Even though some scholars might disagree, I side with Schmeling’s assertion (1998, 3270) that the Historia can be deemed as “the third of the Latin novels after Petronius’ Satyricon and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.” On the other hand, it is true that there are few certainties about the Historia and many doubts. To start with, the name of the author is unknown: the Apollonius of the title is not the author, but the hero of the novel. Regarding the date of composition and its original form, scholars have radically different views: while Klebs (1899, 228–280) and Schmeling believe that it was written in Latin in the second century AD, Rohde (1914, 435–453), Kortekaas (1984, 97–125), and Mazza (1985, 610–615) hold that it was written in Greek in the second or third century and translated (or reworked) into Latin in the sixth century AD. Other scholars think that the extant Latin text is the epitome of a Greek original irretrievably lost. Even the plot of the novel has not failed to give rise to speculations about the sometimes-cloudy connections between the episodes.
The fairy tale atmosphere of the opening (In civitate Antiochia rex fuit quidam nomine Antiochus … Is habuit unam filiam, virginem speciosissimam: “In the city of Antioch there was a king named Antiochus … He had one daughter, a most beautiful girl”) is soon upset by an unexpected event that plunges us into the gloomy situation of an incestuous love: widower Antiochus falls in love with his daughter and violates her. At first, the daughter meditates thoughts of suicide, but her nurse persuades her to comply with her father’s lust. At this point, the reader is disconcerted and unable to understand the possible future developments of the story. Incest is an irreversible event. There is no restoration for the characters once stained. It is evident, in addition, that the princess of Antioch, notwithstanding her royal birth and extraordinary beauty, will not be able to be the heroine of the story after having been a party to her father’s crime (Schmeling 1998, 3276–3277). The surprising character of the opening has led Rohde (1914, 446–447) and Perry (1967, 294–302) to suppose that the sequence of Antiochus was introduced by the Christian Bearbeiter in lieu of a narrative section with different characteristics. Yet, incest and the character of Antiochus are vital for ensuing developments of the story, as they represent that negative model of father–daughter relationship that Apollonius with much effort will try to avoid reproducing. It has also been supposed that there may be a connection with a famous historical incident that occurred in Antioch. Antiochus I entered fictionalized historiography and legend as the protagonist of an event that had caused a scandal: secretly in love with his stepmother Stratonice, he had sunk into a serious state of physical and moral prostration that would have led to his death if his father Seleucus, advised by the court physician about the reason of the disease, had not generously handed over his wife and kingdom to his son (Archibald 1991, 38–44).1 On the other hand, as Perry (1967, 151) has remarked, novels often develop from historical events and names.
The prelude closes with another fairy tale motif. Antiochus, in order to keep the incestuous relationship secret and have the beloved only for himself, subjects the princess’ suitors to a test by posing the following riddle: “I am carried by crime, I eat my mother’s flesh; I seek my brother, my mother’s husband, my wife’s son. I do not find him.” The first part of the riddle is a riddle itself, and it is the only part which Apollonius can solve (“When you said: ‘I am carried by crime,’ you did not lie: look to yourself”). The second part, incomprehensible in relation to the father–daughter incest, can only be understood if we consider it as alluding to the more famous mother–son incest, and notably that of Oedipus.2 Penalty for failure to solve the riddle is decapitation, and all suitors, no matter whether they solve the riddle or not, lose their heads. The folkloric rather than fictional motif of the nuptial contest is common to many Eastern fairy tales, among which is the famous story of Turandot. Notably, the contemporaneous presence of the motifs of father–daughter incest, of the nuptial contest, and the suitors’ decapitation seems to recall a common anthropological matrix that goes back to ages when power was handed over through women.3
Apollonius presents himself at the court of Antioch as a suitor to the princess’ hand and solves the riddle. Antiochus denies that the solution is right but, inexplicably, instead of having him murdered, grants him 30 days to reconsider his answer. Apollonius returns to Tyre where, in his library, he consults books of philosophers and Chaldaeans and the correctness of his answer is confirmed, but he also realizes the risks he is going to run. Therefore, he decides to escape from Tyre during the night, and this is the beginning of his peregrinations (4–7). When he arrives in Tarsus, a fellow citizen named Hellenicus informs Apollonius that Antiochus has offered a greater reward on his head. When he meets Stranguillio, a citizen of Tarsus, he learns that the town is suffering from serious famine. Apollonius, after delivering a speech to the citizens, offers them 100,000 measures of grain at a very favorable price. The thankful citizens erect a statue in praise of Apollonius (8–10). After a brief period, the young man decides to sail for Pentapolis, but in a storm he is shipwrecked on the shore near Cyrene. He is rescued by an old fisherman, who, like St. Martin, shares his cloak with him and shows him the way to the town. In the gymnasium of Cyrene, Apollonius meets Archistrates, king of Cyrene, who is impressed by his expertise in a game of ball and invites him to court for a banquet. During the banquet, the king’s daughter is invited by her father to console the shipwrecked by playing the lyre. Apollonius performs after her showing his ability not only in lyre playing but also in singing and dancing. The princess is enchanted by the artistic talent and learning of the stranger and persuades her father to keep him at court as her personal tutor. As a matter of fact, she has fallen in love with him, and because she cannot conceal her feelings, she pretends to be ill. Archistrates is worried and summons the physicians who, obviously, are not able to diagnose the cause of the illness. In the meanwhile, three young and noble suitors request the king to persuade the princess to choose one of them as her husband. Archistrates asks them to write their names on some tablets, which Apollonius delivers to the princess so that she can make her choice. In the end, the princess manages to overcome her hesitations and writes back a note to her father, in which she states she wants to marry “the man who was robbed of his inheritance by shipwreck.” This is set as a riddle, which is solved by the riddle-solving expertise of Apollonius, and the king agrees to bestow his daughter’s hand to the stranger (11–23). The episode sounds inappropriate in the context of a novel for its hints of humor and the unusual procedure of exchange of notes between Archistrates and his daughter. For this reason, Perry (1967, 307) believes that it may have been written for a stage performance “where everything had to be pictured on the outside of a house, in a street or a public square.”
When the princess is six months pregnant, Apollonius learns that Antiochus and his daughter have been killed by lightning and that the kingdom of Antioch is being kept for him. He sets sail for Antioch with his bride who, notwithstanding her pregnancy, wants to follow him. While at sea, the ship is hit by a storm, and the bride, while giving birth to a daughter, loses consciousness and is believed to be dead. She is buried at sea and her coffin is washed ashore near Ephesus, where she is rescued by a physician who makes the arrangements for her funeral honors. Luckily, a young disciple of the physician realizes that she is still breathing and manages to revive her. The physician, complying with the prayers of the young woman, arranges to house her in the temple of Ephesus among the priestesses of Diana (24–27).
After leaving his daughter Tarsia in Tarsus with the married couple Stranguillio and Dionysias for upbringing, Apollonius devotes himself to the merchant profession and goes off to Egypt where he remains for 14 years. Life in Tarsus is not easy for Tarsia, who has grown up to be a beautiful girl. Dionysias, envious of her beauty and intelligence that eclipsed her daughter’s, engages a killer to murder her. Tarsia escapes the attempted murder but she is snatched by pirates, who take her to Mytilene where she is sold to the owner of a brothel at a slave auction. Tarsia, thanks to her eloquence and skill in lyre performances, manages to preserve her virginity by acquiring the admiration and protection of Athenagoras, the lord of the town, who falls in love with her and loses out to a pimp in the bid to own her (33–36). It has been noticed that this episode has a theatrical character surprising in a novel. The animated scene of the auction between Athenagoras and the pimp recalls, according to Klebs (1899, 305), the competition between father and son for Pasicompsa in Plautus’ Mercator. As Perry notes (1967, 315), the comedy or pantomime is also recalled by the scene in which Athenagoras and another young man eavesdrop at Tarsia’s room to follow her “clients” coming and going (35).
When Apollonius returns to Tarsus after a 14-year absence and learns the misleading news of Tarsia’s death, he confines himself to the bilge level of his ship and orders his crew to sail for Tyre. He is caught up in a storm and this time deposited on the shore of Mytilene. During the Neptunalia, he meets Tarsia, who has been sent by Athenagoras to relieve his sorrow, without identifying her. In order to distract Apollonius, she submits a number of riddles but, being unsuccessful, she bursts into tears and starts telling the story of her life, which leads to the recognition and denouement of the story (37–47). After marrying off his daughter to Athenagoras, Apollonius, advised by a prophetic dream, sets sail for Ephesus, where he is reunited with his wife. Together with his wife, his daughter, and son-in-law, he sails for Antioch, where he takes possession of the kingdom, then for Tyre, where he appoints Athenagoras as king. After that, he calls at Tarsus to inflict the deserved punishment upon the married couple Dionysias and Strangullio, and then sails for Cyrene. Here, the aged king Archistrates has just the time to rejoice at the return of his nearest and dearest. One year later, he dies peacefully, bequeathing his kingdom to them. After inflicting punishments, Apollonius bestows awards to the fisherman, who had shared his mantle with him, and Hellenicus, who had advised him of Antiochus’ threats. In keeping with the rules of romance, the wicked are exemplarily punished and the virtuous are rewarded for their virtues with money donations and titles of rank. The ring is closed by the birth of a male heir whom Apollonius appoints as king of Cyrene to replace the deceased Archistrates. The anonymous author reports that the hero lived happily with his wife to the age of 74 years. The RB redaction specifies that Apollonius wrote a diary of his adventures and made two copies, depositing one in the temple at Ephesus and another in his own library (48–51). We can presume with certainty that this detail appeared in the original version of the story, as its authentication by a written document is a typically fictional narrative device designed to increase the reader’s confidence in the reliability of the narrative (Fusillo 1989, 66–67).
In the tradition of the Historia, not one but two different versions of the text exist, termed RA (Redaktion A) and RB (Redaktion B), since the pioneering work of Klebs. To complicate matters further, other versions borrowed freely from both redactions, combining the different variances. The best known is RC, which developed as the scribes, instead of borrowing faithfully from RA and RB, introduced arbitrary alterations where they believed they were finding incorrect forms or inconsistencies. As this process of progressive alteration continued in the later transcriptions of the manuscripts, the Historia is a typical example of texte vivant. For a long time, editors did not feel the necessity of keeping RA and RB as distinct, in the misguided belief that they would be able to reconstruct the original version of the novel. However, since Riese’s second Teubner edition (1893), all editions of the Historia present at least the two RA and RB redactions. Schmeling (1988) has also made RC accessible to the reader, a version that borrows in almost identical proportions from RA and RB. Scholars have completely different views about the importance attached to the two main versions. According to Klebs, the two RA and RB redactions must be considered as equally reliable as they both borrowed independently from the no-longer-extant original. On the other hand, other scholars, recently above all Kortekaas (1984, 24–58), are inclined to consider RA as the version that is more similar to the original as, from a linguistic point of view, it is less correct than RB, which for its classical restraint is considered as the “prima variandi forma” (Riese 1893, iv–viii). The subject is complex and cannot be examined here in all its aspects. However, some features that have been handed down only in RB are significant for the reconstruction of the story line and support Klebs’ theory. Only RB records the important news of Apollonius’ diary. It is also worth remembering that the scene in which Apollonius pretends to conjure up the spirit of Tarsia to unmask the wicked Dionysias and Stranguillio is reported only in RB. The expedient, which is effective from a narrative point of view and essential for the appreciation of ensuing developments, is a fictional device that also appears in Chariton (Wolff 2001, 238). Furthermore, while the author of RB knows the role of Lucina in the description of Tarsia’s birth (25), the author of RA mixes up the name of the goddess guardian of birth with the name of Apollonius’ wife. Other significant examples could be mentioned (see Garbugino 2004, 23–47), but what has been presented is sufficient to state that the contribution of RB to the reconstruction of the plot of the Historia is fundamental and its utilization with RA is essential.
As I said previously, the two redactions diverge in an irreversible way in many passages of the story, mainly because of interpolations and omissions, but also at times because of the different sensibilities of the scribes, who in some cases felt themselves authorized to change the text as if they were the authors. However, the presence of many passages of identical tenor in the two redactions suggests that there was only one source (Riese 1893, vi), which, whether deriving from a Greek model or not, was unmistakably written in Latin. This needs to be pointed out, because Kortekaas’ hypothesis, which postulates a Greek epitome on top of the stemma formed by the two Latin redactions, is not acceptable (Merkelbach 1995, 10–11).
Klebs’ thesis that the Historia dates back to a Latin original of the third century is hardly tenable. Many aspects of the vocabulary and syntax of the text invalidate this dating and suggest a later period. For example, terms and usages that were not used before the fourth century can be quoted: ministeria (“tableware,” 14), sabanum (“towel,” 51), salutatorium (“reception hall,” 33), paranymphus (“best man,” 51), the adverb inviolabiliter (“inviolably,” 14), and the pre-medieval usage of servitium with the meaning of “service” (14 and 15). As regards syntax, the pre-Romance preference for analytic forms instead of indirect cases, the improper or wrong usage of reflexives, preference for present participle, the usage of ille as a definite article, and using objective clauses with quod and quia instead of the infinitive clause (passim) presuppose a redaction dating later than the fourth century (Thielmann 1881, 27–43; Augello 1989, 65–78; Wolff 1996, 8–9).
There are also numerous Christian tracts. God is often referred to in the singular (4, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 28, 30, 31, 32, 35, 39, 40, 41, 43). He is worshipped (31, 32), and even an angel is mentioned (48). Quotations from the Bible (with predilection for Tobiah’s book) and scriptural constructions (Thielmann 1881, 4–26) are also found. The scene of the sharing of the mantle (12) recalls hagiography and, more precisely, the well-known episode of St. Martin’s life, which was made popular by Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St. Martin (3.1–3); the motif of the virgin in the brothel recalls the lives of St. Agnes, St. Agatha, and St. Theodora.
Klebs and Schmeling object that it is a process of mere infiltration of later elements. They hold that it is the duty of the editor to expunge them in the attempt to pursue the Latin original of the third century. This thesis meets an obstacle that is difficult to overcome: the presence, in 42–43, of 10 Aenigmata Symposi, a work that apparently dates to the fourth or fifth century AD4. Klebs (1899, 223–225) has tried to remove this terminus post quem by arguing that the 10 riddles were introduced in the Christian reworking in lieu of a catastrophé determined by a pagan deus ex machina. However, it can rightly be objected that a novel that opens with a riddle finds its most suitable conclusion in the solution of other riddles. On the other hand, we can also wonder if it is wise to trace a later reworking back to the existence of a narrative device fundamental to the architecture of the novel. A change of this kind would qualify our editor as a real author and the text that has reached us as the only version of the novel, no matter what the remote origins were.
If, regarding the terminus post quem, we must keep to that supplied by the presence of Symposius’ riddles (fourth–fifth centuries AD), regarding the terminus ante quem, we have at our disposal two points of reference: (1) the anonymous treatise on grammar of the end of the sixth century, De dubiis nominibus, which mentions a passage found in Chapter 13 of our story; (2) the statement of Venantius Fortunatus (died 568 AD), who writes in his poems (4.8.5): “I wander as a vagabond exiled far from the shore of my homeland, more desolate than shipwrecked Apollonius, guest of the waters” (tristis erro nimis patriis exul ab oris / quam sit Apollonius naufragus hospes aquis). Incidentally, the quotation of the passage in our story in De dubiis nominibus, which according to Glorie (1968, 611–721) can be tracked down to the area of Bordeaux, might be indicative also of the location of the early area of diffusion of the treatise, in that, when it comes to literature of the fifth and sixth centuries, the anonymous author seems to be acquainted with writers from southern France only. On the other hand, this localization seems to find confirmation in the presumable recollection of the well-known episode of the sharing of the mantle in St. Martin’s life (12) and in some linguistic details of the Historia, which can be classified as Gallicisms (Thielmann 1881, 42).
A clue for the late character of the novel comes from the utilitarian and degraded view of culture and education, which are considered as mere means to success (Lana 1975, 75–102). Similar deductions can be inferred also from the fact that the author does not seem to know classic prosody and metric, as demonstrated by the rhythmic features which the hexameters of Symposius assume in the context of the Historia, as well as the rhythmic lines of Tarsia’s song (41).
The presence of Symposius’ riddles in 41–42 raises questions also regarding the problem of the supposed Greek source of the Historia. If a Greek model was really used, we must hold that Symposius’ riddles were introduced in the Latin reworking in lieu of riddles in Greek (Wolff 1999, 282). The same should be assumed with regard to the poetical Latin reminiscences in the text that has reached us. The description of the storm (11), the scene of Apollonius’ narrative in the royal palace of Archistrates, and the ensuing falling in love of the princess (17–18) are strewn with Virgilian and Ovidian reminiscences. The novel’s beginning recalls the opening of the tale of Cupid and Psyche, and the description of the love sickness of Archistrates’ daughter (18) seems to be influenced by Apuleius’ tale of the wicked stepmother (Klebs 1899, 288–289). However, the hypothesis of such reworking implies that the Bearbeiter took liberties more appropriate to an author than to a translator. A linguistic analysis does not point out significant evidence of a Greek model, as several Greek terms in the text are of old acquisition, while others, which belong to the post-classical vocabulary, seem rather to “bespeak the degree to which Greek and the extensive literature of translation from Greek had become part of the language” (Hexter 1988, 189).5 Two papyrus finds (PSI II 151 [=Pack 2642] (2) and P. Mil Vogliano 260), which present a character named Apollonius in a situation vaguely similar to that of the court banquet in Cyrene (14–17), have been traced back to the supposed Greek model of our novel (Kussl 1991, 155–159). However, the queen, who in the papyrus tries to conquer Apollonius, is not compatible with the plot of the Historia, which is based on the chaste marriage between Apollonius and the daughter of the king of Cyrene (Morgan 1998, 3355). Its connection with our novel, in spite of Holzberg’s efforts (1990, 95–98), can hardly be proved. With regard to the Greek origin of the Historia, reference has been made to a riddle found in a graffito discovered by Hepding during the excavations in Pergamon (1908–1914), which seems similar to Antiochus’ riddle. However, this graffito belongs to the Byzantine period, and it is likely to be a question of biblical subject matter regarding Genesis. On the other hand, the Latin matrix of the novel can be clearly guessed from the epigraphic and iconographic documentation, as demonstrated by Zelazowski (2001, 495–512), who has traced the sculptural group representing Apollonius on a biga back to the typically Roman custom of honos bigae. State-of-the-art researches do not seem to find elements proving the hypothesis of a Greek model. Many details of the story, considering the setting, do certainly trace back to Greek habits and customs, but this probably implies only that “l’autore latino ha lavorato […] attingendo da un tipo greco di letteratura, a tematiche e motivi nati e cresciuti nella cultura greca” (La Penna 1998, 407).
Although the Historia shows a number of similarities with the main Greek novels, it diverges from them because of the absence of love passion and the related, although idealized, sexual components. Apollonius and Archistrates’ daughter, the central couple with whom the hero and the heroine of the typical Greek novel should identify, are not mutually attracted by beauty. The only reason they fall in love is because of the culture and intellectual good points of the other. The princess’ passion does not seem to be reciprocated by the male protagonist, who apparently agrees to the wedding mainly for debt of gratitude to her father (Konstan 1994, 100). In the later developments of the story, Apollonius seems to be concerned more with his dynastic rights than with the requirements of his bride, who is obliged to follow him in his journey in spite of her pregnancy. Paradoxically, the description of Antioch’s incestuous passion is the only passage in the Historia in which the author deals with the erotic effects of female beauty. This scene, on the other hand, announces the real subject of the novel: father–daughter, accomplished or feared, incest.
The function of narrative focus of this motif determines a role distribution that is rather anomalous in the panorama of the ancient novel: the main characters are all fathers with an only daughter and no wife. The plot develops in three parts, all equally pivoting on the father–daughter–suitor relationship: (1) Antiochus, his daughter, and Apollonius; (2) Archistrates, his daughter, and Apollonius; (3) Apollonius, his daughter Tarsia, and Athenagoras (Archibald 1991, 12–13; Puche Lòpez 1997, 43–44). In all the three parts, the wife–mother female figure is absent either because she is dead (as Antiochus’ wife), or she is believed so (as Apollonius’ wife), or she is simply not mentioned (as Archistrates’ wife). The reasons for the tripartition are quite clear: the leitmotif of the novel is incest, which is the obstacle to be overcome both by the protagonist Apollonius and by the community, whose cultural development incest would hinder (Chiarini 1983, 267).
The monstrum of incest threatens all father–daughter meetings of the story, creating situations of great strain (Schmeling 1998, 3275–3283). When Archistrates’ daughter enters her father’s room (vigilans primo mane irrumpit cubiculum patris, “she woke at the crack of dawn and rushed into her father’s bedroom” 18), the reader is implicitly reminded of Antioch’s irruption into his daughter’s room (prima luce vigilans irrumpit cubiculum filiae suae, “when he was awake at dawn he rushed into his daughter’s room” 1). In the scene preceding Apollonius’ and Tarsia’s recognition, the daughter, pushed by her father, falls and begins to bleed from her nose (de naribus eius sanguis coepit egredi, 44): this symbolic bleeding recalls the scene of the defloration of Antioch’s daughter (guttae sanguinis in pavimento ceciderunt, 1). The initial incest functions as negative exemplum, which highlights, in marked contrast, the relationships of other father–daughter couples. While the wicked nature of Antioch is in marked contrast with Archistrates’ mild tolerance, Apollonius in his role as a father maintains, in the central part of the novel, an ambiguous approach: after his wife’s death, he claims that his daughter is his only consolation, but he abandons her to Dionysias and Stranguillio. In the system of oppositions represented by Antiochus and Archistrates, who, for good or ill, embody two clearly definite types of fathers, Apollonius, in his effort to break away from the former and identify himself with the latter, is the “término no marcado” (Puche Lòpez 1997, 44).
The different role distribution with regard to the typical plot of Greek novels is clearly seen in the second part of the Historia, where the married couple disappears from the scene, giving way to the hero’s daughter, Tarsia, who assumes the role usually played by the heroine of the traditional novel. It is not by chance that the scene between Apollonius and his daughter is the one crucial to the conclusion of the novel. It is in fact detailed and dramatic, while the recognition of Apollonius and his wife is described concisely. For this reason, the Historia can be considered similar to the narrative pattern of the “family novel” (Szepessy 1985–1988, 357–365); a typical example that can be recognized is the framework novel of the Pseudo Clementine Recognitiones (220–230 AD), which is based on the scattering of the members of a family because of a shipwreck and other vicissitudes. It has also been assumed that both stories derive from the same pagan novel of the second century AD (La Penna 1998; Perry 1967, 285–286). However, perhaps the two plots simply took their cue from that widespread narrative mechanism based on the separation and reunion of the members of a family (precisely the family novel), which was typical of new comedy and Euripides’ intrigue tragedies.
However, if the Historia diverges from the main tradition of Greek novels, it diverges even more from the typical Latin novel known to us. While Encolpius and Lucius, telling their stories as first-person narrators, perform an ironic rereading of fictional conventions, the narrator of the Historia, hiding himself behind the third person, seems to take seriously not only the narrative mechanism, but also all the social values and hierarchies implicit in the world he describes (Schmeling 1996, 545–546). From this point of view, the Historia suggests a less critical and cultured attitude than that of the main Latin novels, in line with the change of interest of the late ancient culture that opens to a new audience, one less cultured but wider and socially diverse.
The Historia has been rightly defined as “una specie di summa del romanzo ellenistico” (Chiarini 1983, 285). In fact, it concentrates nearly all narrative topoi of this kind: pirates, castaways, storms, fictitious or presumptive deaths, recognitions, virginity of the heroine miraculously preserved, and the final expedient of the writing left to the protagonist for future reference. However, our novel is also an archetypal model of the romance. The main constitutive features can be seen in the portrayal of an idealized and symbolic world, in a narrative technique entrusted more to chance than to causality and to the polarized characterization of the protagonists, who are equally divided into positive heroes and rogues (Frye 1976, 19, 38–42). We can also find features that seem to derive from the narrative structure of the fairy tale: social snobbery, which implies the presence of kings, queens, princes, and princesses in the role of protagonists; the importance given to gold and money as elements that are able to compensate for the lack of inner motivations for the actions of the characters; and the even distribution of rewards for the virtuous and punishment for the wicked at the end of the story.
The tendency to abstract stylization, which is typical of popular tales, gives rise to some other peculiarities of the Historia: the absence of descriptions of the characters’ mien, the mild interest in the setting where the scene takes place, and the vagueness of time indications (Puche Lòpez 1997, 40–41; Svoboda 1962, 217).
However, this patchwork of narrative motifs had the merit of bringing to the Middle Ages a sum of fictional and short-story motifs which, for different reasons, were running the risk of disappearing from the European cultural horizon. Our novel was used in the Middle Ages as a multi-purpose narrative mechanism, the sequences of which were reworked, according to requirements, in the structure of the romance or in that of the Christian exemplum. In particular, in a period in which the Western world lost contact with the ancient Greek and Latin novel, the Historia had the function of intermediary between classical culture and the medieval horizon handing down the romance model to the Western world. It is not by chance that the most successful rereading of this tale is represented by Shakespeare’s first approach at romance, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The ancient tale of Historia Apollonii—“a song that old was sung” (I Chor. 1)—caught the poet’s attention as the archetypal story of a new dramaturgical idea meant to evoke the eternal cycle of human passions in symbolic interpretation (Archibald 1991, 213–216).
1 The story is told by Valerius Maximus (V 7, ext. 1), Plutarch (Dem. 38), and Appian (Syr. 59–61). Antiochus has also been identified with Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the well-known persecutor of Jerusalem (I Maccab. 1.10). Reference to the historical landscape of the Maccabees is an acquired fact in the Cronica de Apollonio by Godfrey of Viterbo: cf. Kortekaas 1990, 111–112; Archibald 1991, 185–186.
2 Reference to this incest can perhaps be explained by the fame of the story of the Theban hero, which has become symbolic not only of any type of incest, but also of any riddle (cf. Diom. G.L I 450 Keil). On the other hand, the riddles gathered from Symposius are also earlier (Chiarini 1983, 273). According to Wolff 1999, 280, the statement “I eat my mother’s flesh” could mean that the king, doubly incestuous, had generated his daughter by coupling with his mother. Merkelbach 1962, 161–162, and Müller 1991, 269–272, try, not really convincingly, to reconcile this riddle with Antiochus’ family situation.
3 The function of incest as an obstacle to the exogamic tradition is illustrated in a paradigmatic way by the story of Oenomaus, king of Pisa, who, in order to be able to live incestuously with his daughter, established for her suitors a cart race. Made invincible by the mares he had been given by his father Ares, Oenomaus killed all the suitors (Apollod. Bibl. Epit. 2, 4; cf. Chiarini 1983, 267–269). Father–daughter incest, committed or feared, is present in the tale Peau d’âne (cf. Deyermond, 1968–1969, 131). As regards the relationships with the “Constance theme,” see Archibald 1986, 259–272.
4 The terminus post quem is sometimes given as 419 AD, the date of the Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, in which St. Augustine complains about the lack of experts in the enigmatographic genre in Latin culture (see Wolff 1999, 285).
5 Kortekaas 1984, 118–120, and 2007, passim, holds that he can find clear indications of a literal translation from Greek. However, most of the times, they are usages that had been acquired by Latin a long time before (see Garbugino 2004, 109–114).
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Schmeling’s edition (1988) is, in my opinion, a good one, although his effort to date the text to the third century implies too many expunctions. Kortekaas has edited two editions of the Historia: the 1984 one is important for the accurate description of the manuscripts, but it is essentially diplomatic, as it often reproduces the orthography of the manuscripts uncritically; the 2004 edition is preferable for the textual choices. Kortekaas has also edited a rich commentary (2007), in which the reader can find plenty of information, but his work is undermined by his conviction that the recensions that have reached us are the literal translation of Greek models. A good English translation is Sandy’s 1989 work (for an Italian translation, see Garbugino 2010). Klebs’ monograph (1899) is still helpful for an exhaustive discussion of the problems of textual transmission. Schmeling 1996 and 1998 are two valuable introductions that supply the information and bibliographic references that are necessary for an exhaustive approach to the study of the Historia. To this purpose, I think it is also helpful to read Garbugino 2004. As regards the motif of reception of the Historia, Archibald (1991, 112–179) is fundamental: she also offers a text and translation of the novel.