Callirhoe (novel)
Callirhoe (or Chaereas and Callirhoe (
Evidence of fragments of the text on
Plot outline
The story is set against a historical background of ca 400 BC. In
Meanwhile, Chaereas has heard she is alive, and has gone looking for her, but is himself captured and enslaved, and yet they both come to the attention of Artaxerxes, the Great King of
Historical basis
Several characters from Callirhoe can be identified with figures from history, although their portrayal is not always historically accurate.[5][6] Hermocrates was a real Syracusan general, and did have a daughter (her name is unknown), who married Dionysius I of Syracuse. This Dionysius was tyrant of Syracuse from 405 to 367 BC and not a resident of Miletus. However, Callirhoe's expectation that her son will return to Syracuse after being brought up as Dionysius' own has been connected to the fact that the historical Dionysius I was succeeded in Syracuse by his son, Dionysius II.[6] The historical daughter of Hermocrates died after a violent attack by soldiers; that Callirhoe merely appears to be dead after being kicked by Chaereas has been seen as a deliberate change allowing Chariton "to resurrect her for adventures abroad".[7]
Chariton's Artaxerxes represents
Despite the liberties Chariton took with historical fact, he clearly aimed to place his story in a period well before his own lifetime. Tomas Hägg has argued that this choice of setting makes the work an important forerunner of the modern
Style and influences
There are echoes of
The discovery of five separate fragments of Chariton's novel at Oxyrhynchus and Karanis in Egypt attest to the popularity of Callirhoe. One fragment, carefully written on expensive parchment, suggests that some, at least, of Chariton's public were members of local elites.[9]
Editions
- D'Orville, Jacques Philippe (1750). ΧΑΡΙΤΩΝΟΣ Αφροδισιέως τῶν περὶ ΧΑΙΡΕΑΝ καὶ ΚΑΛΛΙΡΡΟΗΝ ΕΡΩΤΙΚΩΝ ΔΙΗΓΗΜΑΤΩΝ ΛΟΓΟΙ Η (in Greek). Amsterdam: Apud Petrus Mortier. The first printed edition. With Latin translation by Johann Jacob Reiske.
- Hirschig, Wilhelm Adrian (1856). "Charitonis Aphrodisiensis De Chǣrea et Callirrhoe" (PDF). Erotici Scriptores. Paris: Editore Ambrosio Firmin Didot. pp. 413–503. Retrieved 2007-02-16. With a reprint of Reiske's Latin translation.
- Hercher, Rudolf (1858–1859). Erotici Scriptores Graeci. Leipzig.
- Blake, Warren E. (1938). Charitonis Aphrodisiensis De Chaerea et Callirhoe Amatoriarum Narrationum libri octo. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Molinié, Georges (1989) [1979]. Chariton: Le Roman de Chairéas et Callirhoé. ISBN 2-251-00075-5. With French translation.
- Goold, G. P. (1995). Chariton: Callirhoe. ISBN 0-674-99530-9. With English translation.
- Reardon, Bryan P. (2004). De Callirhoe Narrationes Amatoriae Chariton Aphrodisiensis. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. K.G. Saur. ISBN 3-598-71277-4. Reviewed in BMCR
English translations
- Anonymous (1764). The Loves of Chǣreas and Callirrhoe. London: printed for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt.
- Blake, Warren E. (1939). Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Reardon, Bryan P. (1989). "Chariton: Chǣreas and Callirhoe". In Bryan P. Reardon (ed.). Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 17–124. ISBN 0-520-04306-5.
- Goold, G. P. (1995). Chariton: Callirhoe. ISBN 0-674-99530-9. With Greek text.
- Trzaskoma, Stephen M. (2010). Two Novels from Ancient Greece: Chariton's Callirhoe and Xenophon of Ephesos' An Ephesian Story. Indianapolis/Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company Inc. ISBN 978-1-60384-192-4.
References
- .
- .
- Naxos, Chariton says (1.6.2), and her second husband will be named for Dionysus.
- ^ A parallel is in some versions of the myth of abandoned Ariadne.
- JSTOR 289861.
- ^ ISBN 0-391-04134-7.
- ISBN 0-674-99530-9.
- ISBN 978-0-19-872189-5.
- ^ Edwards (1994), p. 700.
External links
- Synopsis of the novel
- Tufts University – at the Perseus Project, Hercher's edition of the Greek text