A Companion to the Ancient Novel

It used to be taken for granted that the Greek novelists used or overused melodramatic outbursts to comment on their plot, but that artistry did not advance much beyond that point. The following is intended to show how far the handling of interactions between characters in various forms of dialogue reflects the broader techniques and artistic aims of each individual novelist. It should be clear that we are talking of “dialogue” in the normal sense used by Rudolf Hirzel over a century ago, and not of the extended “dialogic imagination” envisaged by Bakhtin, which threatens to hoover up all literature and theory at one go. One overall consideration is that two ancient generic forms use dialogue as an end in itself, as when, for example, a writer stands in the tradition of Plato and airs a literary or philosophical discussion in the form of a conversation. This was fashionable enough in the early Empire, as the often platonically colored dialogues of Lucian or Plutarch testify, artfully reproducing the rambling drift of intellectual conversation throughout the treatment of a single topic. In view of the nature of novel plots, this is on the whole rare, just as philosophers themselves rarely figure in the novels; but the dramatic genres have also to use dialogue as a matter of course, and novelists may of course choose to use direct speech where dramatic effect is to be heightened, just as readily as they use comparisons to drama itself.

I have set out to initiate a number of questions, not all capable of easy or definitive solution: how does a writer of ancient fiction enable his characters to communicate? Do they interact effectively? Does the writer aim at or attain artistic effect in his characters’ interactions? And how far can dialogue interactions point to the overall sophistication or otherwise of the author’s text? What is noticeable is that in the sophisticated, and particularly the “sophistic” novels, the uses of dialogue appear to have been deliberately and carefully managed by one means or another to assured, if occasionally eccentric, effect. However, the closer works of fiction come to the Volksbuch end of the scale, the more arbitrary or casual the organization of direct and indirect speech tends to become. The illustrations I have chosen are largely based on soundings and sampling and are necessarily constrained within a confined compass: students of the novel can extend the investigation for themselves. I have drawn translations from Reardon (1989) unless otherwise stated.

Chariton

In Callirhoe, the author blends the ethos of historiography and New Comedy in what has been increasingly acknowledged as a skillful way. Sometimes the action is advanced by a single line of direct speech, without response: in fact, it is Callirhoe herself who has the first and last word, in both cases to Aphrodite herself. Her first words are no more than (1.1.8):

“σύ μοι, δέσποινα” εἴπε, “δὸς ἄνδρα του̑τον ὃν ἔδειξας.” (“Mistress,” she cried, “give me the man you showed me for my husband!”)

The heroine is still the shyest of young girls; in 8.8.15f., she literally has the last word, which is considerably more expansive, but cyclic:

“χάρις σοι” φησίν, “’Αφροδίτη: πάλιν γάρ μοι Χαιρέαν ἐν Συρακούσαις ἔδειξας, ὅπου καὶ παρθένος ε images

δον αὐτὸν σου̑ θελούσης. οὔ μέμφομαί σοι, δέσποινα, περὶ ὧν πέπονθα: ταυ̑τα εἵμαρτό μοι. δέομαί σου, μηκέτι με Χαιρέου διαζεύξῃς, ἀλλὰ καὶ βίον μακάριον καὶ θάνατον κοινὸν κατάνευσον ἡμι̑ν.” (“Thank you, Aphrodite,” she said. “You have shown Chaereas to me once more in Syracuse, where I saw him as a maiden at your desire. I do not blame you, my lady, for what I have suffered; it was my fate. Do not separate me from Chaereas again, I beg of you; grant us a happy life together, and let us die together.”)

As Whitmarsh (2008, 238) puts it: “The woman may be in effect silenced by social convention, but we know how much she knows.” However, she has already given every indication in between her private addresses to Aphrodite that she can speak for herself.

The first actual dialogue is formed by the antithetical exchanges of the tyrant of Rhegium’s son and the tyrant of Acragas, and is not particularly rhetorical: the assembly of tyrants are concerned with business rather than rhetoric. The first quarrel of Chaereas and Callirhoe is likewise a brief exchange (1.3.5f.):

“κλαίω” φησὶ “τὴν ἐμαυτου̑ τύχην, ὅτι μου ταχέως ἐπελάθου,” καὶ τὸν κω̑μον ὠνείδισεν. ἡ δὲ οἷα θυγάτηρ στρατηγου̑ καὶ φρονήματος πλήρης πρὸς τὴν ἄδικον διαβολὴν παρωξύνθη καὶ “οὐδεὶς ἐπὶ τὴν πατρῴαν οἰκίαν ἔκώμασεν” εἴπε, “τὰ δὲ σὰ πρόθυρα συνήθη τυχόν ἔστι τοι̑ς κώμοις, καὶ τὸ γεγαμηκέναι σε λυπει̑ τοὺς ἐραστάς.” (“It is what has happened to me that I am crying about; you have forgotten me straightaway!” and he reproached her with the riotous party. However, she was a general’s daughter and a very proud girl; she flared up at this unjust accusation and cried: “There was been no riotous party at my father’s house! Perhaps your house is used to parties, and your lovers are upset at your marriage!”)

The proportions of the exchange are telling: in both cases, the real sting is in the direct speech, and we are not allowed (as ever) to forget Callirhoe’s parentage; she is accordingly able to establish herself as able to give more than as good as she gets.

By contrast, the actual action of his entering and kicking Callirhoe has no dialogue, until Chaereas’ rhetorical outburst at the trial itself (1.5.4f.):

δημοσίᾳ με καταλεύσατε: ἀπεστεφάνωσα τὸν δη̑μον. φιλάνθρωπόν ἔστιν ἂν παραδω̑τέ με δημίῳ. του̑το ὤφειλον παθει̑ν, εἴ καὶ θεραπαινίδα Ἑρμοκράτους ἀπέκτεινα. τρόπον ζητήσατε κολασέως ἀπόρρητον. χείρονα δέδρακα ἱεροσύλων καὶ πατρόκτονων. μὴ θάψητέ με, μὴ μιάνητε τὴν γη̑ν, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀσεβὲς καταποντώσατε σω̑μα. (Stone me to death in public … try to find some unspeakable way to punish me. I have done something worse than any temple robber or parricide. Do not give me burial, do not pollute the earth—plunge my criminal body to the bottom of the sea!)

Such outbursts in Callirhoe frequently call for sober reaction from the less overwrought: in this case, Hermocrates himself is pragmatic and more to the point (“Let us bury Callirhoe while she is still beautiful”).

By contrast, the villainous Theron conducts a comic monolog with himself as he formulates his plan to steal the funeral loot—so that his interlocutor is the only person he can trust (1.7.2):

Σκέψαι, Θήρων, τίς ἐπιτήδειος ὧν ο images

δας. Ζηνοφάνης ὁ Θούριος; συνετὸς μὲν ἀλλὰ δειλός κ.τ.λ. (“Think, Theron; who would be suitable, of the men you know? Zenophanes of Thurii, Intelligent, but a coward….”)

When even he becomes eloquent and sententious, the robbers themselves are pragmatic (1.7.5) and:

“παυ̑σαι” ἔφασαν “<πείθων > τοὺς πεπεισμένους ἤδη καὶ μόνον μήνυε τὴν πρα̑ξιν, καὶ τὸν καιρὸν μὴ παραπολλύωμεν.” (“Never mind preaching to the converted”, they cried: “just tell us what the job is, and let’s not miss our chance.”)

Perhaps the most consequential dialogue concerns Callirhoe and Plangon, again banal and matter-of-fact: she has to make up her mind about the pregnancy; only in the privacy of her own room does the heroine have a more eloquent discussion with the unborn child and Chaereas represented by his portrait on the other. Here, to some extent, stream of consciousness takes over, and she is partly lured by the social éclat of a child passed off as that of Dionysius: (2.8.6–2.10).

Other kinds of exchange are inserted at strategic points: most notable is that between Chaereas and Dionysius when at last they meet in court in Babylon; the exchange consists of short antithetic bursts (5.8.5):

Χαιρέας μὲν ἔλεγε “πρω̑τος εἰμι ἀνήρ,” Διονύσιος δὲ “ἐγὼ βεβαιότερος.”
“μὴ γὰρ ἀφη̑κά μου τὴν γυναι̑κα;” “ἀλλὰ ἔθαψας αὐτὴν.”
“δει̑ξον γάμου διάλυσιν.”“τὸν τάφον ὁρ images

ς.”
“πατήρ ἐξέδωκεν.” “ἐμοὶ δὲ ἑαυτήν.”
“ἀνάξιος ε images

τη̑ς Ἑρμοκράτους θυγατρός.” “συ μα̑λλον ὁ παρὰ Μιθριδάτῃ δεδέμενος.”
“ἀπαιτω̑ Καλλιρόην.” “ἐγὼ δὲ κατέχω.”
“σὺ τὴν ἀλλοτρίαν κρατει̑ς.” “σὺ τὴν σὴν ἀπέκτεινας.”
“μοιχέ.” “φονευ̑.”
(“I am her first husband” “I am a more reliable one.”
“Did I put away my wife?” “No, you buried her.”
“Show me the divorce papers.” “You can see her tomb.”
“Her father married her to me.” “She married me herself.”
“You aren’t fit for Hermocrates’ daughter.” “You’re even less fit: Mithridates had you in chains.”
“I demand Callirhoe back.” “And I am keeping her.”
“Your’e laying hands on another man’s wife.” “And you killed your own.”
“Adulterer.” “Murderer.”)

Konstan (1994, 74) notes the closeness of the exchange to Menander’s Perikeiromene 486–491, which underlines the comic as well as New comic effect of the passage. One other specialist item deserves notice, where the eunuch Artaxates actually changes his tack to suit the Great King’s whim (6.3.2, 7f.): this has been anticipated in Akkadian literature itself, where a slave advises his lovelorn master in The Dialogue of Pessimism (Anderson 1984, 17), thereby suggesting an established topic for satirical amusement.

Occasionally, Chariton draws the contrast between long-winded and quick firing (7.1.10f.), as when Polycharmus is perhaps uncharacteristically prolix (7.1.10f.), and the newly revitalized Chaereas cuts him off with “σπεύδωμεν, ἀπίωμεν…” (“Quick, let us be off…”); but he does have the opportunity of an address before battle, traditionally the ultimate in rhetorical tours de force, trumping the King of Egypt who has just depressed the morale of his troops (7.3). Overall, he offers us a range of effects that a still relatively unpretentious author can execute successfully. He has used the control of direct speech and dialogue technique in a measured and effective way, as Tomas Hägg had been able to suggest as long ago as Hägg, 1971, in his study of the proportion of speech to action in the novel. This selection of instances can only serve to illustrate a few cases of an artistry that has still to be examined minutely as a whole.

By contrast, Xenophon of Ephesus appears to have similar aspirations, but consistently to fail to attain them. He does indeed have stretches of rhetorical–sentimental treatment, hence the theory what we have of him is at least in part an epitome: but even the crowd’s wish for the Liebespaar to become a couple is only one single line of direct speech (1.2.9 “ο images

ος ἂν γάμος γένοιτο Ἁβροκόμου καὶ Ἀνθίας.”), in contrast to the (ludicrously) impassioned plea to Hermocrates offered by the Syracusans in Chariton (1.1.11f.), and with a distinctly more banal effect. In much of the rest, the overall folktale idiom is in evidence (Hägg 1983, 25; cf. O’Sullivan 1995). Hägg also noted the much reduced proportion of direct speech relative to Chariton, making the novel more obviously and ineptly “action-packed”; the still frequent enough emotional interjections by the couple are consistently not undermined as they so often are in Chariton.

Achilles Tatius

In the three “sophistic” novels, the possibilities are considerably expanded: rhetoric is a much more significant and self-conscious ingredient here than in Callirhoe, and once more we can view relatively small samples of how each author juggles the balance of character, emotion, and often highly artificial verbiage, in his own way.

As in Chariton, the very first speech in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon is significant: the narrator exclaims the power of Eros in response to a picture of Europa, and a stranger is on hand to tell his love story (1.2), which then extends uninterrupted till the very end of the narrative. The author seems to have forgotten his final inverted commas to take us back to the opening conversation (or something is missing from the manuscript tradition); Winkler (Reardon 1989, 284) may well be right that this reproduces a mannerism of Plato’s Symposium, a central text in this novelist’s repertoire. Achilles expands the scale of rhetorical ornament significantly; opportunities are in effect given for dialogue to take the form of simply introducing or capping stories or descriptions: time and again, a listener will be pressed into service as the audience of a sophistic epideixis, and not for nothing does Eros himself figure as a sophistes (5.27.4). Where the level of culture is assumed to be the highest, there can be such an antithetical game as takes place between Clitophon’s servant Satyrus and the surly servitor Konops, so that even the retelling of fable is the opportunity for flamboyant syncrisis, and indeed sophistic speechifying by the improbable creatures in their respective fables (2.20ff.). Here is a text in which even the gnat can be a sophist, like his namesake master.

Where there are not directly balanced antitheses in this way, dialogue may take the form of one character acting simply as a prompt for the ostentatious paideia of another: a good instance is 1.15–19, where Clitophon gives an extended ekphrasis of an erotic garden complete with the plane tree that points the reader to an erotikos logos in the manner of Plato’s Phaedrus. Clitophon has the peacock making his amorous display for the peahen, and Satyrus dutifully interrupts (1.17.1ff.):

Καὶ ὁ Σάτυρος, συνεὶς του̑ λόγου μου τὴν ὑπόθεσιν, ἵνα μοι μα̑λλον εἴη περὶ τούτου λέγειν, “Ἦ γὰρ ὁ Ἔρως, ἔφη, τοσαύτην ἔχει τὴν ἴσχύν, ὡς καὶ μέχρις ὀρνίθων πέμπειν τὸ πυ̑ρ;” “Οὐ μέχρις ὀρνίθων…ἀλλὰ καὶ ἑρπετω̑ν καὶ φυτω̑ν, ἔγὼ δὲ δοκω̑, καὶ λίθων…” (And Satyrus, understanding the reason for my speech, prompted me to continue by asking: “Is Eros so powerful that he makes his fire felt even by the birds?” “Not only birds, …but reptiles and plants and I believe even stones….”)

This sets off Clitophon on a quasi-scientific discourse on amorous attraction of all three, with the following consequence (1.19.1):

Ταυ̑τα λέγων ἔβλεπον ἅμα τὴν κόρην, πω̑ς ἔχει πρός τὴν ἀκρόασιν τὴν ἐρωτικήν: ἡ δὲ ὑπεσήμαινεν οὐκ ἀηδω̑ς ἀκούειν. (I was looking at the young lady to see how she reacted to my erotic lesson. She discreetly indicated that she had not been displeased by my discourse.)

At this stage, Leucippe is still sufficiently distanced and shy, and it is perhaps difficult to imagine what any direct speech contribution could have been at this stage. It is obvious that this is a deliberate perversion of the conversation between Phaedrus and Socrates in the Phaedrus itself about love and rhetoric: we now have a sophistic lecture for amorous ends instead of a conversation.

Sometimes a long narrative may be set against very compressed quick-fire openings (2.33.2f.):

“Πόθεν,

νεανίσκε, καὶ τίνα σε δει̑ καλει̑ν;”
“Ἐγὼ Μενέλαος, ε images

πεν, τὸ δὲ γένος Αἰγύπτιος. Τὰ δὲ ὑμέτερα τίνα:”
“Ἐγὼ Κλειτοφω̑ν, οὗτος Κλεινίας, Φοίνικες ἄμφω.”
“Τίς ο images

ν ἡ πρόφασις ὑμι̑ν τη̑ς ἀποδημίας;”
“Ἢν σὺ πρω̑τος ἡμι̑ν φράσῃς, καὶ τὰ παρ’ ἡμω̑ν ἀκούσῃ.”
(“Where do you come from, my young friend, and what is your name?”
“I am Menelaos, born in Egypt. And you?”
“I am Kleitophon, and this is Kleinias, both from Phoenicia.”
“Why are you travelling?”
“We’d like to hear your story first: then we will tell you ours.”)

This introduces the lengthy narration surrounding Menelaos himself; Heliodorus will make even more of this technique of narrative evasion in due course.

In one unusual instance, Achilles provides two ekphrases of the same scene, a picture of the rape of Philomela (5.3ff.). The first belongs to Cleitophon’s own monolog as narrator, but the second is in direct response to Leucippe’s request for an explanation. The contrast is in fact very instructive, as it shows how far he is prepared to modify his description in response to his relationship with his beloved: any voyeuristic effects from the first description, such as Philomela’s exposed breast, are artfully absent from the second.

Achilles has a very good sense of timing for ironic incongruities: On hearing that Sostratus has given him permission to marry Leucippe only after she has been seen to have been decapitated, we have the following exchange (5.11.2f.).

“Ὤ τω̑ν ἐξώρων εὐτυχημάτων: ὢ μακάριος ἐγὼ παρὰ μίαν ἡμέραν: μετὰ θάνατον γάμοι, μετὰ θρη̑νον ὑμέναιοι. Τίνα μοι δίδωσι νύμφην ἡ Τύχη, ἣν οὐδὲ ὁλόκληρόν μοι δέδωκε νεκράν;”
“Οὐ θρήνων νυ̑ν καιρός”, ὁ Κλεινίας ε images

πεν…
(“O tardy tiding! My happiness was delivered one day late. Marriage post mortem! Wedding after wake! Now Fortune presents me with a bride whose corpse she once refused to give me in its entirety.”
“This is not the time for a dirge,”) said Kleinias.

Like Chaereas in Callirhoe, Clitophon must have his Polycharmus, this time more ready to cut his tirades.

Longus

Longus’ use of dialogue in Daphnis and Chloe could be claimed to be as unusual as the rest of his work: in fact, there is no direct speech until 1.13, when Chloe, after watching Daphnis bathing, repeats the name “Daphnis” itself. Her first actual exchange, as in the case of Chariton’s Callirhoe, is with the supernatural, when she invokes the nymphs and the stream; Daphnis has a similar monolog in 1.18. In fact, with few exceptions, we are dealing with monologs in direct speech. Notably, there is no interaction between Chloe and Dorcon’s deathbed speech: she allows the kiss that it prompts, but that is all (1.29.3–30.1).

When the couple reacts, however, to Philetas’ speech on Eros and his powers, they come up with a joint monolog in 2.8. We slowly come to the realization that Longus composes set-pieces rather than dialogue interaction: so Lamon’s tale of the panpipes, 2.34, or courtroom exchanges between Methymnaeans and Daphnis in 2.15f.; so too Daphnis on myths, as in 3.23. Chloe’s response is more often not speech but kisses, as in her reaction when she hears the compliment from Daphnis at the end of his speech countering Dorcon in 1.17.1. Or Dryas reflects alone on the way home from Lamon’s on the mystery of Daphnis’ parentage (3.32.1), while in 4.16.17 Astylus does not verbally react directly to the pathetic pleas of Gnathon to be given access to Daphnis. So far, it is as if the art of equal bilateral conversation itself is somehow being avoided.

The exceptions to all these situations are the two pieces of quick-fire dialogue in 3.6 and 3.10. In the first, Daphnis imagines his unconvincing and inept exchanges with Chloe’s family; and in the second, he has a real conversation with Chloe itself. This is enough to show that Longus has an effortless mastery of psychological interaction when he chooses to exercise it.

“Διὰ σὲ

λθον, Χλόη”: “Ο images

δα, Δάφνι”: “Διὰ σὲ ἀπολλύω τοὺς ἀθλίους κοψίχους”: “Τίς ο images

ν σοι γένωμαι;”: “Μέμνησό μου”: “Μνημονεύω νὴ τὰς Νύμφας, ἃς ὤμοσά ποτε εἰς ἐκει̑νο τὸ ἄντρον εἰς ὃ ἥξομεν εὐθὺς < ἡνίκα > ἂν ἡ χιὼν τακ images

”: “ἀλλὰ πολλή ἔστι, Χλόη, καὶ δέδοικα μὴ ἔγὼ πρὸ ταύτης τακω̑”: “Θάρρει, Δάφνι: θερμὸς ἔστιν ὁ ἥλιος:” “εἰ γὰρ οὕτω γένοιτο, Χλόη, θερμός ὡς τὸ και̑ον πυ̑ρ τὴν καρδίαν τὴν ἐμήν”; “παίζεις ἀπατω̑ν με”: “οὐ μὰ τὰς α images

γας, ἃς σύ με ἔκέλευες ὀμνύειν.”
(“It was because of you I came, Chloe.”
“I know, Daphnis.”
“It’s because of you that I’m killing the poor blackbirds.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Do not forget me.”
“I do not forget you, by the Nymphs that I once swore an oath by < when I went > into that cave where we shall go < as soon > as the snow melts.”
“But there’s a lot of snow, Chloe, and I’m afraid I might melt before it does.”
“Cheer up, Daphnis, the sun is hot.”
“If only it were as hot, Chloe, as the fire that is burning in my heart.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“You’re deceiving me.”
“I’m not, I swear by the ewe you used to tell me to swear by.”)

Morgan ad loc. evokes both stichomythia from drama and amoebaic exchanges in Theocritean pastoral; but one might readily argue for the opposite effect, of two shy teenagers elliptically expressing genuine feelings in the only way they can, as opposed to the artifice of verse genres. Christopher Gill (Reardon 1989, 286f.) notes that the blend of novel and pastoral affords prominence to the timeless elements of the latter. Here, then, it is as if we are looking at static images highly wrought with sophistic technique, and are only really once allowed to eavesdrop on the awkwardness of Daphnis and the subtle maturity of Chloe.

Heliodorus

Heliodorus’ Aethiopica is the most ambitious in scale of the extant Greek novels, and the dialogue reflects as much. At the simplest level of romantic cliché, we find that the recitation of lovers’ names at 7.14.4 offers us multiples of “O Theagenes! O Charicleia!” whereas in Chariton one expression of the beloved’s name will do (8.1.8). However, Heliodorus is also the most mischievously devious of the extant novelists, and once more the tricks of dialogue reflect the author himself. When Charicleia makes an impassioned plea to the already puzzled pirates in the opening to Book 1, the speech is duly reported by the author, only to be followed by the observation that the pirates themselves didn’t understand a word of it (1.3). This counterpoint of rhetoric and artful play sets the tone.

The most idiosyncratic exchange in the whole novel is the dialogue with totally inconsequential answers between a fisherman and Calasiris’ party (5.18.4f.):

“Χαι̑ρε” ε images

πον “

βέλτιστε καὶ φράζε ὅποι τις ἂν τύχοι καταγωγη̑ς.” Ὁ δὲ “Περὶ τὴν πλησίον ἄκραν” ἔφη “χοιράδι πέτρᾳ τη̑ς προτεραίας ἐνσχεθὲν διεσπάρακται.” Κἀγὼ “Του̑το μὲν” ἔφην “οὐδεν ἐδεόμην μαθει̑ν, ὅμως δ’ο images

ν χρηστω̑ς ἂν ποίοίης καὶ φιλανθρώπως ἢ αὐτὸς ὑποδεχόμενος ἢ ἕτερον ὑφηγούμενος.” Καὶ ὃς “Οὐκ αὐτὸς” φησίν, “οὐ γὰρ συνέπλεον: …”
(“Good morning, my friend. Could you please tell me where one might find lodgings?”
“Just here by the headland,” he replied. “It got snagged on a sunken rock yesterday, and now it is full of holes.”
“That is not what my question was about,” I said, “but it would be very helpful of you if you could find room for us yourself, or tell me someone else who might.”
“It was not me,” he replied. “I was not out with them….”)

Only now does it strike the respondents that the fisherman, while this time speaking the same language, is actually deaf. If this is a little joke for the sake of it, in the novel as a whole dialogue flourishes are used to introduce and articulate long monologue narrations. An overwhelming proportion of 2.1–5.33 is a recapitulation by Calasiris to explain the opening scene so abruptly thrust on the reader. We have a long stretch of evasive dialogue to precede (2.21):

Knemon asked the old man to tell him what his misfortunes were;
“It is an Odyssey (᾿Ιλιόθεν) of woe,” came the reply. “You are disturbing a hornet’s nest of sufferings that will buzz and drone in your ears for an eternity. But where are you off to, young man? Where have you come from? How does a man who speaks Greek come to be in Egypt?”
“This is ridiculous!,” exclaimed Knemon. “You have told me nothing about yourself, even though I asked first, and now you want to know my story! ….”

Achilles had been content to announce his narrative as a σμη̑νος λόγων; Calasiris’ σμη̑νος κακω̑ν has to drag in an Odyssey as well! Even when free of the idiosyncratic obfuscations so characteristic of Calasiris and his entourage, the diplomatic exchanges between the Persian Oroondates and his Ethiopian captor Hydaspes seem likewise self-indulgently verbose (9.21.1f.):

“Ὦ βέλτιστε” ἔφη, “τὸ μὲν σῴζεσθαί σε κατ’ ἔμὴν ὑπάρξει γνώμην: νικα̑ν γὰρ κάλον τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἑστω̑τας μὲν ται̑ς μάχαις πεπτωκότας δὲ ται̑ς εὐποίαις: τί δ’ου̑ν οὕτως ἄπιστος ἀπεδείχθης;” Ὁ δὲ “Πρὸς σὲ” ἔφη < ἄπιστος > πιστὸς δὲ πρὸς τὸν ἔμὸν δεσπότην.” Καὶ ὁ Ὑδάσπης, “Ὑπορεσὼν τοίνυν τίνα σαυτ images

τιμωρίαν ὁρίζεις;” πάλιν ἠρώτα: καὶ ὅς, “Ἣν ἂν” ἔφη “βασιλεὺς ὁ ἔμος τω̑ν σω̑ν τινα στρατηγω̑ν φυλάττοντα σοὶ πίστιν λαβών, ἀπῄτησεν.”
(“My friend,” he said, “your life will be safe: such is my will, for it is right that we should overcome our enemies with the sword while they stand, and with kindness when they are fallen. But what did you mean by such a blatant act of perfidy?”
“My act of perfidy to you,” replied Oroondates, “was one of loyalty to my own master.”
“And what punishment do you consider appropriate for yourself in defeat?” was Hydaspes’ next question, to which the satrap replied, “Whatever punishment my king would have demanded for one of your commanders who refused to betray his loyalty to you.”)

Sometimes in fictional narratives direct speech appears simply incidental or even random: in Lucian’s True Histories, for example, there is very little. This might underline the prevailing parody of historical narrative, but it is always worth asking why. Endymion the King of the Selenites seems to drop into direct speech for no other obvious reason than variety (1.12), or because we have to be shown that Greek is actually spoken on the moon; Scintharus, the captain shipwrecked inside the whale, unsurprisingly breaks into direct speech to talk to the first strangers he has seen in 27 years (1.33–36). It seems perhaps odd that so consummate a writer of miniature dialogue as Lucian should merely report his own conversation with Homer indirectly in the Isles of the Blest (2.20). Perhaps the relative remoteness of indirect speech is intended to emphasize the matter-of-fact take-it-or-leave-it answers from Homer himself, or perhaps once again he simply felt it more appropriate to historical reporting.

Petronius

The Satyrica offers the richest reward for the student of dialogue, though the fragmentary form poses problems for most of the text outside the Cena Trimalchionis. The extant fragments open with Encolpius in mid-flow in what is in effect a declamation against declamation, which receives commendation from the schoolmaster Agamemnon, only for him to launch first into a prose, and then in Menippean manner an extravagant verse tirade (Sat. 1–5). This is not the last of the instances where the principal characters seem to be declaiming at each other. Much of the slapstick dialogue seems to bear reference to the procedures of mime (Panayotakis 1995).

What can be noted in the case of Trimalchio himself is that he tends to speak in direct speech—and much of the time again at his guests rather than to them, while the narrator Encolpius tends to couch his own reactions in indirect speech, very often with a nuance of irony. The effect overall is that the loud-mouthed host is being condemned out of his own mouth, or by the more muted and subtle reactions of those still trying to make something of him.

Emotion, however, is greatly heightened in the exchange between Trimalchio and Fortunata. She has kept a low profile throughout the dinner and speaks directly only to greet Habinnas’ wife: it is accordingly all the more effective for her to intervene when her husband goes too far and kisses an attractive boy in front of her (74.9f., trans. J.P. Sullivan):

Itaque Fortunata, ut ex aequo ius firmum approbaret, maledicere Trimalchioni coepit et purgamentum dedecusque praedicare, qui non contineret libidinem suam. ultimo etiam adiecit: “canis.” Trimalchio contra offensus convicio calicem in faciem Fortunatae immisit. (Fortunata, asserting her just and legal rights, began hurling insults at Trimalchio, calling him a low scum and a disgrace, who couldn’t control his beastly desires. “You dirty dog” (canis), she finally added. Trimalchio took offence at this abuse and flung his glass into Fortunata’s face…)

This one-word direct quotation stands in striking contrast to the long rambling monologue with which he will justify himself, sliding into typically self-centered autobiography.

By far the most important stretch of dialogue in any of the novels is the freedmen’s conversation in Sat. 41–46: not only for its unique evidence of contemporary spoken Latin in the early Empire, but for its control of stream-of-consciousness narration, and ability to identify the random preoccupations of lower-class freedmen. Characters are allowed to ramble on from topic to topic, often becoming progressively more pessimistic, until interrupted by some other character who wants them to change the record. Ganymedes is speaking (44 fin.):

“Antea stolatae ibant nudis pedibus in clivum, passis capillis, mentibus puris, et Iovem aquam exorabant. Itaque statim urceatim plovebat; aut tunc aut numquam: et omnes redibant udi tamquam mures. Itaque dii pedes lanatos habent, quia nos religiosi non sumus. Agri iacent—”
“oro te” inquit Echion centonarius “melius loquere. “modo sic, modo sic” inquit rusticus; varium porcum perdiderat. Quod hodie non est, cras erit: sic vita truditur. Non mehercules patria melior dici potest….”
(“In the old days, high-class ladies used to climb up the hill barefoot, their hair loose and their hearts pure, and ask God for rain. And he’d send it down in bucketfuls right away—it was then or never—and everyone went home like drowned rats. Since we’ve given up religion, the gods nowadays keep their feet wrapped up in wool. The fields just lie…”
“Please, please,” broke in Echion the rag-merchant, “be a bit more cheerful. First it’s one thing, then another, as the yokel said when he lost his spotted pig. What we haven’t got today, we’ll have tomorrow. That’s the way life goes. Believe me, you couldn’t name a better country…”)

Eventually, Echion is able to drift into internal dialogue with one Norbanus (45.13):

“munus tamen,” inquit, “tibi dedi”: et ego tibi plodo. computa, et tibi plus do quam accepi. manus manum lavat. (“Well, I’ve put on a show for you,” he says. “And I’m capping you,” says I. “Reckon it up—I’m giving more than I got. So we’re quits.”)

Evidently exhausting his own clichés, he interrupts his own conversation by calling on the rhetor Agamemnon:

“Videris mihi, Agamemnon, dicere; quid iste argutat molestus? Quia tu, qui potes loquere, non loquis.” (“Hey Agamemnon! I suppose you’re saying ‘What is that bore going on and on about?’ It’s because a good talker like you don’t talk.”)

This leads into a discourse about Echion’s own son, who is being schooled for upward mobility. All in all, we are closest in the Cena to Bakhtin’s awareness of the novel’s opportunity for an often chaotic proliferation of voices, here cleverly counterpointing a range of social and cultural levels.

Beyond the Satyrica

Elsewhere, we have an unusual “control” on dialogue, as we can actually compare the handling of it over long stretches of Apuleius and the epitome of its Greek original, the elusive Metamorphoses of Lucius of Patras; nevertheless, without access to the original Greek text that underlies both, useful deduction is limited. However, in the Metamorphoses, overall Apuleius makes the same conscious sacrifice as Petronius outside the closed world of the freedmen’s conversation: characters launch into a degree of artificial eloquence that is clearly impossible for their class and circumstances. It is perfectly in order that the robbers’ old woman should launch into an anilis fabula to console the kidnapped and apprehensive Charite in the telling of Cupid and Psyche, whose style is anything but that of the old wives’ tale it is said to be (4.27.8). However, it is inconceivable that she should choose the elevated, baroque style of narrative she does, and in a totally idiosyncratic idiom. As to the robbers themselves, they are latrones gloriosi, who dramatize their heroism in an excessive and unnatural way; but there is no attempt in either version to give them exchanges anything like those of Petronius’ freedmen. Lucius for his part is repeatedly constrained to comment as to why he himself was unable to react to situations in verbal terms, being trapped inside the body of an ass, and able only to exclaim “O!” when he needs to shout “O Caesar!”

Sharp contrast is possible between the dialogue here and in the sub-literary Life of Aesop, where the whole text has a vulgar demotic feel to it: this often preserves nuggets of proverbial folk-material, for example, in the anecdote on buried treasure, where dialogue is structured around the counter-interpretation of acronyms (78ff.). It also enables quick-fire dialogue to generate a string of misunderstandings: Vita Aesopi 25 (trans. Daly in Hansen 1998):

So Xanthus went back to Aesop and said “Good day to you.”

AESOP:	“And is there anything wrong with my day?”
THE STUDENTS:	“Fair enough, by the Muses. What was wrong with his day?” They were impressed with his apt retort.
	And Xanthus said, “Where do you come from?”
AESOP:	“From the flesh.”
XANTHUS:	“That’s not what I mean. Where were you born?”
AESOP:	“In my mother’s belly.”
XANTHUS:	“The devil take him. That’s not what I’m asking you, but in what place were you born?”
AESOP:	“My mother didn’t tell me whether it was in the bedroom or the dining room.”

We are in the territory here of the most rudimentary skoptic literature, with the stringing together of little more than joke-book anecdotes, aimed like so many of those in the late antique Philogelos at the philosopher exposed by the straight man as a fool.

In this regard, there can be little to say about Apollonius of Tyre, or indeed the Alexander Romance, where the impression is very strongly that the authors have not been able to address the management of conversation in much more than a random way. All this simply underlines the fact that control of dialogue is a matter of conscious and calculated artistry. In the case of the Alexander Romance, conversation occurs quite arbitrarily: between Olympias and Nectanebo (1.4.2ff.), between the latter and the youthful Alexander (1.14.4ff.), and in the quarrel between Nicolaus and Alexander over chariot-racing (1.18.5–8). It might be argued that they are part of a poikilia which includes a variety of testimony: inscriptions, omens and their interpretation, and the rest; but there is no obvious indication that they occur strategically or artistically at particularly significant points. This seems consistent with the fact that we cannot really think of “authorship” as opposed to redaction in the first place.

One example from Apollonius of Tyre will suffice (Recension A9, tr. Kortekaas 2004):
Post haec Apollonius dum deambularet in eodem loco supra litore, occurrit ei alius homo, nomine Stranguillio. Cui ait Apollonius: “Ave, mi carissime Stranguillio.” Et ille dixit: “Ave, domine Apolloni. Quid itaque in his locis turbata mente versaris?” Apollonius ait:“proscriptum vides.” Stranguillius ait: “Et quis te proscripsit?” Apollonius ait “Rex Antiochus.” Stranguillius ait “Quae est causa?” Apollonius ait “Quia filiam eius in matrimonium petivi. Sed, si fieri potest, in civitate vestra volo latere.” (Afterwards, while Apollonius was walking about on the same part of the shore, another man, named Stranguillio, met him. To him Apollonius said, “Greetings, my good friend Stranguillio.” And he said, “Greetings, my lord Apollonius. Why are you wandering around here so disturbed?” Apollonius said, “You’re looking at a man with a price on his head.” Stranguillio said, “Who’s put a price on your head?” Apollonius said, “King Antiochus.” Stranguillio said “Why?” Apollonius said, “Because I sought the hand of his daughter in marriage. If it’s possible I would like to hide in your city.”)

Much of this is nursery syntax, but hardly to be confused with the calculated literary simplicity of Longus. It could pass for the language of early medieval hagiography, and seems to imply much the same mind set.

The Fragments

Of the fragmentary novels, there is much less to go on, but as it happens fragment A of Ninos suggests a situation and technique not too far removed from that of Longus. Ninos, as already a world conqueror at 17 (!), approaches his aunt Derceia to hasten marriage to (the unnamed) Semiramis: he is articulate, self-congratulatory, and rhetorical in a relatively simple way; and a normal dialogue response is the result. On the other side, Semiramis is far too shy and repeatedly fails to speak: her own aunt Thambe, the mother of Ninus, reassures her that (A V. 12ff.): “Your [silence] communicates better in my opinion than speech.” In this earliest known fragment of an ideal novel, we already have gender-contrast in the dialogues of the Liebespaar with their respective match-makers. We are similarly lucky in the remains of the surviving episode of Metiochus: the scene is a symposium, and Metiochus himself in the presence of the philosopher Anaximenes makes a set-piece speech debunking the traditional image of Eros and his weapons, evidently in a gesture of rationalizing display in intellectual company. This excites the annoyance and antagonism of Parthenope, and she seems to be replying in kind, but that is about as far as we can conjecture. Antonius Diogenes offers us (PSI 1177) an evidently silenced Myrto, whether a ghost or a corpse, communicating by tablet; we may be in the same territory as the conversation between the witch of Bessa and her dead son’s corpse on the battlefield in Heliodorus 6.14f. The other fragment POxy 3012 seems much more like a lover’s melodramatic conversation between Deinias and Derkyllis. There is a long precisely contextualized fragment of Iamblichus (fr. 61 Habrich) in which Soraichos is pleading with Sinonis not to take revenge on Rhodanes for kissing the farmer’s daughter; she is having none of his rhetoric (trans. Winkler-Stephens):

…she did not wait for the rest of his speech. “Soraichos, I have indulged this wicked windiness of yours, and grudgingly at that. I should have died before hearing you say that any other woman finds Rhodanes attractive…”

We are back in the realm of sophistically trained heroines, as melodramatic in speech as in sword-wielding action. Something of the same is going on in Kalligone, but in an evidently less ambitious way. Lollianus once more has clearly a corpse speaking, but not an actual conversation as his addressee is dumbfounded. A quite extensive reaction to the cannibal meal is too heavily damaged to allow for useful comment in fr. B1 verso; the prosimetric effect of Iolaus is again too unclear to enable conclusions to be drawn.

Conclusions

Overall, then, we can draw some tentative conclusions from our sampling. The upper and middle ranges of the ideal novelists have worked out well-refined techniques in the application of dialogue and in the interaction between direct and indirect speech. Characters can engage in relatively realistic if rhetorically enriched quick-fire dialogue; they can engage in conversation enabling one character to feed or indeed to undercut the monologue performances of another. Dialogue can encompass the articulate speech of one character and the emotional reaction of another by non-verbal means such as kisses or sobs. There is scope for verbal trickery in more extreme situations, as when corpses address the living, or the dumb can write their responses. Petronius serves as a special case where ordinary sermo urbanus can be contrasted by the lively idioms of the ostentatiously uneducated; Apuleius for his part has his low life speaking in the same style as the verbally intoxicated narrator. However, the further down the educational scale the text has slid, the more random and uncontrolled the dialogue interchanges are likely to be. As more fragments continue to appear, their contribution to the overall picture of speaker-interaction should be awaited in turn.

References

Anderson, G. 1984. Ancient Fiction: The Novel in the Graeco-Roman World. London: Croom Helm.

Hägg, T. 1971. Narrative Technique in Ancient Greek Romances. Stockholm: Svenska institutet i Athen. Severe analysis of compositional proportions in three novelists.

Hägg, T. 1983. The Novel in Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hansen, W. 1998. Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Well-chosen examples of popular narrative and its cultural background.

Konstan, D. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

O’Sullivan, J.N. 1995. Xenophon of Ephesus: His Compositional Technique and the Birth of the Novel. Berlin: De Gruyter. Relates one novel to popular narrative mannerisms.

Panayotakis, C. 1995. Theatrum Arbitri: Theatrical Elements in the Satyrica of Petronius. Leiden: Brill. Relationship between one novelist and popular mime technique.

Reardon, B.P. 1989. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Whitmarsh, T. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Focuses on recent theoretical approaches.

CHAPTER 13

The Management of Dialogue in Ancient Fiction