Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/659

Rh ROMANCE 635 tic (cod. 166), who was of opinion that he belonged to a remote age, shortly after Alexander, and that he served as model to all subsequent writers of romance, including Lucius. A preliminary letter to a friend, Faustinus, indi- cates by the Latin name a much later origin. The heroes visit the Celts and the Aquitanians, both unknown to the Greeks at an early period. Certain paragraphs of the life of Pythagoras by lamblichus are nearly identical with pass- ages in Diogenes, who in his turn has similar correspond- ence with parts of Nicomachus Gerasenus, who lived under Tiberius. The natural inference is that all three writers copied from the same source. Modern authorities place Diogenes at the beginning of the 3d century. The recitals of their travels given by the Arcadian Dinias, the Phoe- nician Dercyllis, and her brother Mantinias are such as would be imagined by persons who had never left their native hamlet. The itinerary of the routes followed by the different personages is extremely confused. By Thule the writer probably understood Iceland or Norway, deriv- ing his information from Pytheas. The Latin Apolloniw of Tyre is undoubtedly derived ances.f rom a os ^ Greek original, and therefore claims a place here, as representing one of the earliest love-stories we can assign to that literature. It may date from the 3d or 4th century, and was perhaps translated into Latin verse in the 5th century. What we now possess (beyond the Anglo-Saxon version mentioned below) is a second Latin prose translation made in the 12th or 13th century. The first mention of the work is in a list of books belonging to Wando, abbot of Fontanelle (742), in the diocese of Rouen. The story runs that Antiochus, king of Syria, entertaining an undue affection for his daughter Tarsia, keeps off suitors by an unsolvable riddle. But Apollonius, king of Tyre, discovers the answer, is obliged to fly, and (as well as Tarsia) undergoes many trials from pirates and other persecutors. An abridgment is included in the Gesta Romanorum. An ancient Anglo-Saxon translation was printed by Thorpe in 1834. Gower derived his adapta- tion in the Confessio Amantis (bk. viii.) from the rhymed redaction of Godfrey of Viterbo (1185). This formed the foundation of Shakespeare's Pericles (1609). The earliest English version (1510) is made from the French Appollyn, Roy de Thire. The author of the Cyropsedia has already been alluded to. Suidas mentions other writers of fictions of the name of Xenophon, a native of Antioch, who wrote Babylonica like lamblichus; a native of Cyprus, who composed a similar book under the title of Cypriaca ; and Xenophon of Ephesus, of whom alone we possess anything. This last is the author of the romance Ephesiaca, or the Loves of Anthia and Abrocomas, of which the Monte Cassino MS. (first published in 1726) is the only one extant. His age is unknown : by Locella, one of his editors, he is placed in the time of the Antonines ; Peerlkamp, another editor, considers him to be the oldest of the romancers writing in Greek, and that similar writers imitate him closely. Some go so far as to regard him as an imitator of Achilles Tatius and of Heliodorus, and bring him down to the 5th or 6th century. The story runs that Anthia and Abrocomas are married, and, being forbidden by an oracle to travel, of course do so, and are captured by pirates, who take them to Tyre, where Manto, daughter of the chief, falls in love with Abrocomas. Repelled by him, she marries Moeris and accuses Abrocomas of an attempt to violate her. Moeris in his turn pays improper attentions to Anthia. The great beauty of the hero and heroine causes them many trials at the hands of pirates, brigands, and other stock ornaments of the Greek novel. The local names of the tales of lamblichus and Xenophon were probably suggested by the collected by the earlier writers Dionysius and Aristides of Miletus. This is the weakest of the class we have under review ; its only merit lies in a simple and natural style. By far the best of the romances is the ^Ethiopica of HELIODOEUS of Emesa (q.v.). From its first appearance and throughout the whole Byzantine period this work enjoyed a reputation which it has not entirely lost. Within recent times three Frenchmen of mark have praised it, Amyot, who translated it; Racine, with whom it was a favourite ; and Boileau, who compared it with the Telemaque of Fenelon. It influenced consider- ably the French romance -writers of the 17th century, D'Urfe, Gomberville, and Mademoiselle de Scud^ry. The d6noument is imitated in the Pastor Fido of Guarini; Tasso drew from it the early life of Clorinda in Geru- salemme Liberata ; and Raphael painted scenes from it. It was first brought to light in modern times in a MS. from the library of Matthias Corvinus, found at the sack of Buda (Ofen) in 1526, and printed at Basel in 1534. Other codices have since been discovered. The title is taken from the fact that the action of the beginning and end of the story takes place in ^Ethiopia. The daughter of Persine, wife of Hydaspes, king of ^Ethiopia, was born white through the effect of the sight of a marble statue upon the queen during pregnancy. Fearing an accusation of adultery, the mother gives the babe to the care of Sisi- mithras, a gymnosophist, who carries her to Egypt and places her in charge of Charicles, a Pythian priest. The child is taken to Delphi, and made a priestess of Apollo under the name of Chariclea. Theagenes, a noble Thes- salian, comes to Delphi and the two fall in love with each other. He carries off the priestess with the help of Calasiris, an Egyptian, employed by Persine to seek for her daughter. Then follow many perils from sea-rovers and others, but the chief personages ultimately meet at Meroe at the very moment when Chariclea is about to be sacrificed to the gods by her own father. Her birth is made known, and the lovers are happily married. The rapid succession of events, the variety of the characters, the graphic descriptions of manners and of natural scenery, the simplicity and elegance of the style, give the jEthiopica great charm. Its chaste tone compares favourably with many of the other works of the same class. Perhaps the most widely known is the delightful pastoral of Daphnis and Chloe (or Aecr/JtaKct), generally attributed to Longus, a Greek sophist, who is supposed to have lived in the 4th or the early part of the 5th century. Longus shows traces of an imitation of the jEthiopica of Heliodorus, with whom he may be placed in the first rank of such writers. His work formed the model of the Sireine of Honore d'Urfe, the Diana of Montemayor, the Aminta of Tasso, and the Gentle Shepherd of Allan Ramsay, and has been translated into every European language. The trans- lation of Amyot, afterwards revised by P. L. Courier, has made it extremely popular in France, where the subject has frequently been made use of by Gerard and other painters. The celebrated Paul et Virginie is an echo of the same story. Daphnis and Chlpe, two children found by shep- herds, grow up together, nourishing a mutual love which neither suspects. The development of this simple passion forms the chief interest, and there are few incidents. Chloe is carried off by the inevitable pirate, and ultimately regains her family. A few rivals alarm the peace of mind of Daphnis; but the two lovers are recognized by their parents, and return to a married and happy life in the country. The picture of rural felicity and the innocent affection of the children make the charm of a book which comes nearer perhaps in spirit to the modern novel than any other of its class. Unfortunately there are details here and there which shock modern ideas of decent propriety. Achilles Tatius or Statius, an Alexandrian rhetorician of