Of all the “ideal” novels, Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon is the most real. Filled with lurid scenes that would make Chariton blush and Heliodorus click his tongue, Achilles’ novel pushes the boundaries of the genre. Much of our information about Achilles himself is second or third hand and as fanciful as his novel. Modern readers enjoy Leucippe and Clitophon because of its engaging narrator, its vivid characters with realistic motivations and behaviors, and its risqué story. The novel appeals to scholars for its unusual first-person narrative voice, its rich language that ranges from the ribald to the poetic to the erudite, and its subversive play with novelistic motifs. The wide spectrum of interpretations of this both brilliant and frustrating novel signals that Leucippe and Clitophon is the work of an accomplished litterateur.
The earliest extant testimony about Achilles comes from the ninth-century Bibliotheca of Photius (cod. 87), and the Suda, a tenth-century encyclopedia (Lexicon s.v. “Ἀχιλλεὺς Στάτιος”). Both identify Achilles as Alexandrian. Photius disparages the moral quality of his story and considers the novel shameful and impure compared with Heliodorus. The Suda refers to the author as Achilles Statius, attributes other works to him, and claims that he became a Christian bishop later in life. It seems quite possible that Achilles was an Alexandrian, but he most certainly does not imitate Heliodorus (see later section titled “Dating Leucippe and Clitophon”). The Byzantine manuscripts have decided the question of Achilles’ second name, spelling it with a “T.” His becoming a Christian bishop appears to be an apocryphal attempt both to justify reading a “pagan” author in Christian times and to associate Achilles further with Heliodorus, whose novel Achilles was thought to be imitating. Heliodorus also is said to have become a Christian bishop, and even to have renounced his bishopric instead of condemning his novel to the fire (Socrates Hist. Eccl. 5.22 and Photius Bibl. cod. 73; Nicephorus Callistus Hist. Eccl. 12.34). The enduring ancient popularity of Achilles’ novel is suggested by a Christianized sequel in Metaphrastes’ tenth-century menology, in which Leucippe and Clitophon, childless and desperate, are converted to Christianity in the hope of offspring. Their son Galaction marries a pagan woman, Episteme, and converts her, and they both are martyred under Decius. The dating of this dubious martyrdom is not entirely incompatible with the current dating for the novel.
The novel’s text survives antiquity in 23 manuscripts, which Vilborg (1955) thinks have a common ninth-century ancestor. Commelinus published the editio princeps in 1601. The definitive scholarly edition is Vilborg, though other versions, such as Gaselee (1969) and Garnaud (1991), have since appeared. The lexicon of O’Sullivan (1980) offers the most complete treatment of all textual resources. Vilborg (1962) is the only available English-language commentary.
There are more papyri from Leucippe and Clitophon than from any other novel: seven papyri from six different manuscripts. The most textually important papyrus is the first one, P.Oxy. 1250, from the late third century, which challenges the order of chapters in Book 2, inserting 2.2.1.2–2.3.2 between 2.8 and 2.9. The passage in question contains the mythical origins of the Tyrian wine fest of Dionysus and the description of a crystal wine bowl. The papyrus moves this event from the second dinner to the third and last dinner. This reading contradicts all the manuscripts, but it must be remembered that these manuscripts likely derive from a single ninth-century source. The emendation has been accepted among scholars, notably, in Winkler’s translation in Reardon 2008 (but not in Whitmarsh 2009), mainly because the papyrus offers generally reliable readings, the passage’s deletion from chapter two is not noticeable, and its move better fits the story’s erotic progress.
Nineteenth-century scholars got off on the wrong foot with Leucippe and Clitophon, cleaving to Psellus’ unfortunate assumption that Achilles was imitating Heliodorus’ novel. Thus, Schmid (1894, 245) placed Achilles in the sixth century and Rohde (1876, 503) in the fifth century, while Wilamowitz (1905, 183) put him in the fourth century on stylistic grounds. In fact, dating Achilles after Heliodorus was part of the argument in Rohde’s monumental work, Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer (The Greek Novel and its Forerunners), in which he theorized that the ancient novels devolved from decadence to simplicity and derived from love elegy and travel stories as products of the Second Sophistic intellectual movement, incorporating sophistic elements such as ekphraseis (extended descriptions), rhetorical speeches, and the like. As Rohde dated the Second Sophistic to the second or third century, he spread out the ancient novels accordingly, the sophisticated ones earlier and the simpler ones later: Xenophon (second to third century), Heliodorus (fourth century), Achilles (fifth century), Chariton (end of the fifth century), and Longus (before the end of the sixth century). How Rohde’s definition of “simple” differs from that of the early twenty-first century!
Papyrological finds published in the twentieth century turned the dating of the ancient novels on its head. A papyrus of Callirhoe dated to the late second or early third century (Hunt 1910, 143) moved Chariton to the forefront of the novel genre. The parallels between Leucippe and Clitophon and The Ethiopian Story could not be ignored, however, and scholars still weighed the influence of Heliodorus on Achilles as late as 1938 (Durham). That same year, a papyrus of Leucippe and Clitophon (P.Mil.Vogl. 1244) was published with a late second-century date (Vogliano 1938). Now Heliodorus became the successor of Achilles! P.Oxy. 3836 corroborated the second-century date (Parsons 1989, 62), giving Achilles a firm terminus ante quem.
It is worth pondering why scholars persisted in assuming that Achilles was imitating Heliodorus rather than the other way around. Scholars saw Achilles as the inferior of Heliodorus: in morality, in technique, in a tendency toward the absurd, in subordinating style and story to rhetoric, and in abandoning the ideal in favor of the real. Like Rohde, these scholars presumed, perhaps following classical models, that literature deteriorated over time, that the first examples of a genre were necessarily the better ones. Contemporary literary taste has developed to such an extent that the aspects which once were considered Achilles’ weaknesses are now his strengths: his wit and willingness to push the boundaries of the genre (e.g. Whitmarsh 2003), his pastiche-like style (Fusillo 1988), his realism (Rojas Alvarez 1989), his humor (Anderson 1982), and his eroticism (Goldhill 1995). This is not to say that Achilles’ is a perfect novel, but that scholarship of late has focused more on what he has to offer than on what he does not. Free of association with Heliodorus’ novel, Achilles’ novel can then stand on its own as a virtuoso work.
Internal evidence has refined the novel’s date. In Leucippe and Clitophon (3.9–24, 4.1–18), as well as in Heliodorus’ novel (1.1–3, 27–33; 2.1–3), there is a loose organization of pirates called the Boukoloi (“Herdsmen”). The Roman historian Dio Cassius reports a revolt of Boukoloi in Egypt in 171 CE (71.4.1–2). The fact that these Herdsmen sacrifice and consume the entrails of a centurion, similar to Leucippe’s sacrifice, suggests that Achilles is basing this part of the novel upon actual events, which would place the novel in the last decades of the second century. Another piece of corroborating evidence pertains to Hellenic hairstyles: from the time of Hadrian to Constantine, it was fashionable for men to wear beards. At 2.18.3, a band of youths disguise themselves as women and shave off their beards. Plepelits (1980, 11) suggests that this detail points to a post-Hadrianic date, i.e. after 138 CE. Finally, as Picard first noticed (1922, 52 n. 4), there is the mention of Clitophon’s entrance to Alexandria through the Gate of the Sun, which is connected to a Gate of the Moon on the other side of the city by a long colonnade (5.1). Malalas describes a similar set of gates joined by a colonnade built by Antoninus Pius (138–161; Chronographia 11.280). If Pius was building new gates and not merely renaming extant ones, then this event could be a terminus post quem, mid-second century.
To sum up, Achilles is now dated to the last quarter of the second century, in the middle of the five canonical Greek novels: after Chariton and Xenophon (first century) and before Longus (early third century) and Heliodorus (mid-fourth century). Leucippe and Clitophon is also contemporary with other novelistic works, such as Lucian’s True History, Pseudo-Lucian’s The Ass, and Iamblichus’ Babylonian Story. The number of papyri from Leucippe and Clitophon suggests that this novel enjoyed a relative popularity in antiquity, though from papyrological evidence it is clear that novels were far from popular literature in general.
As Reardon wrote, “no uncontested interpretation [of Leucippe and Clitophon] exists” (1994, 80). It is the ultimate ancient anti-novel that plays with and even mocks convention to such an extent that scholars often justify their readings of this novel by appealing to its unique status. There are, however, many areas of inquiry concerning this novel about which scholars agree to disagree. The most non-controversial and numerous of these are the works that address Achilles’ place in literature: literary allusions, the novel’s influence on contemporary and later writers, textual criticism, and dating. Otherwise, there are four main categories to which the rest of Achillean scholarship belongs: the novel’s style, the novel’s structure, the novel’s use of conventions, and the novel’s representation of contemporary social issues.
Scholars who comment on Achilles’ style most often conclude that he uses traditional elements in an innovative way, from ekphrasis (e.g. Nascimento 1999 and Zimmermann 1999) to metaphor (e.g. Bartsch 1991, Morales 1995) to myth (e.g. Reardon 2003, Reeves 2007). There are divergent opinions about Achilles’ relationship to literary tradition, from those who find influence from satyr plays (Anderson 1988), comedy (e.g. Anderson 1982), sophistic rhetoric, and philosophy (Anderson 1989, Goldhill 1995), particularly Platonic dialogues (e.g. Laplace 2007, Ní Mheallaigh 2007), or even the other ancient novels, whether satiric (Bartonková 1991) or ideal (Chew 2000). One of the most thorough analyses of this novel concludes that it is difficult to pin down (Morales 2004).
Most of the scholarship treating the novel’s reflection of contemporary society focuses on Greek identity in the Roman world (e.g. Liviabella Furiani 2000, Schwartz 2000, Waldner 2000), including critical theoretical approaches (e.g. Brethes 2003, Burrus 2005, Goldhill 2002). Scholars dispute most over the novel’s structure. While some look to Platonic dialogues (see the preceding text) or to social convention (Most 1989) for models to explain why the end of the novel does not return to its framing dialogue, others emphasize the novel’s uniqueness to account for its structural discontinuities (e.g. Nakatani 2003, Rabau 1997, Repath 2005). I have tried to resolve these problems by pointing out that Achilles reverses the traditional convention of introducing Eros first as in charge of the love affair and then Tyche, which change privileges disruption over love and accounts for the erotically unsatisfying end (Chew 2012).
While there is ample room for further exploration into the above-mentioned topics, the area ripest for development in Achillean scholarship is the novel’s treatment of novelistic conventions. Very few topics have been addressed in this area: ekphraseis (Bartsch), chastity (Chew 2000), Eros/Tyche (Chew 2012), ego-narrative (Reardon 1994, Whitmarsh 2003), digressions (Morales 2000), gardens (Somville 2001), Scheintod (Woronoff 2002), and the role of female characters (Haynes). This deficit is due to the lack of a comprehensive discussion of ancient novelistic motifs. In the interest of stimulating scholarship, the rest of this article will be devoted to that examination, working from the understanding that these conventions are established in the pre-Sophistic novels of Chariton and Xenophon and are then manipulated in the Sophistic novels, including Achilles’.
Chariton’s (1.1) and Xenophon’s (1.1–2) novels start by describing the beauty of the heroine and hero and announcing Love’s intention to join them. Achilles’ novel begins instead with a prologue, similar to Longus’ prologue. (1–4), in which an anonymous first-person narrator strikes up a conversation with a stranger about Love, in a grove of plane trees. Clitophon’s narrative begins with a mournful cast and starts from the premise that Love’s unions bring suffering upon his victims (1.3). There is an obvious Platonic echo in the dialogue on love underneath the plane tree (e.g. the Symposium), and in that, like some Platonic dialogues, the original narrative frame is never revisited. This could account for the structure, but what about the tragic tone? Most (1989) has the most convincing explanation for this: that it was a topos in ancient literature for strangers to lament their lots in life to new acquaintances.
The other canonical Greek novels are third-person narratives. Lucian’s True History and Pseudo-Lucian’s The Ass are the only other first-person Greek novelistic works, as well as the Latin novels, Petronius’ Satyricon and Apuleius’ Golden Ass. Achilles’ use of a first-person narrator initiates fundamental changes to the novel, such as the muting of the heroine’s voice, the shifting of the story’s focus from the heroine to the hero (see later subsection titled “The focus on the heroine”), and the recalibration of the gods (see later subsection titled “Eros, Tyche, and gods in general”). Reardon (1994) points out that the psychological realism allows the novel to push some conventions, such as the heroine’s Scheintod and the hero’s chastity, further than a third-person narrator might. Whitmarsh (2003) explores how Achilles problematizes the act of readership through his portrayal of Clitophon as narrator and interpreter.
Chariton’s, Xenophon’s, and Heliodorus’ main characters fall in love at first sight; Konstan (1994) argues that this establishes erotic equality and reciprocity for the lovers. Clitophon falls for Leucippe at once (1.4), but the heroine takes some courting before she is wooed (2.9). Leucippe’s reluctance to succumb to the hero motivates Clitophon to pursue her aggressively and adds erotic spice to the story. Once she falls for Clitophon, however, Leucippe’s devotion, like that of other heroines, is unshakable.
The heroine and hero hold prominent social positions, which make their separation from home all the more poignant, for these couples symbolize their society, and their fate is their society’s fate (see Cooper 1996). All who see the heroine and hero liken them to gods or mythical heroes. Their beauty is their pedigree, in the Homeric sense: it represents their superior birth, nature, and character, and thus cannot be tarnished by suffering or disfigurement. Callirhoe’s beauty outshines her slave status (2.3.10). Even with her hair shorn, Anthia remains stunning (5.5.4–8), and Charicleia’s eyes shine out of her hideous disguise (7.7.7). So too are Leucippe’s looks immune to the ravages of slavery, filth, and a shaven head (5.17).
The other canonical Greek novels center around the heroines, who represent what is desirable, suffer the most in the stories, and whose personal chastity enables them to regain their place in society (see Haynes 2003, 156–162, who finds that the emotional strength of the heroine problematizes the hero’s masculinity). Chariton’s novel demonstrates the heroine’s significance by its last sentence: “so much have I written about Callirhoe” (8.8.16). Moreover, the title of this novel has been recently revised from Chaireas and Callirhoe to Callirhoe, based on papyrological evidence (P.Mich. 1). Anthia’s importance is calibrated by the number of her potential seducers, 11, to Habrocomes’ paltry three. In Longus’ novel, Pan announces that “Love wants to make a story about [Chloe]” (2.27.2), and the novel’s denouement focuses solely on Chloe’s experience on her wedding night (4.40). Heliodorus’ story centers upon Charicleia’s quest for her heritage; Theagenes is more appendage than equal. Leucippe and Clitophon cleverly maintains the preceding requirements for the heroine (as object of desire, target of suffering, and keeper of virginity) while focalizing the story through the hero. As Clitophon shifts in Book 6 from telling things as he perceives them in the story to including other events that he finds out later, the reader gains greater insight into Leucippe’s character but is always peering through the window of Clitophon’s eyes.
The gods Eros/Love and Tyche/Chance are a staple of the canonical Greek novels. Eros initiates the action in Chariton’s (1.1.4), Xenophon’s (1.2.1), and Longus’ (1.7.2, 1.11.1) novels, and Tyche complicates matters. Achilles’ first-person narrator necessarily constrains the participation of the gods in the story; as events are focalized through Clitophon, the reader sees only his or other characters’ interpretations of the gods’ action in the world. Though Clitophon exhibits a novelistically conventional belief in both Eros and Tyche, he identifies Tyche as the god who first enters his life (1.3.3), by introducing Leucippe, before Eros makes him succumb to love.
Novelistic heroines must above all adhere to virginity, if they are unwed, and chastity, if married, for their fidelity is their guarantee of reintegration back into their societies after their adventures (Cooper 1996, 36–44). Thus, Chloe and Charicleia wed as virgins at the end of their novels, and Callirhoe and Anthia, who both marry at the start of their stories, maintain fidelity, after a fashion, to their heroes. Leucippe not only steals kisses with the hero (2.7–8), as other heroines do, but she also agrees to an unprecedented premarital tryst (2.19 and 23). Compare to this the “sinless and still virginal love” that informs the kisses and embraces of Heliodorus’ couple (5.4.5). After the abortion of this tryst by the sudden entrance of the girl’s mother, who has envisioned Leucippe’s deflowering in a symbolic dream (2.23), Leucippe’s behavior becomes conventionally chaste; she even expresses a willingness to take a virginity test to console her fretting mother (2.28) and later rebuffs Clitophon’s pressure to have sex (4.1). Leucippe flirts with disaster, but in the end she is just a tease.
This is a convention as old as Homer. Aside from preventing the hero’s suicide, the sidekick assists the hero in his continual quest for the heroine and provides a comparison for the heroine and hero’s love. Chaireas has his Polycharmus, Habrocomes has Hippothous, and Theagenes has Knemon and Thyamis. Of these, Hippothous’ sexual preference includes both males and females, while Knemon and Thyamis prefer females. Clitophon’s sidekicks, his cousin Clinias and fellow traveler Menelaus, both have a male-oriented sexuality and, like Hippothous, have suffered the tragic loss of a lover. Achilles might be contrasting the different types of love, but there is a further rhetorical component, for he parlays this difference in sexuality to spark an explicit dialogue on the comparative virtues of boys and women as sexual partners (2.35–38).
Exploring the world is so integral to the ancient novels that Rohde (1876, 178–183) hypothesized their derivation from travel stories. The pre-Sophistic novelists use travel to create excitement by putting lovers in hazardous situations that threaten both their chastity and their lives. Longus innovates on the travel theme by having outsiders invade his country setting, and Charicleia’s quest paradoxically takes her closer to home the further she moves from Greece. Achilles uses travel in part conventionally, in part as a pretext to display his rhetorical prowess at ekphraseis (1.1; 3.6–8; 5.3–5) and descriptions of strange animals (3.25; 4.4; 4.19) and other lore (2.14; 8.6; 8.12).
Achilles pioneers the way for other Sophistic novelists’ use of ekphraseis and descriptions, as well as forensic arguments. His artistic and horticultural ekphraseis serve as foreshadowing or metaphor (Bartsch 1991, Morales 2004): the painting of Europa at the novel’s beginning to characterize the tenor of the story (1.1), the carefully tended garden as a metaphor for Leucippe’s virginity (1.15), and the paintings of Andromeda and Prometheus (3.6–8) and Philomela (5.3–5) to foreshadow Leucippe’s fates. In addition, Achilles pays attention to emotional affect on human behavior and devotes many digressions to this theme (e.g. 1.6; 2.29; 3.11; 5.13; 6.6–7; 6.19; 7.4), his initial treatment of which is programmatic: the soul, wounded by love, becomes susceptible to a variety of emotions (1.4.4–5) to which, it is implied, a whole person would not be susceptible. His cacophonous courtroom speeches entertain with rhetoric (7.11), melodrama (8.2), and comedy (8.9). Often slick, always controversial, Achilles repays his observant reader.
No ancient Greek novel story is complete without an encounter with pirates and exposure to the dangers of sea travel. Achilles treats his reader to a glorious description of a shipwreck (3.1–5). While Chariton and Heliodorus arguably create the most memorable pirate characters, Theron and Thyamis, Achilles adds some broader social context to his pirates; more than stock characters, they are men who act in their own interests, independent of laws and custom, and they can be anyone. First, Callisthenes, the ruffian who kidnaps Clitophon’s sister Calligone by mistake (2.13; 2.15; 2.18), is not a disenfranchised youth but one lacking in parental supervision (2.13.1). Then, Clitophon’s friend Menelaos knows some of the Egyptian Boukoloi/Herdsmen who capture their second ship (3.9–10), and thus saves Leucippe from becoming a virgin sacrifice (3.19–22). Lastly, Chaireas, a fisherman-cum-mercenary, befriends Leucippe and Clitophon, shades of Chariton’s Mithridates (Callirhoe 4.4), with the ulterior motive of kidnapping Leucippe (5.3; 5.7). The author’s familiarity with the Boukoloi Revolt suggests that Achilles might be enhancing his narrative with current news stories.
Various catastrophes separate both Chariton’s and Xenophon’s lovers, which fuels a desire in the reader to see the pairs reunited. Achilles puts a few spins on this convention. A consequence of keeping his lovers apart is that, given the first-person narrator, Leucippe periodically disappears from the “consciousness” of the narrative. In fact, after her second Scheintod, the reader’s belief in Leucippe’s death lasts for 10 whole chapters, which is not so many in comparison with Heliodorus’ novel, except for the fact that Clitophon marries in the interim. Achilles also creates the innovation of the lovers being “together but apart” when an overdose of aphrodisiac drives Leucippe mad (4.9 and 10; 4.15–17), a ploy Heliodorus also adapts (8.9.21–22).
A prominent feature of the heroine’s suffering is her “apparent death,” which facilitates the lovers’ separation. Chaireas fells Callirhoe with a kick (1.4.12–1.5.1); she awakens in her tomb only to be stolen by robbers (1.8). To avoid marriage, Anthia takes a soporific poison, is buried, and then kidnapped by robbers (3.5–8). Charicleia appears to be slain by a brigand (1.30.4–1.31.1), but it turns out to be another girl (2.5–6). Achilles crosses the line into melodrama with his grotesque take on this convention: Leucippe endures three grisly Scheintoden (3.15; 5.7; 7.1–3) plus an imagined one (2.23)—two guttings, one beheading, and one not described. An ekphrasis foreshadows each of these. Clinias’ comment to Clitophon after Leucippe’s third Scheintod, “For who knows if she is alive once more? For has she not died many times? Did she not keep returning to life many times?” (7.6.2), underscores Achilles’ self-conscious absurdity. Leucippe’s Scheintoden are similar to the trials of the female Christian martyrs.
Each heroine faces several seducers (Callirhoe three, Anthia 11, Leucippe four, Chloe two, and Charicleia four), and every hero except Chaireas faces at least one, usually of the opposite sex. Succumbing to seduction is the equivalent of social suicide for the heroine. Aside from the irony that Leucippe’s first unsuccessful seducer is none other than Clitophon, the erotic rivals who plague her are of the garden variety: lust-driven, self-centered men. Melite, Clitophon’s amorous pursuer, evokes Chariton’s Dionysius in the sympathy her character elicits with her lovelorn suffering. Melite stands out from other rivals because she values Clitophon’s happiness above her own, for even after she learns that Leucippe is alive, she does not succumb to jealousy (6.26–7.1). All other rivals, Dionysius included, think first of themselves. Achilles creates a unique masterpiece in Melite, the tragic female lover. This might be analogous to the tragic male-oriented lover, since elite women usually did not determine their own relationships in the ancient world, and thus any affairs of the heart were likely doomed to failure (see, e.g. Treggiari 1991, 83–124).
The faithfulness of the heroine to the hero is reciprocal. Habrocomes scorns all suitors. Heliodorus crafts Theagenes much in the image of Habrocomes, but Achilles and Longus play with the concept of male fidelity. To learn how to make love, Daphnis needs an actual lesson, provided by an older city woman whose passion is quelled by a single encounter (3.15–19). Daphnis’ naïve motivation acquits him of true transgression. Clitophon, however, is far from a typical chaste hero. At the novel’s start, he is not even a virgin, having had some past dealings with prostitutes (2.37.5). Not only does Clitophon try to bed Leucippe before any nuptial arrangement (2.19; 2.23–25), but he also tries to seduce her again mid-adventure (4.1). Then Clitophon technically violates the principle of amorous fidelity by his capitulation to Melite’s desire, justifying himself by clever argument (5.27). The line Achilles playfully walks here is that the hero have no carnal knowledge of the heroine, so Clitophon states baldly to Leucippe’s father that “if there is any such thing as male virginity, that is how I am with regards to Leucippe up to now” (8.5.7). Clitophon’s cunning rhetoric is supported by Melite’s truth trial, at which she uses a similar rhetorical ploy, swearing that she was not unfaithful to Thersander during his absence (8.11), for she does not commit adultery until after his return!
Erotic rivals test the heroine’s chastity; other suffering, especially enslavement, tests her nobility. Like other heroines, Leucippe holds up admirably, passing unscathed through almost as many hands as Anthia. When threatened with torture to make her more subservient, Leucippe’s reply evokes the stories of Christian female martyrs:
Set up the instruments of torture. Bring the wheel—here are my hands, stretch them. Bring the whips—here is my back, beat it. Bring fire—here is my body, burn it. Bring the knife too—here is my neck, cut it. See a new kind of contest: one woman takes on all the instruments of torture and conquers them all! (6.21)
The heroine’s innate nobility is as unassailable as her beauty.
Heroes suffer in the novels, but not as much as the heroines, for they face far fewer erotic rivals and trials of character. Separation from the heroines is a major source of suffering for the heroes, so much so that they attempt suicide and consequently need rescuing, usually by their sidekicks, a motif familiar from New Comedy. Chaireas leads the pack, with six near suicides (1.5; 1.6; 3.3; 3.5, 5.10; 6.2), Habrocomes has one (3.10), and Theagenes threatens once (7.26). Clitophon approaches suicide twice, after Leucippe’s first (3.16–3.17.1) and third (7.6–7) Scheintoden. Each time his friends save him. The hero’s dependence upon the heroine underlines her centrality to the structure and meaning of the novel.
Armed conflict enters into the story of each novel and is a symbol of the world in upheaval that lurks beyond the safe boundaries of the heroine and hero’s homes. In Callirhoe, the war between Egypt and Persia sweeps the lovers along in its wake (6.8). A campaign against pirates in Xenophon’s novel (5.3) catches Anthia in its nets. In Longus’ novel, war comes between the Mytileneans and Methymneans, who kidnap Chloe (3.1–2). The Ethiopians’ defeat of the Persians wins Charicleia and Theagenes as spoils (9.1–20). In addition to the war that causes the lovers’ meeting at the beginning of the novel (1.3), Leucippe and Clitophon features the war against the Boukoloi/Herdsmen (3.13–14; 4.12–14), who capture both Clitophon and Leucippe, whose rescue puts them at the mercy of a lusty general (4.7).
In comparison with earlier Greek and Latin literature, sexual mores in the novels become appreciably degendered. The heroines’ proof of fidelity takes its model from Penelope (Od. 23.226–229). For married women, their word, their beauty, and their behavior bespeak their honor. Callirhoe’s loveliness and nobility testify to her integrity (8.1.11–12) long before she tells her story privately to Chaireas (8.1.14–16). Anthia proudly lists to Habrocomes the catalogue of men who have failed to seduce her, and Habrocomes pledges like devotion (5.14). Achilles stretches this convention with Leucippe, who is chaste in body if not in mind. That Pan, a god who has had his share of virgins, presides over her virginity test (8.6; 8.14), is pure comedy, as is Melite’s farcical truth test. Heliodorus transforms this romp into ritual, inventing the gridiron virginity test for both heroine and hero (10.9).
The Greek novel borrows the New Comedic topos that all eligible characters, especially the sidekicks, be paired at the story’s end, their assumption of proper social roles underscoring the meaning of love. This includes not only Anthia and Habrocomes’ former slaves, but also Hippothous, who adopts his young male lover. Chaireas betroths his sister to Polycharmus (8.8.12), and Dionysius takes home Callirhoe’s son (8.4.5–6). In Heliodorus’ novel, Knemon finds himself in love and married off, when he can no longer serve the plot (6.8.1–2); Thyamis regains his high priesthood (7.11.6), the equivalent of the social position that marriage provides. In Leucippe and Clitophon, love redeems Callisthenes, Calligone’s kidnapper (2.18), for by the end of the novel he becomes a model citizen and wins over her heart (8.17). Notably missing from the tidy ending are the fates of Clinias and Melite. Clinias last appears in the final chapter when he announces that Thersander has fled the city (8.19.1). Melite’s final act is to arrest the overseer who kept Leucippe captive (8.14). Given the sympathy aroused by Melite’s character, it is not unreasonable for the reader to want closure with her story. Perhaps Melite’s reward is a virtual divorce from Thersander, but that is left beyond the story’s context. The lack of compensation for Clinias is more puzzling, and this question extends into the next topic.
The novel ends quite matter-of-factly: the lovers quit their legal obligations in Ephesus, get married in Byzantium, attend Calligone’s wedding in Tyre, then plan to leave for Byzantium after the winter. For a novel so given to description, emotion, and excitement, this conclusion disappoints. Compare Callirhoe’s sentimental scene in Aphrodite’s temple (8.8.15–16), Xenophon’s “and they lived the rest of their life together as one big festival” (5.15.3), Chloe’s wedding night (4.40), or Charicleia and Theagenes’ triumphal marriage (10.41). Beyond the lackluster tone, the ending does not fit the beginning, where Clitophon meets the first narrator in Sidon. Where is Leucippe? And why is Clitophon in Sidon? Various interpretations have been proposed: the ending follows the initial Platonic setting; Achilles departs from his “stranger’s lament” structure to give an obligatory happy ending (Most 1989); the inconclusive ending shows the limits of erotic instruction (Morales 2004, 151); the novel is not unfinished but unique (Rabau 1997); or, as befits its design, the novel has a deliberately non-happy non-ending (Repath 2005). These explanations are not fully satisfying. An alternative reading takes into account that Tyche/Chance, and not Eros/Love, is the initiating god in this story. By switching the sequence of Eros and Tyche, Achilles subordinates love to chance, and it is chance that ends this novel, as Clitophon concludes by leaving his story open-ended.
Achilles’ novel is the inspiration for Eumathius Macrembolites’ Byzantine novel Hysmine and Hysminias. The other Byzantine novelists obviously knew Achilles’ novel but Leucippe and Clitophon does not inform their works to the same degree as it does Macrembolites’.
Anderson, G. 1982. Eros Sophistes: Ancient Novelists at Play. Chico, CA: American Philological Association.
Anderson, G. 1988. “Achilles Tatius: A new interpretation.” In The Greek Novel AD 1–1985, edited by Roderick Beaton. London: Croom Helm, pp. 190–193.
Anderson, G. 1989. “The Pepaideumenos in action: Sophists and their outlook in the early empire.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.33.1: 79–108.
Bartonková, D. 1991. “Das Verhältnis des Romans von Achilleus Tatios zu den komisch-realistischen Romanen.” Sborník Prací Filosofické Fakulty Brnenské University, 36: 115–119.
Bartsch, S. 1991. Decoding the Ancient Novel. The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Princeton: Princeton University.
Brethes, R. 2003. “Pour une typologie du rire dans les romans grecs: topos littéraire, jeu narratologique et nouvelle lecture du monde.” Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé, 2003: 113–129.
Burrus, V. 2005. “Mimicking virgins: Colonial ambivalence and the ancient romance.” Arethusa, 38: 49–88.
Chew, K. 2000. “Achilles Tatius and parody.” Classical Journal, 96: 57–70.
Chew, K. 2012. “A novelistic convention reversed: Tyche vs Eros in Achilles Tatius.” Classical Philology, 107 (forthcoming).
Cooper, K. 1996. The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Durham, D.B. 1938. “Parody in Achilles Tatius.” Classical Philology, 33: 1–19.
Fusillo, M. 1988. “Textual patterns and narrative situations in the Greek novel.” Groningen Colloquia on the Novel, 1: 17–32.
Garnaud, J.-P. 1991. Achille Tatius d’Alexandrie. Le roman de Leucippé et Clitophon. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Gaselee, S. 1984. Achilles Tatius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goldhill, S. 1995. Foucault’s Virginity: Ancient Erotic Fiction and the History of Sexuality. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Goldhill, S. 2002. “The erotic experience of looking: Cultural conflict and the Gaze in empire culture.” In The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by M.C. Nussbaum and J. Sihvola. Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 374–399.
Haynes, K. 2003. Fashioning the Feminine in the Greek Novel. New York: Routledge.
Hunt, A.S. 1910. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. 7. London: Egypt Exploration Society.
Konstan, D. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Laplace, M.M. 2007. Le roman d’Achille Tatios: “discours panégyrique” et imaginaire romanesque. Bern: Lang.
Liviabella Furiani, P. 2000. “Il corpo nel romanzo di Achille Tazio.” Ancient Narrative, 1: 134–151.
Morales, H.L. 1995. “The taming of the view: Natural curiosities in Leukippe and Kleitophon.” Groningen Colloquia on the Novel, 6: 39–50.
Morales, H.L. 2000. “Sense and sententiousness in the Greek novels.” In Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations, edited by Alison R. Sharrock and Helen L. Morales. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 67–88.
Morales, H.L. 2004. Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Most, G.W. 1989. “The stranger’s stratagem. Self-disclosure and self-sufficiency in Greek culture.” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 109: 114–133.
Nakatani, S. 2003. “A re-examination of some structural problems in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon.” Ancient Narrative, 3: 63–81.
Nascimento Pena, A. 1995. “Aspectos da criação literária no romance de Aquiles Tácio, Leucipe e Clitofonte.” Euphrosyne, 23: 199–209.
Ní Mheallaigh, K. 2007. “Philosophical framing: The Phaedran setting of Leucippe and Cleitophon.” In Philosophical Presences in the Ancient Novel, edited by J.R. Morgan and M. Jones. Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing, pp. 231–244.
O’Sullivan, J.N. 1980. A Lexicon to Achilles Tatius. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Parsons, P.J. 1989. “3836. Achilles Tatius 3.21–3.” In The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. 56, edited by M.G. Sirivianou. London: Egypt Exploration Society, pp. 62–65.
Picard, C. 1922. Ephèse et Claros. Recherches sur les Sanctuaires et les Cultes de l’Ionie du Nord. Paris: E. de Boccard.
Plepelits, K. 1980. Achilleus Tatios. Leukippe und Kleitophon. Stuttgart: Hiersemann.
Rabau, S. 1997. “Le roman d’Achille Tatius a-t-il une fin? ou Comment refermer une œuvre ouverte?” Lalies, 17: 139–149.
Reardon, B.P. 1994. “Achilles Tatius and ego-narrative.” In Greek Fiction. The Greek Novel in Context, edited by J.R. Morgan and R. Stoneman. New York: Routledge, pp. 80–96.
Reardon, B.P. 2003. “Mythology in Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus.” In Mitos en la literatura griega helenística e imperial, edited by Juan Antonio López Férez. Madrid: Ed. Clásicas, pp. 377–389.
Reardon, B.P., ed. 2008. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Reeves, B.T. 2007. “The role of the ekphrasis in plot development: The painting of Europa and the bull in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon.” Mnemosyne, 60: 87–101.
Repath, I.D. 2005. “Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Cleitophon: What happened next?” Classical Quarterly, 55: 250–265.
Rohde, E. 1876. Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer. Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel.
Rojas Alvarez, L. 1989. “Realismo Erótico en Aquiles Tacio.” Nova Tellus, 7: 81–90.
Schmid, W. 1894. “Achilleus Tatios.” RE 1: 245–248.
Schwartz, S.C. 2000. “Clitophon the Moichos: Achilles Tatius and the trial scene in the Greek novel.” Ancient Narrative, 1: 93–113.
Somville, P. 2001. “Jardins et sacralisation de l’espace.” In Κῆποι: de la religion à la philosophie. Mélanges offerts à André Motte, edited by Édouard Delruelle and Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge Liège: Centre International d’Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, pp. 23–27.
Treggiari, S. 1991. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. New York: Oxford University Press.
Vilborg, E. 1955. Achilles Tatius. Leucippe and Clitophon. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.
Vilborg, E. 1962. Achilles Tatius. Leucippe and Clitophon. A Commentary. Göteborg: University of Göteborg Press.
Vogliano, A. 1938. “Un papiro di Achille Tazio.” Studi italiani di filologia classica, 15: 121–130.
Waldner, K. 2006. “Die poetische Gerechtigkeit der Götter: Recht und Religion im griechischen Roman.” In Texte als Medium und Reflexion von Religion im römischen Reich, edited by Dorothee Elm von der Osten, Jörg Rüpke, and Katharina Waldner. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 101–123.
Whitmarsh, T. 2003. “Reading for pleasure: Narrative, irony, and erotics in Achilles Tatius.” In The Ancient Novel and Beyond, edited by S. Panayotakis, M. Zimmermann, and W.H. Keulen. Boston: Brill, pp. 191–205.
Whitmarsh, T. 2009. Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Clitophon. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. v. et al. 1905. Die griechische und lateinsiche Literatur und Sprache. Berlin: Teubner.
Woronoff, M. 2002. “La nouvelle de ma mort est très exagérée.” Ktèma, 27: 345–351.
Zimmermann, B. 1999. “Zur Funktion der Bildbeschreibungen im griechischen Roman.” Poetica, 31: 61–79.
Nimis, S. 1998. “Memory and description in the ancient novel.” Arethusa, 31: 99–122. Presents the innovative argument that, as a product of a prosaic process akin to formulaic composition, Achilles’ novel should not be held to traditional literary standards.
Perkins, J. 1995. The Suffering Self. Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era. New York: Routledge. Excellent study that gives a social context for representations of suffering.
Plepelits, K. 2003. “Achilles Tatius.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, edited by Gareth Schmeling (rev. ed.) Boston: Brill, pp. 387–416. Thorough discussion of all matters related to author and text.
Swain, S. 1996. “The Greek Novel and Greek Identity.” In Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250, edited by Simon Swain. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 102–131. An insightful examination of the novel as an expression of cultural hegemony.
Whitmarsh, T. 2001. Greek Literature and the Roman Empire. The Politics of Imitation. New York: Oxford University Press. Excellent exploration of the literary construction of Greek identity during the Roman Empire.
Whitmarsh, T., ed. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel. New York: Cambridge University Press. Organized differently from this volume, this book treats the ancient novels thematically rather than individually.