captive slaves of Mithranes and he must obey her. Then
in the presence of Cybele Theagenes promised himself to Arsace on
condition that she would never give Chariclea to Achaemenes, who had
demanded her. He confessed that Chariclea was not his sister but his
fiancée. On hearing this Achaemenes rode away to inform Oroondates of
all.
Oroondates was engaged in a campaign against Hydaspes, King of the
Ethiopians, who had got possession of Philae. On hearing Achaemenes’
report Oroondates despatched his eunuch Bagoas with fifty horsemen to
Memphis to bring Theagenes and Chariclea to his camp. He sent two
letters to this effect to Arsace and to his chief eunuch. Achaemenes he
kept with himself.
In Memphis Thyamis had been unable to procure the release of the young
Greeks from Arsace. Moreover the frustrated queen had begun to try
imprisonment and torture on Theagenes. When he was still obstinate,
Cybele advised getting rid of Chariclea to free his heart and she
prepared to poison the girl. Fortunately a maid exchanged the goblets.
Cybele herself drank the poison and expired, but with her last breath
she declared Chariclea had murdered her. So Arsace threw the girl into
the prison where Theagenes was and had her tried. In the court-room
Chariclea pleaded guilty, for this was the plan that she and her lover
had agreed on in the prison, that they might die together. The Supreme
Council ordered that she be burned alive. Chariclea was saved by a
miracle, for the flames on the pyre refused to touch her person. Arsace
then consigned her again to prison on the ground that she was a witch.
In prison, Chariclea and Theagenes had a long talk about the
dream-visions they had each seen. To each Calasiris had appeared and
given a metrical prophecy. To Chariclea he had said:
“Bearing Pantarbè, fear not flames, fair maid,
Fate, to whom naught is hard, shall bring thee aid. ”
And to Theagenes:
“From Arsace, the morrow sets thee free—
To Aethiopia with the virgin flee. ”[109]
Chariclea interpreted these oracles to mean that her jewel, the
Pantarbè, was protecting her; and that on the next day they would be
freed from Arsace and go to Ethiopia.
Meanwhile Bagoas arrived at Memphis and Euphrates on receiving the
letter of Oroondates sent Theagenes and Chariclea off secretly with
Bagoas. On their journey they received first the news that Arsace had
killed herself and second that Oroondates had gone to Syene. Later on
the way they were seized by a band of Troglodite Ethiopians who took
Bagoas and the two Greeks to their king, Hydaspes. He planned to save
them as victims to be sacrificed to the gods.
Hydaspes was besieging Syene. Oroondates had got inside the city before
the blockade and was directing the defense. But Hydaspes used a new
weapon against him, inundation. His army dug a great trench around Syene
with earth-works encircling it. This trench he connected with the river
Nile by a long canal, fifty feet wide, banked by high walls. When the
works were finished, he cut away the embankment between his canal and
the Nile and let the river in. Syene became an island city and the
pressure of the water on the walls threatened inundation. So Oroondates
and the people of Syene had to sue for peace. This was granted, and
Hydaspes built up again the embankment between his canal and the Nile
and proceeded to drain off the water.
During the festival of the overflowing of the Nile Oroondates and his
army slipped away in the night, bridging the mud swamps about Syene by
planks, and went to Elephantine, which revolted with him against
Hydaspes. In the new battle Hydaspes was again victorious and took
Oroondates prisoner, but the Ethiopian was a generous conqueror and sent
Oroondates back to be again viceroy of his province.
Hydaspes on his way home stopped two days at Philae and from there sent
home letters announcing his victory to Persinna and the Gymnosophists.
Persinna recalled a dream that she had brought forth a full-grown
daughter and interpreted the daughter as this victory. The people
assembled for the celebration at the island city of Meroe and according
to their traditions demanded human sacrifice of foreign captives of war.
The prisoners now underwent the test of chastity by ascending the altar
of fire and of course Theagenes and Chariclea passed the test.
The Gymnosophists through their leader Sisimithres refused to witness
human sacrifice and foretold that this one would never be consummated.
Chariclea begged them to stay and hear her case. (She had recognized
Sisimithres’ name as that of the one who had given her to Charicles at
Catadupa). Chariclea declared that she was a native, not a foreigner,
and produced her fillet and her jewels, among them the mystic ring,
Pantarbé. Sisimithres narrated his part in her story. Hydaspes was
puzzled over how he could have a _white_ child, but Sisimithres
explained that Persinna at the time of conception had fixed her eyes on
a picture of the naked, white Andromeda. When the picture was brought in
as evidence, Chariclea’s resemblance to its Andromeda was found
startling. Moreover a birthmark of a black ring around Chariclea’s arm
attested her black blood.
The people now refused to have Chariclea sacrificed, but the fate of
Theagenes still hung in the balance. Chariclea begged that if he were to
be sacrificed, she might perform the deed. (Apparently she planned to
carry out a kind of suicide pact. ) Hydaspes thought his daughter was
insane and sent her into a tent with her mother while he received
ambassadors and their gifts of victory. His nephew Meroebus brought a
mighty athlete. Hydaspes as a joke gave him in return an elephant, but
also promised him the hand of Chariclea. The Axiomitae presented a
giraffe, an animal so strange that it terrified some of the natives.
Moreover, one bull and two horses broke their fetters and dashed madly
around the inside of the circle of guards. Theagenes mounted another
horse, pursued the bull, wore it out and finally downed it. The
enchanted spectators now demanded that he be matched with the champion
Meroebus. Him too he vanquished. Oroondates crowned Theagenes as victor,
but nevertheless prepared to sacrifice him.
At that moment ambassadors from Syene arrived with a letter from
Oroondates. He begged that a young woman captive be sent to him with her
father who was one of the ambassadors. This was Charicles. He recognized
Theagenes and accused him of having stolen his daughter at Delphi.
Theagenes revealed that Chariclea was the one demanded. Sisimithres told
the rest of the story. Chariclea rushing out of the tent begged
Charicles to forgive her elopement. Persinna told Hydaspes that she had
learned that Chariclea was betrothed to Theagenes.
Sisimithres speaking not in Greek but in Ethiopian for all the people to
hear ordered Hydaspes to submit to the will of the gods who had saved
the two young lovers and who did not approve of human sacrifice and
exhorted him to end human sacrifices forever. So Hydaspes asked the
people to observe the will of the gods and to sanction the marriage of
Theagenes and Chariclea. This they did. Then Hydaspes consecrated the
two as priest and priestess of the Sun and the Moon and on their heads
he placed the mitres which he and Persinna had worn as symbols of their
offices. Thus was fulfilled the oracle:
“In regions torrid shall arrive at last;
There shall the gods reward their pious vows,
And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows. ”
Then a great procession escorted them to Meroe there to fulfill the more
mystic parts of wedlock.
In this brief re-telling of Heliodorus’ long story, certain striking
features of his structure appear. Geography and ethnography are
important as in the other novelists. The eastern basin of the
Mediterranean is the center of the adventures, the district which for
centuries was the scene of the conflict for power between many nations.
As in Xenophon, many geographical details are given, often with little
accuracy. [110] As Maillon points out, imagination and fantasy falsify
the historical and geographical allusions. Heliodorus gathers everything
that can satisfy the taste for the strange and the marvellous. At a time
when the critical spirit was so little developed in the historians, a
writer of romance would naturally produce marvellous narratives and
vague descriptions. Heliodorus confuses the Ethiopia of Herodotus with
that of the Ptolemies and imagines an Ethiopian empire which did not
exist during the domination of Egypt by the Persians. [111] As in
Chariton, the superiority of the Greeks over the barbarians is part of
the author’s faith.
In the development of the plot Heliodorus makes his set more unified,
less cinematic than Xenophon had done. The scene of action lies almost
entirely in Egypt with a shift to Ethiopia for the final climax. This
Egyptian set is to be sure varied by different local scenes: the Nile,
an island village in its delta, towns such as Chemmis, Memphis, Syene
and Philae, the battle-fields of Bessa and Elephantine, but nearly the
whole plot develops in Egypt. The exceptions are in the sub-plot
presented in Cnemon’s narrative of his life-history which is laid in
Athens, and in Calasiris’ long account of his visit to Delphi. These
however are clearly set off as insets in the unity of the Egyptian
scene.
The plot itself is an original combination of epic and dramatic
structure. The other writers of Greek romance begin at the beginning
with a detailed account of the hero and heroine, their family, their
background. Heliodorus in true epic style plunges us _in medias res_
with his startling opening scene of a seascape where a ship rides at
anchor, treasure-laden but not manned, where the shore is littered with
the remains of a banquet, but strewn with corpses, where a young man
lies wounded with a beautiful maiden dressed as a goddess ministering to
him. The reader is as amazed and puzzled at the sight as are the pirates
who are peering down from the hills.
Another epic part of the structure is that the narrative of events does
not proceed in a straight line but zigzags back and forth while a new
arrival contributes his part to the development of the plot, or the
author himself gives a retrospective résumé of past events to explain
the present. Calasiris’ long narrative is the best illustration of this
resumptive method but Cnemon, Achaemenes, Sisimithres and Charicles all
contribute their share of résumés. [112] In general, Heliodorus uses
résumés with great effect to clarify his complicated plot. Sometimes he
merely suggests a summary of events (V. 16, 5); sometimes he gives a
full succinct recapitulation of events (II. 14, 1-2); sometimes his
heroes recount their adventures to complain of them (V. 11). [113]
Many episodes too are taken from Homer. The games in Delphi in honor of
Apollo are indebted to those given by Achilles in honor of Patroclus.
The τειχοσκοπία where Arsace on the wall of Memphis watches the combat
in the plain recalls Helen on the walls of Troy. The duel there between
Thyamis and Theagenes is like one of the Homeric single combats. In it
Theagenes’ pursuit of Thyamis around the walls owes something to the
pursuit of Hector by the swift-footed Achilles. The scar of Theagenes
which is to be a sign of recognition was surely suggested by Odysseus’.
The scene where the old woman evokes her dead son on the field of battle
imitates the Homeric Νέκυια. [114]
Even more prominent than his debt to epic poetry is Heliodorus’ use of
dramatic structure. All the usual devices of Greek tragedy appear.
Indeed the plot centers on the recognition of the young Greek heroine as
the white Ethiopian princess by the tokens exposed with her in babyhood:
her jewels, her mystic ring, her lettered fillet. This dramatic device
of an agnorisis or recognition is multiplied by Heliodorus for repeated
situations: the recognition of Chariclea in beggar’s rags by Theagenes
through her watchword, the identification of Charicles as her
foster-father and of Sisimithres as the noble Greek who found and saved
the exposed child.
No less important is the usual Greek peripeteia, or reversal of fortune,
for hero and heroine are repeatedly reunited only to be separated anew;
together or separately they are rescued from one catastrophe only to be
plunged into a worse danger. Calasiris’ long narrative resembles not
only the minstrel’s songs at the court of Alcinous of old far-off divine
events, but also the messenger’s speeches in tragedy wherein events too
horrible or too complicated to be presented on the stage are told with a
realism which starts the imagination. The mechanism of a parallel
subplot is employed in Cnemon’s life-story. The letter in Thisbe’s dead
hand is indebted to Phaedra’s in Euripides’ _Hippolytus_. Cybele,
Arsace’s maid, owes much in her character of confidant to Phaedra’s
nurse though she is more cynical and familiar. The crowd takes the place
of the chorus, now demanding human sacrifice in the name of tradition,
now releasing Chariclea from it through pity, now approving of the
appeal of the noble Gymnosophists in the name of the gods to abolish the
immolation of human victims. The _deus ex machina_ is supplied by these
very gods of the Gymnosophists, Helios, the Sun, and Selene, the Moon,
celestial symbols of pure deities of space and time conceived in the
philosophical mind.
Against this structure of drama the characters move as though on a stage
and even through the stylized formulae of dramatic conventions usually
attain individuality and vitality. Maillon seems to me undiscriminating
when he speaks of them all as general types, not individuals, as
marionettes who can talk, lament and complain, but are without
life. [115] Even characters that fall into general groups may as in real
life have distinguishing traits and in the list of characters certain
are unforgettable personalities.
The hero Theagenes is of course supremely handsome and physically
strong. He is also as Wolff says spectacularly courageous but easily
discouraged. [116] He has to be kept from suicide by Cnemon. He has to be
cheered by Chariclea. And his Lady Fair is the resourceful partner in
emergencies who whispers to him “Call me your Sister” or invents means
of recognition in case of separation or makes a plot to share with him
his fate be it life or death. She demands too when they start off on
travels together that her lover swear a sacred oath to respect her
virginity. Indeed her leadership deserves the tribute given Dido, _dux
femina facti_. As Calderini notes, cleverness and deception were valued
traits in those times and both she displayed. [117] But she guarded her
chastity even from her dearest and her courage never failed. On the
battle field she can shoot her arrows. She is surrounded by a divine
aura of radiant beauty that illuminates her holy garb.
The real hero of the romance is her father, the Ethiopian King Hydaspes,
whose qualities she seemed to have inherited. He is the type of the good
king, but beyond that he is very human. He has his humor so that when
his nephew presents him with a gigantic athletic champion he smilingly
gives him in exchange an elephant. He is generous to a defeated foe,
freeing Oroondates and restoring him to his office so that the viceroy
makes obeisance to him and calls him the most just of mortals. He
follows tradition in preparing to offer to the gods foreign captives as
human victims, but when convinced by the Gymnosophists of the
inappropriateness of such sacrifice he leads his people to the right
decision about abolishing it and happily crowns his daughter and her
lover as new priests of a purified worship.
Persinna his queen is a type of frustrated motherhood, timid enough to
expose at birth her beautiful white baby for fear of the charge of
adultery, but when her daughter is restored to her she glows with ardent
parentalism and interprets Chariclea’s wishes to her husband.
The characters in the sub-plot (Cnemon’s story) are less clearly
delineated than those in the main narrative. The story serves however
not merely to introduce Thisbe, who is useful for the main plot, but
anticipates and prepares for certain main characters. Aristippus the
betrayed husband, Demaeneta the wanton wife, Thisbe the corrupt maid and
Cnemon the coveted youth parallel Oroondates, Arsace, Cybele and
Theagenes himself.
The far east opens up before us under the shadow of the Great King of
the Persians. He never appears, but his viceroys, their lieutenants,
their eunuchs work his will with the complete subservience which their
act of obeisance symbolizes. Oroondates is a good fighter, but he is
ready to desert secretly the city of Syene, which he has been defending,
before terms of surrender had been concluded, to start another war in
the name of the Great King. His will conveyed by letters must be law to
his eunuch or his wife. This arbitrariness when imitated by his eunuch
Euphrates becomes sadistic tyranny over prisoners given to his care.
Arsace his wife finds her escape in intrigue and amours. [118] Highly
over-sexed she stops at nothing to satisfy her passion as her wanton
fancies shift from one desired lover to another. She has no mercy for
Theagenes when he is obdurate or for Chariclea when she finds she is the
object of Theagenes’ affections.
Cybele her maid abets her machinations and her lust. Though her position
as confidante recalls Phaedra’s nurse in the _Hippolytus_, her character
reproduces all the venality, cunning and complaisance of the maids in
new Attic comedy. Torture and murder are natural tools for success in
her eyes and when she is hoist with her own petard, she dies asserting
that she has been poisoned by the innocent girl whom she had hoped to
make her victim. Arsace with her Cybele is a complete foil for the
purity and loyalty of Chariclea.
The most interesting among the upright characters in the play are the
priests: Calasiris, high-priest of Isis in Egypt, Charicles, priest of
Apollo at Delphi, Sisimithres, the Greek Gymnosophist. They are
consecrated to service, devoted to worship. They are men of the world
extending their knowledge by travel and talk. Calasiris on his visit to
Delphi spent his days in philosophical discussion of religious rites and
the meaning of the gods of Greece and of Egypt. Charicles is a
humanitarian who educates the little waif Chariclea as his own daughter.
Sisimithres dares withdraw from the human sacrifices proposed by a great
king and people and by his personal authority converts them from such
abominable customs to a purer conception of deity and of worship.
Calasiris in his role of interpreting the events of the story and
solving its problems, in his clear philosophical interests probably
represents Heliodorus himself. [119]
To return to the structure of the romance, the plot with such borrowings
from epic and dramatic poetry, with such characters, some types, some
highly individualized, moves forward in a manner that resembles the
modern cinema. There is no carefully interwoven plot such as tragedy
presents, for example in _Oedipus Rex_. Rather there is a progression of
episodes, each a clear picture in itself, all after many involutions and
evolutions falling into an orderly narrative. Rattenbury thinks that
after Heliodorus’ original beginning which secures the interest and
sympathy of the reader through his curiosity he fails to maintain the
interest throughout. The long retrospective narrative of Calasiris
becomes monotonous. The reader is irritated by the postponement of the
denouement after he as well as the hero and heroine knows the secret of
Chariclea’s parentage. Maillon, however, finds in Heliodorus a great
talent for narration. After the impressive opening scene, he says, from
narrative to narrative, from description to description, one is led
slowly but without ennui to the grandeur of the final chapters. The
variety of the episodes does not detract from the unity of the narrative
because we keep returning to Theagenes and Chariclea in whom we have
been interested from the first. [120]
To me personally the defects in the romance lie not in the long
narrative of Calasiris or in the early revelation of Chariclea’s
identity, but in the excessive use of descriptive passages. Planned
though they undoubtedly are to satisfy the craving of the age for a
knowledge of the novel and the strange, or to give local color, they
retard the development of the story. Often they are prolix and difficult
because of an unfamiliar vocabulary and a complicated sentence
structure. There are many such passages: descriptions of natural
phenomena (the island city in the delta of the Nile, the straits at
Calydon); of curious animals (crocodile and giraffe); of operations of
war (a naval battle, the siege of Syene, the duel of Thyamis and
Petosiris); the religious ceremonies at Delphi. These vary greatly in
clarity and effectiveness, but in general they tend to be verbose and to
retard the narrative. Such descriptions are however one of the
conventional features of the Greek romance. And with all Heliodorus’
originality in plot, in his tripartite structure of epic, dramatic and
cinematic features, he employs all the usual devices of Greek romance.
These are oracle and oath, résumés, conversation and rhetorical
speeches, letters and soliloquies, meditated suicide and apparent death,
dreams and epiphanies. But Heliodorus makes these conventional devices
integral parts of his plot.
The oracle given by the Pythian priestess at Delphi early in the story
motivates the plot until the very end when its meaning is explained and
its prophecy fulfilled. The oath which Chariclea requires of her lover
early in her travels protects her chastity through all the intimacies of
palace apartment and prison dungeons. Résumés of events given several
times by Cnemon, by Calasiris in his long narrative, by Charicles,
clarify and facilitate the plot. [121] Conversation is used constantly on
the battle field or in the boudoir, in palaces, in dungeons. Turn over
the pages of Heliodorus’ Greek as you would a modern novel and test how
often the pages are broken and enlivened by talk. Rhetoric colors some
of the longer speeches, but in the court-room scene (the trial of
Chariclea for poisoning Cybele) the procedure is described but the
speeches are not quoted.
Letters are as important as oracles for the development of the plot. The
letter of Persinna inscribed on the fillet exposed with her child
furnishes the indisputable evidence for the recognition of Chariclea.
The letter in Thisbe’s dead hand is of prime importance in the sub-plot
in announcing to Cnemon the death of his wicked step-mother. Business
letters of Mithranes to Oroondates, of Oroondates to Arsace and to the
eunuch Euphrates, of Hydaspes to the Supreme Council of Ethiopia and to
his queen Persinna furnish documentation for the march of events. The
letter of Oroondates to Hydaspes in the last book prepares the way for
Charicles’ final explanation of his relation to his foster-daughter and
his own recognition of Chariclea.
Soliloquies reveal emotional states and meditated suicide. At Chemmis
one night Chariclea left alone yields to despair and vows that if she
learns Theagenes is dead, she will join him in the shades. An apparent
death nearly precipitates tragedy when in the dark of the cave the body
of Thisbe is mistaken for that of Chariclea. Theagenes bursts into
despairing lamentation and proposes suicide. But Cnemon foreseeing this
has filched his sword and presently the light of Cnemon’s torch reveals
the truth and there ensues a happy reversal of fortune.
Among all these usual features of the plot a new importance is given to
dreams and epiphanies. They are peculiarly significant because of their
bearing on Heliodorus’ philosophical and religious interests. Some
motivate minor events or simply create atmosphere. Thyamis in the night
before the battle with another band of brigands had a vision of Isis who
gave Chariclea to him with the mystic words: “Having her, you will not
have her, but you will be unjust and will kill the stranger. And she
will not be killed. ” At first Thyamis, interpreting the dream in
accordance with his own wishes, thought it meant that he would murder
her virginity, but she would live. Then when the battle went against
him, he changed his interpretation and to save Chariclea from his foes,
killed her (as he thought) in the cave. So Thisbe’s death is explained.
Another dream of little importance is Chariclea’s in which a wild
looking man appeared and pierced her right eye with his sword. Opposing
interpretations are given by Theagenes and Cnemon. The epiphanies,
however, which are vitally significant for the plot all foretell the
final fortunes of the hero and the heroine. To Calasiris Apollo and
Diana appeared, the god leading Theagenes, the goddess Chariclea, and
intrusted them to him. Diana too bade him consider the pair as his
children and take them to Egypt when and how the gods should decree.
Charicles too dreamed that an eagle flew from the hand of Apollo, seized
Chariclea and bore her away from Delphi to a land of dark forms.
Calasiris again had a vision, this time of Odysseus, the great
traveller, who demanded sacrifices and presented Penelope’s blessing on
Chariclea. Calasiris after his death himself appeared simultaneously to
Chariclea and Theagenes, telling the heroine that the Pantarbè jewel
would protect her, and telling the hero that he would be freed from
Arsace and take his Lady to Ethiopia. Hydaspes, when the prisoner
Chariclea is brought before him, recalled a dream that a full-grown
daughter was born to him and the face of this dream-girl was
Chariclea’s. This prepared him for the real recognition of her identity.
Now the validity of these apparitions is sometimes questioned: are they
dreams or visions? The author comments that desire often prompts
favorable interpretation. He has Hydaspes’ officers tell him that the
mind creates for itself fantasies which seem to foretell future events.
He has the optimistic Chariclea encourage Theagenes to trust in the gods
and interpret Calasiris’ prophecies as beneficent. But all the same
Heliodorus motivates his plot by this popular belief in dreams and
epiphanies.
This structural element fits in with the religious-philosophical
coloring of the whole background.
perform valiant rescues. Court-room scenes as in many films vie with
shipwrecks in interest. Documents like letters are presented to the
reader’s eye as on the screen. Visions and dreams are made to seem as
real as in fade-ins and fade-outs.
There is a clear morality in the opposition of good and bad characters
and in the final victory of the good. Hero and heroine captivate by
their extraordinary beauty and maintain their chastity and fidelity
against terrific odds. Hence their phenomenal virtue is rewarded by
reunion in the end. Religion often plays a saving part (as on the screen
for example in _Brother Orchid_). The Reader like the audience at the
movie goes away with a sense of having been enlivened, entertained and
vastly improved. For the function of the Greek romance in the second and
third centuries A. D. , when the universal rule of the Roman Empire gave
scant scope for great oratory or tragedy under the blessings of an
enforced peace, was to entertain and to edify. The Greek romance
substituted for the adventures of the mind new themes: the excitements
of passion, the interests of travel, and the consolations of religion.
It was lifted out of the ranks of the trivial and the second-rate by its
great central theme: that there is such a thing as true love; that
weighed in the balance against it all the world is nothing; and that it
outlives time and even death.
Our own age in America, bleeding internally from the agony of a war
which it is powerless to end, fearful for its own menaced security,
demands from the cinema not only temporary oblivion and excitement, but
encouragement to believe that love lasts even unto death, that heroes
ride again and are victorious, and that finally, by the help of God, the
right will conquer.
IV
_THE_ AETHIOPICA _OF HELIODORUS_
The life of Heliodorus is as obscure as that of each of the other
writers of Greek romance, but in the tradition of his there is a special
point of controversy. Was Heliodorus a pagan novelist or a Christian
bishop? Or by some strange metamorphosis did the writer of the romantic
_Aethiopica_ become in later and staider years the Bishop of Tricca? The
only certain facts are found in the autobiographical sentence which
concludes the romance, that he was a Phoenician of Emesa, of a family
descended from Helios, the son of Theodosius.
It was Socrates who, in the fifth century A. D. , stated that the custom
of celibacy for the clergy was introduced in Thessaly by Heliodorus when
he became bishop of Tricca. He added that Heliodorus wrote in his youth
a love-story, which he called _Aethiopica_. [104] Photius in the ninth
century says that he received the bishopric later, that is after writing
the romance. Nicephorus Callistus in the fourteenth century after
quoting the remark of Socrates adds that the _Aethiopica_ created such a
scandal Heliodorus had to choose between his bishopric and the
destruction of his romance so he abandoned his charge, but this is
probably mere embellishment of the story. As Rattenbury points out,[105]
neither Socrates, Photius nor Nicephorus declares that Heliodorus was a
Christian when he wrote his romance, but they imply clearly that he
became a bishop afterwards. And if the author of the romance was a
devout pagan as he seems to have been, that state of mind could have
made possible his conversion to Christianity. This seems a reasonable
explanation of the strong tradition continuing from the fifth century
that Heliodorus became bishop of Tricca.
As to his date, there are some certainties but no exactitude. The Bishop
of Tricca must have lived before Socrates wrote his _Historia
Ecclesiastica_ which covered the period 306-439. There is no external
evidence on the time of the writer of the romance, but from the general
conclusions about the dating of the Greek Romances, he probably wrote
not later than the end of the third century. His native city Emesa was
the birthplace of two Roman Emperors, Heliogabalus (218-222) and
Alexander Severus (222-235). About the middle of the century Emesa was
conquered by Zenobia of Palmyra, but was freed by Aurelian in 272.
Heliodorus may have written in its most flourishing period, 220-240. It
is generally agreed that Heliodorus is later than Chariton who could not
have written after 150 and earlier than Achilles Tatius who wrote about
the beginning of the fourth century.
Rattenbury thinks that a possible reconstruction of Heliodorus’ life is
this. He was born in Emesa in Phoenician Syria. His family was connected
with the cult of the Sun. In his youth, perhaps between 220 and 240, he
wrote a romance in which the influence of the cult of Helios appears,
also the neo-Pythagoreanism of Apollonius of Tyana. It is not impossible
that finally he was converted to Christianity, became bishop of Tricca
and in that office introduced in his diocese celibacy for the
clergy. [106] Calderini has shown with discrimination and perspicacity
that the special characteristic of the _Aethiopica_ is the interest in
philosophy which distinguishes it and its author from Chariton, the
writer of historical romance, and from Achilles Tatius, the writer of
romance tinged with science. [107] A study of the _Aethiopica_ itself
will show how deeply infused the novel is with this religious
philosophical coloring.
Before outlining the narrative, I will give as usual a list of the
principal characters. These are:
_Theagenes_, the young Greek hero
_Chariclea_, the young heroine, supposed to be a Greek
_Hydaspes_, king of Ethiopia
_Persinna_, queen of Ethiopia
_Calasiris_, of Memphis, priest of Isis and his sons:
_Thyamis_, in exile, a pirate captain
_Petosiris_, priest of Isis
_Charicles_, priest of Apollo at Delphi
_Alcamenes_, nephew of Charicles
_Trachinus_, a pirate
_Pelorus_, a pirate and officer of Trachinus
_Cnemon_, a young Athenian, son of
_Aristippus_, an Athenian, a stupid husband
_Demaeneta_, the amorous step-mother of Cnemon
_Thisbe_, the scheming maid of Demaeneta
_Arsinoe_, a slave-girl, a friend of Thisbe
_Nausicles_, a merchant
_Thermuthis_, an officer under Thyamis
_Oroondates_, viceroy of the Great King of the Persians
_Mithranes_, viceroy of Oroondates
_Arsace_, wife of Oroondates
_Cybele_, the maid of Arsace
_Achaemenes_, son of Cybele
_Euphrates_, the chief eunuch of Oroondates
_Sisimithres_, an Ethiopian Gymnosophist
_Meroebus_, nephew of Hydaspes
The opening scene of the romance is startling and mysterious. In Egypt,
from a mountain near the mouth of the Nile a band of pirates get a view
of the seashore. They behold a heavily laden ship without a crew, a
plain strewn with dead bodies and the remains of an ill-fated banquet. A
wounded youth is lying on the ground. He is being cared for by a
beautiful young woman dressed in a religious garb which makes her seem a
priestess or a goddess, Diana or Isis. Indeed a divine effulgence
emanates from her. The pirates though at first overawed descend and
collect rich booty. Their captain then courteously conveys the maiden
and the youth to their pirate home. This was called “The Pasture” and
was a sort of island in a delta of the Nile. Some of the pirates lived
in huts made of reeds, some in boats. The water was their fortification.
Their streets were winding water-ways cut through the reeds.
The pirate chief assigned the care of his two captives to a young Greek,
Cnemon, who was his interpreter. The prisoners were overjoyed on finding
their custodian a Greek. He promised to heal the wounds of Theagenes,
who had now revealed his own name and that of Chariclea, and on their
urgent request, he told him his own story.
“I,” he said, “am the son of Aristippus, an Athenian. After my brother’s
death, my father married again a woman named Demaeneta, who was a
mischief-maker. Like Phaedra she fell in love with me, her step-son,
indeed called me her dear Hippolytus. When I repelled her advances she
accused me to my father of attempted rape. He had me scourged. Worse
than that, Thisbe, the maid of Demaeneta, on her mistress’ orders
involved me in an amorous intrigue with herself and later promised to
show me my step-mother with an adulterer. Sword in hand I followed her
to the bed-room and just as I was about to murder her paramour, I found
he was my father. Aristippus charged me in court with attempted
parricide. Only a divided vote spared my life and sent me into exile.
Lately I received news that my father through Thisbe had found out his
wife’s corruption; she had killed herself; and now Aristippus is trying
to obtain from the people his son’s pardon. ”
The next day Thyamis the pirate leader although he was warned in a dream
that having Chariclea, he would not have her, announced to his band his
intention of marrying her. She pretended to consent, but asked that
their marriage be postponed until they reached Memphis so that there she
could resign her priesthood of Diana. Thyamis accepted this condition.
Theagenes was horrified until Chariclea explained that this agreement
was made only to secure more time for their plans for safety. A hostile
band of brigands was now seen approaching. Thyamis had Cnemon hide
Chariclea in a secret cave. When the terrible battle began to go against
him, Thyamis rushed back to the cave and killed a woman in the dark whom
he believed Chariclea. In battle he was then taken alive. The victorious
brigands fired the huts on the island but did not find the cave. Cnemon
and Theagenes, who had escaped in little boats, returned to the island.
When Cnemon conducted Theagenes to the cave by its secret entrance, they
found in its dark gloom the body of a dead woman. Theagenes believing it
Chariclea burst into lamentation and planned suicide. But Cnemon took
away his sword, got a torch lighted and found that the woman was Thisbe
and in her dead hand was a letter. They soon found Chariclea alive.
After the first joy of reunion Chariclea wished to know who the dead
woman was. Cnemon revealed that she was Thisbe and related all her
story: how after her plot against him, Arsinoe, a rival courtesan whose
lover Nausicles she had stolen, revealed Thisbe’s machinations against
Demaeneta; how Cnemon’s father was exiled on the ground of complicity
and Thisbe fled. The letter in Thisbe’s hand proved to be to Cnemon, a
petition to save her from the pirates who had stolen her. Just then
Thermuthis, her pirate captor, arrived to reclaim her, only to find her
dead. The sword in her wound proved to him that she was slain by
Thyamis.
Theagenes and Chariclea, Cnemon and Thermuthis now started out in
separate pairs towards Chemmis, a rich city on the Nile, to get food.
The menace of Thermuthis was conveniently removed as he died from the
bite of an asp. Near Chemmis Cnemon met an old man who entertained him
at his home. He proved to be Calasiris, the foster-father of Theagenes
and Chariclea. This he revealed to Cnemon in a long narrative of his own
life: how though a priest of Isis he had gone into voluntary exile to
break off the wiles of a courtesan; how he had sojourned at Delphi,
attending the ceremonies and talking with the philosophers. One,
Charicles, related how in his own travels in Egypt he had had intrusted
to him by an Ethiopian merchant a beautiful child. The merchant had
found her exposed with a bag of jewels and an inscribed fillet. These
too he gave to Charicles making him promise to guard her freedom and wed
her to a free man. He had named her Chariclea and brought her up in
Greece but now, though she was very beautiful, she refused to marry.
Calasiris also described to Cnemon the sacrifice to Neoptolemus offered
by the Aenianians and the Delphic oracle which he had heard there.
“Delphians, regard with reverential care,
Both him the goddess-born, and her the fair;
“_Grace_” is the sound which ushers in her name,
The syllable wherewith it ends, is “_Fame_. ”
They both my fane shall leave, and oceans past,
In regions torrid shall arrive at last;
There shall the gods reward their pious vows,
And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows. ”[108]
Calasiris at the urgent request of Cnemon described all the ceremonies
attendant on the sacrifice to Neoptolemus: the hecatomb and the other
victims, the Thracian maidens bearing offerings, the hymn to the Hero,
the dance, the procession of the fifty armed horsemen led by Theagenes,
the radiant appearance of Chariclea in a chariot. All this description
was the brilliant setting for the meeting of Theagenes and Chariclea,
for when Theagenes took from the priestess’ hand the torch to light the
sacrificial pyre, in them both the flame of first love was kindled.
The next day Chariclea lay abed very ill in her apartment in the temple.
Calasiris feared it was due to “_fascinatio_. ” Calasiris after meeting
Theagenes had a vision in which Apollo and Diana consigned Theagenes and
Chariclea to his care and bade him take them to Egypt. The next morning
Theagenes confessed to Calasiris his love and besought his aid.
Charicles begged him to heal his daughter. This enabled him to talk to
her.
Chariclea recovered sufficiently the next day to attend the contest of
the men in armor and to award the palm to the victor, Theagenes. But her
passion and her illness increased after this second meeting and
Calasiris was again summoned to treat her. Her disease was diagnosed as
love and Calasiris persuaded her father to let him see the fillet found
with the exposed baby. Calasiris was able to read the inscription on it.
It was a letter from her mother, Persinna, queen of the Ethiopians,
revealing that she had borne a white daughter because at her conception
she had been looking at a picture of Andromeda; then fearing the charge
of adultery she had exposed her baby with the fillet and the jewels. All
this Calasiris told to Chariclea. Calasiris then made a plot with her by
which she was to pretend to become affianced to Alcamenes, the nephew of
Charicles, as her foster-father wished. Charicles was delighted although
he was nervous because of a dream in which an eagle from the hand of
Apollo bore his daughter away. He gave her all the jewels.
Then Calasiris persuaded some Phoenician merchants to take him and two
friends on their ship as far as Sicily; and he ordered Theagenes and his
young friends to kidnap Chariclea. She consented to the plan after
Theagenes had bound himself by an oath never to force her love. After
they were off, Charicles roused the city to pursuit of them. Calasiris
after telling of the arrival of the Phoenician ship at Zacynthos
interrupted his narrative to rest. Nausicles returned to the house and
unknown to the others had brought Chariclea with him.
(Here the author himself gave a résumé of the adventures of Theagenes
and Chariclea from the time they parted with Cnemon. In the cave the
lovers had a long talk and made an agreement as to what they would do in
case fortune again separated them: they would inscribe on temple,
statue, herm or boundary stone, Theagenes the name Pythicus, Chariclea
Pythias; the direction in which each departed; to what place or people;
also the time of writing. For recognition if they met disguised they
decided to use as signs Chariclea’s ring and Theagenes’ scar from a
boar. Their watchwords were to be a lamp for her, a palm-tree for him.
They sealed this covenant in kisses, then left the cave taking
Chariclea’s sacred robes, her bow and quiver and her jewels.
Soon they met an armed band and were taken prisoners. The commander was
Mithranes, an officer of Oroondates, viceroy of Egypt. Nausicles had
persuaded him for pay to make this expedition to the island in search of
his Thisbe. Nausicles on seeing Theagenes and Chariclea cleverly
pretended that Chariclea was Thisbe, the object of his quest. Mithranes
demanded Theagenes as his prize and despatched him to Oroondates as a
fine youth for service with the Great King. )
The next day Calasiris and Cnemon heard all Nausicles’ story from
himself, saw Chariclea and made a plan to ransom Theagenes. After
Nausicles had celebrated a sacrifice in the temple of Hermes, the god of
gain, Calasiris on request continued his narrative of the voyage from
Delphi. At Zacynthos a deaf old fisherman Tyrrhenus gave them lodging.
The Tyrian merchant who won the victory at the Pythian games now sued
for Chariclea’s hand. Tyrrhenus discovered an ambush of pirates waiting
for the Phoenician ship to sail. Calasiris without revealing this
persuaded the Tyrian captain to sail that night. The pirate crew under
Trachinus pursued them and engaged them in a terrible battle so finally
the Phoenicians had to surrender. Trachinus demanded marriage with
Chariclea and she deceitfully promised her hand if he would spare
Calasiris and “her brother” Theagenes. With difficulty the pirates
maneuvered the boat to land near the mouth of the Nile. Trachinus told
Calasiris that he proposed to marry Chariclea that day. Calasiris,
ingenious as ever, persuaded him to let Chariclea go on the ship to
attire herself for the wedding and be left undisturbed there. Calasiris
then plotted with Pelorus, second in command of the pirates, telling him
Chariclea loved him. Pelorus since he had been the first to board the
Phoenician ship demanded, as his right of first choice of the booty, the
girl. A terrible battle ensued in which Trachinus was killed, Pelorus
wounded by Theagenes and put to flight and Theagenes badly wounded. In
the morning Egyptian pirates arrived and carried them both off.
Calasiris had spent his days mourning for them until this present
recovery of Chariclea.
The next day Calasiris, Cnemon and Nausicles set out to find Theagenes.
An acquaintance informed Nausicles that Mithranes had sent his troops on
an expedition against the men of Bessa, commanded by Thyamis, because
they had stolen a captive Greek youth. So Nausicles and his friends
returned to Chemmis and told all to Chariclea. Nausicles gave a farewell
dinner-party since the season favorable for navigation compelled him to
sail for Greece. Cnemon after a struggle with himself decided to go with
him and was permitted to marry his daughter, Nausiclea.
Calasiris and Chariclea disguised as beggars started for Bessa to seek
Theagenes. Near Bessa they found many corpses lying on the ground. An
old woman told them there had been a battle between Mithranes’ forces
and the men of Bessa in which the men of Bessa had been victorious and
Mithranes had been killed. The victors had now set out to Memphis
against Oroondates. The old woman had lost her son in battle. That night
Calasiris and Chariclea secretly watched her magic rites by which she
raised him to give her news of her other son. The shade also revealed
that there were two witnesses to her wicked necromancy; that Chariclea
should be happily reunited with Theagenes and that his own mother would
meet her death by the sword. This soon happened, for she fell on an
upright sword on the battle-field.
Calasiris and Chariclea arrived at Memphis just as Thyamis and his
brigands began a siege of it. The people of Memphis in the absence of
Oroondates consulted the queen Arsace about the wisdom of going out to
attack the enemy. Thyamis had been driven into exile by the slanders of
his brother Petosiris who swore there was an amour between Thyamis and
Arsace. Petosiris had then succeeded his brother in the priesthood of
Isis. Arsace after looking at the enemy from the wall ordered a single
combat between Thyamis and Petosiris to decide the war. In this combat
Petosiris was forced to flee. As he was running around the city walls
the third time, Calasiris arrived and saw the combat between his two
sons that an oracle had foretold. Rushing between them he ended the
contest.
Chariclea discovered Theagenes and suddenly threw her arms about him.
Her hero disgusted at her beggar’s rags threw her off and did not
recognize her until she whispered: “Pythias, have you forgotten the
torch? ” Then he took her to his arms, while Arsace and the other
watchers on the wall marvelled at the scene as though it were on the
stage. So peace was made by the father and the lovers were reunited. All
went to the temple of Isis. Calasiris restored his son Thyamis to the
priesthood.
Arsace had fallen madly in love with Theagenes on seeing him twice and
confided this to her aged maid, Cybele. This maid on going to the temple
of Isis to offer prayers for her mistress learned that Calasiris had
died there during the night and that no one except the priests could
enter the temple for seven days on account of the funeral rites.
Thereupon Cybele craftily secured permission to entertain the two young
Greeks who were staying there in Arsace’s palace and took them home.
When they found that they were in the palace, they became suspicious for
they had noticed the queen’s interest in Theagenes the day before. So at
Chariclea’s suggestion, Theagenes said they were brother and sister.
Cybele went to Arsace’s apartment to tell her all, locking the guests in
their room. In her absence, her son Achaemenes came home, listened at
their door and from their talk and from a glimpse at Theagenes realized
that this was the very youth who had been taken from him by Thyamis.
As the days passed, Arsace tried to win the love of Theagenes first
through subtle allurement, then through open confession of her passion
and at last through domination. Achaemenes finally told Arsace who they
were so the queen informed Theagenes that they were now her slaves as
they had been the captive slaves of Mithranes and he must obey her. Then
in the presence of Cybele Theagenes promised himself to Arsace on
condition that she would never give Chariclea to Achaemenes, who had
demanded her. He confessed that Chariclea was not his sister but his
fiancée. On hearing this Achaemenes rode away to inform Oroondates of
all.
Oroondates was engaged in a campaign against Hydaspes, King of the
Ethiopians, who had got possession of Philae. On hearing Achaemenes’
report Oroondates despatched his eunuch Bagoas with fifty horsemen to
Memphis to bring Theagenes and Chariclea to his camp. He sent two
letters to this effect to Arsace and to his chief eunuch. Achaemenes he
kept with himself.
In Memphis Thyamis had been unable to procure the release of the young
Greeks from Arsace. Moreover the frustrated queen had begun to try
imprisonment and torture on Theagenes. When he was still obstinate,
Cybele advised getting rid of Chariclea to free his heart and she
prepared to poison the girl. Fortunately a maid exchanged the goblets.
Cybele herself drank the poison and expired, but with her last breath
she declared Chariclea had murdered her. So Arsace threw the girl into
the prison where Theagenes was and had her tried. In the court-room
Chariclea pleaded guilty, for this was the plan that she and her lover
had agreed on in the prison, that they might die together. The Supreme
Council ordered that she be burned alive. Chariclea was saved by a
miracle, for the flames on the pyre refused to touch her person. Arsace
then consigned her again to prison on the ground that she was a witch.
In prison, Chariclea and Theagenes had a long talk about the
dream-visions they had each seen. To each Calasiris had appeared and
given a metrical prophecy. To Chariclea he had said:
“Bearing Pantarbè, fear not flames, fair maid,
Fate, to whom naught is hard, shall bring thee aid. ”
And to Theagenes:
“From Arsace, the morrow sets thee free—
To Aethiopia with the virgin flee. ”[109]
Chariclea interpreted these oracles to mean that her jewel, the
Pantarbè, was protecting her; and that on the next day they would be
freed from Arsace and go to Ethiopia.
Meanwhile Bagoas arrived at Memphis and Euphrates on receiving the
letter of Oroondates sent Theagenes and Chariclea off secretly with
Bagoas. On their journey they received first the news that Arsace had
killed herself and second that Oroondates had gone to Syene. Later on
the way they were seized by a band of Troglodite Ethiopians who took
Bagoas and the two Greeks to their king, Hydaspes. He planned to save
them as victims to be sacrificed to the gods.
Hydaspes was besieging Syene. Oroondates had got inside the city before
the blockade and was directing the defense. But Hydaspes used a new
weapon against him, inundation. His army dug a great trench around Syene
with earth-works encircling it. This trench he connected with the river
Nile by a long canal, fifty feet wide, banked by high walls. When the
works were finished, he cut away the embankment between his canal and
the Nile and let the river in. Syene became an island city and the
pressure of the water on the walls threatened inundation. So Oroondates
and the people of Syene had to sue for peace. This was granted, and
Hydaspes built up again the embankment between his canal and the Nile
and proceeded to drain off the water.
During the festival of the overflowing of the Nile Oroondates and his
army slipped away in the night, bridging the mud swamps about Syene by
planks, and went to Elephantine, which revolted with him against
Hydaspes. In the new battle Hydaspes was again victorious and took
Oroondates prisoner, but the Ethiopian was a generous conqueror and sent
Oroondates back to be again viceroy of his province.
Hydaspes on his way home stopped two days at Philae and from there sent
home letters announcing his victory to Persinna and the Gymnosophists.
Persinna recalled a dream that she had brought forth a full-grown
daughter and interpreted the daughter as this victory. The people
assembled for the celebration at the island city of Meroe and according
to their traditions demanded human sacrifice of foreign captives of war.
The prisoners now underwent the test of chastity by ascending the altar
of fire and of course Theagenes and Chariclea passed the test.
The Gymnosophists through their leader Sisimithres refused to witness
human sacrifice and foretold that this one would never be consummated.
Chariclea begged them to stay and hear her case. (She had recognized
Sisimithres’ name as that of the one who had given her to Charicles at
Catadupa). Chariclea declared that she was a native, not a foreigner,
and produced her fillet and her jewels, among them the mystic ring,
Pantarbé. Sisimithres narrated his part in her story. Hydaspes was
puzzled over how he could have a _white_ child, but Sisimithres
explained that Persinna at the time of conception had fixed her eyes on
a picture of the naked, white Andromeda. When the picture was brought in
as evidence, Chariclea’s resemblance to its Andromeda was found
startling. Moreover a birthmark of a black ring around Chariclea’s arm
attested her black blood.
The people now refused to have Chariclea sacrificed, but the fate of
Theagenes still hung in the balance. Chariclea begged that if he were to
be sacrificed, she might perform the deed. (Apparently she planned to
carry out a kind of suicide pact. ) Hydaspes thought his daughter was
insane and sent her into a tent with her mother while he received
ambassadors and their gifts of victory. His nephew Meroebus brought a
mighty athlete. Hydaspes as a joke gave him in return an elephant, but
also promised him the hand of Chariclea. The Axiomitae presented a
giraffe, an animal so strange that it terrified some of the natives.
Moreover, one bull and two horses broke their fetters and dashed madly
around the inside of the circle of guards. Theagenes mounted another
horse, pursued the bull, wore it out and finally downed it. The
enchanted spectators now demanded that he be matched with the champion
Meroebus. Him too he vanquished. Oroondates crowned Theagenes as victor,
but nevertheless prepared to sacrifice him.
At that moment ambassadors from Syene arrived with a letter from
Oroondates. He begged that a young woman captive be sent to him with her
father who was one of the ambassadors. This was Charicles. He recognized
Theagenes and accused him of having stolen his daughter at Delphi.
Theagenes revealed that Chariclea was the one demanded. Sisimithres told
the rest of the story. Chariclea rushing out of the tent begged
Charicles to forgive her elopement. Persinna told Hydaspes that she had
learned that Chariclea was betrothed to Theagenes.
Sisimithres speaking not in Greek but in Ethiopian for all the people to
hear ordered Hydaspes to submit to the will of the gods who had saved
the two young lovers and who did not approve of human sacrifice and
exhorted him to end human sacrifices forever. So Hydaspes asked the
people to observe the will of the gods and to sanction the marriage of
Theagenes and Chariclea. This they did. Then Hydaspes consecrated the
two as priest and priestess of the Sun and the Moon and on their heads
he placed the mitres which he and Persinna had worn as symbols of their
offices. Thus was fulfilled the oracle:
“In regions torrid shall arrive at last;
There shall the gods reward their pious vows,
And snowy chaplets bind their dusky brows. ”
Then a great procession escorted them to Meroe there to fulfill the more
mystic parts of wedlock.
In this brief re-telling of Heliodorus’ long story, certain striking
features of his structure appear. Geography and ethnography are
important as in the other novelists. The eastern basin of the
Mediterranean is the center of the adventures, the district which for
centuries was the scene of the conflict for power between many nations.
As in Xenophon, many geographical details are given, often with little
accuracy. [110] As Maillon points out, imagination and fantasy falsify
the historical and geographical allusions. Heliodorus gathers everything
that can satisfy the taste for the strange and the marvellous. At a time
when the critical spirit was so little developed in the historians, a
writer of romance would naturally produce marvellous narratives and
vague descriptions. Heliodorus confuses the Ethiopia of Herodotus with
that of the Ptolemies and imagines an Ethiopian empire which did not
exist during the domination of Egypt by the Persians. [111] As in
Chariton, the superiority of the Greeks over the barbarians is part of
the author’s faith.
In the development of the plot Heliodorus makes his set more unified,
less cinematic than Xenophon had done. The scene of action lies almost
entirely in Egypt with a shift to Ethiopia for the final climax. This
Egyptian set is to be sure varied by different local scenes: the Nile,
an island village in its delta, towns such as Chemmis, Memphis, Syene
and Philae, the battle-fields of Bessa and Elephantine, but nearly the
whole plot develops in Egypt. The exceptions are in the sub-plot
presented in Cnemon’s narrative of his life-history which is laid in
Athens, and in Calasiris’ long account of his visit to Delphi. These
however are clearly set off as insets in the unity of the Egyptian
scene.
The plot itself is an original combination of epic and dramatic
structure. The other writers of Greek romance begin at the beginning
with a detailed account of the hero and heroine, their family, their
background. Heliodorus in true epic style plunges us _in medias res_
with his startling opening scene of a seascape where a ship rides at
anchor, treasure-laden but not manned, where the shore is littered with
the remains of a banquet, but strewn with corpses, where a young man
lies wounded with a beautiful maiden dressed as a goddess ministering to
him. The reader is as amazed and puzzled at the sight as are the pirates
who are peering down from the hills.
Another epic part of the structure is that the narrative of events does
not proceed in a straight line but zigzags back and forth while a new
arrival contributes his part to the development of the plot, or the
author himself gives a retrospective résumé of past events to explain
the present. Calasiris’ long narrative is the best illustration of this
resumptive method but Cnemon, Achaemenes, Sisimithres and Charicles all
contribute their share of résumés. [112] In general, Heliodorus uses
résumés with great effect to clarify his complicated plot. Sometimes he
merely suggests a summary of events (V. 16, 5); sometimes he gives a
full succinct recapitulation of events (II. 14, 1-2); sometimes his
heroes recount their adventures to complain of them (V. 11). [113]
Many episodes too are taken from Homer. The games in Delphi in honor of
Apollo are indebted to those given by Achilles in honor of Patroclus.
The τειχοσκοπία where Arsace on the wall of Memphis watches the combat
in the plain recalls Helen on the walls of Troy. The duel there between
Thyamis and Theagenes is like one of the Homeric single combats. In it
Theagenes’ pursuit of Thyamis around the walls owes something to the
pursuit of Hector by the swift-footed Achilles. The scar of Theagenes
which is to be a sign of recognition was surely suggested by Odysseus’.
The scene where the old woman evokes her dead son on the field of battle
imitates the Homeric Νέκυια. [114]
Even more prominent than his debt to epic poetry is Heliodorus’ use of
dramatic structure. All the usual devices of Greek tragedy appear.
Indeed the plot centers on the recognition of the young Greek heroine as
the white Ethiopian princess by the tokens exposed with her in babyhood:
her jewels, her mystic ring, her lettered fillet. This dramatic device
of an agnorisis or recognition is multiplied by Heliodorus for repeated
situations: the recognition of Chariclea in beggar’s rags by Theagenes
through her watchword, the identification of Charicles as her
foster-father and of Sisimithres as the noble Greek who found and saved
the exposed child.
No less important is the usual Greek peripeteia, or reversal of fortune,
for hero and heroine are repeatedly reunited only to be separated anew;
together or separately they are rescued from one catastrophe only to be
plunged into a worse danger. Calasiris’ long narrative resembles not
only the minstrel’s songs at the court of Alcinous of old far-off divine
events, but also the messenger’s speeches in tragedy wherein events too
horrible or too complicated to be presented on the stage are told with a
realism which starts the imagination. The mechanism of a parallel
subplot is employed in Cnemon’s life-story. The letter in Thisbe’s dead
hand is indebted to Phaedra’s in Euripides’ _Hippolytus_. Cybele,
Arsace’s maid, owes much in her character of confidant to Phaedra’s
nurse though she is more cynical and familiar. The crowd takes the place
of the chorus, now demanding human sacrifice in the name of tradition,
now releasing Chariclea from it through pity, now approving of the
appeal of the noble Gymnosophists in the name of the gods to abolish the
immolation of human victims. The _deus ex machina_ is supplied by these
very gods of the Gymnosophists, Helios, the Sun, and Selene, the Moon,
celestial symbols of pure deities of space and time conceived in the
philosophical mind.
Against this structure of drama the characters move as though on a stage
and even through the stylized formulae of dramatic conventions usually
attain individuality and vitality. Maillon seems to me undiscriminating
when he speaks of them all as general types, not individuals, as
marionettes who can talk, lament and complain, but are without
life. [115] Even characters that fall into general groups may as in real
life have distinguishing traits and in the list of characters certain
are unforgettable personalities.
The hero Theagenes is of course supremely handsome and physically
strong. He is also as Wolff says spectacularly courageous but easily
discouraged. [116] He has to be kept from suicide by Cnemon. He has to be
cheered by Chariclea. And his Lady Fair is the resourceful partner in
emergencies who whispers to him “Call me your Sister” or invents means
of recognition in case of separation or makes a plot to share with him
his fate be it life or death. She demands too when they start off on
travels together that her lover swear a sacred oath to respect her
virginity. Indeed her leadership deserves the tribute given Dido, _dux
femina facti_. As Calderini notes, cleverness and deception were valued
traits in those times and both she displayed. [117] But she guarded her
chastity even from her dearest and her courage never failed. On the
battle field she can shoot her arrows. She is surrounded by a divine
aura of radiant beauty that illuminates her holy garb.
The real hero of the romance is her father, the Ethiopian King Hydaspes,
whose qualities she seemed to have inherited. He is the type of the good
king, but beyond that he is very human. He has his humor so that when
his nephew presents him with a gigantic athletic champion he smilingly
gives him in exchange an elephant. He is generous to a defeated foe,
freeing Oroondates and restoring him to his office so that the viceroy
makes obeisance to him and calls him the most just of mortals. He
follows tradition in preparing to offer to the gods foreign captives as
human victims, but when convinced by the Gymnosophists of the
inappropriateness of such sacrifice he leads his people to the right
decision about abolishing it and happily crowns his daughter and her
lover as new priests of a purified worship.
Persinna his queen is a type of frustrated motherhood, timid enough to
expose at birth her beautiful white baby for fear of the charge of
adultery, but when her daughter is restored to her she glows with ardent
parentalism and interprets Chariclea’s wishes to her husband.
The characters in the sub-plot (Cnemon’s story) are less clearly
delineated than those in the main narrative. The story serves however
not merely to introduce Thisbe, who is useful for the main plot, but
anticipates and prepares for certain main characters. Aristippus the
betrayed husband, Demaeneta the wanton wife, Thisbe the corrupt maid and
Cnemon the coveted youth parallel Oroondates, Arsace, Cybele and
Theagenes himself.
The far east opens up before us under the shadow of the Great King of
the Persians. He never appears, but his viceroys, their lieutenants,
their eunuchs work his will with the complete subservience which their
act of obeisance symbolizes. Oroondates is a good fighter, but he is
ready to desert secretly the city of Syene, which he has been defending,
before terms of surrender had been concluded, to start another war in
the name of the Great King. His will conveyed by letters must be law to
his eunuch or his wife. This arbitrariness when imitated by his eunuch
Euphrates becomes sadistic tyranny over prisoners given to his care.
Arsace his wife finds her escape in intrigue and amours. [118] Highly
over-sexed she stops at nothing to satisfy her passion as her wanton
fancies shift from one desired lover to another. She has no mercy for
Theagenes when he is obdurate or for Chariclea when she finds she is the
object of Theagenes’ affections.
Cybele her maid abets her machinations and her lust. Though her position
as confidante recalls Phaedra’s nurse in the _Hippolytus_, her character
reproduces all the venality, cunning and complaisance of the maids in
new Attic comedy. Torture and murder are natural tools for success in
her eyes and when she is hoist with her own petard, she dies asserting
that she has been poisoned by the innocent girl whom she had hoped to
make her victim. Arsace with her Cybele is a complete foil for the
purity and loyalty of Chariclea.
The most interesting among the upright characters in the play are the
priests: Calasiris, high-priest of Isis in Egypt, Charicles, priest of
Apollo at Delphi, Sisimithres, the Greek Gymnosophist. They are
consecrated to service, devoted to worship. They are men of the world
extending their knowledge by travel and talk. Calasiris on his visit to
Delphi spent his days in philosophical discussion of religious rites and
the meaning of the gods of Greece and of Egypt. Charicles is a
humanitarian who educates the little waif Chariclea as his own daughter.
Sisimithres dares withdraw from the human sacrifices proposed by a great
king and people and by his personal authority converts them from such
abominable customs to a purer conception of deity and of worship.
Calasiris in his role of interpreting the events of the story and
solving its problems, in his clear philosophical interests probably
represents Heliodorus himself. [119]
To return to the structure of the romance, the plot with such borrowings
from epic and dramatic poetry, with such characters, some types, some
highly individualized, moves forward in a manner that resembles the
modern cinema. There is no carefully interwoven plot such as tragedy
presents, for example in _Oedipus Rex_. Rather there is a progression of
episodes, each a clear picture in itself, all after many involutions and
evolutions falling into an orderly narrative. Rattenbury thinks that
after Heliodorus’ original beginning which secures the interest and
sympathy of the reader through his curiosity he fails to maintain the
interest throughout. The long retrospective narrative of Calasiris
becomes monotonous. The reader is irritated by the postponement of the
denouement after he as well as the hero and heroine knows the secret of
Chariclea’s parentage. Maillon, however, finds in Heliodorus a great
talent for narration. After the impressive opening scene, he says, from
narrative to narrative, from description to description, one is led
slowly but without ennui to the grandeur of the final chapters. The
variety of the episodes does not detract from the unity of the narrative
because we keep returning to Theagenes and Chariclea in whom we have
been interested from the first. [120]
To me personally the defects in the romance lie not in the long
narrative of Calasiris or in the early revelation of Chariclea’s
identity, but in the excessive use of descriptive passages. Planned
though they undoubtedly are to satisfy the craving of the age for a
knowledge of the novel and the strange, or to give local color, they
retard the development of the story. Often they are prolix and difficult
because of an unfamiliar vocabulary and a complicated sentence
structure. There are many such passages: descriptions of natural
phenomena (the island city in the delta of the Nile, the straits at
Calydon); of curious animals (crocodile and giraffe); of operations of
war (a naval battle, the siege of Syene, the duel of Thyamis and
Petosiris); the religious ceremonies at Delphi. These vary greatly in
clarity and effectiveness, but in general they tend to be verbose and to
retard the narrative. Such descriptions are however one of the
conventional features of the Greek romance. And with all Heliodorus’
originality in plot, in his tripartite structure of epic, dramatic and
cinematic features, he employs all the usual devices of Greek romance.
These are oracle and oath, résumés, conversation and rhetorical
speeches, letters and soliloquies, meditated suicide and apparent death,
dreams and epiphanies. But Heliodorus makes these conventional devices
integral parts of his plot.
The oracle given by the Pythian priestess at Delphi early in the story
motivates the plot until the very end when its meaning is explained and
its prophecy fulfilled. The oath which Chariclea requires of her lover
early in her travels protects her chastity through all the intimacies of
palace apartment and prison dungeons. Résumés of events given several
times by Cnemon, by Calasiris in his long narrative, by Charicles,
clarify and facilitate the plot. [121] Conversation is used constantly on
the battle field or in the boudoir, in palaces, in dungeons. Turn over
the pages of Heliodorus’ Greek as you would a modern novel and test how
often the pages are broken and enlivened by talk. Rhetoric colors some
of the longer speeches, but in the court-room scene (the trial of
Chariclea for poisoning Cybele) the procedure is described but the
speeches are not quoted.
Letters are as important as oracles for the development of the plot. The
letter of Persinna inscribed on the fillet exposed with her child
furnishes the indisputable evidence for the recognition of Chariclea.
The letter in Thisbe’s dead hand is of prime importance in the sub-plot
in announcing to Cnemon the death of his wicked step-mother. Business
letters of Mithranes to Oroondates, of Oroondates to Arsace and to the
eunuch Euphrates, of Hydaspes to the Supreme Council of Ethiopia and to
his queen Persinna furnish documentation for the march of events. The
letter of Oroondates to Hydaspes in the last book prepares the way for
Charicles’ final explanation of his relation to his foster-daughter and
his own recognition of Chariclea.
Soliloquies reveal emotional states and meditated suicide. At Chemmis
one night Chariclea left alone yields to despair and vows that if she
learns Theagenes is dead, she will join him in the shades. An apparent
death nearly precipitates tragedy when in the dark of the cave the body
of Thisbe is mistaken for that of Chariclea. Theagenes bursts into
despairing lamentation and proposes suicide. But Cnemon foreseeing this
has filched his sword and presently the light of Cnemon’s torch reveals
the truth and there ensues a happy reversal of fortune.
Among all these usual features of the plot a new importance is given to
dreams and epiphanies. They are peculiarly significant because of their
bearing on Heliodorus’ philosophical and religious interests. Some
motivate minor events or simply create atmosphere. Thyamis in the night
before the battle with another band of brigands had a vision of Isis who
gave Chariclea to him with the mystic words: “Having her, you will not
have her, but you will be unjust and will kill the stranger. And she
will not be killed. ” At first Thyamis, interpreting the dream in
accordance with his own wishes, thought it meant that he would murder
her virginity, but she would live. Then when the battle went against
him, he changed his interpretation and to save Chariclea from his foes,
killed her (as he thought) in the cave. So Thisbe’s death is explained.
Another dream of little importance is Chariclea’s in which a wild
looking man appeared and pierced her right eye with his sword. Opposing
interpretations are given by Theagenes and Cnemon. The epiphanies,
however, which are vitally significant for the plot all foretell the
final fortunes of the hero and the heroine. To Calasiris Apollo and
Diana appeared, the god leading Theagenes, the goddess Chariclea, and
intrusted them to him. Diana too bade him consider the pair as his
children and take them to Egypt when and how the gods should decree.
Charicles too dreamed that an eagle flew from the hand of Apollo, seized
Chariclea and bore her away from Delphi to a land of dark forms.
Calasiris again had a vision, this time of Odysseus, the great
traveller, who demanded sacrifices and presented Penelope’s blessing on
Chariclea. Calasiris after his death himself appeared simultaneously to
Chariclea and Theagenes, telling the heroine that the Pantarbè jewel
would protect her, and telling the hero that he would be freed from
Arsace and take his Lady to Ethiopia. Hydaspes, when the prisoner
Chariclea is brought before him, recalled a dream that a full-grown
daughter was born to him and the face of this dream-girl was
Chariclea’s. This prepared him for the real recognition of her identity.
Now the validity of these apparitions is sometimes questioned: are they
dreams or visions? The author comments that desire often prompts
favorable interpretation. He has Hydaspes’ officers tell him that the
mind creates for itself fantasies which seem to foretell future events.
He has the optimistic Chariclea encourage Theagenes to trust in the gods
and interpret Calasiris’ prophecies as beneficent. But all the same
Heliodorus motivates his plot by this popular belief in dreams and
epiphanies.
This structural element fits in with the religious-philosophical
coloring of the whole background.
