There are two reasons for beginning a perusal of the Greek Romances with Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe. It is “the earliest Greek romance of which the text has been completely preserved.” It is “a lively tale of adventure in which a nobly born heroine is kidnapped across the sea from Syracuse to Asia Minor, where her beauty causes many complications and she is finally rescued by her dashing lover.” I quote from Warren E. Blake whose publication of the Greek text and a literary translation of it are a monument to American scholarship.

The date of the manuscript of this novel has been proved to be not later than the middle of the second century A.D., by the recent discoveries of papyrus fragments of it.[25] Warren Blake comments on the significance of these discoveries:[26]

“In view of the complete absence in ancient literature of any certain allusion to Chariton, he was long supposed to be the latest of the authors of Greek romance, and was dated, purely by conjecture, about 500 A.D. But by a turn of fortune as truly remarkable as any attributed by Chariton himself to that fickle goddess, three scraps of his book have been turned up in Egypt during the last forty years. One of these scraps was found in company with some business documents which date from about the end of the second century of our era. Inasmuch as the place of discovery was a small country town to which new works of literature would not likely penetrate immediately on publication, and since in any case an expensive book is almost sure to be preserved longer than day-by-day business papers, we seem quite justified in setting the date of publication back some twenty-five or even fifty years. Thus it is probable that this novel was written at least as early as the middle of the second century, only about one hundred years later than most of the books of the New Testament.”

The identity of the author is made known by the first sentence: “I am Chariton of Aphrodisia, secretary to the advocate Athenagoras.” Aphrodisia was a town in Caria in southern Asia Minor. Its locality helps little in expanding the autobiography of the author out of this one crisp sentence. But the romance itself reveals more of his personality. His fondness for court-room scenes and his elaborate descriptions of them are what we would expect from a secretary to a ??t?? or advocate. His learning is evident from his many literary and mythological references. And occasionally he steps out of the role of the impersonal narrator into his own character and speaks in the first person to his reader. We will come to feel rather sure of his interests and tastes as we read his p???? ???t????.

Before proceeding to outline the plot of the eight books of this romance, it will be well to clarify the story by presenting a list of the characters.

The chief characters are:

Chaereas, the handsome young Greek hero, son of Ariston of Syracuse

Callirhoe, the beautiful young Greek heroine, daughter of Hermocrates, a famous general of Syracuse

Polycharmus, a young Greek, the devoted friend of Chaereas

Hermocrates, the general of Syracuse

Theron, a pirate

Dionysius, the governor of Miletus

Mithridates, satrap of Caria

Artaxerxes, king of the Persians

Statira, his wife, queen of the Persians

Pharnaces, the governor of Lydia and Ionia

Rhodogyne, the sister of Pharnaces, daughter of Zopyrus, wife of Megabyzus, a Persian beauty.

The minor characters of importance are:

Leonas, a slave-dealer of Miletus

Plangon, a female slave of Dionysius

Phocas, slave and overseer of Dionysius, husband of Plangon

Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes

Hyginus, a servant of Mithridates.

The list of characters reveals at once a connection of Chariton’s novel with the Ninus Romance because of the use of historical characters. Hermocrates, the great general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians in the naval battle, 414 B.C., is the father of the heroine and is referred to repeatedly with the greatest pride. Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians, appears in person in courts and in wars. Historical events too are mentioned as if to give a background of reality: the contests between the Syracusans and the Athenians; the war between the Greeks and the Persians; the rebellion of Egypt against Persia; the merit of Cyrus the Great in organizing the army.

Against such a background of plausible reality, the plot develops along three main lines of interest: love, adventure and religion. The story begins with the introduction of the radiant young hero and heroine of Syracuse when they fall in love at first sight at a festival of Aphrodite. Almost immediately they are married, but their ecstatic happiness is short, for Callirhoe’s many other suitors, angry at her choice, plot revenge. They make her husband jealous by false stories of a lover whom his bride favors, and, by staging a surreptitious admission to his house of a lover of Callirhoe’s maid, convince Chaereas that his wife is faithless. In passionate fury he dashes to his wife’s room and when Callirhoe overjoyed at his unexpected return rushes to meet him, he kicks her with such violence in the middle of her body that she falls down, to all appearance dead. Chaereas is tried for murder and pleads for his own condemnation, but is acquitted against his will by the appeal of Hermocrates.

Callirhoe is now given a magnificent funeral and buried with much treasure. The heroine, however, who had only fainted, soon revives, but while she is bemoaning her sad fate, a band of pirates, led by Theron, breaks open the tomb, steals the treasure, kidnaps the girl, then sets sail with all speed for the east. At Miletus, Theron sells Callirhoe as a slave to Dionysius, a noble Ionian prince. He soon falls in love with his slave, but learning her story (except the fact that she was already married which Callirhoe omits) respects her tragic position and woos her with delicacy and consideration. Callirhoe, on finding that she is two months with child, decides to accept the advice of the maid Plangon and marry Dionysius to give her baby a father. Plangon assures Callirhoe that the child will be considered a premature seven months baby, and she secures from Dionysius a promise to bring up as his honored children any sons of the marriage. Book III tells how Chaereas found the tomb empty; how Theron was captured, forced to tell the truth by torture and crucified; how Chaereas and his bosom friend Polycharmus went on a warship to Miletus in search of Callirhoe but were captured and sold as slaves to Mithridates, satrap of Caria.

Now Mithridates too had fallen in love with Callirhoe on seeing her at Miletus. On returning to Caria he discovers the identity of his slave Chaereas just in time to save him from crucifixion because of an uprising of his fellow-slaves, and tells him that his wife is now married to Dionysius. Chaereas writes a letter to Callirhoe full of penitence and of love and Mithridates forwards it by Hyginus, his faithful slave, adding another letter of his own promising Chaereas and Callirhoe his aid. Unfortunately these letters fall into the hands of Dionysius himself and that noble prince, in his mad passion for his wife, conceals from her the news that Chaereas is alive and makes a plot for the protection of his own interests. He appeals to Pharnaces, governor of Lydia and Ionia, who is also in love with Callirhoe, to help a scheme he has made. Pharnaces thus prompted writes a letter to Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, accusing Mithridates of trying to corrupt Dionysius’ wife. The great King then summons Mithridates to a trial for plotting adultery and sends also for Dionysius and Callirhoe.

The court scene is full of magnificence and surprises. Mithridates has no fear because in answer to the denunciations of Dionysius he is able to produce as a witness Chaereas who swears to his innocence and friendship. Mithridates is acquitted and departs. Then the King dismisses the court for five days before adjudging whose wife Callirhoe is to be since now she has two living husbands. Meanwhile he intrusts the lady for safe keeping to his wife, Statira. Dionysius is torn between the promptings of passion and reason. Chaereas is in despair at the possibility of losing Callirhoe again. And Artaxerxes, the King, like all the other great gentlemen in the story, falls madly in love with Callirhoe for her beauty.

The King’s passion makes him postpone the court trial a month on the pretext of a dream which demanded sacrifice to the gods. His eunuch tries to persuade the heroine to do herself the honor of submitting to the King’s embraces, but only horrifies and offends her purity. Now Fortune again takes a hand in separating once more Chaereas and Callirhoe, for a revolt of the Egyptians is announced, the King must be off to war, and as usual the queen and her suite go with him. Callirhoe accompanies the queen by royal orders.

Dionysius of course serves as one of the King’s generals. He has a crafty piece of news conveyed to Chaereas that in reward for his faithful service the King had given him Callirhoe. Chaereas, believing this false story, and no longer caring to live, enlists with the faithful Polycharmus in the Egyptian army to fight against his rival. He is allowed to collect an army of three hundred Greeks in memory of Thermopylae and with them captures Tyre. News of this loss makes the Persian King so anxious that he decides not to travel with all his retinue, but to leave the women on the little island of Aradus. Chaereas who is proving a valiant warrior soon takes the island and discovers Callirhoe among his captives. Both faint on seeing each other but since joy never kills, they soon recover and reunited tell all and forgive all.

Word suddenly comes that the Persian King has defeated the Egyptians and their King is dead. Chaereas and his men decide to sail home to Syracuse, but first in response to the plea of Callirhoe Chaereas sends his prisoner, the queen Statira, back to the King because she had befriended Callirhoe in her woes. Callirhoe without the knowledge of Chaereas writes a beautiful and affectionate letter of farewell to Dionysius, intrusting to him the care of her son. (Dionysius still believes he is the boy’s father!) The ship of Chaereas is driven by fair winds to Sicily where Hermocrates and the people of Syracuse receive the hero and heroine in amazement and joy. Chaereas tells the story of all their adventures and Callirhoe ends the tale with a prayer to Aphrodite: “I beg thee, never again part me from Chaereas, but grant us both a happy life, and death together.”

With this simple outline of the plot before us let us study the way in which the story is told. Notable first of all are the shifting scenes, for the action moves rapidly from Syracuse, to Miletus, to Caria, to Babylon, to the sea, to Tyre, to the island of Aradus and then at last back to Syracuse after the full circle of adventures. The contrast between the free Greek city of Syracuse and the oriental kingdoms is constantly emphasized, but it is the love of adventure for adventure’s sake that spices the narrative. The settings include, besides picturesque descriptions of localities, court-room scenes which are full of contrasts: the murder-trial of Chaereas in Syracuse and the trial of Theron also; the arraignment of Mithridates for adultery before the Great King in Babylon. Pageantry of weddings and of religious ceremonies also enrich the plot.

The characters are painted in bold, rich colors. Hero and heroine are so beautiful that they can be compared only to great works of art: Chaereas resembles the pictures and statues of Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus, Alcibiades. Callirhoe is now Aphrodite incarnate, now Artemis. Love is enflamed by their great beauty and enters through their eyes at their first sight of each other. Chaereas is proud and arrogant because of his looks and so passionate that he is unrestrained in his anger when he believes Callirhoe false. The kick which he gave his bride is a blot on his character which the reader finds harder to condone than Callirhoe did. She declares that cruel Fortune forced her husband to this act, for he never before had struck even a slave. He is also so mercurial that he repeatedly gives way to despair and is repeatedly saved from committing suicide by his devoted friend and companion, Polycharmus. He appears in more heroic guise as a warrior when he joins the Egyptians against Artaxerxes and Dionysius, resolved to die in battle, and wins a great naval victory. He is generous in sending the captive queen back to her lord. And he fulfills the ideals of romantic chivalry by declaring to Callirhoe at the end that she is the mistress of his soul.

Callirhoe like Helen had the gift of fatal beauty so that all men who saw her fell in love with her and she incurred for a time the jealousy of Aphrodite. But in spite of every temptation her spirit remained virginal and she was persuaded to marry Dionysius only to give a nominal father to her unborn child. She meets misfortune with natural tears, but with more fortitude than Chaereas shows. And she rules her anger even when the eunuch of King Artaxerxes makes insulting proposals to her by remembering that she had been well brought up and as a Greek taught self-control. She handles difficult situations with a woman’s intuitive tact as when she writes a consoling farewell letter to Dionysius, without letting her husband have the pain of knowing of it and its tenderness. By it she secures Dionysius’ care for the son he still believes his own. She wins from Chaereas with gentle tact a promise to send back the captives Statira and the beautiful Rhodogyne to the Persians. And in meek devotion at the end she essays to win even the goddess Aphrodite to complete reconciliation.

Polycharmus is a type more than an individual, for he is to Chaereas what Achates was to Aeneas, the faithful friend who accompanies him through all adventures. With boyish zeal, he hides from his parents in Syracuse his plan to go with Chaereas on his search for Callirhoe, but he appears on the stern of the ship as it sails in time to wave a farewell to his father and mother. His chief function is to encourage Chaereas and prevent his suicide. At the end on their return to Syracuse he is rewarded by being given Chaereas’ sister for a bride and a part of the spoils of war for a dowry.

Dionysius is a sympathetic and noble character; indeed his sins are all for love. He is in deep mourning for his dead wife when Callirhoe is purchased as a slave by his manager. Although he believes that no person who is not free-born can be truly beautiful, he is overwhelmed with love at the first sight of Callirhoe. With tactful sympathy he draws out her story and believes it. He never forces his passion upon her, but woos her delicately through his maid-servant, Plangon, and is overjoyed when Callirhoe finally consents to legal marriage for the purpose of raising a family. Even then in spite of his desire he delays the marriage that he may do Callirhoe the honor of a great wedding in the city. His happiness is complete to his mind when after seven months a son is born. So it is because of his sincere love that when he hears that a Syracusan warship has arrived to demand Callirhoe back, he commends his slave Phocas who out of loyalty to his master had persuaded barbarians to destroy the ship and its crew. Dionysius’ only anxiety is that since some of the men escaped, Chaereas may still be alive. This last fact he conceals from Callirhoe and to comfort her for Chaereas’ supposed death persuades her to erect a cenotaph to her first husband’s memory. Later when he receives the intercepted letter of Chaereas to Callirhoe, he faints with grief and fear, but coming to he believes the letter forged as part of a plot of Mithridates to win the favor of his bride, so he accuses Mithridates to the Great King. Summoned to Babylon to the trial he is in constant terror, for “he looked on all men as his rivals” knowing the devastating effects of Callirhoe’s beauty. When Chaereas is produced alive in the trial, he argues valiantly for the retention of his wife with some telling thrusts at Chaereas, but finally when he has lost his love, he bears his grief like a man, having remarkable self-control, treasuring Callirhoe’s affectionate letter as true solace, and devoting himself to her son. Dionysius, as Callirhoe reminds him once, is a Greek with a Greek education.

Among the orientals, resplendent princes appear often only to be numbered among the disconsolate lovers of Callirhoe and because of their passion to assist in furthering the complications of the plot. Such are Mithridates and Pharnaces. More individualized portraits are painted of King Artaxerxes and Queen Statira. Oriental magnificence is the aura of the Great King’s personality whether he appears presiding in the court-room, or hunting in Tyrian purple with golden dagger and elegant bow and arrow on his caparisoned horse, or riding to war with his great army and his retinue: his queen, her attendants, his eunuchs, all their gold and silver and fine raiment. Yet through this rich setting appears a wise ruler who takes counsel of his advisers in times of crises, listens judiciously to evidence in the court-room, and in war follows the military traditions of Cyrus the Great. But he has his human side: is influenced by wine, loneliness and the dark, and succumbs to Callirhoe’s beauty though he is married to a great and subtle queen. Hoping to win the object of his passion he is not above machinations with his eunuch who acts as his go-between and with optimistic hope of success even has Callirhoe taken along with the queen when he goes to war. Yet when Statira is restored to him by Chaereas’ magnanimity, he welcomes her warmly although her news that Callirhoe is with Chaereas is like “a fresh blow upon an old wound.” He appears most human after hearing Statira’s story of all that happened, for he is filled with varied emotions: wrath at the capture of his dear ones, sorrow at the departure of Chaereas, and final gratitude that Chaereas had ended the possibility of his seeing Callirhoe. Out of his own conflict of emotions, he breaks gently to Dionysius the news of his loss of Callirhoe and calls him away from personal sorrow by giving him higher responsibility in the realm. Artaxerxes is really made to appear in the novel as the Great King.

Statira is no less the queen. She is delighted when her husband suddenly intrusts Callirhoe to her care, regarding his action as an honor and a sign of confidence. She encourages Callirhoe with tactful sympathy and secures needed rest for her, keeping away the curious ladies who hurry to the palace to call. After a few days Statira can not resist asking Callirhoe which husband she preferred, but her curiosity is not rewarded for Callirhoe only weeps. As time goes on Statira’s jealousy is aroused because Callirhoe’s beauty outshines her own and because she is fully aware of the significance of the King’s more frequent visits to the women’s quarters. So when Artaxerxes is preparing to start off for war, the queen does not ask what will become of Callirhoe because she does not wish to have to take her, but the King at the end demands her presence. Apparently Statira never betrayed her jealousy to Callirhoe, for after Chaereas took captive all the women in Aradus, Callirhoe has only praise for her kindness to relate to Chaereas and calls Statira her dearest friend. Her generous happiness in being able to return Statira’s courtesy by sending her back to her husband wins from Statira a just encomium: “You have shown a noble nature, one that is worthy of your beauty. It was a happy sponsorship indeed which the King intrusted to me.” Callirhoe on parting commends her child to the queen’s care and secretly consigns to the queen her letter to Dionysius. Statira is still a subtle enough woman to enjoy telling the King at once on her return without her rival: “You have me as a gift from Callirhoe.”

Set off against the Great King of the Persians is Hermocrates, the general of Syracuse who defeated the Athenians. His greatness as an admiral is matched by his leadership as a citizen. At the trial of Chaereas for the murder of Callirhoe it is Hermocrates whose generous plea in his daughter’s name secures from the people a vote of acquittal. He listens to the wish of the people assembled when they urge him to marry his daughter to Chaereas. When Theron, the pirate, is captured and the crowd at Syracuse is milling about him, Hermocrates insists on a public trial for him in accordance with the laws and after the evidence is presented it is by a vote of the people that he is condemned. Then Hermocrates asks the people to vote to send a ship in search of his kidnapped daughter as a reward for his patriotic services. Callirhoe’s pride centers in her father no less than in her Greek blood. Her reunion with her father at the end of the romance is almost as moving as her restoral to Chaereas. Hermocrates shines forth in untarnished glory as a patriotic admiral, a leader of thought in a democratic state, and a devoted father.

The minor parts are painted with less subtlety. Theron, the villain of the story, is a black-hearted pirate dominated only by gain and self-interest, ready to save his life at the expense of his fellow-sailors. Slaves are presented as vivaciously as they are in comedy. Plangon, the maid of Dionysius, is a shrewd, cunning opportunist, ready to serve her master’s interests but not without kindness to the distraught Callirhoe in her plight of pregnancy. Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes, is venal, wily, complaisant and low-minded. As the confidant of Artaxerxes he takes his cues from his master’s words, and solicits his favor by an attempt to seduce Callirhoe’s heart for him. As a eunuch, a slave and a barbarian (says Chariton) he could not conceive that Callirhoe would not yield to the wishes of the King. When he is unable to persuade her by flattery, he threatens her with the King’s vengeance. And when her words betray her love for Chaereas, Artaxates can call her only a poor, foolish girl for preferring a slave to the Great King of the Persians.

The use of the crowd by Chariton is another link between his romance and drama, for it often fulfills the function assumed by the chorus in tragedy, that is, the part of the spectator who comments on the action and interprets it. It is the people of Syracuse in assembly that persuades Hermocrates to wed his daughter to Chaereas. The crowd votes the crucifixion of Theron and attends it. At Miletus the crowd joins in Dionysius’ prayer to Aphrodite to protect Callirhoe and her son. The crowd at Babylon is struck dumb with amazement at the radiance of Callirhoe. And when the Great King is to decide whether Chaereas or Dionysius is to be her husband, all Babylon becomes a court-room as the people discuss the rival partners. At the end of the romance, all the harbor of Syracuse is filled with men to watch the ship come in, and when Chaereas and Callirhoe are revealed on it, the crowd bursts into tears. All rush to the theater and demand that there at once Chaereas tell them his adventures. “Tell us everything,” they keep shouting. They groan at his misfortunes. They offer prayers for the future of his son. They shout assent to his proposal to make his three hundred valiant Greek soldiers fellow-citizens of Syracuse. Indeed the crowd is constantly the background of the action of the romance.

Various mechanical devices used in the development of the plot show Chariton’s art of narration. Conversation as any novel demands is constantly used. Soliloquies are introduced frequently: at some emotional crisis, Chariton, instead of describing the thoughts and feelings of his characters, has them burst into speech to themselves. Callirhoe on hearing of the supposed loss of Chaereas with the warship laments his death and the destruction of her father’s gallant vessel. Later beside the Euphrates river when she can no longer see “the ocean which led back to Syracuse,” she upbraids cruel Fortune for driving her farther and farther from home. Again, in horror at the proposals of the eunuch, she laments all her misfortunes and expresses her resolve to die as befits Hermocrates’ daughter rather than become the mistress of the Great King. So too Dionysius on the return of Chaereas, after attempts at self-control, bursts forth with despair and jealousy into a lament over the imminent loss of his love. At the same time Chaereas, believing that Callirhoe loves Dionysius and will never return to him from the wealthy Ionian, utters a bitter lament before attempting to hang himself.

Letters also are an important means of developing the plot in the Greek Romances, especially in Chariton. He uses seven letters.[27] Chaereas’ first letter to Callirhoe is an impassioned love-letter with an appeal for forgiveness and for an assurance that she still loves him. This is a crucial letter in the plot because it is sent by Bias of Priene to Dionysius himself who conceals it from Callirhoe. Bias sends a brief business letter with it. Pharnaces, governor of Lydia, on the instigation of Dionysius writes a letter to Artaxerxes accusing Mithridates of trying to seduce Dionysius’ wife. This letter is important for the plot, because it motivates the trial of Mithridates. The Great King on receiving it dispatches two laconic business letters to Pharnaces summoning Dionysius and to Mithridates calling him to trial. The other two letters do not affect the plot, but reveal the characters of the senders. These are the letters in Book VIII of Chaereas to Artaxerxes and of Callirhoe to Dionysius. Chaereas proudly sends back Statira unharmed as the gift of Callirhoe to the Great King. Callirhoe with a woman’s intuition comforts Dionysius for her loss by gratitude for his protection, by assuring him that she is with him in spirit in the presence of her son whom she intrusts to his care. She begs him not to marry again, but to bring up the daughter of his first wife and her own son, eventually marry them to each other and send him to Syracuse to see his grandfather. She includes a message to Plangon and ends with an appeal to good Dionysius to remember his Callirhoe. It is hardly strange that Callirhoe concealed this masterpiece of epistolography from her jealous husband, Chaereas.

The taking of an oath is often an important feature of Greek Romances. In Chariton, Dionysius swears solemnly by the sea, by Aphrodite and by Eros that he will marry Callirhoe according to the Greek laws “for the begetting of children” and will bring up any child she bears.[28] Dreams too play their part in the plot. In a dream Dionysius sees an apparition of his dead wife as she looked on her wedding-day. His slave Leonas interprets the dream as prophetic of his coming happiness with the newly purchased slave, Callirhoe.[29] Callirhoe in her sleep sees a phantom of Chaereas who says to her: “My wife, I intrust our son to you.” This dream determines her to bring up her baby and so to marry Dionysius.[30] In Babylon when she is dreading having to appear in court, she has a dream of her happy wedding to Chaereas in Syracuse. The maid Plangon interprets the dream as a good omen for future happiness.[31] King Artaxerxes had a dream of gods demanding sacrifice so he proclaimed a festival of thirty days throughout Asia. This delayed his decision between Chaereas and Dionysius, hence was most important for the plot because wars arose before the court was held and in them Chaereas and Callirhoe came together.[32]

Apparent deaths are a common device of the Greek novelists and Chariton’s plot turns on two, the supposed death of Callirhoe from Chaereas’ blow and her subsequent burial; the reported death of Chaereas on his warship. Concomitant with such deaths are the unexpected reappearances which add the element of surprise, so essential for the characters and the crowd.

Descriptive passages are few and brief in Chariton and are often worked out in a suggestive simile rather than in a conspicuous purple patch. Chaereas was as “radiant as a star. The flush of exercise bloomed on his glowing face like gold on silver.” Callirhoe, recognizing her lover, became more stately and lovely than ever, as a flickering lamp again flares up when oil is poured in.[33] Public ceremonies are described at more length: the funeral procession of Callirhoe,[34] her wedding to Dionysius.[35] Space is given too to the description of Artaxerxes’ hunt, that favorite ancient sport;[36] to storm at sea;[37] to war.[38] But all these descriptions are concise in their picturesqueness.

Finally clarity in the narrative is secured by repeated rÉsumÉs of the story either by the characters or by the author himself. Callirhoe tells her tragic tale to Dionysius with such sincerity that he believes it and honors her as a free-born woman.[39] Polycharmus relates his adventures with Chaereas to Mithridates and thereby saves his friend and himself from crucifixion.[40] Chaereas at the end unfolds the whole Odyssey of his wanderings to the populace in the theater of Syracuse.[41] At the beginning of Book V Chariton epitomizes all the preceding part of the novel and at the beginning of Book VIII he recapitulates the preceding book and reassures his audience about the final book.

“Furthermore, I think that this last book will be the most pleasant of all to my readers, and in fact will serve as an antidote to the tragic events of the former ones. No more piracy or slavery or court trials or battles or suicide or war or capture here, but true love and lawful marriage! And so I am going to tell you how the goddess brought the truth to light and revealed the unsuspecting lovers to each other.”

The happy ending which Chariton here forecasts is an essential feature of a Greek romance. For in this type of literature in which Chariton is a pioneer, virtue must triumph. The ethics demands that the hero and heroine must be noble in character as well as in station and that therefore justice must be done to virtue. The hero we have seen must possess personal courage and military courage. He must be capable of emotional devotion, first of all to his lady, then to his friend, and always to his father. His faults are those of pride, arrogance and passion and his moments of brutality are condoned by his contemporaries on account of his passionate temperament. He can be generous to his foes. He can show pity to the unfortunate. But his sympathies, even when the type is embodied in as noble a character as Dionysius, are evoked by the free-born in distress, rarely by slaves. The virtues of the heroine are first of all chastity, then loyal devotion to parents, husband and child, pride of family, generosity of spirit and sympathy. She is capable of resolute decision and heroic action if her chastity is menaced or her dear ones are in danger. Standards different from our own best ones appear in the general attitude towards slaves as an inferior class and in the brutality manifested in the hero’s kick, in executions on the cross, in torture of witnesses. Cleverness and deception are traits which are prized more highly than we admit now. The noblest sentiments expressed are in behalf of liberty and patriotism.

Religion plays so important a part in the romance that it demands a full treatment. Chariton’s novel is dominated by two cults: the worship of the abstract goddess Fortune, the worship of the goddess of love, Aphrodite. At the end of Book I Callirhoe, just after she has been sold as a slave, in a soliloquy, upbraids cruel Fortune for all her troubles, for the goddess made her lover her murderer, surrendered her to tomb-robbers and now has let her be sold as a slave. Again Callirhoe, when she finds that she is pregnant, reproaches Fortune for letting her bear a child to be a slave. And on the banks of the Euphrates in another soliloquy Callirhoe again charges Fortune with all her miseries and blames her for taking “delight in persecuting one lone girl.” Mithridates tells Chaereas: “The whims of Fortune have involved you in this melancholy drama.” Queen Statira, when captured, exclaims that Fortune has preserved her to see this day of slavery. And the author of the romance as well as the characters repeatedly attributes to Fortune the strange and sad misadventures of his hero and heroine. Callirhoe, Chariton says, “was overcome by the stratagems of Fortune, against whom alone human reason has no power. She is a divinity who loves opposition, and there is nothing which may not be expected of her.” Throughout the romance Fortune seems to be conceived not as blind chance, but as a baleful goddess, who takes delight in cruelty and torture.

In conflict with her machinations is the power of the goddess of love whom the young lovers worship. As clearly as in a Greek tragedy Aphrodite’s influence is predominant throughout the romance. At the very beginning, Chaereas and Callirhoe see each other for the first time at a festival of the goddess and immediately fall in love. The end of the romance is the prayer of thanks which Callirhoe offers to Aphrodite in her temple at Syracuse. Callirhoe is so beautiful that over and over she seems Aphrodite incarnate, now to the slave-dealer, Leonas, now to Dionysius, now to the crowd at the time of her marriage to Dionysius, now in Babylon. Prayers for aid are constantly offered to the goddess by Callirhoe, by Chaereas, by Dionysius, by Artaxerxes, and these worshippers offer their petitions in her temples in Syracuse, in Miletus, in Babylon, in Aradus and in Cyprus. Her power is acknowledged; her favor is asked. Chaereas discovers Callirhoe is alive by seeing a golden statue of her which Dionysius had dedicated in the temple of Aphrodite near Miletus. Chariton himself in his rÉsumÉ at the beginning of Book VIII records the influence that Aphrodite had in his story. When Fortune was maneuvering to have Chaereas leave his wife behind at Aradus, all unaware of her presence, “this seemed outrageous to Aphrodite,” says Chariton, “who, though she had previously been terribly angered at Chaereas’ uncalled-for jealousy, whereby he had insolently rejected her kindness after receiving from her a gift more superlatively beautiful even than Paris’ prize, was by now becoming reconciled with him. And since Chaereas had now nobly redeemed himself in the eyes of Love by his wanderings from west to east amid countless sufferings, Aphrodite felt pity for him, and, as she had in the beginning brought together this noble pair, so now, having harried them long over land and sea, she was willing once more to unite them.”

The final consideration about Chariton must be the style of his work. And first of all the inquiry rises to our lips: how did the secretary of Athenagoras become so distinguished in the art of narration? Homer, I am convinced, is the master from whom, as Dante from Vergil, he took his beautiful style. The romance is rich in literary allusions, but beyond all others Homer is quoted repeatedly (twenty-four times indeed) and with great effectiveness. Sometimes a mere transitional phrase is adopted:

In descriptions the brevity and simplicity of Homer are used with such nicety that the language often trails off naturally into the very words of the epic. In the thirty day festival at Babylon

Men are pictured fighting and in their close array

And as the conflict joined and Chaereas rushed against his enemies, he