CHAPTER 5 Heliodorus, the Ethiopian Story

Marília P. Futre Pinheiro

The Author and His Work¹

The data available to us about Heliodorus are scarce, fragmentary, and sometimes contradictory, and the sources contain several gaps that render them baffling. The few testimonies that survive are external and internal in nature. Our earliest testimony is that of Socrates, a church historian who wrote early in the fifth century AD about events that occurred between 306 and 439 AD. In a passage of his Ecclesiastical History [5, 22 (Migne, Patrologia Graeca 67, col. 63, and Colonna (1938), Test. I.)], he claimed that ecclesiastical celibacy was introduced by Heliodorus when he was appointed Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, and also that it is said that he composed an erotic book, which he wrote in his youth, entitled Aethiopika. (In the postscript of his work, Heliodorus refers to it as τὰ περὶ Θεαγένην καὶ Xαρίκλειαν Aἰθιοπικά “Ethiopian Story Concerning Theagenes and Charicleia.” Over the centuries, it has circulated with the titles Aethiopika, Ethiopica, Ethiopian Story, The Story of Theagenes and Charicleia, and Charicleia.)

The idea that Heliodorus became a Christian and later a bishop persisted in Byzantium, and in the ninth century Photius (Bibliotheca, cod. 73, sub fine; Bekker, 51b, 40–41) transmitted this information. In the fourteenth century, Nicephorus Callistus (Hist. Eccl. 12, 34 [Migne, Patrologia Graeca 146, col. 860, and Colonna (1938), Test. I]) corroborated the story, but further added that, because the Aethiopika had scandalized so many young people, the local synod allowed Heliodorus to choose one of two options: resign his bishopric or burn his novel. He chose the first option. This information, however, is not sufficient for us to conclude that Heliodorus lived between 306 and 439 AD, since it is possible that Socrates was referring en passant to a practice that took place before 306 AD.

Also worthy of mention is the comment found at the end of the oldest manuscript of the Aethiopika (Vaticanus Graecus 157), which dates from the late eleventh century. Here, a fourteenth-century annotator wrote that Heliodorus, author of the Aethiopika and Bishop of Tricca, lived in the time of Theodosius the Great and wrote a poem in iambic verse about the manufacture of gold, which was dedicated to Theodosius, as originally claimed by Georgius Cedrenus (eleventh century). Georgius Cedrenus does not relay this information, but rather the eleventh-century chronicler Theodosius Melitenus (Colonna 1938, Test. III and XIV), who dates Heliodorus’ office to the reign of Theodosius without specifying which “Theodosius” was meant. The chronographer’s error is due to confusion between two homonymous individuals who lived at different times: the iambic poem about alchemy, attributed by the medieval chronicler to Heliodorus, is later than 610–641 AD, so that the emperor Theodosius who receives the dedication must be Theodosius III (716–717 AD). This misunderstanding was certainly fuelled by the most important and controversial exemplum of internal evidence: the sphragis with which Heliodorus concludes his novel, in which he identifies himself as Theodosius’ son, one of the clan of the Descendants of the Sun.

Although they are apparently unconnected, these pieces of information provide a backdrop that help to reconstruct a hypothetical biography. Whether or not Socrates’ reference to the Aethiopika is correct, it sets the second half of the fourth century as a terminus ante quem to the novel. It is known that Philostratus wrote Life of Apollonius of Tyana at the request of Julia Domna, but it is almost certain that, when the work was published, she was already dead, since the book is not dedicated to her (see Crespo Güemes 1979, 10–11 and n. 3). If we take into account the coincidences between Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana and the Aethiopika, we can establish the year 217 as a terminus post quem for Heliodorus.

A later date for the novel is reinforced by the similarities between the siege of Syene described in Aethiopika 9 and two panegyrics (Orations 1 and 2) of Constantius written by the future emperor Julian. In both panegyrics, Julian provides a detailed description of events that occurred in the year 350 AD, in particular the important victories of Constantius against the Persians in the East and against Magentius in the West. The coincidences between Julian and Heliodorus cannot be fortuitous, and since there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of Julian’s account (supported by other contemporary sources), it is left to wonder who borrowed from whom: Heliodorus from Julian or vice versa? Whichever position one takes, arguments point to a later date for the Aethiopika, which must have been composed between 350 and 375 AD.²

The Novel’s Setting

Egypt represents the very soul of Heliodorus’ Aethiopika. Serving either as background scenery for the action, a privileged itinerary, or an essential port of call for the characters, Egypt is present throughout the work. The action takes place during the Persian occupation of this country, more precisely between the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses in 525 BC and the Egyptian and Persian campaign of Alexander the Great (333 BC). Egypt is therefore the geographical and human setting in which the author arranges the pieces of his narrative chessboard at the primary level of the discourse. It is also a pretext for digressions of an ethnographic nature and for highly varied descriptions filled with great exoticism, most notably those on the Nile and its floods. The Nile is, in fact, the guiding thread of all the action (Bonneau 1992 uses papyrological documents to show that both Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius had a comprehensive knowledge of the various stages in the river’s cycles; for the Nile as a rhetorical topos, see Plazenet 1995). The narrative begins at an already advanced stage of the plot, at the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile, and ends at Meroe, the capital of Ethiopia, roughly 40–50 days later, accompanying Charicleia’s troubled journey back to her father’s home, which she had departed under circumstances that the narrator gradually reveals through extensive secondary narratives cleverly slotted into the main story.

The designs of the gods led the heroes from Greece to Egypt and then on to Ethiopia. Many of these designs are related through Calasiris, the high priest at Memphis, who plays a crucial role in the development of the plot and is the main driving force behind the action that takes place in the course of the novel’s prehistory (see Sandy 1982a, 65–74; Winkler 1982; Futre Pinheiro 1991b; Rutherford 2000, 203–209; and Kim forthcoming). At the orders of the oracle, Calasiris arranges the flight of Theagenes and Charicleia (who met at Delphi), and thus allows Charicleia to return to Ethiopia and ensure the final consecration of the couple at Meroe to Helios and Selene, respectively. Calasiris appears as the true representative of the Egyptian manteίa and Neo-Platonic theosophy (Sandy 1982b, 142–154). After playing a leading role for much of the narrative, he dies in Memphis, having fulfilled his mission of reconciling his two warring sons (7.6ff.).³

Egypt was the quintessential land of superstition and magic, and Heliodorus’ novel pays homage to this reputation. The episode of the old woman in the village of Bessa (6.14.3), whose spells succeed in resuscitating the corpse of the son who died in a battle between the Persian army and followers of Thyamis, is symptomatic of the explosion of activities related to the occult, magic, and superstition at a time of intense ideological and religious upheaval (see Futre Pinheiro 1991a, especially 376–377; Cauderlier 1992, especially 222). Emphasis has occasionally been placed on Heliodorus’ attitude toward religion. For some, he was a devout follower of Helios, the Sun God, whose worship was fairly widespread in Emesa, the Syrian city where Heliodorus claimed to originate, according to the novel’s postscript (10.41.4).⁴ Without going into details, it is noteworthy to stress that Apollo, the god who commands the unfolding of events, is identified with Helios almost at the end of the novel (10.36.3).⁵ Since the syncretic worship of Helios, the “Invincible Sun” (Sol invictus), became the official religion of the Empire in the last phase of the Greco-Roman world (see Cumont 1980, 114 and 134), it is reasonable that, in a novel with a religious bias, the author should have felt drawn to Egyptian deities, all the more so because the work exudes an atmosphere related to that reality. Another Egyptian divinity that appears in the Aethiopika is the goddess Isis, who appears to Thyamis in dreams (1.18.3ff. See Futre Pinheiro 1991, 366–367 and MacAlister 1996, 78ff. and 151). An erroneous interpretation of that apparition leads the character to commit a false murder since, instead of Charicleia, he mistakenly murders Thisbe, a flute player. In turn, at the end of the novel, Charicleia too is consecrated to Selene, the goddess of the Moon (10.41) (on the novel’s final scenes, see Futre Pinheiro 1991a, especially 151–152).

One local curiosity that catches the modern reader’s attention is the description of the Land of Herds (βουκολία, 1.5.2–4) and the cabins or huts (σκηναί, 1.33.4; καλύβαι, 2.3.2) constructed from woven reeds, which provide shelter for the βουκόλοι (“herdsmen”), who were active in the marshes of the Nile Delta and lived from pillaging and slave traffic. Thyamis, Calasiris’ elder, son leads this gang. Thyamis took refuge with the robbers and became their leader, defending the rights of this group ostracized and condemned to poverty, whose fight had both nationalistic and religious motivations (see Rostovtzeff 1961, 337ff.; MacMullen 1966, 179–199; Scarcella 1981, 353ff.; Anderson 1984, 89ff.; Lewis 1985; Futre Pinheiro 1989, 17–42, especially 27ff.; McGing 1998; Alston 1999; and Rutherford 2000).

The narrative unfolds along the Nile, the most powerful of the gods (9.9.3) in the eyes of the Egyptians. Along the Nile, exotic animals appear, such as the crocodile “which slithers as a dark shape close to the ground and plunges into the waters of the river” (6.1.2), and the giraffe, which is described in painstaking detail (9.27.2) and fills the subjects of the Ethiopian king, Hydaspes, with great admiration.

Calasiris gives a rational explanation for the mystery of his origin and that of the annual floods (2.28). Taking advantage of the celebration of the greatest of all festivals in Egypt, τά Nειλῳ̑α, the most important event in the Egyptian religious calendar celebrated around the time of the summer solstice (i.e. around June twenty first, when the river’s annual flooding begins), the narrator presents us with the popular version of the river’s divine nature: “those who have reached the higher grades of the mysteries they initiate into clear knowledge in the privacy of the holy shrine, in the light cast by the blazing torch of truth” (9.9.5) (in 9.9.4, the land is Isis and the Nile Osiris; see Morgan 2008, 544, n. 206 and 207).

The praise that priests heap upon the Nile for Hydaspes’ conquest of Syene is “a genuine panegyric” (Feuillatre 1966, 42), which also reveals to the Ethiopian sovereign curiosities of a scientific nature, such as the well that measures the Nile, and the sundials that, at the summer solstice, cast no shadow at noon (9.22.3–4; see Cauderlier 1992, 223).

In the far south of Egypt, the cities of Syene, Elephantine, and Philae are scenes of constant skirmishes, for the emerald mines there were coveted both by the Egyptians and the Ethiopians. These battles, which fill Book 9, introduce the character of Hydaspes, the king of Ethiopia, who, after his victory over the Persian forces, returns to Meroe, the capital, accompanied by captured prisoners, including Theagenes and Charicleia.

Meroe is described as a kind of Island of the Blessed (Cauderlier 1992, 222), as the kingdom of happiness and utopia (Futre Pinheiro 2006, especially 159–164), with special attention being drawn to the enormous reeds split down the middle, which Ethiopians used to construct little vessels (10.4.6). There is also mention of the fertility of the soil, which produces the tallest trees in the world and a prolific yield of cereal crops, with stress on the height of the palm trees that bear massive, succulent dates (10.5.2).

Which sources did Heliodorus use to describe the customs of the Egyptians and the Ethiopians in such great detail? Did this knowledge result from his own experience, or was it the fruit of book knowledge? Our author certainly mixed data from his own experience with other information drawn from various sources. Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and Xenophon were undoubtedly on his literary horizons. Bonneau (1992, 213 and 215) believes Heliodorus’ knowledge of botany came from his own personal experience, and many other elements in his work, such as the building of dykes or questions related with the Nile floods can be proved through papyrological evidence.

Heliodorus’ view of Egypt in the Aethiopika is the reflection of a collective feeling of the Greeks and Romans, which consisted of a mixture of curiosity and attraction, and, at the same time, a sense of rejection. As Nimis stresses (2004), Egypt is portrayed as the terrifying “other” of Greco-Roman culture, at the same time celebrated as an ancient site of mystery and rebirth. He also claims that this ambivalence is metaphorically exploited in the ancient novels in order to make statements about contemporary relationships and realities (see also Smith 1927 and Brioso Sánchez 1992).

Literary Aesthetics and Rhetoric

The Aethiopika is one of the most remarkable works of the Second Sophistic, the literary aesthetics that dominated the Greco-Roman world from the second century BC to the fourth century AD.⁶ Heliodorus is among the greatest literary exponents of the Second Sophistic and a master of literary prose. He cultivated a style that modeled the syntax and exhausted the arsenal of rhetorical “pyrotechnics” (Colonna 1987; Feuillatre 1966, 51–102; Giangrande 1971; Krevelen 1961; Mazal 1981).

The first example of Heliodorus’ rhetorical and sophistic “competence” appears in the novel’s opening scene. The action begins in medias res, and the reader is abruptly plunged, through the literary device of an omniscient narrator, into the midst of an unusual and intriguing spectacle, the mysterious significance of which both escapes him and peaks his interest. The reader has to make his way through roughly half the narrative to understand the significance of this opening scene (at 5.33.1; see Futre Pinheiro 1987, 375ff. and 1998, 3167–3168). The narrator tells us:

The smile of daybreak was just beginning to brighten the sky, the sunlight to catch the hilltops, when a group of men in brigand gear peered over the mountain that overlooks the place where the Nile flows into the sea at the mouth that men call the Heracleotic. They stood there for a moment, scanning the expanse of sea beneath them: first they gazed out over the ocean, but as there was nothing sailing there that held out hope of spoil and plunder, their eyes were drawn to the beach nearby. (1.1.1)

The narrative is interrupted by the detailed description of the spectacle that they beheld: a merchant ship was riding there, empty of crew but laden with freight, and there were traces everywhere of a recent and terribly bloody fight (1.1.3–7). The impact that this bizarre and mysterious scene has upon the reader is achieved, above all, by the use of antithesis and paradox:

In that small space the deity had contrived an infinitely varied spectacle, defiling wine with blood and unleashing war at the party, combining wining and dying, pouring of drink and spilling of blood, and staging this tragic show for the Egyptian bandits. (1.1.6)

The bandits, “like the audience in a theatre,” shared the same feeling of strangeness and perplexity as the reader in the face of such an unaccustomed spectacle. However, overcome by the expectation of easy profit, they threw themselves into the pursuit of riches. Using a cinematic technique (Winkler 2002), the narrator focuses in on the narrated object, describing a second tableau that is even stranger than the previous one and again catching the attention of the group of bandits: on a rock sat a maiden, a creature of indescribable beauty, who had been the victim of some cruel twist of fate but who, despite everything, had an air of courage and nobility. At her feet lay a handsome young man, so terribly wounded that he seemed to be coming round from a deep sleep, as if from the verge of death:

On her head she wore a crown of laurel; from her shoulders hung a quiver; her left arm leant on the bow, the hand hanging relaxed at the wrist. She rested the elbow of her other arm on her right thigh, cradling her cheek in her fingers. (1.2.2)

This “Pietà scene” (Kerényi 1973, 26) was most probably inspired by a statue or a pictorial representation of the goddess Artemis, but the scene is presented and reflected from the perspective and angle of view of the pirates, who are intratextual spectators, and through the feelings that they experience. Next, the reader is presented with a short dialogue between the young couple. Meanwhile, the evildoers, frightened by the unexpectedness of the spectacle, whose significance they did not know, scattered and dived for cover in the undergrowth. Once again through the gaze of the bandits a new description is provided, completing the portrait of the young woman whose identity remains unknown:

When she stood up, she seemed to them larger and more godlike, her weapons rattling at the sudden movement, the gold thread in her robe flashing in the sun, her hair tossing under her crown like a bacchante’s and cascading over her back. (1.2.5)

The narrator confides in us that what frightened them was not so much the sight of the scene as the aura of mystery in which it was shrouded. Some said she must be a goddess, Artemis or Isis; others said she was a priestess possessed by a sacred fury and responsible for the immense carnage before them. However, when they saw her embracing the young man, weeping and kissing him, they changed their opinion: “How could a god behave like that?” they said. So, they left them there and ran to the ship and began to unload its abundant cargo.

After they plundered the ship and divided the riches, a second group of invaders turned up, three times larger, who put the first group to flight and took with them the young couple as hostages. When they reached the marshland that served as their refuge and dwelling, the companions of this second group of bandits reacted with the same astonishment as the first upon seeing Charicleia for the first time, concluding that their comrades must have looted a holy place, a temple or a sanctuary, and carried off the priestess too, unless she was the living statue of some goddess (1.7.2). Charicleia’s beauty was such that Charicles also spoke of the fascination that his daughter exercised over crowds of people, both at the temple and in public squares, as if she were a genuine work of art and embodied all the beauty in the world (2.32.2), and Calasiris, making the most of the pirate Pelorus’ passion for Charicleia, induced him to disobey the chief’s orders, with the promise that he would see the goddess Artemis in person (5.3.1).

The physical description of the main characters is a recurrent topos in Greek novels.⁷ Also making use of the techniques of the encomium from the schools of rhetoric, the narrator depicts the physical attributes of the protagonists, praising their matchless beauty and creating through them a detailed portrait that evinces aesthetic harmony. However, if we compare the earlier description of Charicleia with the descriptions of the heroines of other novels, we can conclude that Heliodorus is more circumspect in his use of stylistic resources, and more effective since he establishes a more dramatic and functional relationship between his descriptions and the narrative (Goethals 1959, 198). In other Greek novels, character descriptions merely serve a decorative function that acts as a catalyst in the development of the diegesis, falling far short of the powerful impression created by the opening scene of the Aethiopika in which the description of Charicleia blends harmoniously with the account of events (compare e.g. the description of Leucippe in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon [1.4.3] or the detailed description of Anthia, the protagonist of Xenophon of Ephesus’ Ephesiaka, who was also a priestess of Artemis [1.2.5–7]).

The procession or parade proves to be the ideal scenario for demonstrating the characters’ physical beauty. That this is a collective activity emphasizes the main characters’ physical qualities, whose magnificence sets them apart from the anonymous participants also partaking in the celebrations. Heliodorus describes the procession that takes place at the festival in honor of Neoptolemus, where Theagenes’ and Charicleia’s beauty monopolize the spectators. The narrator even adds that, in the presence of Theagenes’ loveliness, “all these women of the lower orders who were incapable of controlling and concealing their emotions pelted him with apples and flowers in the hope of attracting his goodwill” (3.3.4–4). However, it is Calasiris who presents Cnemon with a detailed description of the young man:

… and in came the young man, who really did have something redolent of Achilles about him in his expression and dignity. He carried his head erect, and had a mane of hair swept back from his forehead; his nose proclaimed his courage by the defiant flaring of his nostrils; his eyes were not quite slate blue but more black tinged with blue, with a gaze that was awesome and yet not unattractive, rather like the sea when its swelling billows subside, and a smooth calm begins to spread across its surface. (2.35.1)

Since Theagenes claims to be a noble descendant of Achilles, the comparison with Homer’s hero is a natural corollary. According to Goethals (1959, 201), there is reason to believe that Heliodorus may have drawn from Philostratus’ Heroicus 19.5 and Imagines B. 2 (Morgan 2008, 408, n. 75, suggests both reflect a well-known work of art), as well as on the Odyssey 24.318–319, when Odysseus, seeing the deplorable state of his old father, Laertes, suddenly feels compassion gush from his nostrils. However incomplete or imprecise this description may seem to us, it is less abstract and incomplete than the descriptions made of heroes in other novels. Chaereas is simply compared to Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus, and Alcibiades, just as these are portrayed by sculptors and painters (Chaereas and Callirhoe 1.1.2); Habrocomes is presented to us as a young man of rare beauty, as someone displaying the image of a true god, but also as a proud and arrogant man who looked scornfully at all and sundry, not even sparing the god of love himself, Eros (Ephesiaka 1.1–2).

The taste for exoticism is a characteristic trait of both Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Achilles Tatius describes the crocodile in great detail, and Heliodorus describes a specimen of an unusual and bizarre kind of animal, the “camelopard” or giraffe. Unlike Achilles Tatius, Heliodorus’ descriptive passages are characterized by a sense of animation. Thus, the arrival of a giraffe produced universal amazement among the crowd that was watching the spectacle and threw into disarray the ceremony of Hydaspes receiving the embassies from his empire’s provinces (10.27.1–4). Heliodorus at times sporadically superimposes his descriptions upon the narrative for the sake of mere ornamentation, as a kind of literary game, as a “fête de la forme pure” (Bompaire 1958, 73), as art for art’s sake, meant to arouse aesthetic pleasure in the reader. This is the case with the description of the carved amethyst inset in the hoop of the royal ring Calasiris gives Nausicles as a pledge for Charicleia (5.14), where the representation of a pastoral scene gave the rustic scenario the appearance of a bucolic theatre (Futre Pinheiro 1981/82; Laplace 1996).

Heliodorus’ literary temperament is marked by a fascination with spectacles, which best categorizes a great number of his descriptive passages. These are macroscopic events in which the “actors” act before spectators that are either intradiegetic (e.g. the previously mentioned scene of the procession at Delphi) or extradiegetic, since the narrator is always aware of an audience that does not belong to the fictional universe and is in fact composed of his readers. When we read and visualize the descriptions of spectacles in the Aethiopika (e.g. the Pietà scene that opens the novel), we ourselves turn into an extratextual audience and become emotionally involved in the events being described. Rhetorical handbooks draw attention to the audience’s involvement in the world depicted in description and claim that description turns listeners into spectators. Nikolaus notes that “ἔκϕρασις πειρᾶται θεατὰς τούς ἀκούντας ἐργάζεσθαι” (“ekphrasis seeks to fashion spectators out of the listeners,” Spengel 1853–1856, 111.491).

Wolff (1912, 177) observes: “This habit of treating the world of sight by way of its effects upon people is closely parallel to the method of treating the world of thought and feeling by way of pathos—the effort in each case being to represent not the thing itself but that which the thing makes somebody feel,” and criticizes what he believes is one of the most outstanding features of Heliodorus’ technique, namely, “pathetic optics,” which focuses on the world of sight, on the effects that people, objects, and actions produce upon those who see them. An example is the description of the procession mentioned earlier that takes place in Delphi during the Pythian Games, in which Theagenes and Charicleia both participate: he, as the leader of the sacred mission, and she as the priestess of Artemis. What immediately catches our attention is the fact that Heliodorus tries to dramatize the scene, not only by reproducing the crowd’s reactions, but also through the sympathetic effect created by the beauty of the young man, whose horse, for example, apparently conscious and proud of his handsome rider, arched his neck and the brows over his eyes, and pranced along with his head held high and with his ears pricked up (3.3.7). Unlike other novel writers (cf. the static description of the king of Persia in Chariton 6.4.1–3), Heliodorus prefers “to show” rather than merely “to tell” (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 411–413). Charicleia’s beauty is also dramatized through the effect that it provokes on the two serpents (a unique masterpiece produced by a craftsman) wound around her breast: “… they were steeped in a sensuous languor as if lulled by the sweet joys that dwelt in Charicleia’s bosom” (3.4.4).

I once noted (Futre Pinheiro 2001, 136) that:

“If the primary quality of ekphrasis is to provide a visual image as close as possible to the thing being described, its second most important function, resulting from the first, is its capacity to move the reader. When providing a “verbal painting”, description, as a literary device, conveys a powerful non-verbal meaning, aimed at stirring up in the reader or listener the same type of emotion he would feel if he had before his own eyes the thing being described.”

Readers of the Aethiopika are then invited to be spectators of the very spectacle being described to them, by sharing with the characters the complicity of a joint experience. This web of relations, at times complex, which can be established between the describer and the referent and between the describer and the audience, is masterfully handled by Heliodorus, whose revolutionary technique consists of the ability to place the images in motion, to integrate them into the dynamics of the action, thus affording them a voice of their own.

Composition and Narrative Technique

Heliodorus’ literary profile stands out from the extant Greek novels (in particular, see Chew 1993–1994; Feuillatre 1966; Futre Pinheiro 1987; Goethals 1959; Groves 2012; Hefti 1950; Nyborg 2010; Paulsen 1992; Sandy 1982a), and the artistic qualities of the Aethiopika justify an analysis of the processes used in handling such a refined technique. Heliodorus can be considered the most remarkable representative of the novel genre in classical antiquity and the forerunner of the modern novelists, as seen in the success that the Aethiopika has enjoyed over the centuries.⁸

The Aethiopika conveys a feeling of amplitude in time and space. The action begins in the Nile Delta and ends in Meroe, the capital of Ethiopia, roughly 45 days later. The theme of the novel is Charicleia’s return to her native land, Ethiopia, which she had left 10 years earlier, in circumstances revealed by secondary narrators. The main action is concentrated in the last days of her return journey. After a series of unexpected events the three main characters (Charicleia, Theagenes and Calasiris) encountered during the sea voyage that followed their flight from Delphi, rarely is the action interrupted by time lapses that are longer than the basic scheme of day and night. The various phases of daytime action are frequently divided by a meal, an after-dinner conversation, a brief reflection, or an exchange of impressions before retiring for the night, in keeping with a procedure that is used most profusely in the Odyssey (Delebecque 1958, 118–119). Only occasionally does the narrator construct ill-defined phases, and the beginning of a new day is generally indicated through precise time references. The use of indefinite phases of time occurs mainly in the second part of the novel, which is marked by a certain fluidity and indetermination, deriving from a more infrequent use of time expressions (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 115–195 and 1998, 3152–3156). This first level of the narrative contains a series of long secondary narratives that disperse the action over a broad chronological and geographical area: the events are rooted in a past that takes us back in time to a period 10 years earlier, which is progressively revealed in a series of flashbacks (for the narratological treatment of time in the Aethiopika see Futre Pinheiro 1987, especially 353–453 and 1998, 3162–3171; Morgan 2007, 483–504 and 2004).

Sisimithres hands Charicleia to the priest of Apollo, Charicles, when she is only 7 years old (2.30.6ff.). At the moment Calasiris encounters his sons, the narrator comments that this event took place 10 years after the elder’s absence (7.8.2ff.). Charicleia’s age is revealed at the end of the novel, at Meroe, after Sisimithres has been identified as the Ethiopian envoy who had taken care of her when she was abandoned. We are also told that he had entrusted her to Charicles, in Katadoupoi, 10 years earlier (10.11.1ff.). If the reader remembers this first piece of information, he will certainly agree with Sisimithres, who estimates Charicleia to be 17 years old (10.14.4ff.). Hence, it appears she spent about 9 years at Delphi, with her flight taking place in her seventeenth year. In fact, although the chronology of this intermediate time lapse (which is filled with the sea voyage) is a little diffuse (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 396ff.), the text offers much information that enables us to conclude that the journey took place most of winter and early spring. Although the narrator never expressly states this, we can deduce that the main level of the narrative is set in the spring, when Charicleia is 17 years of age. A few days after we are told they sailed “to the sound of gentle spring breezes” (5.22.8ff.), and the boat that was carrying the three prisoners, the main characters in the story, landed at the “mouth that men call the Heracleotic” (1.1.3–4).

It is easy to conclude that these secondary narratives, spoken by a character who assumes the role of narrator, have their own particular rhythm and autonomous chronology (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 375–453). By briefly suspending the general movement of the narrative, they add another kind of temporality governed by different principles to the main narrative. The precision chronology which was most of the time marked by clear day and night phases contrasts with the fluid linking of the years that belong to the past, in which the predominant feature is the iterative nature of the action (Futre Pinheiro 1998, 3161–3162). Time begins to be recorded when Charicleia first enters the scene (2.33.3ff.). The narrative covers only two key moments from Charicleia’s past life, her birth and exposure by means of a flashback in the form of Persinna’s letter (4.8), and the moment the gymnosophist Sisimithres handed her over at age 7 years to the priest of Apollo, Charicles, in Katadoupoi (2.30.6; 2.32.1–33.2). The intermediate time is narrated about one page of printed text (2.31.1ff.). A gap of 10 years follows, and the next action occurs at Delphi, where the events that prompt the return to Ethiopia are set in motion at the orders of the oracle and with the complicity of Calasiris (Kαὶ ἔστι νυ̑ν ἡ παι̑ς ἐνταυ̑θα σὺν ἐμοὶ παἰς μὲν οσα ἐμὴ καὶ ὄνομα τοὐμὸν ὀνομαζομένη… [2.33.3], “And now the child lives here with me: she is my daughter, she bears my name…”). It is intentional that no indication of the date is given for this period when the High Priest of Isis was to be found at Meroe with Persinna: this episode, essential for characterizing the narrator’s personality (Futre Pinheiro 1991a, 69–83), is shrouded in mystery.

In this retrogressive development of the narrative we find the difference that distinguishes the structure of the Aethiopika from the structure of other extant novels, where ab ovo beginnings introduce a strictly chronological order and ensure that narrative’s start and finish coincide perfectly with those of the story. This characteristic of Heliodorus’ novel brings it closer to the technique used in the composition of the Odyssey, though he supplants the Odyssey by producing contents previously unknown to the reader. In fact, the fictional plot is not taken from the mosaic of heroic legend or even from mythology; it obliges the reader to engage in a permanent discovery of a past that does not function as a superfluous ornament or a casual picture, but rather conditions and motivates the present in a most decisive manner.

The Odyssey and the Aethiopika are also different from another viewpoint: in the middle of his story, Odysseus manages to obtain Alcinous’ consent for his return to Ithaca, but Calasiris’ deferred narrative affords another degree of importance in the plot. In fact, although it does not determine the continuity and development of the action, its contents are identified with a past that guides and basically conditions the present. For this reason, the role played by prehistory in the Aethiopika cannot be overemphasized, as it serves as the driving force of a plot whose outcome is predestined. This unbreakable bond between past and present is an original feature of Heliodorus’ novel. The characters emerge from prehistory with a specific importance to the plot and, sooner or later, they will reveal themselves to be involved in the main action in a bizarre and unexpected fashion. This is the case with Thisbe, the flute player, who will directly influence the unfolding of events, as she is later murdered by Thyamis, who mistakes her for Charicleia (1.28ff.). Nausicles, a merchant from Naucratis and the lover of Thisbe, similarly plays a decisive role in the main action: he obtained Charicleia from Mitranes, the commander of guards in the service of Oroondates, the Great King’s satrap in Egypt, and passed her off as Thisbe. Charicleia had been imprisoned by the Egyptian army, captured at the moment she and Theagenes were preparing to go and meet Cnemon in the village of Chemmis. This led to Charicleia re-encountering Calasiris, who was Nausicles’ guest in Chemmis (5.8–11).

Sometimes the opposite happens: a character encountered earlier at the level of the main narrative later appears linked to events situated in the past. Heliodorus plays with a limited number of characters who move in concentric circles. That is why we find a series of overlapping and interlocking stories. He masters the technique that consists of maintaining different lines of action in abeyance and using them at precisely the right moment to intensify the reader’s interest and suspense: for example, through the episode that occurs between Calasiris and Cnemon, in which the narrative of the old priest is introduced, we learn that Calasiris’ prehistory is closely linked to that of Theagenes and Charicleia, and that the person who receives Calasiris in his own house is none other than the merchant from Naucratis, with whom Thisbe had fled from Athens; and, finally, that Thyamis is the son of the High Priest of Isis (2.23ff.). The story thus reveals a perfect unity, a grobe Geschlossenheit (Hefti 1950, 34), which is the result of Heliodorus’ famous economy (Hefti 1950, especially 121–127; Keyes 1922, 49; Futre Pinheiro 1987, especially 323).

The past benefits from a privileged status of autonomy and performs a fundamental role in the plot’s development since it has a decisive influence on the present. It represents the last stage, and undoubtedly the most important one, in this long journey, placed from the outset under divine protection, during which the mechanisms were set in motion leading to the dramatic resolution of the destinies of the protagonists, who are finally entrusted to Helios and Selene. In the other extant novels, the present is imposed upon the reader. The past finds itself relegated to a subordinate position, strictly dependent on the present. It is this density, this thickness breathed into the past, which led to the conclusion that Heliodorus does not reject the tradition of the circular journey (Futre Pinheiro 1987, especially 525). In fact, he renews this tradition, by establishing a compromise between a circular and a linear structure (Reardon 1971, 385, interprets the novel’s action as a linear plot; the reader does not consider Charicleia’s return to be a simple matter; from the outset, the journey to Ethiopia is very much like a pilgrimage).

This finely structured network that links the past and the present into a unitary, concentrated and harmonious whole is also found at the level of the main action. The novel is structured around a fairly restricted chronological scale, and the plot is condensed into a short space of time. Various processes are used in the management of the different levels of the action, some of which are also found in Chariton, Achilles Tatius, and Xenophon. However, in the Aethiopika, a sui generis technique is used: the action does not revolve around a limited number of characters, but is divided into various clusters grouped together in a dynamic constellation of relations. In this elaborate structure, everything is linked together, everything has its own weight and importance, and nothing is irrelevant or gratuitous. The main stem is gradually thickened, through the successive addition of new centers of action that are constantly multiplied, dividing and then reuniting, in order to give the impression of an organized, dynamic, and coherent whole. The method, cellular reproduction (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 324 and 515), presupposes a continuity in the flow of time and a constant coverage of the period of time contained within the limits of the main narrative.

However, if time as a narrative category plays an essential role in the organization of the narrative scheme, in the Aethiopika no great importance is attached to time itself as an independent and absolute entity. In this regard, Heliodorus follows tradition and shares with other novel writers a primitive conception of time (Hägg 1983, 195–197 and 200–201). This time, which expands or shrinks according to the needs of the plot, is subordinated to the adventures that fill the narrative framework. This particular feature is also a legacy from Homer (Frankel 1955, 1–7).

Symptomatic of this negligence is Heliodorus’ near-total indifference to distances and to the time that is needed to cover them (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 147 n. 73 and 151–152). Occasionally sporadic instances of interest in marking out real time (e.g. the precise indications about the Neiloa festival, 9.9.2ff.) or analyzing psychological time (e.g. 6.1.1ff. and 1.8.1ff.) occur. However, these cases are rare and fairly unrepresentative of the narrative as a whole. The originality of the Aethiopika lies, above all, in the use of a sophisticated narrative technique, and time is an indispensable category in the handling of such a complex and innovative narrative art. I have argued elsewhere that for Heliodorus the art of narration is a game, a challenge that calls for talent and imagination.⁹

The narrator’s victory over time is frequently found in his humor. On multiple occasions, we are made aware of a subtle irony expressed between the lines (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 201, 233, 238 n. 5, 384, 520–521), revealing a distancing of the narrator in relation to what he is telling us. In my opinion, certain critics have exaggerated this in their comments about what they classify as defects in the art of storytelling. I believe they take certain anomalies in the chronology too seriously, which are really nothing more than acts of rebellion perpetrated by someone who, through some kind of spiritual provocation, derives sublime pleasure from violating, confusing, and subverting the rules of the real chronology. Heliodorus shows a subtle and refined sense of humor, heralding the more audacious games played with the notion of time in the modern era (Heiserman 1977, 190).

An expert in suspending, compressing, or accelerating time, the narrator of the Aethiopika is also skilled in the technique of manipulating suspense. He provides the reader with a well-organized system of warnings that consolidates the plot’s unity, which in turn highlights his debt to epic (Futre Pinheiro 2007, 457–460; see also Schadewaldt 1966; Hellwig 1964). The plot of the Aethiopika is predestinated also like that of the epic, and hence the importance of supernatural anticipations (oracles, prophecies, dreams, premonitions). In Heliodorus, the supernatural dominates the adventures (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 467–486 and 1991a). The universe of the novel is inscribed in the designs of the gods and is predetermined according to their will. Readers of the novel are afforded an unequivocal lesson in wisdom: past and present are the product of a future that has always existed (Heiserman 1977, 188). In addition to the suspense of anticipation, the suspense of uncertainty is also important, with the technique of surprise and of delaying the action¹⁰ exhaustively used to stir up the reader’s expectations and create uncertainty about the outcome of events (Futre Pinheiro 1987, 391–392, 522–523 and 1998, 3168–3169). The reader’s curiosity is constantly stimulated because the information vital for understanding the plot is revealed to him or her only at crucial moments, when it is absolutely necessary to provide these details. Reality is not presented directly, but in separate parts, like a shattered mirror. The different aspects of one and the same reality are like the pieces of a puzzle, obliging the reader constantly to revise his judgments. The narrator plays with the different levels of knowledge, both that of the characters and that of the reader, to maintain, suspend, and intensify suspense. For this reason, it is difficult for an unprepared reader to establish the syntax of the narrative.

Heliodorus’ techniques of deliberate anticipations, equivocations and ambiguities, suspense, economy, unity of action, cinematic technique, and a fondness for the spectacular, all testify to the sophistication of his work. Some of these ingredients were already tested in epic, in drama, and in historiography, but others that appear for the first time in prose fiction are displayed with a most impressive vigor. The future adventure novel will make profuse use of all these.

Although the profound meaning of the Aethiopika is not limited to adventures, and the heroes travel toward an ideal along a path some consider to be initiatory (e.g. Kérényi 1973; Merkelbach 1962), nevertheless, it is the technical perfection of his art that reserves for Heliodorus a privileged place in the world of fictional literature.

Notes

1 The text is from Rattenbury and Lumb 1960; all translations are from Morgan 2008.

2 See also Morgan 1982 and Chuvin 1990, 321–325. There are however, some authors who underestimate the evidence provided by the sources and opt for a date earlier in the third century, the period of greatest splendor in solar religion. Rhode 1876 assigned the novel to the reign of Aurelian (270–275 AD), who was also a worshipper of the cult of the sun. Rattenbury and Lumb 1960, vol. I, XV, opted for a date between 220 and 240 AD, while Altheim 1948–1950, 113, proposed the period between 233 and 250 AD.

3 Petosiris, Calasiris’ younger son, hatched a plot against his brother, Thyamis, to usurp his position as High Priest of Isis. This led Thyamis to abandon Memphis and become the leader of a band of robbers, the βουκόλοι. The reasons for the two brothers’ falling out are related in 1.19.4 and 7.3.4 by Thyamis himself; in 1.33.2 by the narrator; and in 6.13.5 by the old woman in the village of Bessa.

4 For more detailed discussion, see Crespo Güemes 1979, 13–15, and Morgan 2003, 417. Hilton 2012 analyzes the autobiographical statement by Heliodorus in light of Julian’s Hymn to Helios. See also Nuñez (forthcoming) for a study of the sphragis, its forms, and functions in Greek novels. We also find in Lucian (Pisc. 19, Bis Acc. 14.27, Pseudolog. 1.11, Scyth. 9) the claim of the author’s non-Greek origin, and status as a “barbarian.” See Whitmarsh 1998, 96–97 and Futre Pinheiro 2012, 312–313.

5 See Futre Pinheiro 1991, 359, n. 1, and 371, n. 26. Sun worship is also found in the Ephesiaka: divine intervention was twice responsible for saving the life of Habrocomes, unjustly sentenced to death for a murder that he had not committed. On the first occasion, the god used the waters of the Nile to knock down the cross to which the young man had been tied, and then to extinguish the flames of the fire that was about to burn him to death (4.2.9).

6 Cf. The Lives of the Sophists (Bίοι Σοφιστω̑ν) 1.481. This work is also an important testimony about the history of the Sophistic movement. For the Second Sophistic see also: Bowersock 1969; Bowie 1970; Reardon 1971, 1974, 1984; Anderson 1989, 1990, 1993; and Whitmarsh 2005. See also my “Diē-gē-ma (Narratio)” (forthcoming).

7 Description or so-called ekphrasis is one among many other exercises in rhetorical composition that are discussed and defined in the Progymnasmata, which were handbooks consisting of a series of preparatory exercises, inspired upon mythical stories and fictitious narratives. Aelius Theon (first century AD), the author of one of these handbooks, defines ekphrasis as an “informative account which brings vividly into view what is being set forth” (λόγος π εριηγηματικτὸς ἐναργῶς ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων τὸ δηλούμενον 7.1; Kennedy 2003, 29; Patillon 2002, 40). So, according to the Progymnasmata, ekphrasis was a literary and rhetorical device which consisted in providing a detailed description and clear presentation of the thing being represented. The two desirable qualities of ekphrasis as described in the Progymnasmata are saphêneia (clarity) and enargeia (vividness). The main characteristic of this exercise in rhetorical composition is precisely that of creating a visual image that provides the reader with the sensation of being confronted with the thing being described. On this subject, see Futre Pinheiro 2001, 127–128. For a fuller insight into the topos of description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, see Bartsch 1989 and Billault 1991.

8 The most important contribution on the Nachleben of Heliodorus’ novel is Oeftering 1901. Wolff 1912 discusses its influence on Elizabethan prose fiction. The heritage of the Aethiopika in France and Britain is discussed by Sandy 1982 and 2003, 751–753. Other influences are analyzed by Gaertner 1971; Crespo Güemes 1979, 43–52; Schmidt 1989; Hägg 1983, 192–213; and Futre Pinheiro 1993. The repercussions of the Aethiopika in the figurative arts are illustrated by Stechow 1953 and Mason 2011.

9 Futre Pinheiro 1987, 520. The profile of the narrator manifests itself in the course of Calasiris’ first-person narrative. The difficulties of structure and composition that are directly linked to the journey undertaken by the High Priest of Isis provide Heliodorus with the sublime pleasure of playing with the fictional chronology. For more detailed discussion, see Winkler 1982 and Futre Pinheiro 1991b.

10 The technique of delaying the action was discussed by Wolff 1912, 197–198. Wolff believes that the last part of the novel provides the most significant example of this provocative tendency, and vehemently criticizes the method adopted by Heliodorus.

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CHAPTER 5

Heliodorus, the Ethiopian Story