His chief
function
is to encourage
Chaereas and prevent his suicide.
Chaereas and prevent his suicide.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
As
Rattenbury says: “The Ninus Romance is therefore the only pre-Christian
specimen of its kind; it is indisputably two centuries earlier than the
earliest of the completely extant romances (Charito), and probably as
much earlier than any of the known fragments. ”[18] The remains consist
of two separate fragments with parts of five columns on the first and of
three on the second. Gaselee writes of the content:[19] “in the first
(A) the hero, Ninus, and the heroine (unnamed), deeply in love with one
another, approach each the other’s mother and set forth their love,
asking for a speedy marriage; in the second (B) the young couple seem to
be together at the beginning, but almost immediately Ninus is found
leading an army of his Assyrians, with Greek and Carian allies, against
the Armenian enemy. ”
Fragment A is short enough so that we can read Gaselee’s translation of
it:[20]
Ninus and the maiden were both equally anxious for an immediate
marriage. Neither of them dared to approach their own mothers—Thambe
and Derceia, two sisters, the former Ninus’ mother, the latter the
mother of the girl—but preferred each to address themselves to the
mother of the other: for each felt more confidence towards their aunts
than towards their own parents. So Ninus spoke to Derceia: “Mother,”
said he, “with my oath kept true do I come into thy sight and to the
embrace of my most sweet cousin. This let the gods know first of
all—yes, they do know it, and I will prove it to you now as I speak. I
have travelled over so many lands and been lord over so many nations,
both those subdued by my own spear and those who, as the result of my
father’s might, serve and worship me, that I might have tasted of
every enjoyment to satiety—and, had I done so, perhaps my passion for
my cousin would have been less violent: but now that I have come back
uncorrupted I am worsted by the god of love and by my age; I am, as
thou knowest, in my seventeenth year, and already a year ago have I
been accounted as having come to man’s estate. Up to now I have been
nought but a boy, a child: and if I had had no experience of the power
of Aphrodite, I should have been happy in my firm strength. But now
that I have been taken prisoner—thy daughter’s prisoner, in no
shameful wise, but agreeably to the desires both of thee and her, how
long must I bear refusal?
“That men of this age of mine are ripe for marriage, is clear enough:
how many have kept themselves unspotted until their fifteenth year?
But I am injured by a law, not a written law, but one sanctified by
foolish custom, that among our people virgins generally marry at
fifteen years. Yet what sane man could deny that nature is the best
law for unions such as this? Why, women of fourteen years can
conceive, and some, I vow, even bear children at that age. Then is not
thy daughter to be wed? ‘Let us wait for two years,’ you will say: let
us be patient, mother, but will Fate wait? I am a mortal man and
betrothed to a mortal maid: and I am subject not merely to the common
fortunes of all men—diseases, I mean, and that Fate which often
carries off those who stay quietly at home by their own fire-sides;
but sea-voyages are waiting for me, and wars after wars, and I am not
the one to shew any lack of daring and to employ cowardice to afford
me safety, but I am what you know I am, to avoid vulgar boasting. Let
the fact that I am a king, my strong desire, the unstable and
incalculable future that awaits me, let all these hasten our union,
let the fact that we are each of us only children be provided for and
anticipated, so that if Fate wills us anything amiss, we may at least
leave you some pledge of our affection. Perhaps you will call me
shameless for speaking to you of this: but I should indeed have been
shameless if I had privily approached the maiden, trying to snatch a
secret enjoyment, and satisfying our common passion by the
intermediaries of night or wine, or servants, or tutors: but there is
nothing shameful in me speaking to thee, a mother, about thy
daughter’s marriage that has been so long the object of thy vows, and
asking for what thou hast promised, and beseeching that the prayers
both of our house and of the whole kingdom may not lack fulfilment
beyond the present time. ”
So did he speak to the willing Derceia, and easily compelled her to
come to terms on the matter: and when she had for a while dissembled,
she promised to act as his advocate. Meanwhile although the maiden’s
passion was equally great, yet her speech with Thambe was not equally
ready and free; she had ever lived within the women’s apartments, and
could not so well speak for herself in a fair shew of words: she asked
for an audience—wept, and desired to speak, but ceased as soon as she
had begun. As soon as she had shewn that she was desirous of pleading,
she would open her lips and look up as if about to speak, but could
finally utter nothing: she heaved with broken sobs, her cheeks
reddened in shame at what she must say, and then as she tried to
improvise a beginning, grew pale again: and her fear was something
between alarm and desire and shame as she shrank from the avowal; and
then, as her affections got the mastery of her and her purpose failed,
she kept swaying with inward disturbance between her varying emotions.
But Thambe wiped away her tears with her hands and bade her boldly
speak out whatever she wished to say. But when she could not succeed,
and the maiden was still held back by her sorrow, “This,” cried
Thambe, “I like better than any words thou couldst utter. Blame not my
son at all: he has made no over-bold advance, and he has not come back
from his successes and his victories like a warrior with any mad and
insolent intention against thee: I trust that thou hast not seen any
such intention in his eyes. Is the law about the time of marriage too
tardy for such a happy pair? Truly my son is in all haste to wed: nor
needest thou weep for this that any will try to force thee at all”:
and at the same time with a smile she embraced and kissed her. Yet not
even then could the maiden venture to speak, so great was her fear
(_or_, her joy), but she rested her beating heart against the other’s
bosom, and kissing her more closely still seemed almost ready to speak
freely of her desires through her former tears and her present joy.
The two sisters therefore met together, and Derceia spoke first. “As
to the actual (marriage? ),” said she. . . . ”
In fragment B the seventeen-year-old warrior is found marshalling his
forces, “seventy thousand chosen Assyrian foot and thirty thousand
horse, and a hundred and fifty elephants,” and at the end beginning the
advance at the head of his cavalry:
And stretching out his hands as if (offering sacrifice? ), “This,” he
cried, “is the foundation and crisis of my hopes: from this day I shall
begin some greater career, or I shall fall from the power I now
possess. ”[21]
In this Ninus Romance as we have it, the name of the heroine is not
mentioned, but her mother’s name is Derceia and that is a close variant
of Derceto, the name of the divine mother of Semiramis in the usual
legend. So although the type is different from that of the queen of
Babylon, the character is probably hers. It seems evident that this
early novelist was, then, building his romance around historical
characters. Rattenbury points this out and also shows conclusively that
the characteristics of all the other romances are indisputably present
in this early fragmentary story:[22]
“The impetuous but honest Ninus reappears clearly enough in the
Theagenes of Heliodorus, and the lovesick maiden of unassailable
virtue and almost intolerable modesty might be the heroine of any
Greek romance. ”
Ninus pledges his faith as later heroes take an oath. He like them is
the toy of Eros or Aphrodite. In the extant romances,
“The characters, the treatment, and even the plots are almost
stereotyped; and yet one difference is observable—a tendency to
abandon an ostensibly historical background in favour of a purely
fictitious setting. The relative dates of the authors are by no means
certain, but the fortunate discovery of papyrus fragments of Charito
and Achilles Tatius supports the view, probable on other grounds, that
Charito is to be considered the earliest, and Achilles Tatius the
latest. It is therefore of interest to notice that Charito, though his
hero and heroine are creatures of his imagination, introduces some
historical characters and some historical events; his main story is
fictitious, but he seems to have been at pains to lend it a historical
flavour. Heliodorus, somewhat later, presents a picture of a fairly
definite historical period, but no more; his characters are all
fictitious and there is no historical authority for the sequence of
events which he describes. Achilles Tatius degrades romance from the
realm of princes to the level of the bourgeoisie. His story is frankly
fictitious, and he evidently had no feeling that romance should be
related to history. ”
Rattenbury goes on to illustrate his theory of the change from the
semi-historical to the purely fictitious romance by a study of the
Alexander Romance and the new fragments of other stories. The
pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance in the oldest version extant is
dated about A. D. 300. But papyrus fragments indicate that a large part
of the material in it goes back to a time shortly after Alexander’s
death. From the evidence of our late pseudo-Callisthenes version which
probably followed tradition it would seem that history was treated as
fiction and little attention paid to the love-story of Roxane which
could have furnished such a lively erotic interest. New fragments of
other romances show other great rulers used as heroes. [23] One is the
Egyptian prince, Sesonchosis, called by the Greeks Sesostris.
Mythological characters too become protagonists in romances: Achilles
and Polyxena; the Egyptian Tefnut, daughter of Phre, the sun-god, who
took her adventures in the shape of a cat wandering in the desert of
Ethiopia. Other fragments run true to the general type of the Greek
Romances in manifesting now this, now that characteristic.
The sum total of all the fragments discovered up to date gives
convincing evidence of two important facts: first, the extant Greek
Romances are only a small part of the output of this genre; second, the
dating of all the fragments places them between the end of the first and
the beginning of the fourth century of our era. The Ninus Romance is the
earliest fragment, Chariton’s the earliest complete romance, that of
Achilles Tatius the latest. On this framework a chronological list of
the extant novels arranged on the basis of proved data and the
probabilities of internal evidence and comparisons, shapes like this:
The Greek Romances
_Date_ _Author_ _Title_
I Century B. C. Unknown The Ninus Romance (frag. )
Before A. D. 150 Chariton of Chaereas and Callirhoe
Aphrodisias
II Century A. D. Lucian of Samosata A True History Lucius or
Ass (an epitome of the
lost _Metamorphoses_)
II-III Centuries Xenophon of Ephesus Ephesiaca, Habrocomes and
A. D. Anthia
II-III Centuries Heliodorus of Emesa Aethiopica, Theagenes and
A. D. Chariclea
II-III Centuries Longus Daphnis and Chloe
A. D.
About A. D. 300 Achilles Tatius of Clitophon and Leucippe
Alexandria
_Byzantine_
XII Century A. D. Eustathius Hysmine and Hysminias
XII Century A. D. Nicetas Eugenianus Charicles and Drusilla
(verse)
XII Century A. D. Theodorus Prodromus Dosicles and Rhodanthe
(verse)
XII Century A. D. Constantine Aristander and Callithea
Manasses (verse)
Also known by translation or abstract
II-III Centuries Unknown Apollonius of Tyre (Latin
A. D. translation)
II-III Centuries Iamblichus, a Babyloniaca, Rhodanes and
A. D. Syrian Sinonis (abstract in
Photius)
II-III Centuries Antonius Diogenes The Wonderful Things
A. D. beyond Thule (abstract
in Photius)
Not before A. D. pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance
300
It is to be observed that from internal evidence Xenophon of Ephesus
probably came before Heliodorus. Longus is _sui generis_, and so stands
apart from the typical genre of the novels; in fact is a unique specimen
of another type, the pastoral romance.
The new discoveries from the papyri with the consequent re-dating of all
known material has given a strong impetus to new study of Greek
Romances; new editions of text with translation are being brought out by
English, French, Italian and American scholars. [24] The introductions to
some of these editions, especially those of Calderini and Dalmeyda, are
the first distinguished literary work in the field since Rohde with the
exception of Samuel Lee Wolff’s monograph on _The Greek Romances in
Elizabethan Prose Fiction_, New York, 1912.
The time has now come for a literary study in English which will make
available foreign criticism and present perhaps some new ideas. I plan
to discuss in successive chapters Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus,
Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius and Longus, and to suggest something of
their influence. Then I shall take up the Λούκιος ἢ ὄνος attributed to
Lucian and his _True History_ and finally I shall show the synthesis of
the novel of adventure and the true Greek romance of love in the great
Latin novel, Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_.
II
_CHARITON’S_ CHAEREAS AND CALLIRHOE
There are two reasons for beginning a perusal of the Greek Romances with
Chariton’s _Chaereas and Callirhoe_. It is “the earliest Greek romance
of which the text has been completely preserved. ” It is “a lively tale
of adventure in which a nobly born heroine is kidnapped across the sea
from Syracuse to Asia Minor, where her beauty causes many complications
and she is finally rescued by her dashing lover. ” I quote from Warren E.
Blake whose publication of the Greek text and a literary translation of
it are a monument to American scholarship.
The date of the manuscript of this novel has been proved to be not later
than the middle of the second century A. D. , by the recent discoveries of
papyrus fragments of it. [25] Warren Blake comments on the significance
of these discoveries:[26]
“In view of the complete absence in ancient literature of any certain
allusion to Chariton, he was long supposed to be the latest of the
authors of Greek romance, and was dated, purely by conjecture, about
500 A. D. But by a turn of fortune as truly remarkable as any
attributed by Chariton himself to that fickle goddess, three scraps of
his book have been turned up in Egypt during the last forty years. One
of these scraps was found in company with some business documents
which date from about the end of the second century of our era.
Inasmuch as the place of discovery was a small country town to which
new works of literature would not likely penetrate immediately on
publication, and since in any case an expensive book is almost sure to
be preserved longer than day-by-day business papers, we seem quite
justified in setting the date of publication back some twenty-five or
even fifty years. Thus it is probable that this novel was written at
least as early as the middle of the second century, only about one
hundred years later than most of the books of the New Testament. ”
The identity of the author is made known by the first sentence: “I am
Chariton of Aphrodisia, secretary to the advocate Athenagoras. ”
Aphrodisia was a town in Caria in southern Asia Minor. Its locality
helps little in expanding the autobiography of the author out of this
one crisp sentence. But the romance itself reveals more of his
personality. His fondness for court-room scenes and his elaborate
descriptions of them are what we would expect from a secretary to a
ῥήτωρ or advocate. His learning is evident from his many literary and
mythological references. And occasionally he steps out of the role of
the impersonal narrator into his own character and speaks in the first
person to his reader. We will come to feel rather sure of his interests
and tastes as we read his πάθος ἐρωτικόν.
Before proceeding to outline the plot of the eight books of this
romance, it will be well to clarify the story by presenting a list of
the characters.
The chief characters are:
_Chaereas_, the handsome young Greek hero, son of Ariston of Syracuse
_Callirhoe_, the beautiful young Greek heroine, daughter of
Hermocrates, a famous general of Syracuse
_Polycharmus_, a young Greek, the devoted friend of Chaereas
_Hermocrates_, the general of Syracuse
_Theron_, a pirate
_Dionysius_, the governor of Miletus
_Mithridates_, satrap of Caria
_Artaxerxes_, king of the Persians
_Statira_, his wife, queen of the Persians
_Pharnaces_, the governor of Lydia and Ionia
_Rhodogyne_, the sister of Pharnaces, daughter of Zopyrus, wife of
Megabyzus, a Persian beauty.
The minor characters of importance are:
_Leonas_, a slave-dealer of Miletus
_Plangon_, a female slave of Dionysius
_Phocas_, slave and overseer of Dionysius, husband of Plangon
_Artaxates_, the eunuch of Artaxerxes
_Hyginus_, a servant of Mithridates.
The list of characters reveals at once a connection of Chariton’s novel
with the Ninus Romance because of the use of historical characters.
Hermocrates, the great general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians in
the naval battle, 414 B. C. , is the father of the heroine and is referred
to repeatedly with the greatest pride. Artaxerxes, the king of the
Persians, appears in person in courts and in wars. Historical events too
are mentioned as if to give a background of reality: the contests
between the Syracusans and the Athenians; the war between the Greeks and
the Persians; the rebellion of Egypt against Persia; the merit of Cyrus
the Great in organizing the army.
Against such a background of plausible reality, the plot develops along
three main lines of interest: love, adventure and religion. The story
begins with the introduction of the radiant young hero and heroine of
Syracuse when they fall in love at first sight at a festival of
Aphrodite. Almost immediately they are married, but their ecstatic
happiness is short, for Callirhoe’s many other suitors, angry at her
choice, plot revenge. They make her husband jealous by false stories of
a lover whom his bride favors, and, by staging a surreptitious admission
to his house of a lover of Callirhoe’s maid, convince Chaereas that his
wife is faithless. In passionate fury he dashes to his wife’s room and
when Callirhoe overjoyed at his unexpected return rushes to meet him, he
kicks her with such violence in the middle of her body that she falls
down, to all appearance dead. Chaereas is tried for murder and pleads
for his own condemnation, but is acquitted against his will by the
appeal of Hermocrates.
Callirhoe is now given a magnificent funeral and buried with much
treasure. The heroine, however, who had only fainted, soon revives, but
while she is bemoaning her sad fate, a band of pirates, led by Theron,
breaks open the tomb, steals the treasure, kidnaps the girl, then sets
sail with all speed for the east. At Miletus, Theron sells Callirhoe as
a slave to Dionysius, a noble Ionian prince. He soon falls in love with
his slave, but learning her story (except the fact that she was already
married which Callirhoe omits) respects her tragic position and woos her
with delicacy and consideration. Callirhoe, on finding that she is two
months with child, decides to accept the advice of the maid Plangon and
marry Dionysius to give her baby a father. Plangon assures Callirhoe
that the child will be considered a premature seven months baby, and she
secures from Dionysius a promise to bring up as his honored children any
sons of the marriage. Book III tells how Chaereas found the tomb empty;
how Theron was captured, forced to tell the truth by torture and
crucified; how Chaereas and his bosom friend Polycharmus went on a
warship to Miletus in search of Callirhoe but were captured and sold as
slaves to Mithridates, satrap of Caria.
Now Mithridates too had fallen in love with Callirhoe on seeing her at
Miletus. On returning to Caria he discovers the identity of his slave
Chaereas just in time to save him from crucifixion because of an
uprising of his fellow-slaves, and tells him that his wife is now
married to Dionysius. Chaereas writes a letter to Callirhoe full of
penitence and of love and Mithridates forwards it by Hyginus, his
faithful slave, adding another letter of his own promising Chaereas and
Callirhoe his aid. Unfortunately these letters fall into the hands of
Dionysius himself and that noble prince, in his mad passion for his
wife, conceals from her the news that Chaereas is alive and makes a plot
for the protection of his own interests. He appeals to Pharnaces,
governor of Lydia and Ionia, who is also in love with Callirhoe, to help
a scheme he has made. Pharnaces thus prompted writes a letter to
Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, accusing Mithridates of trying to
corrupt Dionysius’ wife. The great King then summons Mithridates to a
trial for plotting adultery and sends also for Dionysius and Callirhoe.
The court scene is full of magnificence and surprises. Mithridates has
no fear because in answer to the denunciations of Dionysius he is able
to produce as a witness Chaereas who swears to his innocence and
friendship. Mithridates is acquitted and departs. Then the King
dismisses the court for five days before adjudging whose wife Callirhoe
is to be since now she has two living husbands. Meanwhile he intrusts
the lady for safe keeping to his wife, Statira. Dionysius is torn
between the promptings of passion and reason. Chaereas is in despair at
the possibility of losing Callirhoe again. And Artaxerxes, the King,
like all the other great gentlemen in the story, falls madly in love
with Callirhoe for her beauty.
The King’s passion makes him postpone the court trial a month on the
pretext of a dream which demanded sacrifice to the gods. His eunuch
tries to persuade the heroine to do herself the honor of submitting to
the King’s embraces, but only horrifies and offends her purity. Now
Fortune again takes a hand in separating once more Chaereas and
Callirhoe, for a revolt of the Egyptians is announced, the King must be
off to war, and as usual the queen and her suite go with him. Callirhoe
accompanies the queen by royal orders.
Dionysius of course serves as one of the King’s generals. He has a
crafty piece of news conveyed to Chaereas that in reward for his
faithful service the King had given him Callirhoe. Chaereas, believing
this false story, and no longer caring to live, enlists with the
faithful Polycharmus in the Egyptian army to fight against his rival. He
is allowed to collect an army of three hundred Greeks in memory of
Thermopylae and with them captures Tyre. News of this loss makes the
Persian King so anxious that he decides not to travel with all his
retinue, but to leave the women on the little island of Aradus. Chaereas
who is proving a valiant warrior soon takes the island and discovers
Callirhoe among his captives. Both faint on seeing each other but since
joy never kills, they soon recover and reunited tell all and forgive
all.
Word suddenly comes that the Persian King has defeated the Egyptians and
their King is dead. Chaereas and his men decide to sail home to
Syracuse, but first in response to the plea of Callirhoe Chaereas sends
his prisoner, the queen Statira, back to the King because she had
befriended Callirhoe in her woes. Callirhoe without the knowledge of
Chaereas writes a beautiful and affectionate letter of farewell to
Dionysius, intrusting to him the care of her son. (Dionysius still
believes he is the boy’s father! ) The ship of Chaereas is driven by fair
winds to Sicily where Hermocrates and the people of Syracuse receive the
hero and heroine in amazement and joy. Chaereas tells the story of all
their adventures and Callirhoe ends the tale with a prayer to Aphrodite:
“I beg thee, never again part me from Chaereas, but grant us both a
happy life, and death together. ”
With this simple outline of the plot before us let us study the way in
which the story is told. Notable first of all are the shifting scenes,
for the action moves rapidly from Syracuse, to Miletus, to Caria, to
Babylon, to the sea, to Tyre, to the island of Aradus and then at last
back to Syracuse after the full circle of adventures. The contrast
between the free Greek city of Syracuse and the oriental kingdoms is
constantly emphasized, but it is the love of adventure for adventure’s
sake that spices the narrative. The settings include, besides
picturesque descriptions of localities, court-room scenes which are full
of contrasts: the murder-trial of Chaereas in Syracuse and the trial of
Theron also; the arraignment of Mithridates for adultery before the
Great King in Babylon. Pageantry of weddings and of religious ceremonies
also enrich the plot.
The characters are painted in bold, rich colors. Hero and heroine are so
beautiful that they can be compared only to great works of art: Chaereas
resembles the pictures and statues of Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus,
Alcibiades. Callirhoe is now Aphrodite incarnate, now Artemis. Love is
enflamed by their great beauty and enters through their eyes at their
first sight of each other. Chaereas is proud and arrogant because of his
looks and so passionate that he is unrestrained in his anger when he
believes Callirhoe false. The kick which he gave his bride is a blot on
his character which the reader finds harder to condone than Callirhoe
did. She declares that cruel Fortune forced her husband to this act, for
he never before had struck even a slave. He is also so mercurial that he
repeatedly gives way to despair and is repeatedly saved from committing
suicide by his devoted friend and companion, Polycharmus. He appears in
more heroic guise as a warrior when he joins the Egyptians against
Artaxerxes and Dionysius, resolved to die in battle, and wins a great
naval victory. He is generous in sending the captive queen back to her
lord. And he fulfills the ideals of romantic chivalry by declaring to
Callirhoe at the end that she is the mistress of his soul.
Callirhoe like Helen had the gift of fatal beauty so that all men who
saw her fell in love with her and she incurred for a time the jealousy
of Aphrodite. But in spite of every temptation her spirit remained
virginal and she was persuaded to marry Dionysius only to give a nominal
father to her unborn child. She meets misfortune with natural tears, but
with more fortitude than Chaereas shows. And she rules her anger even
when the eunuch of King Artaxerxes makes insulting proposals to her by
remembering that she had been well brought up and as a Greek taught
self-control. She handles difficult situations with a woman’s intuitive
tact as when she writes a consoling farewell letter to Dionysius,
without letting her husband have the pain of knowing of it and its
tenderness. By it she secures Dionysius’ care for the son he still
believes his own. She wins from Chaereas with gentle tact a promise to
send back the captives Statira and the beautiful Rhodogyne to the
Persians. And in meek devotion at the end she essays to win even the
goddess Aphrodite to complete reconciliation.
Polycharmus is a type more than an individual, for he is to Chaereas
what Achates was to Aeneas, the faithful friend who accompanies him
through all adventures. With boyish zeal, he hides from his parents in
Syracuse his plan to go with Chaereas on his search for Callirhoe, but
he appears on the stern of the ship as it sails in time to wave a
farewell to his father and mother.
His chief function is to encourage
Chaereas and prevent his suicide. At the end on their return to Syracuse
he is rewarded by being given Chaereas’ sister for a bride and a part of
the spoils of war for a dowry.
Dionysius is a sympathetic and noble character; indeed his sins are all
for love. He is in deep mourning for his dead wife when Callirhoe is
purchased as a slave by his manager. Although he believes that no person
who is not free-born can be truly beautiful, he is overwhelmed with love
at the first sight of Callirhoe. With tactful sympathy he draws out her
story and believes it. He never forces his passion upon her, but woos
her delicately through his maid-servant, Plangon, and is overjoyed when
Callirhoe finally consents to legal marriage for the purpose of raising
a family. Even then in spite of his desire he delays the marriage that
he may do Callirhoe the honor of a great wedding in the city. His
happiness is complete to his mind when after seven months a son is born.
So it is because of his sincere love that when he hears that a Syracusan
warship has arrived to demand Callirhoe back, he commends his slave
Phocas who out of loyalty to his master had persuaded barbarians to
destroy the ship and its crew. Dionysius’ only anxiety is that since
some of the men escaped, Chaereas may still be alive. This last fact he
conceals from Callirhoe and to comfort her for Chaereas’ supposed death
persuades her to erect a cenotaph to her first husband’s memory. Later
when he receives the intercepted letter of Chaereas to Callirhoe, he
faints with grief and fear, but coming to he believes the letter forged
as part of a plot of Mithridates to win the favor of his bride, so he
accuses Mithridates to the Great King. Summoned to Babylon to the trial
he is in constant terror, for “he looked on all men as his rivals”
knowing the devastating effects of Callirhoe’s beauty. When Chaereas is
produced alive in the trial, he argues valiantly for the retention of
his wife with some telling thrusts at Chaereas, but finally when he has
lost his love, he bears his grief like a man, having remarkable
self-control, treasuring Callirhoe’s affectionate letter as true solace,
and devoting himself to her son. Dionysius, as Callirhoe reminds him
once, is a Greek with a Greek education.
Among the orientals, resplendent princes appear often only to be
numbered among the disconsolate lovers of Callirhoe and because of their
passion to assist in furthering the complications of the plot. Such are
Mithridates and Pharnaces. More individualized portraits are painted of
King Artaxerxes and Queen Statira. Oriental magnificence is the aura of
the Great King’s personality whether he appears presiding in the
court-room, or hunting in Tyrian purple with golden dagger and elegant
bow and arrow on his caparisoned horse, or riding to war with his great
army and his retinue: his queen, her attendants, his eunuchs, all their
gold and silver and fine raiment. Yet through this rich setting appears
a wise ruler who takes counsel of his advisers in times of crises,
listens judiciously to evidence in the court-room, and in war follows
the military traditions of Cyrus the Great. But he has his human side:
is influenced by wine, loneliness and the dark, and succumbs to
Callirhoe’s beauty though he is married to a great and subtle queen.
Hoping to win the object of his passion he is not above machinations
with his eunuch who acts as his go-between and with optimistic hope of
success even has Callirhoe taken along with the queen when he goes to
war. Yet when Statira is restored to him by Chaereas’ magnanimity, he
welcomes her warmly although her news that Callirhoe is with Chaereas is
like “a fresh blow upon an old wound. ” He appears most human after
hearing Statira’s story of all that happened, for he is filled with
varied emotions: wrath at the capture of his dear ones, sorrow at the
departure of Chaereas, and final gratitude that Chaereas had ended the
possibility of his seeing Callirhoe. Out of his own conflict of
emotions, he breaks gently to Dionysius the news of his loss of
Callirhoe and calls him away from personal sorrow by giving him higher
responsibility in the realm. Artaxerxes is really made to appear in the
novel as the Great King.
Statira is no less the queen. She is delighted when her husband suddenly
intrusts Callirhoe to her care, regarding his action as an honor and a
sign of confidence. She encourages Callirhoe with tactful sympathy and
secures needed rest for her, keeping away the curious ladies who hurry
to the palace to call. After a few days Statira can not resist asking
Callirhoe which husband she preferred, but her curiosity is not rewarded
for Callirhoe only weeps. As time goes on Statira’s jealousy is aroused
because Callirhoe’s beauty outshines her own and because she is fully
aware of the significance of the King’s more frequent visits to the
women’s quarters. So when Artaxerxes is preparing to start off for war,
the queen does not ask what will become of Callirhoe because she does
not wish to have to take her, but the King at the end demands her
presence. Apparently Statira never betrayed her jealousy to Callirhoe,
for after Chaereas took captive all the women in Aradus, Callirhoe has
only praise for her kindness to relate to Chaereas and calls Statira her
dearest friend. Her generous happiness in being able to return Statira’s
courtesy by sending her back to her husband wins from Statira a just
encomium: “You have shown a noble nature, one that is worthy of your
beauty. It was a happy sponsorship indeed which the King intrusted to
me. ” Callirhoe on parting commends her child to the queen’s care and
secretly consigns to the queen her letter to Dionysius. Statira is still
a subtle enough woman to enjoy telling the King at once on her return
without her rival: “You have me as a gift from Callirhoe. ”
Set off against the Great King of the Persians is Hermocrates, the
general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians. His greatness as an
admiral is matched by his leadership as a citizen. At the trial of
Chaereas for the murder of Callirhoe it is Hermocrates whose generous
plea in his daughter’s name secures from the people a vote of acquittal.
He listens to the wish of the people assembled when they urge him to
marry his daughter to Chaereas. When Theron, the pirate, is captured and
the crowd at Syracuse is milling about him, Hermocrates insists on a
public trial for him in accordance with the laws and after the evidence
is presented it is by a vote of the people that he is condemned. Then
Hermocrates asks the people to vote to send a ship in search of his
kidnapped daughter as a reward for his patriotic services. Callirhoe’s
pride centers in her father no less than in her Greek blood. Her reunion
with her father at the end of the romance is almost as moving as her
restoral to Chaereas. Hermocrates shines forth in untarnished glory as a
patriotic admiral, a leader of thought in a democratic state, and a
devoted father.
The minor parts are painted with less subtlety. Theron, the villain of
the story, is a black-hearted pirate dominated only by gain and
self-interest, ready to save his life at the expense of his
fellow-sailors. Slaves are presented as vivaciously as they are in
comedy. Plangon, the maid of Dionysius, is a shrewd, cunning
opportunist, ready to serve her master’s interests but not without
kindness to the distraught Callirhoe in her plight of pregnancy.
Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes, is venal, wily, complaisant and
low-minded. As the confidant of Artaxerxes he takes his cues from his
master’s words, and solicits his favor by an attempt to seduce
Callirhoe’s heart for him. As a eunuch, a slave and a barbarian (says
Chariton) he could not conceive that Callirhoe would not yield to the
wishes of the King. When he is unable to persuade her by flattery, he
threatens her with the King’s vengeance. And when her words betray her
love for Chaereas, Artaxates can call her only a poor, foolish girl for
preferring a slave to the Great King of the Persians.
The use of the crowd by Chariton is another link between his romance and
drama, for it often fulfills the function assumed by the chorus in
tragedy, that is, the part of the spectator who comments on the action
and interprets it. It is the people of Syracuse in assembly that
persuades Hermocrates to wed his daughter to Chaereas. The crowd votes
the crucifixion of Theron and attends it. At Miletus the crowd joins in
Dionysius’ prayer to Aphrodite to protect Callirhoe and her son. The
crowd at Babylon is struck dumb with amazement at the radiance of
Callirhoe. And when the Great King is to decide whether Chaereas or
Dionysius is to be her husband, all Babylon becomes a court-room as the
people discuss the rival partners. At the end of the romance, all the
harbor of Syracuse is filled with men to watch the ship come in, and
when Chaereas and Callirhoe are revealed on it, the crowd bursts into
tears. All rush to the theater and demand that there at once Chaereas
tell them his adventures. “Tell us everything,” they keep shouting. They
groan at his misfortunes. They offer prayers for the future of his son.
They shout assent to his proposal to make his three hundred valiant
Greek soldiers fellow-citizens of Syracuse. Indeed the crowd is
constantly the background of the action of the romance.
Various mechanical devices used in the development of the plot show
Chariton’s art of narration. Conversation as any novel demands is
constantly used. Soliloquies are introduced frequently: at some
emotional crisis, Chariton, instead of describing the thoughts and
feelings of his characters, has them burst into speech to themselves.
Callirhoe on hearing of the supposed loss of Chaereas with the warship
laments his death and the destruction of her father’s gallant vessel.
Later beside the Euphrates river when she can no longer see “the ocean
which led back to Syracuse,” she upbraids cruel Fortune for driving her
farther and farther from home. Again, in horror at the proposals of the
eunuch, she laments all her misfortunes and expresses her resolve to die
as befits Hermocrates’ daughter rather than become the mistress of the
Great King. So too Dionysius on the return of Chaereas, after attempts
at self-control, bursts forth with despair and jealousy into a lament
over the imminent loss of his love. At the same time Chaereas, believing
that Callirhoe loves Dionysius and will never return to him from the
wealthy Ionian, utters a bitter lament before attempting to hang
himself.
Letters also are an important means of developing the plot in the Greek
Romances, especially in Chariton. He uses seven letters. [27] Chaereas’
first letter to Callirhoe is an impassioned love-letter with an appeal
for forgiveness and for an assurance that she still loves him. This is a
crucial letter in the plot because it is sent by Bias of Priene to
Dionysius himself who conceals it from Callirhoe. Bias sends a brief
business letter with it. Pharnaces, governor of Lydia, on the
instigation of Dionysius writes a letter to Artaxerxes accusing
Mithridates of trying to seduce Dionysius’ wife. This letter is
important for the plot, because it motivates the trial of Mithridates.
The Great King on receiving it dispatches two laconic business letters
to Pharnaces summoning Dionysius and to Mithridates calling him to
trial. The other two letters do not affect the plot, but reveal the
characters of the senders. These are the letters in Book VIII of
Chaereas to Artaxerxes and of Callirhoe to Dionysius. Chaereas proudly
sends back Statira unharmed as the gift of Callirhoe to the Great King.
Callirhoe with a woman’s intuition comforts Dionysius for her loss by
gratitude for his protection, by assuring him that she is with him in
spirit in the presence of her son whom she intrusts to his care. She
begs him not to marry again, but to bring up the daughter of his first
wife and her own son, eventually marry them to each other and send him
to Syracuse to see his grandfather. She includes a message to Plangon
and ends with an appeal to good Dionysius to remember his Callirhoe. It
is hardly strange that Callirhoe concealed this masterpiece of
epistolography from her jealous husband, Chaereas.
The taking of an oath is often an important feature of Greek Romances.
In Chariton, Dionysius swears solemnly by the sea, by Aphrodite and by
Eros that he will marry Callirhoe according to the Greek laws “for the
begetting of children” and will bring up any child she bears. [28] Dreams
too play their part in the plot. In a dream Dionysius sees an apparition
of his dead wife as she looked on her wedding-day. His slave Leonas
interprets the dream as prophetic of his coming happiness with the newly
purchased slave, Callirhoe. [29] Callirhoe in her sleep sees a phantom of
Chaereas who says to her: “My wife, I intrust our son to you. ” This
dream determines her to bring up her baby and so to marry Dionysius. [30]
In Babylon when she is dreading having to appear in court, she has a
dream of her happy wedding to Chaereas in Syracuse. The maid Plangon
interprets the dream as a good omen for future happiness. [31] King
Artaxerxes had a dream of gods demanding sacrifice so he proclaimed a
festival of thirty days throughout Asia. This delayed his decision
between Chaereas and Dionysius, hence was most important for the plot
because wars arose before the court was held and in them Chaereas and
Callirhoe came together. [32]
Apparent deaths are a common device of the Greek novelists and
Chariton’s plot turns on two, the supposed death of Callirhoe from
Chaereas’ blow and her subsequent burial; the reported death of Chaereas
on his warship. Concomitant with such deaths are the unexpected
reappearances which add the element of surprise, so essential for the
characters and the crowd.
Descriptive passages are few and brief in Chariton and are often worked
out in a suggestive simile rather than in a conspicuous purple patch.
Chaereas was as “radiant as a star. The flush of exercise bloomed on his
glowing face like gold on silver. ” Callirhoe, recognizing her lover,
became more stately and lovely than ever, as a flickering lamp again
flares up when oil is poured in. [33] Public ceremonies are described at
more length: the funeral procession of Callirhoe,[34] her wedding to
Dionysius. [35] Space is given too to the description of Artaxerxes’
hunt, that favorite ancient sport;[36] to storm at sea;[37] to war. [38]
But all these descriptions are concise in their picturesqueness.
Finally clarity in the narrative is secured by repeated résumés of the
story either by the characters or by the author himself. Callirhoe tells
her tragic tale to Dionysius with such sincerity that he believes it and
honors her as a free-born woman. [39] Polycharmus relates his adventures
with Chaereas to Mithridates and thereby saves his friend and himself
from crucifixion. [40] Chaereas at the end unfolds the whole Odyssey of
his wanderings to the populace in the theater of Syracuse. [41] At the
beginning of Book V Chariton epitomizes all the preceding part of the
novel and at the beginning of Book VIII he recapitulates the preceding
book and reassures his audience about the final book.
“Furthermore, I think that this last book will be the most pleasant of
all to my readers, and in fact will serve as an antidote to the tragic
events of the former ones. No more piracy or slavery or court trials
or battles or suicide or war or capture here, but true love and lawful
marriage! And so I am going to tell you how the goddess brought the
truth to light and revealed the unsuspecting lovers to each other. ”
The happy ending which Chariton here forecasts is an essential feature
of a Greek romance. For in this type of literature in which Chariton is
a pioneer, virtue must triumph. The ethics demands that the hero and
heroine must be noble in character as well as in station and that
therefore justice must be done to virtue. The hero we have seen must
possess personal courage and military courage. He must be capable of
emotional devotion, first of all to his lady, then to his friend, and
always to his father. His faults are those of pride, arrogance and
passion and his moments of brutality are condoned by his contemporaries
on account of his passionate temperament. He can be generous to his
foes. He can show pity to the unfortunate. But his sympathies, even when
the type is embodied in as noble a character as Dionysius, are evoked by
the free-born in distress, rarely by slaves. The virtues of the heroine
are first of all chastity, then loyal devotion to parents, husband and
child, pride of family, generosity of spirit and sympathy. She is
capable of resolute decision and heroic action if her chastity is
menaced or her dear ones are in danger. Standards different from our own
best ones appear in the general attitude towards slaves as an inferior
class and in the brutality manifested in the hero’s kick, in executions
on the cross, in torture of witnesses. Cleverness and deception are
traits which are prized more highly than we admit now. The noblest
sentiments expressed are in behalf of liberty and patriotism.
Religion plays so important a part in the romance that it demands a full
treatment. Chariton’s novel is dominated by two cults: the worship of
the abstract goddess Fortune, the worship of the goddess of love,
Aphrodite. At the end of Book I Callirhoe, just after she has been sold
as a slave, in a soliloquy, upbraids cruel Fortune for all her troubles,
for the goddess made her lover her murderer, surrendered her to
tomb-robbers and now has let her be sold as a slave. Again Callirhoe,
when she finds that she is pregnant, reproaches Fortune for letting her
bear a child to be a slave. And on the banks of the Euphrates in another
soliloquy Callirhoe again charges Fortune with all her miseries and
blames her for taking “delight in persecuting one lone girl. ”
Mithridates tells Chaereas: “The whims of Fortune have involved you in
this melancholy drama. ” Queen Statira, when captured, exclaims that
Fortune has preserved her to see this day of slavery. And the author of
the romance as well as the characters repeatedly attributes to Fortune
the strange and sad misadventures of his hero and heroine. Callirhoe,
Chariton says, “was overcome by the stratagems of Fortune, against whom
alone human reason has no power. She is a divinity who loves opposition,
and there is nothing which may not be expected of her. ” Throughout the
romance Fortune seems to be conceived not as blind chance, but as a
baleful goddess, who takes delight in cruelty and torture.
In conflict with her machinations is the power of the goddess of love
whom the young lovers worship. As clearly as in a Greek tragedy
Aphrodite’s influence is predominant throughout the romance. At the very
beginning, Chaereas and Callirhoe see each other for the first time at a
festival of the goddess and immediately fall in love. The end of the
romance is the prayer of thanks which Callirhoe offers to Aphrodite in
her temple at Syracuse. Callirhoe is so beautiful that over and over she
seems Aphrodite incarnate, now to the slave-dealer, Leonas, now to
Dionysius, now to the crowd at the time of her marriage to Dionysius,
now in Babylon. Prayers for aid are constantly offered to the goddess by
Callirhoe, by Chaereas, by Dionysius, by Artaxerxes, and these
worshippers offer their petitions in her temples in Syracuse, in
Miletus, in Babylon, in Aradus and in Cyprus. Her power is acknowledged;
her favor is asked. Chaereas discovers Callirhoe is alive by seeing a
golden statue of her which Dionysius had dedicated in the temple of
Aphrodite near Miletus. Chariton himself in his résumé at the beginning
of Book VIII records the influence that Aphrodite had in his story. When
Fortune was maneuvering to have Chaereas leave his wife behind at
Aradus, all unaware of her presence, “this seemed outrageous to
Aphrodite,” says Chariton, “who, though she had previously been terribly
angered at Chaereas’ uncalled-for jealousy, whereby he had insolently
rejected her kindness after receiving from her a gift more superlatively
beautiful even than Paris’ prize, was by now becoming reconciled with
him. And since Chaereas had now nobly redeemed himself in the eyes of
Love by his wanderings from west to east amid countless sufferings,
Aphrodite felt pity for him, and, as she had in the beginning brought
together this noble pair, so now, having harried them long over land and
sea, she was willing once more to unite them. ”
The final consideration about Chariton must be the style of his work.
And first of all the inquiry rises to our lips: how did the secretary of
Athenagoras become so distinguished in the art of narration? Homer, I am
convinced, is the master from whom, as Dante from Vergil, he took his
beautiful style. The romance is rich in literary allusions, but beyond
all others Homer is quoted repeatedly (twenty-four times indeed) and
with great effectiveness. Sometimes a mere transitional phrase is
adopted:
“while the words were yet on his lips. ”[42]
In descriptions the brevity and simplicity of Homer are used with such
nicety that the language often trails off naturally into the very words
of the epic. In the thirty day festival at Babylon
“the sweet savor arose to heaven eddying amid the smoke. ”[43]
Men are pictured fighting and in their close array
“buckler pressed on buckler, helm on helm, and man on man. ”[44]
And as the conflict joined and Chaereas rushed against his enemies, he
“smote them right and left and there rose a hideous moaning. ”[45]
Artaxerxes in his court is compared to Zeus among the assembled
gods. [46] A phantom of Chaereas appears to Callirhoe resembling him
“in stature, and fair eyes, and voice, and the raiment of his body was
the same. ”[47]
When Callirhoe came into the court-room in Babylon,
“she looked just as the divine poet says that Helen did, when she
appeared to ‘them that were with Priam and Panthöos and Thymoëtes . . .
being elders of the people. ’[48] At the sight of her, admiring silence
fell, ‘and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her
bedfellow. ’”[49]
Besides this use of Homeric phrases in descriptions, quotations are
frequently introduced in conversations as if Chariton found only Homer’s
words expressive to convey the thought of one character to another. [50]
But far more important than such uses of Homeric phraseology is the
intensification of emotional coloring by a quotation from Homer at a
crisis of poignant feeling. When Callirhoe’s nurse calls her to get up
for it is her wedding day,
“her knees and heart were unstrung,”
because she did not know whom she was to marry. [51] When Chaereas is
told that his wife is an adulteress,
“a black cloud of grief enwrapped him, and with both hands he took
dark dust and poured it over his head and defiled his comely
face. ”[52]
When Chaereas is determined to set sail in winter in search of his
kidnapped bride, his mother begged him to take her with him and cried in
Homer’s words:
“My child, have regard unto this bosom and pity me if ever I gave thee
consolation of my breast. ”[53]
When Dionysius suddenly learned at a banquet that Chaereas was alive
from reading his letter to Callirhoe,
“his knees and his heart were unstrung. ”[54]
When Artaxerxes was smitten with love for Callirhoe, he lay awake all
night,
“now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face. ”[55]
When Chaereas and Callirhoe had their ecstatic reunion on Aradus,
“when they had had their fill of tears and story-telling, embracing
each other,
‘they came gladly to the rites of their bed, as of old. ’”[56]
Enough illustrations of Chariton’s use of Homer have been given to show
the manner of it. Different explanations of Chariton’s constant use have
been advanced. Schmid thinks it is an indication of the influence of the
Menippean satire with its mingling of prose and verse. Jacob believes it
due to Chariton’s desire to make his style poetic. Calderini is more
understanding. He thinks that Chariton, thoroughly familiar with Homer,
quoted him to express worthily some noble thought and that he saw the
peculiar emphasis which a quotation from Homer could give to the
expression of a sudden, violent emotion. He also uses episodes from
Homer (the appeal of Hecuba from the wall to Hector,[57] the apparition
of Patroclus before Achilles,[58] the Homeric τειχοσκοπία). [59] More
than all, his style is usually Homeric in its brevity and simplicity;
and in his use of quotations, of scenes and of style he is the first
example of those relations between epic and romance which became so
important in the mediaeval literature of the west. [60]
Other literary influences are apparent. The Milesian Tales may have
suggested Miletus as the locality for the love-story of Dionysius. The
Ninus Romance is the precursor of the historical element which paints a
background of realism through the use of historical characters, notably
Hermocrates and Artaxerxes, and through allusions to actual wars. Drama
contributed the language of the stage to the description of the action.
And at one crisis when Chaereas, who is believed dead, is produced by
Mithridates in court, Chariton explains:
“Who could worthily tell of the appearance of the courtroom then? What
dramatist ever produced so incredible a situation on the stage? Indeed,
you might have thought that you were in a theater, filled with a
multitude of conflicting passions. ”[61] In another passage Mithridates
says Fortune has forced the lovers to enact a very sad tragedy. [62] New
comedy contributed types of characters (particularly the slaves), spicy
dialogue and at least two quotations. [63] The influence of history and
especially of Herodotus is apparent in the use of local history, in
narratives of adventure, in depiction of the adulation of the eastern
sovereign, in the reflection of the great struggle between the west and
the east. The influence of the rhetorical schools is seen in the court
scenes which in both their cases and speeches are strangely like those
of the _Controversiae_ of Seneca and the _Declamationes_ of Quintilian.
All these different literary forces combined to produce a style of
narration in Chariton which is at the same time simple and ingenuous,
yet rhetorical. His startling baroque effects are achieved by just this
variation from simple concise epic narrative with strong Homeric
coloring, to intense dramatic moments of high tragedy, to comic scenes
of slaves’ intrigues, to love passages which before had found expression
only in poetry.
Rattenbury says: “The Ninus Romance is therefore the only pre-Christian
specimen of its kind; it is indisputably two centuries earlier than the
earliest of the completely extant romances (Charito), and probably as
much earlier than any of the known fragments. ”[18] The remains consist
of two separate fragments with parts of five columns on the first and of
three on the second. Gaselee writes of the content:[19] “in the first
(A) the hero, Ninus, and the heroine (unnamed), deeply in love with one
another, approach each the other’s mother and set forth their love,
asking for a speedy marriage; in the second (B) the young couple seem to
be together at the beginning, but almost immediately Ninus is found
leading an army of his Assyrians, with Greek and Carian allies, against
the Armenian enemy. ”
Fragment A is short enough so that we can read Gaselee’s translation of
it:[20]
Ninus and the maiden were both equally anxious for an immediate
marriage. Neither of them dared to approach their own mothers—Thambe
and Derceia, two sisters, the former Ninus’ mother, the latter the
mother of the girl—but preferred each to address themselves to the
mother of the other: for each felt more confidence towards their aunts
than towards their own parents. So Ninus spoke to Derceia: “Mother,”
said he, “with my oath kept true do I come into thy sight and to the
embrace of my most sweet cousin. This let the gods know first of
all—yes, they do know it, and I will prove it to you now as I speak. I
have travelled over so many lands and been lord over so many nations,
both those subdued by my own spear and those who, as the result of my
father’s might, serve and worship me, that I might have tasted of
every enjoyment to satiety—and, had I done so, perhaps my passion for
my cousin would have been less violent: but now that I have come back
uncorrupted I am worsted by the god of love and by my age; I am, as
thou knowest, in my seventeenth year, and already a year ago have I
been accounted as having come to man’s estate. Up to now I have been
nought but a boy, a child: and if I had had no experience of the power
of Aphrodite, I should have been happy in my firm strength. But now
that I have been taken prisoner—thy daughter’s prisoner, in no
shameful wise, but agreeably to the desires both of thee and her, how
long must I bear refusal?
“That men of this age of mine are ripe for marriage, is clear enough:
how many have kept themselves unspotted until their fifteenth year?
But I am injured by a law, not a written law, but one sanctified by
foolish custom, that among our people virgins generally marry at
fifteen years. Yet what sane man could deny that nature is the best
law for unions such as this? Why, women of fourteen years can
conceive, and some, I vow, even bear children at that age. Then is not
thy daughter to be wed? ‘Let us wait for two years,’ you will say: let
us be patient, mother, but will Fate wait? I am a mortal man and
betrothed to a mortal maid: and I am subject not merely to the common
fortunes of all men—diseases, I mean, and that Fate which often
carries off those who stay quietly at home by their own fire-sides;
but sea-voyages are waiting for me, and wars after wars, and I am not
the one to shew any lack of daring and to employ cowardice to afford
me safety, but I am what you know I am, to avoid vulgar boasting. Let
the fact that I am a king, my strong desire, the unstable and
incalculable future that awaits me, let all these hasten our union,
let the fact that we are each of us only children be provided for and
anticipated, so that if Fate wills us anything amiss, we may at least
leave you some pledge of our affection. Perhaps you will call me
shameless for speaking to you of this: but I should indeed have been
shameless if I had privily approached the maiden, trying to snatch a
secret enjoyment, and satisfying our common passion by the
intermediaries of night or wine, or servants, or tutors: but there is
nothing shameful in me speaking to thee, a mother, about thy
daughter’s marriage that has been so long the object of thy vows, and
asking for what thou hast promised, and beseeching that the prayers
both of our house and of the whole kingdom may not lack fulfilment
beyond the present time. ”
So did he speak to the willing Derceia, and easily compelled her to
come to terms on the matter: and when she had for a while dissembled,
she promised to act as his advocate. Meanwhile although the maiden’s
passion was equally great, yet her speech with Thambe was not equally
ready and free; she had ever lived within the women’s apartments, and
could not so well speak for herself in a fair shew of words: she asked
for an audience—wept, and desired to speak, but ceased as soon as she
had begun. As soon as she had shewn that she was desirous of pleading,
she would open her lips and look up as if about to speak, but could
finally utter nothing: she heaved with broken sobs, her cheeks
reddened in shame at what she must say, and then as she tried to
improvise a beginning, grew pale again: and her fear was something
between alarm and desire and shame as she shrank from the avowal; and
then, as her affections got the mastery of her and her purpose failed,
she kept swaying with inward disturbance between her varying emotions.
But Thambe wiped away her tears with her hands and bade her boldly
speak out whatever she wished to say. But when she could not succeed,
and the maiden was still held back by her sorrow, “This,” cried
Thambe, “I like better than any words thou couldst utter. Blame not my
son at all: he has made no over-bold advance, and he has not come back
from his successes and his victories like a warrior with any mad and
insolent intention against thee: I trust that thou hast not seen any
such intention in his eyes. Is the law about the time of marriage too
tardy for such a happy pair? Truly my son is in all haste to wed: nor
needest thou weep for this that any will try to force thee at all”:
and at the same time with a smile she embraced and kissed her. Yet not
even then could the maiden venture to speak, so great was her fear
(_or_, her joy), but she rested her beating heart against the other’s
bosom, and kissing her more closely still seemed almost ready to speak
freely of her desires through her former tears and her present joy.
The two sisters therefore met together, and Derceia spoke first. “As
to the actual (marriage? ),” said she. . . . ”
In fragment B the seventeen-year-old warrior is found marshalling his
forces, “seventy thousand chosen Assyrian foot and thirty thousand
horse, and a hundred and fifty elephants,” and at the end beginning the
advance at the head of his cavalry:
And stretching out his hands as if (offering sacrifice? ), “This,” he
cried, “is the foundation and crisis of my hopes: from this day I shall
begin some greater career, or I shall fall from the power I now
possess. ”[21]
In this Ninus Romance as we have it, the name of the heroine is not
mentioned, but her mother’s name is Derceia and that is a close variant
of Derceto, the name of the divine mother of Semiramis in the usual
legend. So although the type is different from that of the queen of
Babylon, the character is probably hers. It seems evident that this
early novelist was, then, building his romance around historical
characters. Rattenbury points this out and also shows conclusively that
the characteristics of all the other romances are indisputably present
in this early fragmentary story:[22]
“The impetuous but honest Ninus reappears clearly enough in the
Theagenes of Heliodorus, and the lovesick maiden of unassailable
virtue and almost intolerable modesty might be the heroine of any
Greek romance. ”
Ninus pledges his faith as later heroes take an oath. He like them is
the toy of Eros or Aphrodite. In the extant romances,
“The characters, the treatment, and even the plots are almost
stereotyped; and yet one difference is observable—a tendency to
abandon an ostensibly historical background in favour of a purely
fictitious setting. The relative dates of the authors are by no means
certain, but the fortunate discovery of papyrus fragments of Charito
and Achilles Tatius supports the view, probable on other grounds, that
Charito is to be considered the earliest, and Achilles Tatius the
latest. It is therefore of interest to notice that Charito, though his
hero and heroine are creatures of his imagination, introduces some
historical characters and some historical events; his main story is
fictitious, but he seems to have been at pains to lend it a historical
flavour. Heliodorus, somewhat later, presents a picture of a fairly
definite historical period, but no more; his characters are all
fictitious and there is no historical authority for the sequence of
events which he describes. Achilles Tatius degrades romance from the
realm of princes to the level of the bourgeoisie. His story is frankly
fictitious, and he evidently had no feeling that romance should be
related to history. ”
Rattenbury goes on to illustrate his theory of the change from the
semi-historical to the purely fictitious romance by a study of the
Alexander Romance and the new fragments of other stories. The
pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance in the oldest version extant is
dated about A. D. 300. But papyrus fragments indicate that a large part
of the material in it goes back to a time shortly after Alexander’s
death. From the evidence of our late pseudo-Callisthenes version which
probably followed tradition it would seem that history was treated as
fiction and little attention paid to the love-story of Roxane which
could have furnished such a lively erotic interest. New fragments of
other romances show other great rulers used as heroes. [23] One is the
Egyptian prince, Sesonchosis, called by the Greeks Sesostris.
Mythological characters too become protagonists in romances: Achilles
and Polyxena; the Egyptian Tefnut, daughter of Phre, the sun-god, who
took her adventures in the shape of a cat wandering in the desert of
Ethiopia. Other fragments run true to the general type of the Greek
Romances in manifesting now this, now that characteristic.
The sum total of all the fragments discovered up to date gives
convincing evidence of two important facts: first, the extant Greek
Romances are only a small part of the output of this genre; second, the
dating of all the fragments places them between the end of the first and
the beginning of the fourth century of our era. The Ninus Romance is the
earliest fragment, Chariton’s the earliest complete romance, that of
Achilles Tatius the latest. On this framework a chronological list of
the extant novels arranged on the basis of proved data and the
probabilities of internal evidence and comparisons, shapes like this:
The Greek Romances
_Date_ _Author_ _Title_
I Century B. C. Unknown The Ninus Romance (frag. )
Before A. D. 150 Chariton of Chaereas and Callirhoe
Aphrodisias
II Century A. D. Lucian of Samosata A True History Lucius or
Ass (an epitome of the
lost _Metamorphoses_)
II-III Centuries Xenophon of Ephesus Ephesiaca, Habrocomes and
A. D. Anthia
II-III Centuries Heliodorus of Emesa Aethiopica, Theagenes and
A. D. Chariclea
II-III Centuries Longus Daphnis and Chloe
A. D.
About A. D. 300 Achilles Tatius of Clitophon and Leucippe
Alexandria
_Byzantine_
XII Century A. D. Eustathius Hysmine and Hysminias
XII Century A. D. Nicetas Eugenianus Charicles and Drusilla
(verse)
XII Century A. D. Theodorus Prodromus Dosicles and Rhodanthe
(verse)
XII Century A. D. Constantine Aristander and Callithea
Manasses (verse)
Also known by translation or abstract
II-III Centuries Unknown Apollonius of Tyre (Latin
A. D. translation)
II-III Centuries Iamblichus, a Babyloniaca, Rhodanes and
A. D. Syrian Sinonis (abstract in
Photius)
II-III Centuries Antonius Diogenes The Wonderful Things
A. D. beyond Thule (abstract
in Photius)
Not before A. D. pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance
300
It is to be observed that from internal evidence Xenophon of Ephesus
probably came before Heliodorus. Longus is _sui generis_, and so stands
apart from the typical genre of the novels; in fact is a unique specimen
of another type, the pastoral romance.
The new discoveries from the papyri with the consequent re-dating of all
known material has given a strong impetus to new study of Greek
Romances; new editions of text with translation are being brought out by
English, French, Italian and American scholars. [24] The introductions to
some of these editions, especially those of Calderini and Dalmeyda, are
the first distinguished literary work in the field since Rohde with the
exception of Samuel Lee Wolff’s monograph on _The Greek Romances in
Elizabethan Prose Fiction_, New York, 1912.
The time has now come for a literary study in English which will make
available foreign criticism and present perhaps some new ideas. I plan
to discuss in successive chapters Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus,
Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius and Longus, and to suggest something of
their influence. Then I shall take up the Λούκιος ἢ ὄνος attributed to
Lucian and his _True History_ and finally I shall show the synthesis of
the novel of adventure and the true Greek romance of love in the great
Latin novel, Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_.
II
_CHARITON’S_ CHAEREAS AND CALLIRHOE
There are two reasons for beginning a perusal of the Greek Romances with
Chariton’s _Chaereas and Callirhoe_. It is “the earliest Greek romance
of which the text has been completely preserved. ” It is “a lively tale
of adventure in which a nobly born heroine is kidnapped across the sea
from Syracuse to Asia Minor, where her beauty causes many complications
and she is finally rescued by her dashing lover. ” I quote from Warren E.
Blake whose publication of the Greek text and a literary translation of
it are a monument to American scholarship.
The date of the manuscript of this novel has been proved to be not later
than the middle of the second century A. D. , by the recent discoveries of
papyrus fragments of it. [25] Warren Blake comments on the significance
of these discoveries:[26]
“In view of the complete absence in ancient literature of any certain
allusion to Chariton, he was long supposed to be the latest of the
authors of Greek romance, and was dated, purely by conjecture, about
500 A. D. But by a turn of fortune as truly remarkable as any
attributed by Chariton himself to that fickle goddess, three scraps of
his book have been turned up in Egypt during the last forty years. One
of these scraps was found in company with some business documents
which date from about the end of the second century of our era.
Inasmuch as the place of discovery was a small country town to which
new works of literature would not likely penetrate immediately on
publication, and since in any case an expensive book is almost sure to
be preserved longer than day-by-day business papers, we seem quite
justified in setting the date of publication back some twenty-five or
even fifty years. Thus it is probable that this novel was written at
least as early as the middle of the second century, only about one
hundred years later than most of the books of the New Testament. ”
The identity of the author is made known by the first sentence: “I am
Chariton of Aphrodisia, secretary to the advocate Athenagoras. ”
Aphrodisia was a town in Caria in southern Asia Minor. Its locality
helps little in expanding the autobiography of the author out of this
one crisp sentence. But the romance itself reveals more of his
personality. His fondness for court-room scenes and his elaborate
descriptions of them are what we would expect from a secretary to a
ῥήτωρ or advocate. His learning is evident from his many literary and
mythological references. And occasionally he steps out of the role of
the impersonal narrator into his own character and speaks in the first
person to his reader. We will come to feel rather sure of his interests
and tastes as we read his πάθος ἐρωτικόν.
Before proceeding to outline the plot of the eight books of this
romance, it will be well to clarify the story by presenting a list of
the characters.
The chief characters are:
_Chaereas_, the handsome young Greek hero, son of Ariston of Syracuse
_Callirhoe_, the beautiful young Greek heroine, daughter of
Hermocrates, a famous general of Syracuse
_Polycharmus_, a young Greek, the devoted friend of Chaereas
_Hermocrates_, the general of Syracuse
_Theron_, a pirate
_Dionysius_, the governor of Miletus
_Mithridates_, satrap of Caria
_Artaxerxes_, king of the Persians
_Statira_, his wife, queen of the Persians
_Pharnaces_, the governor of Lydia and Ionia
_Rhodogyne_, the sister of Pharnaces, daughter of Zopyrus, wife of
Megabyzus, a Persian beauty.
The minor characters of importance are:
_Leonas_, a slave-dealer of Miletus
_Plangon_, a female slave of Dionysius
_Phocas_, slave and overseer of Dionysius, husband of Plangon
_Artaxates_, the eunuch of Artaxerxes
_Hyginus_, a servant of Mithridates.
The list of characters reveals at once a connection of Chariton’s novel
with the Ninus Romance because of the use of historical characters.
Hermocrates, the great general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians in
the naval battle, 414 B. C. , is the father of the heroine and is referred
to repeatedly with the greatest pride. Artaxerxes, the king of the
Persians, appears in person in courts and in wars. Historical events too
are mentioned as if to give a background of reality: the contests
between the Syracusans and the Athenians; the war between the Greeks and
the Persians; the rebellion of Egypt against Persia; the merit of Cyrus
the Great in organizing the army.
Against such a background of plausible reality, the plot develops along
three main lines of interest: love, adventure and religion. The story
begins with the introduction of the radiant young hero and heroine of
Syracuse when they fall in love at first sight at a festival of
Aphrodite. Almost immediately they are married, but their ecstatic
happiness is short, for Callirhoe’s many other suitors, angry at her
choice, plot revenge. They make her husband jealous by false stories of
a lover whom his bride favors, and, by staging a surreptitious admission
to his house of a lover of Callirhoe’s maid, convince Chaereas that his
wife is faithless. In passionate fury he dashes to his wife’s room and
when Callirhoe overjoyed at his unexpected return rushes to meet him, he
kicks her with such violence in the middle of her body that she falls
down, to all appearance dead. Chaereas is tried for murder and pleads
for his own condemnation, but is acquitted against his will by the
appeal of Hermocrates.
Callirhoe is now given a magnificent funeral and buried with much
treasure. The heroine, however, who had only fainted, soon revives, but
while she is bemoaning her sad fate, a band of pirates, led by Theron,
breaks open the tomb, steals the treasure, kidnaps the girl, then sets
sail with all speed for the east. At Miletus, Theron sells Callirhoe as
a slave to Dionysius, a noble Ionian prince. He soon falls in love with
his slave, but learning her story (except the fact that she was already
married which Callirhoe omits) respects her tragic position and woos her
with delicacy and consideration. Callirhoe, on finding that she is two
months with child, decides to accept the advice of the maid Plangon and
marry Dionysius to give her baby a father. Plangon assures Callirhoe
that the child will be considered a premature seven months baby, and she
secures from Dionysius a promise to bring up as his honored children any
sons of the marriage. Book III tells how Chaereas found the tomb empty;
how Theron was captured, forced to tell the truth by torture and
crucified; how Chaereas and his bosom friend Polycharmus went on a
warship to Miletus in search of Callirhoe but were captured and sold as
slaves to Mithridates, satrap of Caria.
Now Mithridates too had fallen in love with Callirhoe on seeing her at
Miletus. On returning to Caria he discovers the identity of his slave
Chaereas just in time to save him from crucifixion because of an
uprising of his fellow-slaves, and tells him that his wife is now
married to Dionysius. Chaereas writes a letter to Callirhoe full of
penitence and of love and Mithridates forwards it by Hyginus, his
faithful slave, adding another letter of his own promising Chaereas and
Callirhoe his aid. Unfortunately these letters fall into the hands of
Dionysius himself and that noble prince, in his mad passion for his
wife, conceals from her the news that Chaereas is alive and makes a plot
for the protection of his own interests. He appeals to Pharnaces,
governor of Lydia and Ionia, who is also in love with Callirhoe, to help
a scheme he has made. Pharnaces thus prompted writes a letter to
Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, accusing Mithridates of trying to
corrupt Dionysius’ wife. The great King then summons Mithridates to a
trial for plotting adultery and sends also for Dionysius and Callirhoe.
The court scene is full of magnificence and surprises. Mithridates has
no fear because in answer to the denunciations of Dionysius he is able
to produce as a witness Chaereas who swears to his innocence and
friendship. Mithridates is acquitted and departs. Then the King
dismisses the court for five days before adjudging whose wife Callirhoe
is to be since now she has two living husbands. Meanwhile he intrusts
the lady for safe keeping to his wife, Statira. Dionysius is torn
between the promptings of passion and reason. Chaereas is in despair at
the possibility of losing Callirhoe again. And Artaxerxes, the King,
like all the other great gentlemen in the story, falls madly in love
with Callirhoe for her beauty.
The King’s passion makes him postpone the court trial a month on the
pretext of a dream which demanded sacrifice to the gods. His eunuch
tries to persuade the heroine to do herself the honor of submitting to
the King’s embraces, but only horrifies and offends her purity. Now
Fortune again takes a hand in separating once more Chaereas and
Callirhoe, for a revolt of the Egyptians is announced, the King must be
off to war, and as usual the queen and her suite go with him. Callirhoe
accompanies the queen by royal orders.
Dionysius of course serves as one of the King’s generals. He has a
crafty piece of news conveyed to Chaereas that in reward for his
faithful service the King had given him Callirhoe. Chaereas, believing
this false story, and no longer caring to live, enlists with the
faithful Polycharmus in the Egyptian army to fight against his rival. He
is allowed to collect an army of three hundred Greeks in memory of
Thermopylae and with them captures Tyre. News of this loss makes the
Persian King so anxious that he decides not to travel with all his
retinue, but to leave the women on the little island of Aradus. Chaereas
who is proving a valiant warrior soon takes the island and discovers
Callirhoe among his captives. Both faint on seeing each other but since
joy never kills, they soon recover and reunited tell all and forgive
all.
Word suddenly comes that the Persian King has defeated the Egyptians and
their King is dead. Chaereas and his men decide to sail home to
Syracuse, but first in response to the plea of Callirhoe Chaereas sends
his prisoner, the queen Statira, back to the King because she had
befriended Callirhoe in her woes. Callirhoe without the knowledge of
Chaereas writes a beautiful and affectionate letter of farewell to
Dionysius, intrusting to him the care of her son. (Dionysius still
believes he is the boy’s father! ) The ship of Chaereas is driven by fair
winds to Sicily where Hermocrates and the people of Syracuse receive the
hero and heroine in amazement and joy. Chaereas tells the story of all
their adventures and Callirhoe ends the tale with a prayer to Aphrodite:
“I beg thee, never again part me from Chaereas, but grant us both a
happy life, and death together. ”
With this simple outline of the plot before us let us study the way in
which the story is told. Notable first of all are the shifting scenes,
for the action moves rapidly from Syracuse, to Miletus, to Caria, to
Babylon, to the sea, to Tyre, to the island of Aradus and then at last
back to Syracuse after the full circle of adventures. The contrast
between the free Greek city of Syracuse and the oriental kingdoms is
constantly emphasized, but it is the love of adventure for adventure’s
sake that spices the narrative. The settings include, besides
picturesque descriptions of localities, court-room scenes which are full
of contrasts: the murder-trial of Chaereas in Syracuse and the trial of
Theron also; the arraignment of Mithridates for adultery before the
Great King in Babylon. Pageantry of weddings and of religious ceremonies
also enrich the plot.
The characters are painted in bold, rich colors. Hero and heroine are so
beautiful that they can be compared only to great works of art: Chaereas
resembles the pictures and statues of Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus,
Alcibiades. Callirhoe is now Aphrodite incarnate, now Artemis. Love is
enflamed by their great beauty and enters through their eyes at their
first sight of each other. Chaereas is proud and arrogant because of his
looks and so passionate that he is unrestrained in his anger when he
believes Callirhoe false. The kick which he gave his bride is a blot on
his character which the reader finds harder to condone than Callirhoe
did. She declares that cruel Fortune forced her husband to this act, for
he never before had struck even a slave. He is also so mercurial that he
repeatedly gives way to despair and is repeatedly saved from committing
suicide by his devoted friend and companion, Polycharmus. He appears in
more heroic guise as a warrior when he joins the Egyptians against
Artaxerxes and Dionysius, resolved to die in battle, and wins a great
naval victory. He is generous in sending the captive queen back to her
lord. And he fulfills the ideals of romantic chivalry by declaring to
Callirhoe at the end that she is the mistress of his soul.
Callirhoe like Helen had the gift of fatal beauty so that all men who
saw her fell in love with her and she incurred for a time the jealousy
of Aphrodite. But in spite of every temptation her spirit remained
virginal and she was persuaded to marry Dionysius only to give a nominal
father to her unborn child. She meets misfortune with natural tears, but
with more fortitude than Chaereas shows. And she rules her anger even
when the eunuch of King Artaxerxes makes insulting proposals to her by
remembering that she had been well brought up and as a Greek taught
self-control. She handles difficult situations with a woman’s intuitive
tact as when she writes a consoling farewell letter to Dionysius,
without letting her husband have the pain of knowing of it and its
tenderness. By it she secures Dionysius’ care for the son he still
believes his own. She wins from Chaereas with gentle tact a promise to
send back the captives Statira and the beautiful Rhodogyne to the
Persians. And in meek devotion at the end she essays to win even the
goddess Aphrodite to complete reconciliation.
Polycharmus is a type more than an individual, for he is to Chaereas
what Achates was to Aeneas, the faithful friend who accompanies him
through all adventures. With boyish zeal, he hides from his parents in
Syracuse his plan to go with Chaereas on his search for Callirhoe, but
he appears on the stern of the ship as it sails in time to wave a
farewell to his father and mother.
His chief function is to encourage
Chaereas and prevent his suicide. At the end on their return to Syracuse
he is rewarded by being given Chaereas’ sister for a bride and a part of
the spoils of war for a dowry.
Dionysius is a sympathetic and noble character; indeed his sins are all
for love. He is in deep mourning for his dead wife when Callirhoe is
purchased as a slave by his manager. Although he believes that no person
who is not free-born can be truly beautiful, he is overwhelmed with love
at the first sight of Callirhoe. With tactful sympathy he draws out her
story and believes it. He never forces his passion upon her, but woos
her delicately through his maid-servant, Plangon, and is overjoyed when
Callirhoe finally consents to legal marriage for the purpose of raising
a family. Even then in spite of his desire he delays the marriage that
he may do Callirhoe the honor of a great wedding in the city. His
happiness is complete to his mind when after seven months a son is born.
So it is because of his sincere love that when he hears that a Syracusan
warship has arrived to demand Callirhoe back, he commends his slave
Phocas who out of loyalty to his master had persuaded barbarians to
destroy the ship and its crew. Dionysius’ only anxiety is that since
some of the men escaped, Chaereas may still be alive. This last fact he
conceals from Callirhoe and to comfort her for Chaereas’ supposed death
persuades her to erect a cenotaph to her first husband’s memory. Later
when he receives the intercepted letter of Chaereas to Callirhoe, he
faints with grief and fear, but coming to he believes the letter forged
as part of a plot of Mithridates to win the favor of his bride, so he
accuses Mithridates to the Great King. Summoned to Babylon to the trial
he is in constant terror, for “he looked on all men as his rivals”
knowing the devastating effects of Callirhoe’s beauty. When Chaereas is
produced alive in the trial, he argues valiantly for the retention of
his wife with some telling thrusts at Chaereas, but finally when he has
lost his love, he bears his grief like a man, having remarkable
self-control, treasuring Callirhoe’s affectionate letter as true solace,
and devoting himself to her son. Dionysius, as Callirhoe reminds him
once, is a Greek with a Greek education.
Among the orientals, resplendent princes appear often only to be
numbered among the disconsolate lovers of Callirhoe and because of their
passion to assist in furthering the complications of the plot. Such are
Mithridates and Pharnaces. More individualized portraits are painted of
King Artaxerxes and Queen Statira. Oriental magnificence is the aura of
the Great King’s personality whether he appears presiding in the
court-room, or hunting in Tyrian purple with golden dagger and elegant
bow and arrow on his caparisoned horse, or riding to war with his great
army and his retinue: his queen, her attendants, his eunuchs, all their
gold and silver and fine raiment. Yet through this rich setting appears
a wise ruler who takes counsel of his advisers in times of crises,
listens judiciously to evidence in the court-room, and in war follows
the military traditions of Cyrus the Great. But he has his human side:
is influenced by wine, loneliness and the dark, and succumbs to
Callirhoe’s beauty though he is married to a great and subtle queen.
Hoping to win the object of his passion he is not above machinations
with his eunuch who acts as his go-between and with optimistic hope of
success even has Callirhoe taken along with the queen when he goes to
war. Yet when Statira is restored to him by Chaereas’ magnanimity, he
welcomes her warmly although her news that Callirhoe is with Chaereas is
like “a fresh blow upon an old wound. ” He appears most human after
hearing Statira’s story of all that happened, for he is filled with
varied emotions: wrath at the capture of his dear ones, sorrow at the
departure of Chaereas, and final gratitude that Chaereas had ended the
possibility of his seeing Callirhoe. Out of his own conflict of
emotions, he breaks gently to Dionysius the news of his loss of
Callirhoe and calls him away from personal sorrow by giving him higher
responsibility in the realm. Artaxerxes is really made to appear in the
novel as the Great King.
Statira is no less the queen. She is delighted when her husband suddenly
intrusts Callirhoe to her care, regarding his action as an honor and a
sign of confidence. She encourages Callirhoe with tactful sympathy and
secures needed rest for her, keeping away the curious ladies who hurry
to the palace to call. After a few days Statira can not resist asking
Callirhoe which husband she preferred, but her curiosity is not rewarded
for Callirhoe only weeps. As time goes on Statira’s jealousy is aroused
because Callirhoe’s beauty outshines her own and because she is fully
aware of the significance of the King’s more frequent visits to the
women’s quarters. So when Artaxerxes is preparing to start off for war,
the queen does not ask what will become of Callirhoe because she does
not wish to have to take her, but the King at the end demands her
presence. Apparently Statira never betrayed her jealousy to Callirhoe,
for after Chaereas took captive all the women in Aradus, Callirhoe has
only praise for her kindness to relate to Chaereas and calls Statira her
dearest friend. Her generous happiness in being able to return Statira’s
courtesy by sending her back to her husband wins from Statira a just
encomium: “You have shown a noble nature, one that is worthy of your
beauty. It was a happy sponsorship indeed which the King intrusted to
me. ” Callirhoe on parting commends her child to the queen’s care and
secretly consigns to the queen her letter to Dionysius. Statira is still
a subtle enough woman to enjoy telling the King at once on her return
without her rival: “You have me as a gift from Callirhoe. ”
Set off against the Great King of the Persians is Hermocrates, the
general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians. His greatness as an
admiral is matched by his leadership as a citizen. At the trial of
Chaereas for the murder of Callirhoe it is Hermocrates whose generous
plea in his daughter’s name secures from the people a vote of acquittal.
He listens to the wish of the people assembled when they urge him to
marry his daughter to Chaereas. When Theron, the pirate, is captured and
the crowd at Syracuse is milling about him, Hermocrates insists on a
public trial for him in accordance with the laws and after the evidence
is presented it is by a vote of the people that he is condemned. Then
Hermocrates asks the people to vote to send a ship in search of his
kidnapped daughter as a reward for his patriotic services. Callirhoe’s
pride centers in her father no less than in her Greek blood. Her reunion
with her father at the end of the romance is almost as moving as her
restoral to Chaereas. Hermocrates shines forth in untarnished glory as a
patriotic admiral, a leader of thought in a democratic state, and a
devoted father.
The minor parts are painted with less subtlety. Theron, the villain of
the story, is a black-hearted pirate dominated only by gain and
self-interest, ready to save his life at the expense of his
fellow-sailors. Slaves are presented as vivaciously as they are in
comedy. Plangon, the maid of Dionysius, is a shrewd, cunning
opportunist, ready to serve her master’s interests but not without
kindness to the distraught Callirhoe in her plight of pregnancy.
Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes, is venal, wily, complaisant and
low-minded. As the confidant of Artaxerxes he takes his cues from his
master’s words, and solicits his favor by an attempt to seduce
Callirhoe’s heart for him. As a eunuch, a slave and a barbarian (says
Chariton) he could not conceive that Callirhoe would not yield to the
wishes of the King. When he is unable to persuade her by flattery, he
threatens her with the King’s vengeance. And when her words betray her
love for Chaereas, Artaxates can call her only a poor, foolish girl for
preferring a slave to the Great King of the Persians.
The use of the crowd by Chariton is another link between his romance and
drama, for it often fulfills the function assumed by the chorus in
tragedy, that is, the part of the spectator who comments on the action
and interprets it. It is the people of Syracuse in assembly that
persuades Hermocrates to wed his daughter to Chaereas. The crowd votes
the crucifixion of Theron and attends it. At Miletus the crowd joins in
Dionysius’ prayer to Aphrodite to protect Callirhoe and her son. The
crowd at Babylon is struck dumb with amazement at the radiance of
Callirhoe. And when the Great King is to decide whether Chaereas or
Dionysius is to be her husband, all Babylon becomes a court-room as the
people discuss the rival partners. At the end of the romance, all the
harbor of Syracuse is filled with men to watch the ship come in, and
when Chaereas and Callirhoe are revealed on it, the crowd bursts into
tears. All rush to the theater and demand that there at once Chaereas
tell them his adventures. “Tell us everything,” they keep shouting. They
groan at his misfortunes. They offer prayers for the future of his son.
They shout assent to his proposal to make his three hundred valiant
Greek soldiers fellow-citizens of Syracuse. Indeed the crowd is
constantly the background of the action of the romance.
Various mechanical devices used in the development of the plot show
Chariton’s art of narration. Conversation as any novel demands is
constantly used. Soliloquies are introduced frequently: at some
emotional crisis, Chariton, instead of describing the thoughts and
feelings of his characters, has them burst into speech to themselves.
Callirhoe on hearing of the supposed loss of Chaereas with the warship
laments his death and the destruction of her father’s gallant vessel.
Later beside the Euphrates river when she can no longer see “the ocean
which led back to Syracuse,” she upbraids cruel Fortune for driving her
farther and farther from home. Again, in horror at the proposals of the
eunuch, she laments all her misfortunes and expresses her resolve to die
as befits Hermocrates’ daughter rather than become the mistress of the
Great King. So too Dionysius on the return of Chaereas, after attempts
at self-control, bursts forth with despair and jealousy into a lament
over the imminent loss of his love. At the same time Chaereas, believing
that Callirhoe loves Dionysius and will never return to him from the
wealthy Ionian, utters a bitter lament before attempting to hang
himself.
Letters also are an important means of developing the plot in the Greek
Romances, especially in Chariton. He uses seven letters. [27] Chaereas’
first letter to Callirhoe is an impassioned love-letter with an appeal
for forgiveness and for an assurance that she still loves him. This is a
crucial letter in the plot because it is sent by Bias of Priene to
Dionysius himself who conceals it from Callirhoe. Bias sends a brief
business letter with it. Pharnaces, governor of Lydia, on the
instigation of Dionysius writes a letter to Artaxerxes accusing
Mithridates of trying to seduce Dionysius’ wife. This letter is
important for the plot, because it motivates the trial of Mithridates.
The Great King on receiving it dispatches two laconic business letters
to Pharnaces summoning Dionysius and to Mithridates calling him to
trial. The other two letters do not affect the plot, but reveal the
characters of the senders. These are the letters in Book VIII of
Chaereas to Artaxerxes and of Callirhoe to Dionysius. Chaereas proudly
sends back Statira unharmed as the gift of Callirhoe to the Great King.
Callirhoe with a woman’s intuition comforts Dionysius for her loss by
gratitude for his protection, by assuring him that she is with him in
spirit in the presence of her son whom she intrusts to his care. She
begs him not to marry again, but to bring up the daughter of his first
wife and her own son, eventually marry them to each other and send him
to Syracuse to see his grandfather. She includes a message to Plangon
and ends with an appeal to good Dionysius to remember his Callirhoe. It
is hardly strange that Callirhoe concealed this masterpiece of
epistolography from her jealous husband, Chaereas.
The taking of an oath is often an important feature of Greek Romances.
In Chariton, Dionysius swears solemnly by the sea, by Aphrodite and by
Eros that he will marry Callirhoe according to the Greek laws “for the
begetting of children” and will bring up any child she bears. [28] Dreams
too play their part in the plot. In a dream Dionysius sees an apparition
of his dead wife as she looked on her wedding-day. His slave Leonas
interprets the dream as prophetic of his coming happiness with the newly
purchased slave, Callirhoe. [29] Callirhoe in her sleep sees a phantom of
Chaereas who says to her: “My wife, I intrust our son to you. ” This
dream determines her to bring up her baby and so to marry Dionysius. [30]
In Babylon when she is dreading having to appear in court, she has a
dream of her happy wedding to Chaereas in Syracuse. The maid Plangon
interprets the dream as a good omen for future happiness. [31] King
Artaxerxes had a dream of gods demanding sacrifice so he proclaimed a
festival of thirty days throughout Asia. This delayed his decision
between Chaereas and Dionysius, hence was most important for the plot
because wars arose before the court was held and in them Chaereas and
Callirhoe came together. [32]
Apparent deaths are a common device of the Greek novelists and
Chariton’s plot turns on two, the supposed death of Callirhoe from
Chaereas’ blow and her subsequent burial; the reported death of Chaereas
on his warship. Concomitant with such deaths are the unexpected
reappearances which add the element of surprise, so essential for the
characters and the crowd.
Descriptive passages are few and brief in Chariton and are often worked
out in a suggestive simile rather than in a conspicuous purple patch.
Chaereas was as “radiant as a star. The flush of exercise bloomed on his
glowing face like gold on silver. ” Callirhoe, recognizing her lover,
became more stately and lovely than ever, as a flickering lamp again
flares up when oil is poured in. [33] Public ceremonies are described at
more length: the funeral procession of Callirhoe,[34] her wedding to
Dionysius. [35] Space is given too to the description of Artaxerxes’
hunt, that favorite ancient sport;[36] to storm at sea;[37] to war. [38]
But all these descriptions are concise in their picturesqueness.
Finally clarity in the narrative is secured by repeated résumés of the
story either by the characters or by the author himself. Callirhoe tells
her tragic tale to Dionysius with such sincerity that he believes it and
honors her as a free-born woman. [39] Polycharmus relates his adventures
with Chaereas to Mithridates and thereby saves his friend and himself
from crucifixion. [40] Chaereas at the end unfolds the whole Odyssey of
his wanderings to the populace in the theater of Syracuse. [41] At the
beginning of Book V Chariton epitomizes all the preceding part of the
novel and at the beginning of Book VIII he recapitulates the preceding
book and reassures his audience about the final book.
“Furthermore, I think that this last book will be the most pleasant of
all to my readers, and in fact will serve as an antidote to the tragic
events of the former ones. No more piracy or slavery or court trials
or battles or suicide or war or capture here, but true love and lawful
marriage! And so I am going to tell you how the goddess brought the
truth to light and revealed the unsuspecting lovers to each other. ”
The happy ending which Chariton here forecasts is an essential feature
of a Greek romance. For in this type of literature in which Chariton is
a pioneer, virtue must triumph. The ethics demands that the hero and
heroine must be noble in character as well as in station and that
therefore justice must be done to virtue. The hero we have seen must
possess personal courage and military courage. He must be capable of
emotional devotion, first of all to his lady, then to his friend, and
always to his father. His faults are those of pride, arrogance and
passion and his moments of brutality are condoned by his contemporaries
on account of his passionate temperament. He can be generous to his
foes. He can show pity to the unfortunate. But his sympathies, even when
the type is embodied in as noble a character as Dionysius, are evoked by
the free-born in distress, rarely by slaves. The virtues of the heroine
are first of all chastity, then loyal devotion to parents, husband and
child, pride of family, generosity of spirit and sympathy. She is
capable of resolute decision and heroic action if her chastity is
menaced or her dear ones are in danger. Standards different from our own
best ones appear in the general attitude towards slaves as an inferior
class and in the brutality manifested in the hero’s kick, in executions
on the cross, in torture of witnesses. Cleverness and deception are
traits which are prized more highly than we admit now. The noblest
sentiments expressed are in behalf of liberty and patriotism.
Religion plays so important a part in the romance that it demands a full
treatment. Chariton’s novel is dominated by two cults: the worship of
the abstract goddess Fortune, the worship of the goddess of love,
Aphrodite. At the end of Book I Callirhoe, just after she has been sold
as a slave, in a soliloquy, upbraids cruel Fortune for all her troubles,
for the goddess made her lover her murderer, surrendered her to
tomb-robbers and now has let her be sold as a slave. Again Callirhoe,
when she finds that she is pregnant, reproaches Fortune for letting her
bear a child to be a slave. And on the banks of the Euphrates in another
soliloquy Callirhoe again charges Fortune with all her miseries and
blames her for taking “delight in persecuting one lone girl. ”
Mithridates tells Chaereas: “The whims of Fortune have involved you in
this melancholy drama. ” Queen Statira, when captured, exclaims that
Fortune has preserved her to see this day of slavery. And the author of
the romance as well as the characters repeatedly attributes to Fortune
the strange and sad misadventures of his hero and heroine. Callirhoe,
Chariton says, “was overcome by the stratagems of Fortune, against whom
alone human reason has no power. She is a divinity who loves opposition,
and there is nothing which may not be expected of her. ” Throughout the
romance Fortune seems to be conceived not as blind chance, but as a
baleful goddess, who takes delight in cruelty and torture.
In conflict with her machinations is the power of the goddess of love
whom the young lovers worship. As clearly as in a Greek tragedy
Aphrodite’s influence is predominant throughout the romance. At the very
beginning, Chaereas and Callirhoe see each other for the first time at a
festival of the goddess and immediately fall in love. The end of the
romance is the prayer of thanks which Callirhoe offers to Aphrodite in
her temple at Syracuse. Callirhoe is so beautiful that over and over she
seems Aphrodite incarnate, now to the slave-dealer, Leonas, now to
Dionysius, now to the crowd at the time of her marriage to Dionysius,
now in Babylon. Prayers for aid are constantly offered to the goddess by
Callirhoe, by Chaereas, by Dionysius, by Artaxerxes, and these
worshippers offer their petitions in her temples in Syracuse, in
Miletus, in Babylon, in Aradus and in Cyprus. Her power is acknowledged;
her favor is asked. Chaereas discovers Callirhoe is alive by seeing a
golden statue of her which Dionysius had dedicated in the temple of
Aphrodite near Miletus. Chariton himself in his résumé at the beginning
of Book VIII records the influence that Aphrodite had in his story. When
Fortune was maneuvering to have Chaereas leave his wife behind at
Aradus, all unaware of her presence, “this seemed outrageous to
Aphrodite,” says Chariton, “who, though she had previously been terribly
angered at Chaereas’ uncalled-for jealousy, whereby he had insolently
rejected her kindness after receiving from her a gift more superlatively
beautiful even than Paris’ prize, was by now becoming reconciled with
him. And since Chaereas had now nobly redeemed himself in the eyes of
Love by his wanderings from west to east amid countless sufferings,
Aphrodite felt pity for him, and, as she had in the beginning brought
together this noble pair, so now, having harried them long over land and
sea, she was willing once more to unite them. ”
The final consideration about Chariton must be the style of his work.
And first of all the inquiry rises to our lips: how did the secretary of
Athenagoras become so distinguished in the art of narration? Homer, I am
convinced, is the master from whom, as Dante from Vergil, he took his
beautiful style. The romance is rich in literary allusions, but beyond
all others Homer is quoted repeatedly (twenty-four times indeed) and
with great effectiveness. Sometimes a mere transitional phrase is
adopted:
“while the words were yet on his lips. ”[42]
In descriptions the brevity and simplicity of Homer are used with such
nicety that the language often trails off naturally into the very words
of the epic. In the thirty day festival at Babylon
“the sweet savor arose to heaven eddying amid the smoke. ”[43]
Men are pictured fighting and in their close array
“buckler pressed on buckler, helm on helm, and man on man. ”[44]
And as the conflict joined and Chaereas rushed against his enemies, he
“smote them right and left and there rose a hideous moaning. ”[45]
Artaxerxes in his court is compared to Zeus among the assembled
gods. [46] A phantom of Chaereas appears to Callirhoe resembling him
“in stature, and fair eyes, and voice, and the raiment of his body was
the same. ”[47]
When Callirhoe came into the court-room in Babylon,
“she looked just as the divine poet says that Helen did, when she
appeared to ‘them that were with Priam and Panthöos and Thymoëtes . . .
being elders of the people. ’[48] At the sight of her, admiring silence
fell, ‘and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her
bedfellow. ’”[49]
Besides this use of Homeric phrases in descriptions, quotations are
frequently introduced in conversations as if Chariton found only Homer’s
words expressive to convey the thought of one character to another. [50]
But far more important than such uses of Homeric phraseology is the
intensification of emotional coloring by a quotation from Homer at a
crisis of poignant feeling. When Callirhoe’s nurse calls her to get up
for it is her wedding day,
“her knees and heart were unstrung,”
because she did not know whom she was to marry. [51] When Chaereas is
told that his wife is an adulteress,
“a black cloud of grief enwrapped him, and with both hands he took
dark dust and poured it over his head and defiled his comely
face. ”[52]
When Chaereas is determined to set sail in winter in search of his
kidnapped bride, his mother begged him to take her with him and cried in
Homer’s words:
“My child, have regard unto this bosom and pity me if ever I gave thee
consolation of my breast. ”[53]
When Dionysius suddenly learned at a banquet that Chaereas was alive
from reading his letter to Callirhoe,
“his knees and his heart were unstrung. ”[54]
When Artaxerxes was smitten with love for Callirhoe, he lay awake all
night,
“now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face. ”[55]
When Chaereas and Callirhoe had their ecstatic reunion on Aradus,
“when they had had their fill of tears and story-telling, embracing
each other,
‘they came gladly to the rites of their bed, as of old. ’”[56]
Enough illustrations of Chariton’s use of Homer have been given to show
the manner of it. Different explanations of Chariton’s constant use have
been advanced. Schmid thinks it is an indication of the influence of the
Menippean satire with its mingling of prose and verse. Jacob believes it
due to Chariton’s desire to make his style poetic. Calderini is more
understanding. He thinks that Chariton, thoroughly familiar with Homer,
quoted him to express worthily some noble thought and that he saw the
peculiar emphasis which a quotation from Homer could give to the
expression of a sudden, violent emotion. He also uses episodes from
Homer (the appeal of Hecuba from the wall to Hector,[57] the apparition
of Patroclus before Achilles,[58] the Homeric τειχοσκοπία). [59] More
than all, his style is usually Homeric in its brevity and simplicity;
and in his use of quotations, of scenes and of style he is the first
example of those relations between epic and romance which became so
important in the mediaeval literature of the west. [60]
Other literary influences are apparent. The Milesian Tales may have
suggested Miletus as the locality for the love-story of Dionysius. The
Ninus Romance is the precursor of the historical element which paints a
background of realism through the use of historical characters, notably
Hermocrates and Artaxerxes, and through allusions to actual wars. Drama
contributed the language of the stage to the description of the action.
And at one crisis when Chaereas, who is believed dead, is produced by
Mithridates in court, Chariton explains:
“Who could worthily tell of the appearance of the courtroom then? What
dramatist ever produced so incredible a situation on the stage? Indeed,
you might have thought that you were in a theater, filled with a
multitude of conflicting passions. ”[61] In another passage Mithridates
says Fortune has forced the lovers to enact a very sad tragedy. [62] New
comedy contributed types of characters (particularly the slaves), spicy
dialogue and at least two quotations. [63] The influence of history and
especially of Herodotus is apparent in the use of local history, in
narratives of adventure, in depiction of the adulation of the eastern
sovereign, in the reflection of the great struggle between the west and
the east. The influence of the rhetorical schools is seen in the court
scenes which in both their cases and speeches are strangely like those
of the _Controversiae_ of Seneca and the _Declamationes_ of Quintilian.
All these different literary forces combined to produce a style of
narration in Chariton which is at the same time simple and ingenuous,
yet rhetorical. His startling baroque effects are achieved by just this
variation from simple concise epic narrative with strong Homeric
coloring, to intense dramatic moments of high tragedy, to comic scenes
of slaves’ intrigues, to love passages which before had found expression
only in poetry.
