Chapter I: Front Matter

ESSAYS ON
THE GREEK ROMANCES

BY
ELIZABETH HAZELTON HAIGHT
_Professor Emeritus of Latin, Vassar College_

_NEW YORK_
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
M D CCCC XLIII

HAIGHT
ESSAYS ON THE GREEK ROMANCES

COPYRIGHT · 1943
BY LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE
RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR
ANY PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM

PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN
THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO

FIRST EDITION

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_To_
BLANCHE FERRY HOOKER
IN HONOR AND FRIENDSHIP

The Publication
of this book was made possible
by the
J. LEVERETT MOORE RESEARCH FUND
IN CLASSICS
and the
LUCY MAYNARD SALMON FUND
FOR RESEARCH
established at Vassar College
in 1926

_PREFACE_

If all the world loves a lover, as the old proverb says, then this my book should win wide fame. For these Greek Romances of the first to the fourth century of our era seem still to be singing the immemorial refrain from the old spring-time song of “The Vigil of Venus”:

Cras amet qui numquam amavit,
quique amavit cras amet.

“Let those love now, who never lov’d before;
Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.”

At a time when fiction is the most popular form of literature, these wonderful old Greek stories of love, adventure and worship are half forgotten and rarely read except by the scholar. Yet here, as in epic, lyric, elegy, drama, oratory and history, the Greeks were pioneers. In the second and third centuries they had created four different types of romance (of love, of adventure, the pastoral, the satiric) which were to have great influence on French, Italian and English fiction. The student of comparative literature, the student of the history of fiction cannot afford to neglect these pioneer Greek novels.

Their appeal, however, should be just as great for the general reader as for the scholar. For here are stories that mirror the life of the Mediterranean world in the Roman Empire with all its new excitements of travel, piracy, kidnapping, the new feminism, the new religious cults. And through all the different types of romance except the satiric the Love-God holds supreme sway over the hearts of men. So human, so vivacious are the love-stories that I offer to my readers Longus’ assurance of profit in his introduction to his Pastoral Romance:

“I drew up these four books, an oblation to Love and to Pan and to the
Nymphs, and a delightful possession even for all men. For this will
cure him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has
loved, it will remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For
there was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall
there be any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes
can see. But help me that God to write the passions of others; and
while I write, keep me in my own right wits.”[1]

My hope in writing on the Greek Romances is that I may lure readers back to them. My essays aim to be guideposts pointing the way. I venture to suggest that along with my book readers should peruse at least four novels of different types for which good translations are available. These are _Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe_ by Warren E. Blake (beautiful in English and format) and three volumes of _The Loeb Classical Library_: _Daphnis and Chloe by Longus_, Lucian’s _True History_ (in Lucian vol. I) and the Latin novel which combines the different Greek types into one great synthesis, Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_. If I can win new readers for these my favorites, my writing will be as successful as it has been happy!

It is a pleasure once again to express grateful thanks to publishers and authors who have allowed me to quote material. I am indebted to the Harvard University Press for its courtesy in allowing me to quote freely from volumes in _The Loeb Classical Library_; to the Clarendon Press, Oxford for the use of material from R. M. Rattenbury, “Romance: the Greek Novel,” in _New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature_, _Third Series_, from F. A. Todd, _Some Ancient Novels_, from J. S. Phillimore, “Greek Romances” in _English Literature and the Classics_, and from _The Works of Lucian of Samosata_ translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler; to Longmans, Green and Co., for the use of a quotation from F. G. Allinson, _Lucian Satirist and Artist_; to the University of Michigan Press for the use of Warren E. Blake’s translation of Chariton; to the Columbia University Press for permission to quote from S. L. Wolff’s _The Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction_; and for generous permissions for quotations from Professor M. Rostovtzeff and Professor B. E. Perry.

My writing has been greatly facilitated by the cooperation of the staff of the Vassar Library, especially of Miss Fanny Borden, Librarian, who has provided me with a study in the Library, patiently borrowed many books from other libraries for me and shown unfailing interest in my work. A constant stimulus to my writing has been the appreciation of my colleagues and students expressed in invitations to read different chapters of this volume to the Classical Journal Club and to the Classical Society. Finally my profound gratitude is due to the donors of the funds which made possible the publication of these Essays.

_CONTENTS_

CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Greek Romances and Their Re-dating. 1
II. Chariton’s _Chaereas and Callirhoe_. 14
III. The _Ephesiaca_ or _Habrocomes and Anthia_ by Xenophon of
Ephesus. 38
IV. The _Aethiopica_ of Heliodorus. 61
V. _The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon_ by Achilles Tatius. 95
VI. _The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe_ by Longus. 119
VII. Lucian and his Satiric Romances: the _True History_ and
_Lucius or Ass_. 144
VIII. A Comparison of the Greek Romances and Apuleius’
_Metamorphoses_. 186
Index 203

ESSAYS ON
THE GREEK ROMANCES