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

Artaxerxes in his court is compared to Zeus among the assembled gods.[46] A phantom of Chaereas appears to Callirhoe resembling him

“in stature, and fair eyes, and voice, and the raiment of his body was the same.”[47]

When Callirhoe came into the court-room in Babylon,

“she looked just as the divine poet says that Helen did, when she appeared to ‘them that were with Priam and Panthöos and Thymoëtes ... being elders of the people.’[48] At the sight of her, admiring silence fell, ‘and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her bedfellow.’”[49]

Besides this use of Homeric phrases in descriptions, quotations are frequently introduced in conversations as if Chariton found only Homer’s words expressive to convey the thought of one character to another.[50] But far more important than such uses of Homeric phraseology is the intensification of emotional coloring by a quotation from Homer at a crisis of poignant feeling. When Callirhoe’s nurse calls her to get up for it is her wedding day,

“her knees and heart were unstrung,”

because she did not know whom she was to marry.[51] When Chaereas is told that his wife is an adulteress,

“a black cloud of grief enwrapped him, and with both hands he took dark dust and poured it over his head and defiled his comely face.”[52]

When Chaereas is determined to set sail in winter in search of his kidnapped bride, his mother begged him to take her with him and cried in Homer’s words:

“My child, have regard unto this bosom and pity me if ever I gave thee consolation of my breast.”[53]

When Dionysius suddenly learned at a banquet that Chaereas was alive from reading his letter to Callirhoe,

When Artaxerxes was smitten with love for Callirhoe, he lay awake all night,

“now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face.”[55]

When Chaereas and Callirhoe had their ecstatic reunion on Aradus,

“when they had had their fill of tears and story-telling, embracing each other,

‘they came gladly to the rites of their bed, as of old.’”[56]

Enough illustrations of Chariton’s use of Homer have been given to show the manner of it. Different explanations of Chariton’s constant use have been advanced. Schmid thinks it is an indication of the influence of the Menippean satire with its mingling of prose and verse. Jacob believes it due to Chariton’s desire to make his style poetic. Calderini is more understanding. He thinks that Chariton, thoroughly familiar with Homer, quoted him to express worthily some noble thought and that he saw the peculiar emphasis which a quotation from Homer could give to the expression of a sudden, violent emotion. He also uses episodes from Homer (the appeal of Hecuba from the wall to Hector,[57] the apparition of Patroclus before Achilles,[58] the Homeric τειχοσκοπία).[59] More than all, his style is usually Homeric in its brevity and simplicity; and in his use of quotations, of scenes and of style he is the first example of those relations between epic and romance which became so important in the mediaeval literature of the west.[60]

Other literary influences are apparent. The Milesian Tales may have suggested Miletus as the locality for the love-story of Dionysius. The Ninus Romance is the precursor of the historical element which paints a background of realism through the use of historical characters, notably Hermocrates and Artaxerxes, and through allusions to actual wars. Drama contributed the language of the stage to the description of the action. And at one crisis when Chaereas, who is believed dead, is produced by Mithridates in court, Chariton explains:

“Who could worthily tell of the appearance of the courtroom then? What dramatist ever produced so incredible a situation on the stage? Indeed, you might have thought that you were in a theater, filled with a multitude of conflicting passions.”[61] In another passage Mithridates says Fortune has forced the lovers to enact a very sad tragedy.[62] New comedy contributed types of characters (particularly the slaves), spicy dialogue and at least two quotations.[63] The influence of history and especially of Herodotus is apparent in the use of local history, in narratives of adventure, in depiction of the adulation of the eastern sovereign, in the reflection of the great struggle between the west and the east. The influence of the rhetorical schools is seen in the court scenes which in both their cases and speeches are strangely like those of the Controversiae of Seneca and the Declamationes of Quintilian.

All these different literary forces combined to produce a style of narration in Chariton which is at the same time simple and ingenuous, yet rhetorical. His startling baroque effects are achieved by just this variation from simple concise epic narrative with strong Homeric coloring, to intense dramatic moments of high tragedy, to comic scenes of slaves’ intrigues, to love passages which before had found expression only in poetry. Probably Chariton learned the effective use of parallelism, contrast and surprise from the schools of rhetoric, but he wields all his various tools with such success that he has carved out a new form of literature in his prose romance.

III
THE EPHESIACA OR HABROCOMES AND ANTHIA
BY XENOPHON OF EPHESUS

Shakespeare’s famous CXVI sonnet is the lyric credo of those who believe that love can triumph over adversity, old age and even death itself. The lines just quoted are the quintessence of lyric romance.

Suppose now that the romantic novel or the modern cinema wishes to feature this same theme: “True love lasts.” How would either one convey the idea? I am going to show you by a concrete and melodramatic illustration. Here is a script for it.[64]

A young Greek who has been seeking over the world his kidnapped bride has come to Sicily, his resources nearly gone. An old fisherman Aegialeus gives him hospitality. It is night. The young man and the old man tell each other their sad love stories. The old man is now speaking:

“I was a wealthy young Spartan and loved a Spartan girl, Thelxinoe. She returned my love and presently we had, no one knowing it, our heart’s desire. But my darling’s parents proposed to marry her to another Spartan. So we fled secretly together and Sparta pronounced sentence of death on us both. We managed to travel to Sicily. Here we lived in dire poverty, but in our happiness we forgot all else because we were together. Soon my dear died, but her body was not buried. I have her with me and I love her always and I am with her.” After these words he led Habrocomes into an inner room and showed him the mummy that had been Thelxinoe. She was old now, but she appeared beautiful to her husband. “To her,” said he, “I always talk as if she were alive. I sleep here with her; I eat near her. If I come back tired from my fishing, the sight of her comforts me. For I do not see her as you do, my son. I see her as she was in Lacedemon, as she was when we fled. I see the night of our first love. I see our flight together.”

The young Greek exclaims:

“O my own dearest love, shall I ever find you even dead? Here to Aegialeus the body of Thelxinoe is the great comfort of his life. Now I have learned that age sets no bounds to true love.”

This story of the second or third century A.D. might seem too macabre to be possible if the New York Times of Nov. 12, 1940 had not recorded such a case at Key West, Florida. Karl Tanzler van Cosel, aged X-ray technician, had removed the body of Elena Hoyas Mesa from its crypt and had kept it in his bed-room for seven years. He said he had hoped to restore it to life. Perhaps Xenophon of Ephesus who wrote this story of Aegialeus and his mummy had heard some such “true story” which he embodied in his novel. In any case, he has given us here an illustration of how the theme “true love is eternal” may be pictured in a realistic romance. Think how dramatic this scene would be in a movie: the small inner bed-room of the fisherman’s hut suddenly lighted; the old man getting his young friend to help him remove the front of the coffin, then looking rapturously at the mummy inside and reaffirming before it his life-long love. That is my illustration of the heart of a realistic Greek romance.

Almost nothing is known about Xenophon of Ephesus who wrote it. Suidas mentions his romance the Ephesiaca in ten books (instead of the present eight) and speaks also of a work he wrote on the city of Ephesus. Xenophon probably was a native of Ephesus, for he shows intimate acquaintance with many details of the cult of Artemis there. His date can be given only approximately, but considerable internal evidence helps us to place him. He imitates certain passages in Chariton, so he must be later than the second century A.D. Certain references are very important. He is later than Augustus, for he refers to the prefect of Egypt and of course there was none until after 30 B.C.[65] He mentions the Irenarch of Cilicia, and this official was not known before Hadrian.[66] He refers to the Artemision of Ephesus as if it were at the height of its glory and contemporary.[67] It was pillaged and burned by the Gauls in 263 and only in part rebuilt. But, as Dalmeyda points out,[68] these details give us only vague indications of the date. Until some fragment of papyrus which can be dated is discovered, we can place Xenophon merely with some probability about the end of the second century of our era.

The novel itself is simple in language and brief in scope, but complicated in plot from many kaleidoscopic changes of scenes. There are so many exits and reentries of the characters that we lose track of them. The brevity of the narrative, the laconic expressions of emotion in it have made certain critics maintain the theory that it is only an epitome of a story, or a kind of scenario written as a preliminary sketch of a longer work. It seems to me possibly an intentionally short romance written briefly and simply by an author whose taste was akin to that of Chariton and who perhaps was intentionally showing a definite reaction against the verbosity of other novelists.

Partly because of the brevity of the romance a synopsis of the plot has to be long. So much is crowded into small space, so many rapid transitions from scene to scene are made, that a full sequential outline must be given before we can study the significance and color of the romance. Here then is the plot. The chief characters are:

Habrocomes of Ephesus, the handsome hero

Anthia of Ephesus, the beautiful heroine

Apsyrtos, a pirate chieftain

Manto, the daughter of Apsyrtos

Moeris, a Syrian, husband of Manto

Lampon, a goatherd, slave of Manto

Hippothoos, a brigand

Perilaos, a high police official of Cilicia

Eudoxos, a physician

Psammis, a rajah of India

Araxos, an old soldier in Egypt

Cyno, his wicked wife

Aegialeus, a Syracusan who kept a mummy

Polyidos, a captain in Egypt

Rhenaea, his jealous wife

A procurer of Taras

Leucon, a male slave of Habrocomes and Anthia

Rhode, a female slave, his wife

In Ephesus lived a lad named Habrocomes who was sixteen years old. The beauty of his person was matched by the nobility of his soul. He had one great fault, pride. And he scorned Eros as less handsome than himself and unable to control a man against his will. Eros enraged armed himself against this arrogant boy. It was the time of the festival of Artemis. At this festival it was the custom to select fiancés. There was a great procession of young men and women. Anthia, daughter of Megamedes and Evippe, led the girls, and she was garbed as Artemis. She was so beautiful that the crowd forgot handsome Habrocomes though a few exclaimed: “What a couple Habrocomes and Anthia would make!” Here was Eros’ opportunity. After the procession broke up and all were attending the sacrifice in the temple, the two saw each other and were vanquished.

Day by day, night by night love dominated them until both were worn out by longing. Their parents not knowing what this strange malady was sent embassies to the oracle of Apollo at Claros. The god diagnosed their illnesses as the same, needing the same cure; he foretold long suffering for both, dangerous travel by sea, kidnapping, imprisonment, death and burial, but he promised final salvation through the goddess Isis and happy days.

The parents of Habrocomes and Anthia, puzzled and grieved by the oracle, decided that at least they must use the remedy suggested by the god. So Habrocomes and Anthia were married, and they did not fear the future because of their present joy. As time went on, however, it seemed necessary to the happy pair and to their parents that they should fulfill the oracle by going on a journey. On the ensuing voyage both swore mighty oaths (Anthia by Artemis) to be faithful to each other always. Next they put in at Rhodes for rest. Habrocomes and Anthia hand in hand visited all the city and dedicated golden armor to the sun-god in his temple. Then they sailed to Egypt, but the ship was becalmed and one night Habrocomes had a frightful dream. A giantess clad in red appeared to him who set fire to the ship, destroyed all the sailors and saved only himself and Anthia. He awoke in terror and terror became reality. Phoenician pirates arriving in a great trireme boarded the ship and drove the sailors into the sea where they drowned. Then they fired the ship, but took captive Habrocomes and Anthia and bore them off to the country near Tyre. Corymbos, one of the pirates, became enamored of Habrocomes; his bosom companion fell in love with Anthia, but before they could accomplish their wicked designs on them, the chief of the pirate band Apsyrtos arrived and appropriating the handsome young pair as part of his booty took them to Tyre.

This was the beginning of worse troubles, for while Apsyrtos was away on business, his daughter Manto fell in love with Habrocomes and made advances to him through a slave and a letter. When he refused to satisfy her desires, for vengeance she accused him to her father of having tried to rape her. Apsyrtos had Habrocomes flogged, tortured and cast into prison. Anthia contriving a secret visit to her husband told him she had been given as a slave to Manto and must accompany her to Syria, where Manto’s newly acquired husband Moeris lived. The two slaves of Habrocomes and Anthia, Leucon and Rhode, were sold into a distant land. Manto to disgrace Anthia as much as possible married her to one of her humblest slaves, Lampon, a goatherd. But Lampon pitying Anthia on hearing from her own lips her story respected her and never made her his actual wife. In Tyre Apsyrtos happened to find the love-letter which his daughter had written to Habrocomes. Learning from it his unjust treatment of Habrocomes he released him from prison, gave him his freedom, and made him steward of his house.

Meanwhile in Syria Anthia’s fatal beauty had inflamed Manto’s husband Moeris with a mad passion for her. He confided this to the goatherd Lampon begging for his aid. Lampon to save Anthia went secretly and told Manto her husband’s designs. Manto in jealous fury ordered Lampon to kill the woman. In sorrow he told Anthia all and together they planned that instead of killing her he should sell her as a slave in some remote district. He managed to hide this transaction and saved her life by selling her to some Cilician merchants. But their ship was wrecked in a storm. A few (among them Anthia) came to land on a raft and after wandering all night in the woods were captured by the brigand Hippothoos.

Manto meanwhile wrote to her father a letter made up of truth and lies, saying that the slave Anthia had been so troublesome she had given the girl to a goatherd and afterwards when Moeris became enamored of the woman, she had sold both the goatherd and his wife in Syria. Habrocomes at once started out in search for Anthia and finding Lampon and learning the true story from him, he set forth for Cilicia.

There, however, Anthia had been in great danger. Hippothoos and his brigands were about to sacrifice her to Ares, but she was rescued by a high police official of the district, Perilaos, who captured all the brigands except Hippothoos. He took her to Tarsus and of course soon fell in love with her. He offered her honorable marriage, wealth, children and she fearing his violent passion forced herself to consent but asked for a month’s delay.

Now Habrocomes riding through Cilicia on his quest met by chance Hippothoos who begged to be allowed to travel with him. They went into Cappadocia and there dining together told each other their life histories, Hippothoos his love of a beautiful lad and the loss of him, Habrocomes his love for the beautiful Anthia and his loss of her. The description of Anthia made Hippothoos relate his capture of a fair maiden and her rescue. Habrocomes, convinced that the girl was Anthia, persuaded Hippothoos to join him in his search.

But the preparations for the wedding of Perilaos and Anthia were going on apace, and it would have been consummated had not Anthia found a friend in an Ephesian physician Eudoxos to whom she confided her tragedy. She begged him to give her poison so that she might die faithful. She promised him silver so that he might return to Ephesus. Eudoxos gave her not poison but a sleeping potion, then hurriedly departed. The very night of her wedding, in the nuptial chamber, Anthia took what she believed poison. Perilaos coming to his bride found a corpse. To do her all honor, the bereft bridegroom had her placed in a magnificent tomb with splendid funeral gifts.

Robbers broke in the tomb for the treasure just as Anthia awoke. They carried her off with them to Alexandria. No one else knew she was alive. Habrocomes heard from an old woman the story of Anthia’s death, of the pillaging of her tomb and the carrying off of her body. So leaving Hippothoos he started off alone by ship for Egypt hoping to find the brigands who had committed such sacrilege. The bandits had already sold Anthia to a rajah named Psammis, but Anthia saved herself from his amorousness by telling him that she was a consecrated priestess of Isis so he respected her.

Habrocomes’ ship missed its course to Alexandria and landed in Phoenicia. There the inhabitants set upon the strangers and capturing them sold them as slaves at Pelusium, Habrocomes to an old soldier, Araxos. This soldier had a hideous and wicked wife Cyno who, falling in love with Habrocomes, offered to kill her husband and marry him. When he refused, she herself killed her husband and accused Habrocomes of the murder. He was sent to Alexandria to be tried. Hippothoos meanwhile had gathered a new band and in his travels had come to Egypt and made the mountains near the frontiers of Ethiopia his center for expeditions. Habrocomes was condemned to death by the Prefect of Egypt, but his execution was twice frustrated by miracles caused by the Nile river when he appealed to the sun-god Helios for aid against injustice. So he was cast into prison.

At this time Psammis started home to India with a great camel train taking Anthia with him. At Memphis Anthia offered prayers to Isis begging her aid. As they neared the borders of Ethiopia, Hippothoos with his band fell upon their caravan and, slaying Psammis and many men, seized his treasure and took captive Anthia. Hippothoos and Anthia did not recognize each other.

The Prefect of Egypt, on giving Habrocomes a new hearing, was convinced of his innocence, freed him and gave him money. So Habrocomes took ship again and went to Italy to make inquiries there about Anthia. Cyno was executed.

Anthia was again in danger because of the lust of one of the bandits, Anchialos. He, while Hippothoos was away, tried to do violence to her, but she stabbed him fatally with a sword which she had found. Hippothoos on his return decided, in vengeance for the death of his companion, to kill her in a horrible way: to put her in a deep trench with two fierce dogs. But the bandit set to guard the trench from pity secretly conveyed food to her so that she fed and tamed the beasts.

Habrocomes on arriving at Syracuse in Sicily lived with a poor old fisherman named Aegialeus who treated him like a son and told him his own sad love-story. This is the story of the Mummy in the House. Hippothoos left Ethiopia to go to Alexandria and believing Anthia dead made no inquiries about her. The bandit left to guard her, now in love with her, hid in a cave with a good store of provisions until the caravan had gone, then released Anthia and the devoted dogs. He swore by the Sun and the gods of Egypt to respect her until she voluntarily came to his arms, so dogs and all they started on their travels.

The Prefect of Egypt had sent a company of soldiers under Polyidos to disperse the bandits of whose marauding he had heard. Hippothoos’ band was broken up; indeed he alone escaped. He embarked on a ship for Sicily. Polyidos next captured Anthia and her escort. Polyidos although he had a wife in Alexandria at once fell in love with Anthia and when they reached Memphis, tried to rape her, but she fled to the temple of Isis as a suppliant. Polyidos then swore that he would respect her if she would return to him, saying that to see her and speak to her would satisfy his love, so she went back to his care. On their arrival at Alexandria, Rhenaea the wife of Polyidos was nearly insane with jealousy of the girl her husband had brought home. One day in her husband’s absence she beat and reviled poor Anthia, then gave her to a faithful slave with orders to take her to Italy and sell her there to a procurer. This he did at Taras.

Hippothoos by this time had reached Sicily and was staying at Tauromenium. Habrocomes at Syracuse in despair planned to go to Italy and if he found no news of Anthia there, to return to Ephesus. The parents of the young pair in their anxiety over them had died. The slaves Leucon and Rhode who had been sold in Lycia had, on the death of their master, inherited his wealth. They were on their way back to Ephesus but were staying at Rhodes.

The procurer now forced Anthia to stand in front of his brothel, magnificently arrayed, to attract customers. When many had gathered because of her beauty, Anthia feigned a seizure and fell down in the sight of all in convulsions. Later when she declared to the procurer that she had had this malady since childhood, he treated her kindly.

Hippothoos in Tauromenium had come into great need. So when an elderly woman fell in love with him, constrained by poverty, he married her. Very shortly she died, leaving him all her possessions. So he set sail for Italy always hoping to find his dear Habrocomes. Arriving at Taras he saw Anthia in the slave market where the procurer because of her illness was exhibiting her for sale. Hippothoos, recognizing her, learned from her lips her story, pitied her, bought her and offered her marriage. Finally Anthia told him that she was the wife of Habrocomes whom she had lost. Hippothoos on hearing this revealed his devotion to Habrocomes and promised to help her find her husband.

Habrocomes also had come to Italy, but in despair had given up his quest and started back to Ephesus. Stopping at Rhodes on his voyage he was discovered by Leucon and Rhode, who now took care of him. Next Hippothoos also arrived at Rhodes, for he was taking Anthia back to Ephesus. It was the time of a great festival to Helios. At the temple Anthia dedicated locks of her hair with an inscription:

“In behalf of her husband Habrocomes Anthia dedicates her locks to the god.”

This inscription was seen by Leucon and Rhode and the next day they found Anthia herself in the temple and told her that Habrocomes was alive and near and faithful. The good news spread through the city. A Rhodian carried the word to Habrocomes and he came running like a madman through the crowd, crying: “Anthia!” Near the temple of Isis he found her, and they fell into each other’s arms. Then while the people cheered, they went into the temple of Isis and offered thanks to the goddess for their salvation. Then they went to the house of Leucon and at a banquet that night told all their adventures.

When at last Habrocomes and Anthia were got to bed, they assured each other that they had kept their oaths of faithfulness. The next day all sailed to Ephesus. There in the temple of Artemis Habrocomes and Anthia offered prayers and sacrifices; also they put up an inscription telling what they had suffered and achieved. They erected magnificent sepulchres for their parents. And they passed the rest of their lives together as though every day were a festival. Leucon and Rhode shared all their happiness and Hippothoos too established himself in Ephesus to be near them.

From this summary of the plot, it is at once apparent that the chief interests of the romance are love, adventure and religion. The three are used by Xenophon with almost equal distribution of interest and emphasis. Two divinely beautiful young people (the lad only sixteen) fell in love with each other at first sight at the festival of Artemis. Habrocomes had been too proud of his appearance and in his arrogance had scorned the beautiful god of Love as his inferior. So Eros brought him low and made the pair suffer many misfortunes through separation. However they were married first and through all their troubles they were true to their oaths of mutual faithfulness. Temptations and adventures could not nullify their chastity, but their victories were often superhuman and made possible only by miracles and the aid of protecting gods. Anthia after a dream of seeing Habrocomes drawn away from her by another fair lady awoke to utter the belief that if he had broken faith, he had been forced by necessity; and for herself she would die before losing her virtue.[69] At the end, when Anthia had proudly recounted the lovers she had escaped, Moeris, Perilaos, Psammis, Polyidos, Anchialos, the ruler of Taras, Habrocomes was able to reply that no other lady had ever seemed to him fair or desirable: his Anthia found him as she had left him in the prison at Tyre.[70] So hero and heroine shine as types of perfect virtue. The nobility of the romance, as Dalmeyda points out, appears not only in the purity of Habrocomes and Anthia, but in a restrained expression of the sentiments and the acts of love.[71]

The course of this true love was proverbially unsmooth and after the pair were separated, the plot seesaws between the adventures of hero and heroine. These are varied, exciting and often closely paralleled. Both were assailed by amorous lovers, Anthia by at least nine, Habrocomes by Corymbos, a pirate, by Manto, daughter of the chief of the pirate band, and by Cyno, the lewd wife of an old soldier. Both were shipwrecked, Anthia twice. Both nearly met death: Anthia as a human sacrifice, by taking poison, by being thrown in a trench with fierce dogs; Habrocomes by crucifixion and pyre. Bandits and pirates captured both. Both were nearly executed for murder, Anthia for actually killing a bandit who attacked her, Habrocomes on the false charge of Cyno. Both were sold into slavery, Habrocomes once, Anthia over and over again. Strangely enough among their adventures war played little part: the only wars described are official expeditions against bandits.

From most of these adventures the pair were saved by their piety. Never did they lose an opportunity of offering prayer, thanksgiving, vows and sacrifices to the gods. The story begins with the festival of Artemis at Ephesus at which Habrocomes and Anthia fell in love and ends with their return to her temple to offer thanksgiving for a happy ending out of all their misfortunes. At the festival Anthia appeared as the priestess of Artemis and led a procession of maidens in which she alone was garbed as Artemis. This may be a symbol of her resolute chastity. Many details of the worship of the goddess are given which seem based on reality.[72] Artemis appears not as the Ephesian goddess of fertility, but as the protectress of chastity and in this function joins with Isis in safeguarding the purity of the heroine.

Eros is the offended god who undoubtedly in vengeance caused the violent love of Habrocomes, the separation and the miseries of the unhappy pair. There are few references to Aphrodite: to her son rather than to herself is given the function of inspiring love. On the Babylonian baldequin over the marriage bed of Habrocomes and Anthia there had been woven a scene in which Aphrodite appeared attended by little Loves and Ares unarmed was coming towards her led by Eros bearing a lighted torch.[73] Habrocomes at Cyprus offered prayers to Aphrodite.[74]

The oracle of Apollo at Claros determined the plot by ordering the marriage of Habrocomes and Anthia and predicting their voyaging, their separation, their disasters, their reunion. But its clauses are not sufficiently explained: we are never told why the young bride and groom and their parents feel they must start out on their fateful journey. Some think the obscurity is due to Xenophon’s epitomizer. There are other possible explanations. The action may be an abandoning of themselves to the will of the gods; or a bold step towards their final promised safety; or a flight from the city where they had suffered so much. An oracle is the traditional prelude to a voyage of adventure. Xenophon uses it, says Dalmeyda, to pique curiosity, to render the misfortunes of the two more dramatic by the prophecy of them and to reassure his readers about a happy ending.[75]

In happiness or distress both the young lovers honored the god of the place in which they found themselves. In the first part of their journey together they offered sacrifice to Hera in her sanctuary at Samos.[76] At Rhodes, Habrocomes’ prayer to Helios saved him from crucifixion and burning through the miracles of the Nile.[77] Perhaps Helios was rewarding Habrocomes for the golden armor which he and Anthia had jointly dedicated to him at Rhodes in his temple.[78] This votive had another certain part in the plot because when Habrocomes returned there alone to pray near his votive, Leucon and Rhode, who had been reading the inscription set up near it by their masters, recognized him and revealed themselves.[79] At Memphis Anthia appealing to the pity of the god Apis received from his famous oracle a promise that she would find Habrocomes.[80]

Ares appears only in Xenophon. This is strange when war plays such a part in the other romances. In the Ephesiaca, Hippothoos and his bandits at the festival of Ares had the custom of suspending the victim to be sacrificed, human being or animal, from a tree and killing it by hurling their javelins at it. They were preparing to sacrifice Anthia in this way when she was rescued.[81]

The other cult which is as important as that of Artemis for the story is the cult of Isis. Anthia saved herself from Psammis’ advances by declaring that she was a consecrated priestess of Isis so the rajah respected her person.[82] At Memphis in her temple, Anthia appealed to Isis who had preserved her chastity in the past to grant her salvation and restore her to Habrocomes.[83] To escape Polyidos’ lust, Anthia took refuge at the sanctuary of Isis at Memphis and again besought the goddess for aid. Polyidos in fear of Isis and pity for Anthia promised to respect her.[84] Finally near that temple of Isis Habrocomes and Anthia found each other and in the same temple they offered prayers of thanksgiving.[85] Isis thus in the Ephesiaca figures as the protectress of chastity.

The worship of Isis had been carried to the coast of Asia Minor by sailors and traders. In the empire both Artemis and Isis had statues in the Artemesion of Ephesus. The Egyptian cult, purified and penetrated with moral ideas, seems to belong to the second century A.D. From its very nature, the goddess Isis becomes as natural a protector of Anthia as is Artemis.[86] This synthesis of the two goddesses in one protectress of the heroine is a natural process of the philosophical thought of the time. In a modern novel or a cinema, better clarity would be attained for our non-philosophical minds if one goddess, Isis, was worshipped by Anthia and was the deity of her salvation. Apuleius achieved just this simplification in his novel by making Isis the one and only savior of his hero Lucius.

To develop and sustain these three main interests of the story, love, adventure and religion, the usual devices of a plot are employed. The setting is cinematic in its many changes: Ephesus, the ocean, Samos, Rhodes, Tyre, Syria, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, Rhodes again, back to Ephesus, and thrown in with the setting are many geographical details which are often wrong.[87] The characters are familiar types: the ravishingly beautiful hero and heroine, their perturbed parents, high officials (Perilaos and Psammis) who take the place of historical characters, faithful slaves, a wily procurer, a doctor, pirates, bandits.

Dalmeyda has written a discriminating paragraph on the morality of the characters.[88] He says that of course all the characters of the romance do not attain the perfection of virtue of the two protagonists, but altogether the author shows us a gallery of persons without wickedness who are sympathetic and who have an air of honesty even in the exercise of the worst occupations. Manto, who falsely accuses Habrocomes of having wished to violate her and who has him cruelly tortured, is motivated by an overwhelming passion. Apsyrtos, her father, chief of the pirates, shows himself just and generous to the hero when he has discovered his daughter’s calumny. The slaves are devoted and faithful. Lampon to whom Manto gives Anthia as his wife is a rustic full of civility and goodness. The man who traffics in young girls to whom Anthia is sold shows a noble sympathy when she pretends to be afflicted with seizures. Hippothoos, a brigand chief, exercises his trade ruthlessly putting villages to fire and sword; he has a weakness too for handsome lads; but to Habrocomes he is a faithful and devoted friend. He renounces his passion for Anthia when he finds she is the wife of his friend and aids her in every way in her search for Habrocomes. It is this recognition of some good in every human being that gives Xenophon his large humanity.

Oracles are given by Apollo at Claros and by Apis in Memphis. Dreams and visions disturb both hero and heroine. A letter (Manto’s) is important for the plot. Some conversation is used. A court-room scene is sketched in, Habrocomes’ trial for murder before the prefect of Egypt. Soliloquies are frequent since woeful lovers parted must bewail their lot. Attempted suicides testify to their despair.[89] Résumés of adventures are helpfully presented by important characters at different stages in the narrative. And after a hundred hair-breadth escapes, journeys end in lovers’ meetings as the oracle of Apollo had reassuringly predicted at the beginning of the romance.

In spite of the use of these conventions, the story has a lively and compelling interest. We are led to share the admiration and marvel of the characters themselves. We are moved by the pity which they often feel. Their piety induces in us reverence. We agree with their preference for Greeks rather than barbarians. And we admire the romantic love which maintains faithfulness in the face of death, or outlives death itself.[90]

The style of this gem of a novel is finely cut, clear and beautiful in its pure Atticism. Dalmeyda, who follows Rohde and Bürger in believing the present form of the romance is due to an epitomizer, yet has to admit that all the “naked simplicity” of the style is not due to the redactor.[91] This characteristic is so distinctive of the author that it seems to differentiate him from other writers of romance by giving his story the air of a popular tale. Sometimes, Dalmeyda continues, the expression is double, as if in a sort of naive elegance. Words are repeated awkwardly. Stereotyped formulae are used. The author gives every person a name even if he appears only once. Love is generally expressed in conventional terms, which are however intended to suggest its violent or tragic character. There is even a ready-made formula for ecstasy (οὐκέτι καρτερῶν or οὐκέτι φέρειν δυνάμενος). But the passion of Habrocomes and Anthia is expressed differently. At their final reunion Xenophon describes with force and delicacy their joy which is both tender and passionate.[92]

Whether “the naked simplicity” of the Ephesiaca is to be attributed to an epitomizer, to its approach to the genre of a popular tale, or to the author’s own taste, the romance is certainly characterized throughout by brevity, restraint and sparcity of decoration. There are so few descriptions that those of the festival of Artemis and of the canopy over the marriage bed of Habrocomes and Anthia are notable.[93] The action is too rapid and varied to allow time for decorative passages. Instead of being set amid purple patches, it is advanced by a kind of documentary evidence: two oracles, two letters, one memorial and two votive inscriptions, all directly quoted,[94] and a reference to an inscription finally offered as a votive in the Artemesion by Habrocomes and Anthia giving an account of all their adventures.

Inset narratives, those stories within stories which make pleasing digressions in other longer romances, are here very few. Hippothoos recounts his love for the beautiful Hyperanthes and the boy’s untimely drowning.[95] Aegialeus, the Spartan living with the mummy of his wife, tells how his love for her has outlasted death.[96] Both these narratives are colorful, dramatic and poignant from the very qualities which characterize all the romance. These are brevity, sincerity and restrained emotion.

The influence of Chariton is clearly seen in Xenophon both in direct imitation and in qualities of style. When the Phoenician pirates had kidnapped Habrocomes and Anthia on their trireme and fired their captives’ vessel leaving many to perish in the sea, an old slave, as he swam, pitifully called to Habrocomes to save his aged paedagogue or at least kill him and bury him.[97] In view of the situation this is a ridiculous appeal, but it is a clear imitation of a passage in Chariton where, when Chaereas resolves to go to sea to search for Callirhoe, his father Ariston begs his son not to desert him, but to take him on his trireme,[98] or to wait a few days for his father’s death and burial. Anthia, when Manto, the daughter of the brigand chief, demands Habrocomes’ submission to her passion, begs her husband to save his life in this way and swears that she will leave him free by killing herself, only asking from him burial, one last kiss, and a place in his memory. This is in direct imitation of Chariton and of Chaereas’ words when he finds Callirhoe married to Dionysius.[99] Here Xenophon is simpler than his model, for he does not transfer the effective lines from Homer which Chariton quotes.[100] The burial of Anthia with its rich funeral gifts resembles the burial of Callirhoe and also the lavish equipment of the cenotaph for Chaereas.[101] The language of Chariton is adapted for the lament of Habrocomes in Italy at the failure of his quest and his renewed pledge of faithfulness unto death.[102]

These clear indications of imitation of detail serve to corroborate the evidence of general imitation of style. Indeed Dalmeyda sees in the whole temperament of Xenophon a close affinity to Chariton. Xenophon introduces the most startling events without fanfare. Characteristic of his style are accumulated questions, pathetic résumés, oaths, invocations of the gods, apostrophes of men and of things particularly of that fatal beauty which the young hero and heroine deplore because of their misery. Xenophon’s relation to Chariton in all this is striking.[103]

The plot of the novel has seemed to some critics epic in its chronological narrative of successive adventures. Others find the structure a tragic plot with an angry god demanding satisfaction for the sin of arrogance and the guilty hero involving in his own nemesis the one most dear to him. It is true that this and other resemblances to tragedy exist. The story of Manto and her false denunciation of Habrocomes for an attempt to rape her after she has failed to win his love goes back to the Phaedra story of Euripides’ Hippolytus. The noble goatherd husband of Anthia finds his prototype in Electra’s peasant husband in Euripides’ play. The scene where Anthia on her wedding-night takes poison which proves to be a sleeping potion, to avoid a new marriage and keep her troth to her lost love seems to be the antecedent of the poison scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

To me, however, this novelette finds its closest affiliation in another successor. Both the structure and the devices used to arouse emotion anticipate the modern cinema. This contemporary form of amusement is such an accepted part of modern life that we hardly need to read the books about the cinema by Allerdyce Nicoll, Lewis Jacobs, Maurice Bardèche and others to understand “the Rise of the American Film.” Personally I go to the movies to escape from routine and from painful thoughts of our own times. Occasionally I allow myself to be educated about Steel or The River. I prefer to industrial films or films of social problems like lynching, prison conditions, housing, films with biographies of great historical characters: Pasteur, Zola, Rembrandt. I like films set in local history such as Maryland or Kentucky or Gone with the Wind or The Howards of Virginia or The North West Mounted Police. I have to shut my eyes during the fighting and the cruelties of Sea Hawk and All This and Heaven Too. But I like the cinematic rapidity of changes of scene, the control by the camera of space and magnitude, the extension of the time-limit, the fade-ins and fade-outs which can create fantastic visions, the value of the flash-back to recall what has been already seen, the concentration of interest achieved by close-ups.

Many of these devices I recognize in the Greek Romances and especially in Xenophon of Ephesus. His narrative is as condensed as that of a scenario with lacunae, abrupt transitions, failures in an adequate vocabulary of emotion. The local history of Ephesus is emphasized and depicted. Scenes shift with cinematic rapidity. Hair-raising adventures succeed each other at an exciting pace. Bandits and pirates achieve robbery and kidnapping. High police officials or officers like G-Men perform valiant rescues. Court-room scenes as in many films vie with shipwrecks in interest. Documents like letters are presented to the reader’s eye as on the screen. Visions and dreams are made to seem as real as in fade-ins and fade-outs.

There is a clear morality in the opposition of good and bad characters and in the final victory of the good. Hero and heroine captivate by their extraordinary beauty and maintain their chastity and fidelity against terrific odds. Hence their phenomenal virtue is rewarded by reunion in the end. Religion often plays a saving part (as on the screen for example in Brother Orchid). The Reader like the audience at the movie goes away with a sense of having been enlivened, entertained and vastly improved. For the function of the Greek romance in the second and third centuries A.D., when the universal rule of the Roman Empire gave scant scope for great oratory or tragedy under the blessings of an enforced peace, was to entertain and to edify. The Greek romance substituted for the adventures of the mind new themes: the excitements of passion, the interests of travel, and the consolations of religion. It was lifted out of the ranks of the trivial and the second-rate by its great central theme: that there is such a thing as true love; that weighed in the balance against it all the world is nothing; and that it outlives time and even death.

Our own age in America, bleeding internally from the agony of a war which it is powerless to end, fearful for its own menaced security, demands from the cinema not only temporary oblivion and excitement, but encouragement to believe that love lasts even unto death, that heroes ride again and are victorious, and that finally, by the help of God, the right will conquer.