The major representatives of Greek fiction during the Roman Empire comprised a spectrum of forms, hardly a coherent genre. The novel and the epistle followed conventional formats, but they overlapped thematically and stylistically with rhetorical works, dramatic dialogues, and travel accounts. It is telling that ancient readers had no single word for the novel. The novelist Chariton called his story an ‘‘erotic passion’’ (pathos erOtikon, 1.1), echoing the summaries of love stories collected by the Hellenistic elegist Parthenius (erOtika pathemata). The emperor Julian (Ep. 89.301b) probably meant the novels when he condemned ‘‘love stories’’ (erOtikas hypotheseis), and Byzantine scholars used a similar term (erotika) when referring to specific novels (Socr. Hist. Eccl. 5.22; Sudas. vv. Ach. {S}tat., Xen. Eph.; cf. Iamb.). In contrast, the ninth-century epitomator Photius used the term ‘‘story of action’’ (dramatikon, syntagma dramati-kon, drama) for the novels by Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius, Iamblichus, and Antonius Diogenes (Bib. 50a7; 65b16; 73b24, 28-9; 109a7). Lucian’s account of the fantastic voyage was simply called ‘‘stories’’ (diegemata). Chariton (1.1.1, 5.1.2) and Xenophon of Ephesus (1.1.16, 8.3.1, 8.5.2) used the verbal form of the same word, ‘‘to tell a story’’ (diegeisthai), when describing their own literary activity. These words show that the novels were narratives about personal experience, but this alone does not distinguish them from many other literary forms. The names of other varieties of fiction explicitly associated them with established genres. The account of the Trojan War by Dictys was, naturally, a ‘‘commentary’’ (ephemeris), while the writings by Dio, Philostratus, Alciphron, and Aelian bore the standard titles of speeches, biographies, and letters. This heterogeneity in nomenclature mirrors the formal diversity that is an essential quality of Greek fiction.
While these works do not share a unity of form, they do share a unity of representation (Rispoli 1988; Morgan 1993; Bowersock 1994: 1-27; Potter 1999a: 9-18). They all describe events that never happened but look as though they might have. Ancient rhetorical theory recognized three classes of narrative representation according to truth-content: ‘‘history’’ (Gr. historia, Lat. historia), which presents that which actually happened and is ‘‘true’’ (alethes), ‘‘fiction’’ (Gr. plasma, Lat. argumentum), which presents that which did not happen but is ‘‘like true’’ (hos alethes), and ‘‘myth’’ (Gr. mythos, Lat. fabula), which presents that which did not happen and is ‘‘false’’ (pseudes). Asclepiades of Myrleia apparently developed this tripartite scheme in the early first century bce (S. E. M. 252, 263-4), and critics repeated it with slight variations throughout the Roman era (Barwick 1928; Potter 1999a: 13-14, 171 n. 24 summarizes the ancient testimony, to which can be added Serv. ad Verg. Aen. 1.235 and Isid. Etym. 1.44.5). The choice of the word plasma is intriguing, because its Greek root (plas-), like the Latin root of‘‘fiction’’ (fing-), connotes the creative act of molding an elastic, amorphous medium into a recognizable shape. Fiction, therefore, is not simply the antithesis of history, a discourse that inquires into the truth. A work of fiction is a literary invention that sculpts story matter into a story-form with verisimilitude, or a likeness to real, familiar, ‘‘true’’ experience.
The varieties of Greek fiction can be viewed within this theoretical framework. Admittedly, ancient discussions of narrative representation usually adduced comedy and mime as examples of plasma, and they did not explicitly apply the term to the novels or other forms of prose fiction. It should, however, be noted that Macrobius, a grammarian of Late Antique Rome, used the same critical language when he called the Latin novels by Petronius and Apuleius ‘‘realistic narratives full of the invented situations of lovers’’ (argumenta fictis casibus amatorum repleta, In Somn. 1.2.7-8). Indeed, from a modern viewpoint, the novels were remarkably under-theorized in antiquity. The only certain references to them - the letter by Julian and another by Philostratus (Ep. 66) addressed to a Chariton who might well have been the novelist - scorned them as insubstantial, ephemeral, and deceptive. Apparently some readers considered the novels mere diversions unworthy of serious attention. Adopting a different viewpoint, the great Christian scholar Origen was ashamed that the Trojan War, which everyone believed really happened, had been debased by fictitious stories (C. Cels. 1.42). Lucian himself complained that the deluge of historiography during the Armenian and Parthian campaigns of 162-6 ce was full of poetic embellishment and mythic content, comparing it to the absurd figure of a burly athlete strutting in drag (Hist. Conscr. 8). But, as might be expected from this sardonic wit, Lucian’s hypocrisy spreads thick: he begins and ends the same tirade over bad history with fictional accounts of a deadly epidemic of Euripideanism at Abdera, a lost chapter in the life of Diogenes at Corinth, and a hitherto unknown inscription inside the lighthouse at Alexandria (Hist. Conscr. 1-3, 62). Whether their tone was critical or satirical, all of these readers were bothered by novels that masqueraded as histories or novel histories that rewrote actual events, like the Trojan and Parthian wars. Fiction was an ambiguous and risky diegetic (narrative) medium because it blurred the boundary between what was real and what was not. Of course, not all fictional works occupied the same place on the scale from falsehood to truth - there is a wide gap between Lucian’s trip to the Moon and Dio’s trip to Euboea - but they all fell somewhere between the two extremes.
The authors of Greek fiction generated verisimilitude using various tricks in imitation of the historian’s craft. One favorite ploy was the citation of fabricated evidence. The novelists mastered this game, often adapting it for more than simple authentication. Xenophon wrote that the adventures of Habrocomes and Anthia had in fact been inscribed on a stone they dedicated in the Artemiseion at Ephesus (Xen. Eph. 5.15). Along similar lines, Longus wrote that, while hunting on Lesbos, he found a sacred grove where he viewed a painting with scenes of pastoral romance, which, once interpreted, told the story of his novel (Long. pr.). Achilles Tatius began his novel with a lavish digression on a painting of Europa and the bull he had seen in Sidon just before he met Cleitophon, the novel’s hero, and heard his life story, the novel itself (Ach. Tat. 1.1-3). The imagery of the painting introduced certain dominant themes (abduction, travel abroad, the caprice and danger of Eros), and its inclusion at the outset foregrounded visual description as a hermeneutic device. The opening story of the painting and the conversation with Cleitophon also situated the fictional events of the novel within the real experience of the author.
Several authors used the related topos of the unexpected discovery of a forgotten text. The premise points to what must have been a popular fascination in a world where old inscriptions occasionally did turn up when fields were plowed, wells and ditches dug, and masonry recycled. Dictys reportedly wrote his account of the Trojan War on linden tablets and sealed them in his tomb near Cnossus. As the story goes, shepherds found them in 66 ce and delivered them to their landlord, who gave them to the governor, who sent them to Nero, who had them translated from Phoenician into Greek as ‘‘a more true composition on the Trojan war’’ (Troiani belli verior textus), which furnished the source for the Latin translation that survives (pr.). Antonius Diogenes devised another variation on this theme. He claimed that Deinias, his protagonist, had the entire story inscribed on cypress tablets that were entombed in the family vault at Tyre, but later unearthed by a soldier of Alexander the Great during his siege of that city in 332 bce (Phot. Bib. 111b3-31). Both authors validated the truth of their invented stories, first, by claiming their authenticity as primary testimony and, second, by inserting them into the careers of famous men. Ironically, their elaborate efforts to guarantee historical truth are themselves pseudohistorical fabrications. A similar effect is achieved by fictitious letters attributed to real people like Themistocles, Socrates, and Chion and by the frequently quoted correspondence between the novels’ protagonists.
The penchant for false documentation casts a shadow of doubt over the sources Philostratus cites for his biography of Apollonius of Tyana (VA 1.2-3, 1.12, 3.41, 4.19 8.29; cf. Euseb. Hierocl. 2.6, 3). He said that he toured cities in the footsteps of Apollonius and studied his letters, his treatise on sacrifices and his “will” (diathekai), the writings of Maximus of Aegae and Moeragenes, and the personal notes of the Syrian Damis, Apollonius’ close disciple. The rehearsal of sources, methods, and aims was a standard feature of introductions to historical accounts. It is quite possible that Philostratus traveled to collect evidence and even read texts connected to the holy man’s life, particularly the treatise and will, the local publication by Maximus, and the memorabilia of Moeragenes. His other sources, however, are questionable. Apollonius’ celebrity must have led to the posthumous appearance of spurious personal documents. A set of letters under the sage’s name has survived, but few scholars believe that all (or even most) are genuine. As for Damis, too many suspicious details collude to discredit his historicity. Not unlike the sudden appearance of Dictys’ account under Nero, an anonymous middleman, some relative of Damis, delivered the ‘‘notebooks of memoirs’’ ( tas deltous tOn hypomnematOn) to the empress Julia Domna, who then commissioned the biography from Philostratus. The fact that Damis traveled with Apollonius everywhere he went and faithfully recorded all his judgments, speeches, prophecies (VA 1.3), and ‘‘scraps’’ (ekphatnismata, 1.19) is too good to be true. Apollonius supposedly met Damis in Syrian Hierapolis en route to India (1.19), an exotic journey the historical Apollonius never made. So Damis must be a figment, perhaps a stand-in for the author as dutiful researcher or an homage to the biographer’s own teacher, the sophist Flavius Damianus. Philostratus used the same fictional apparatus of authorization as the novelists, even as he recounted the life of a real person from the not-too-distant past in a prose form with the pretense of veridical reporting.
Another technique for generating verisimilitude was the realistic portrayal of geography and the physical landscape. Each of the five canonical novels begins at a precise locale in the Mediterranean: Syracuse (Char.), Ephesus (Xen. Eph.), Sidon and Tyre (Ach. Tat.), Mytilene (Long.), the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile (Heliod.). Readers would have known all these places. Longus’ portrayal of the climate, vegetation, geology, coastal morphology, and distribution of settlement on Lesbos is so accurate that several scholars have argued that the novelist had a personal knowledge of the island. After his arrival in Alexandria, Cleitophon, the narrator of the novel by Achilles Tatius, describes passing through the Gate of the Sun and seeing all the impressive architecture and large crowds along the city’s streets (Ach. Tat. 5.1). Similarly, Alciphron sprinkles his fictitious epistles with exact references to the neighborhoods and landmarks of classical Athens. By including such details, Achilles and Alciphron transported their readers to the real streets of the two great cities.
Philostratus and Lucian charted extraordinary journeys through imaginary landscapes by citing the archaeological remains of prior travelers. As Apollonius and Damis head east, they pass the column erected by Alexander near the river Hyphasis, the terminus of his Indian conquests in 326 bce (VA 2.43). In comic counterpoint, Lucian’s explorers on some Atlantic island encountered a column and two adjacent footprints, one colossal, marking the extent of the travels of the god Dionysus and the hero Heracles, who had famously big feet (Ver. Hist. 1.7).
The novelists and epistolographers also recreated the microcosm of everyday life through the concrete depiction of objects and spaces. They tell what clothing people wear and how they look; they mention furniture, rooms, doors, and windows; they specify different fabrics, metals, and woods; they portray townhouses, farms, taverns, markets, jails, shacks, caves, and cemeteries. Once readers have recognized the tangible surroundings, they can visualize the movements and activities of the characters. In these respects, the fictional universe is not unlike a theatrical set with backdrops and stage properties. It is the narrative re-enactment of life for both reader and spectator that underlies the link between fiction and drama already noted in the late Greek terminology for the novel and the ancient rhetorical theory of plasma.
This intricate facade of verisimilitude raises the question of what motivated the production and consumption of such literature. Since Greek fiction was a polymorphic mode of narrative representation in which imagination and experience coalesce, it met the dual needs of its authors and readers for literary entertainment and socio-cultural identification. Beyond its fundamental capacity for telling a good story, it brought pleasure to the reader through various channels. The literary texture of these works encouraged the reader to trace stylistic and thematic evocations, allusions, and quotations to other works of literature, usually those of the classical canon. On the other hand, the plausibility of these stories, or their appearance of having happened at a specific place and time, encouraged readers to pretend that they had entered the fictional world. In this way, readers could derive pleasure from their emotional involvement in events they knew on a rational level to be imaginary. Keen readers could even enjoy the game of moving back and forth between the two dimensions of fiction and reality, picking out elements of each and observing how the author had blended them.
Fiction was not just high sport; it could also furnish moral and intellectual edification. In two speeches, Dio assured his audience that his retelling of a Libyan myth about a species of savage monsters (D. Chr. 5.1-4, 16, 22-3) and his romanticized account of the sojourn among the Euboean peasants (7.81) conveyed serious messages about human passion and poverty. Lucian denounced plasma in a metafictional masterstroke at the opening of his fantastic travel tales. In the dry, almost professorial exordium he characterized the rollicking fantasy both as mental amusement and as criticism of authors who lied when they claimed to recount historic events. In these ‘‘true stories’’ (alethe diegemata) he imitated purveyors of falsehood, but by doing so he became the truest of all writers because he admitted to lying. Thus, ironically, Lucian’s most memorable fiction was a vehicle for the truth through its revelry in untruth (Ver. Hist. 1.1-4).
Greek fiction was able to entertain its readers through literary texture, vicarious experience, and sophisticated critique only so long as it accommodated their full range of common interests, desires, fears, and ideals. In this sense, it was also an expression of a particular social, economic, and cultural identity. The remainder of this chapter will investigate how different Greek authors of the Roman Empire sculpted imagination and experience to invent their fictional versions of the world. First, however, it must be established whose imagination and whose experience were implicated in the creation and reception of Greek fiction.
World History
