Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/658

Rh 634 ROMANCE affiliated peoples, whose ctentre was Alexandria, expressed their fancies in novels rather than in epics. When, about the 1st century of the Christian era, verse gave place in general favour to rhetorical prose the greater ease of the style lent itself to more detailed nar- ratives than the eclogue and love-poem ; and the sophist who might formerly have devoted his attention to poetry became in the decadence of Greek literature a writer of novels. From this period to the 10th century were pub- lished the works it is now proposed to analyse. The Greek novel being a late, and it must be confessed an inferior, kind of prose, it would be well if one could trace its rise, progress, and development. This is, however, im- possible here; it is sufficient to refer in passing to the fables of primitive invention, the tales inserted by histo- rians, the Atlantis of Plato, the Cyrop&dia of Xenophon, the forged histories of Alexander, the fictitious lives of eminent men, the fabulous voyages, 1 and the apocryphal sacred books of Christians and Jews, as supplying in turn material for building up the highly artificial novel which we find first represented by lamblichus. One element may, however, be spoken of specially, although it is rather a forerunner of the tale as distinct from the novel or Milesian romance. The Ionic Greeks, living under an Asiatic sky and corrupted by Oriental luxury, were the first to culti- vate to any extent that kind of literature which, without demanding any intellectual labour, tickles the fancy by voluptuous pictures told in a brief and witty manner. Miletus was especially famous for such tales ; hence they were usually known as Milesian (MtAr;o-iaKa). What was their exact shape it is difficult to say, as they have entirely perished, leaving only the reputation of the universal favour they enjoyed. Perhaps the story of the Ephesian matron told by Petronius in the Satirx, and (though less likely) that of Cupid and Psyche in the A sinus of Apuleius, are more closely allied to them than anything we now possess. They must be considered as a natural growth of the imagination, although some may have been contributed by Orientals or Egyptians ; and, while forming a portion of the materials upon which the later Hellenistic novel was constructed, they differed widely from it in form and matter. Ovid cannot be considered as a person easily shocked, yet in two passages of the Tristia he says " Junxit Aristides Milesia crimina secum " (Trist., ii. 413). " Vertit Aristiden Sisenna, nee obfuit illi Historiae turpes inseruisse jocos " (ib., 443-444). Plutarch (Crassus, 32) refers to the fact of a copy of this very translation by L. Cornelius Sisenna (a contem- porary of Sulla) having been found in the baggage of a Roman officer, which gave occasion for Surenas to anim- advert upon the Romans carrying with them infamous books during war time. This testimony gives sufficient indication of the nature of the Milesian tales. They must have been short and witty anecdotes, turning chiefly upon the subject of love in its grosser form, and may be regarded as the prototypes of the Italian novelle and the Provencal and French fabliaux. All that remains to us consists of the names of a few writers and some imita- tions and translations. The best -known writer whose fame has reached us is Aristides of Miletus, though we are ignorant of his life and even of the age in which he lived. A more recent author of the same class was Clodius Albinus, the rival of Septimius Severus. We also hear of Ephesian, Cyprian, and Sybaritic tales, the last almost as 1 Strabo considered all those who had written about India down to his time as mere fictionists, and at their head he placed Dairaachns and Megasthenes. From the analysis furnished by Diodorus Siculus (ii. 55-60) of the Fortunate Island of lambulus we are led to believe that the writer, who lived before the 1st century, intended the work as a kind of social utopia similar to the Atlantis, full of marvels and surprises like all the other imaginary voyages. famous as those of Miletus. Aristophanes (as well as Ovid) specially refers to them. Yet after all they exercised but little influence upon the Hellenistic novel beyond perhaps furnishing the more indecent incidents. The lost 'EpiaTiKa. of Clearchus of Soli, a pupil of Aristotle, may have been more closely connected with that branch of our subject. The love-stories (Hepl C/OWTIKW Tra^/Aarwv) of Parthenius of Nicaea are also different. They consist of thirty-six brief tales ending in an unfortunate manner, and were dedicated to Cornelius Gallus as forming subjects for poet- ical treatment. The author carefully indicates the sources whence he took them, thus giving a special value to his collection. He informs us that some were derived from " the Milesian adventures " of Hegesippus, and also men- tions Naxian, Pallenian, Lydian, Trojan, and Bithynian tales. Like Parthenius, Conon was of the Augustan age, and compiled a collection of fifty narratives (Atryy^o-eis) of heroic times, relating chiefly to the foundation of colonies. They are analysed by Photius. Cervantes has used one of them in Don Quixote. The first we hear of the Greek or Hellenistic novel is in Gree the time of Trajan (c. 110), when lamblichus, a Syrian by novelB descent and a freeman, born and educated at Babylon, wrote in Greek his Babylonica, which is known from Suidas, Photius, and a scholium discovered by Henry Estienne on an ancient MS. of the latter writer. A complete codex existed in 1671 ; and a considerable fragment has been reprinted by Mai (Nova Coll. Script. Vet., ii. 349, <fcc.). Suidas states that the Babylonica consisted of thirty-nine books, but Photius, who gives a full abstract (Bibliotheca, cod. 94), only mentions seventeen. The story is that of Sinonis and Rhodanes, married lovers, persecuted by Garmus, king of Babylon, who is fascinated by Sinonis. They fly, and are pursued by the royal eunuchs, who give them no peace through many adventurous scenes. A remarkable resemblance between the fugitives and another couple, Euphrates and Mesopotamia, is the chief subject of the plot. We now meet, incorporated in the works of writers whose dignity might be supposed above the sus- picion of story-telling, short tales of a didactic nature, such as those given by Plutarch under the title " On the Virtues of Women." Dion Chrysostom, the most eminent of the rhetoricians and sophists, has also left among his orations a short novel called The Hunter. The narrator is supposed to have been wrecked on the shores of Euboea and meets a hunter who tells him his history. Two married couples (the hunter and his wife being one) were living in friendly solitude, when one day a stranger came, and asking for money received all the recluses were able to give in the shape of two deerskins. The hunter goes to the city with the traveller, and his first impressions are happily told. He is frightened by the bustle and excitement, and debates with an idler upon the comparative advantages of town and country life. The return home is very delicately drawn. Lucian of Samosata, one of the chief essay- writers of the post-Christian age, has left two romances, Lucius or the Ass and the True History, both of which have been briefly analysed in the article LUCIAN (vol. xv. p. 43). The former was considered by Photius (cod. 129) to have been taken from a fable by Lucius of Patrae and to have thus had a common origin with the Asinus of Apuleius ; others consider Lucian himself to have been the original inventor of the story. The True History has been drawn on by Rabelais, Cyrano de Bergerac, Swift, and the author of Baron Munchausen. Like the productions of more modern satirists, it loses much of its point and meaning when the allusions upon which the chief interest is based can no longer be understood. Rather of the nature of the fictitious voyage was The Wonders beyond Thule of Antonius Diogenes, only known from the account given by Photius Ii!