Reading Heliodorus Aethiopica

Focusing on the latest, longest, and greatest of the ancient Greek romances, this volume exploring Heliodorus' Aethiopica brings together fifteen established experts, each exploring a passage or section of the text in depth.

Heliodorus' Aethiopica (Ethiopian Story) is the latest, longest, and greatest of the ancient Greek romances. It was hugely admired in Byzantium, and caused a sensation when it was rediscovered and translated into French in the 16th century: its impact on later European literature (including Shakespeare and Sidney) and art is incalculable. As with all post-classical Greek literature, its popularity dived in the 19th century, thanks to the influence of romanticism. Since the 1980s, however, new generations of readers have rediscovered this extraordinary late-antique tale of adventure, travel, and love. Recent scholars have demonstrated not just the complexity and sophistication of the text's formal aspects, but its daring experiments with the themes of race, gender, and religion. This volume brings together fifteen established experts in the ancient romance from across the world: each explores a passage or section of the text in depth, teasing out its subtleties and illustrating the rewards reaped thanks to slow, patient readings of what was arguably classical antiquity's last classic.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Excerpt from Heliodorus: The Aethiopica Greece and Rome that the romance of love and adventure must be looked for.' We can observe the remote origin of writings of this kind during the Attic period, we can follow its obscure de velopment in the Alexandrine period, but it is not until the Roman perlod that its growth and perfection become perceptible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is the fourth volume in the series Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative. The book deals with the narratological concepts of character and characterization and explores the textual devices used for purposes of characterization by ancient Greek authors from Homer to Heliodorus.

The central love-struck characters are Charicles, the beautiful daughter of the Ethiopian queen, and Theagenes, a Thessalian aristocrat. The story unfolds with all the twists and devices any writer would employ today, with the added attractions of dreams, oracles, and exotic locales in the ancient Mediterranean and Africa."--BOOK JACKET.

This translation of the ancient Greek novel Aethiopica by Heliodorus was produced in 1897 by the scholars of antiquity belonging to the Athenian Society in Athens. For many centuries this novel was very obscure to readers in Western Europe. However, copies had always circulated around the Byzantine Empire, and it was during the Renaissance in the 14th century that burgeoning interest in classical Greece led to the Aethiopica being recognized and read by Western European scholars. Various translations occurred through subsequent centuries; this translation to English was brought to fruition by academics of classics based in Athens in the late 19th century. We are introduced to Chariclea, who was born to King Hydaspes and Queen Persinna, of ancient Ethiopia. The girl is said to have been conceived when her mother fixed eyes upon a marble statue; a point crucial to the story later on. The young woman is romanced by Theagenes, a man of nobility from the northerly lands of Thessaly, and in eloping the pair endures many dangerous encounters with wild creatures and roaming bandits. Together with the translated text, we find a scholarly introduction which explains the historical significance of this work.