2. Book 6
2.3 Dramatis Personae .1 Clitophon
2.3.2 Leucippe
fidelity,126 a “sophisticated variation” for introducing the trial scenes that follow,127 or merely an “honourable minor lapse”.128 Earlier in the novel, Clitophon claims to be relatively inexperienced with sex but to have had encounters with prostitutes (2.37.5). He then proceeds to describe the act of sex and the female orgasm in such detail that Menelaus jokes he must be an old hand in the ways of Aphrodite (2.38.1). Later, in his letter to Leucippe, Clitophon assures her that he has ‘mimicked’ her virginity (μαθήσῃ τὴν σήν με παρθενίαν μεμιμημένον, 5.20.5), while still rather acerbically acknowledging the absurdity of ‘male virginity’ as a concept (εἴ τις ἔστι καὶ ἐν ἀνδράσι παρθενία, 5.20.5).129 After sleeping with Melite, however, Clitophon is still careful in his choice of words in his recapitulation of their adventures to Sostratus, Leucippe’s father (εἴ τις ἄρα ἔστιν ἀνδρὸς παρθενία, ταύτην κἀγὼ μέχρι τοῦ παρόντος πρὸς Λευκίππην ἔχω, 8.5.7). This statement, while technically correct, nonetheless highlights the discrepancy in the tale between the reader and his listeners.130 Something in Clitophon suspects that his listeners would not appreciate the full extent of his relationship with Melite, and he admits that he glosses over their sexual encounter (8.5.2). Although he does briefly come to regret his liaison with Melite when he suspects her of murdering Leucippe (7.5.4), on the whole he shows no real feelings of self-reproach, only the nous not to mention it to his father-in-law and fiancée.
2.3.2 Leucippe
In Bk. 6 Leucippe defines herself in her own words as a daughter of a general of Byzantium and affianced to Clitophon (6.16.5 with n.). She is of a similar age to Clitophon, perhaps a few years younger (1.9.6). Like all the heroines of the romance novels, Leucippe is stunningly beautiful, with blonde hair, gleaming dark eyes, fair complexion, blushing cheeks, and rosy lips (1.4.3). Her beauty, however, is focalised through Clitophon and there is no telling
125 Perry 1967: 123; Reardon 1971: 363-4 and 1994: 88; Rojas Álvarez 1989: 89-90.
126 Anderson 1982: 23-4; Fusillo 1991: 100.
127 Schwartz 2002: 93-110.
128 Foucault 1986: 231.
129 Clitophon’s speculation on ‘male virginity’ is “unparalleled in the whole of Greek literature” (Brethes 2012: 143); see further discussion in Bird 2020: 76-80. Compare the case of Joseph (καὶ ἔστιν Ἰωσὴφ ἀνὴρ θεοσεβὴς καὶ σώφρων καὶ παρθένος, J&A 4.9.1) whose parthenia is endowed with religious overtones.
130 Cf. Ormand 2010: 175; De Temmerman 2014: 167.
how much of this is fantasy, fabrication, or fact (see Intro. 2.4.4). Λευκίππη means ‘white horse’ and primarily indicates nobility given the association of horse ownership with the aristocratic classes, however there are a number of secondary meanings and associations: it may be a reference to the colloquial and comedic use of ἵππος (‘horse’) for ‘penis’;131 there is likely a connection with the virtuous, white horse in the Phaedran chariot myth (see 6.7.1n.);
and it could allude to the customary use of white horses as sacrificial victims given Leucippe’s own ‘sacrifice’ (3.15).132 In addition, as Morales (2004: 135) conjectures, her name might also have some echo of Leucippus, the atomist, considering the (pseudo-)scientific visual motif sustained through the novel (see Intro. 2.4.4). Leucippe introduces herself to Melite as
‘Lacaena from Thessaly’ (ὄνομα Λάκαινα, Θετταλὴ τὸ γένος, 5.17.5). The name, Sosthenes explains, was given to her by the slave-trader Callisthenes (5.17.9), a realistic detail, as slavers often gave Greek names to slaves in the Roman Empire.133 Leucippe expresses great anxiety at this ‘piratical plundering’ of her real name (6.16.5 with n.).
As part of her transformation into a slave Leucippe’s hair was shorn (τὴν κεφαλὴν κεκαρμένη, 5.17.3), an act that (possibly) connects her to both mime (Intro. 2.4.2) and ritual initiation (6.1.1n.). She also bears the marks of Sosthenes’ mistreatment on her back (5.17.6).
Λάκαινα means ‘Spartan maiden’ and casts her in the same tragic role as Helen of Sparta (e.g.
Eur. Hec. 441, Tro. 34, IT 806, Or. 1439) something of which she is almost metafictively self- aware (6.16.6 with n.; see Intro. 2.4.2). Most scholars draw analogy with Euripides’ Helen, which has all the appearance of a prototypical romance story with themes of doubling, abduction, and romantic reunion that are particularly apposite in Leucippe’s case.134 The association with Helen may have a dual metafictive function as it can also be read as a refraction of Callirhoe’s character (see Intro. 2.4.1), who is continually associated with Helen, and who “[a]s a Syracusan... is famously Laconian in origin”.135 The Thessalian origin story may well be Leucippe’s own invention and the association it creates with magic working puts her in the awkward position of having to help Melite seduce Clitophon (5.22.2-3). Thessalians
131 Whitmarsh 2001: 164; see Henderson 1991: 127; cf. Hsch. ι.845.
132 Cf. Henderson 1987: 92-3 on Ar. Lys. 191-2; Hdt. 7.113.2.
133 Billault 2019: 102.
134 See e.g. Segal 1984: 55; Reardon 1991: 131; Laplace 1991: 36-47 and 2007: 579-82; Baker 2016: 120- 22; Lefteratou 2018: 256.
135 De Temmerman 2014: 192.
were also well-known in antiquity for horse-rearing, and there may be some connection to Leucippe meaning ‘white horse’.
Naturally, due to the first-person narration, Leucippe’s character plays a somewhat subordinate role to that of Clitophon’s.136 The fact that our experience of Leucippe is always mediated through Clitophon’s perspective means that we are given only a window into her character. For instance, Morales (2004: 201-2) finds that Leucippe’s monologue at 6.16 “shows her to be strong and determined”, although the presence of the eavesdroppers ultimately
“undermines the agency afforded to her through speech”. While on the surface this may be true, perhaps more nuanced is Morgan’s (2007: 108) argument that her soliloquy is “less a literal repetition of her words than his (sc. Clitophon’s) version of what he thinks she might have appropriately said”, something that is literally represented in Thersander and Sosthenes’
eavesdropping. Indeed, later in the novel Clitophon admits freely to embellishing his account of the events in Bk. 6 (κἀν τῷδε κατὰ τὸν Σωσθένην καὶ Θέρσανδρον γενόμενος ἐξῇρον, 8.5.5).137 A similar narrative conundrum is found in Leucippe’s letter to Clitophon. This letter, with its catalogue of abuses and postscript affirming her virginity (5.18.2-6), acts as a written defence that prefigures the one she gives viva voce at 6.21-22. Long maintained by scholars to be the only instance of ‘authentic’ speech from Leucippe,138 it is only Repath (2013: 257-9) who has (rightly) shown how this letter forms part of the larger pattern of narratorial manipulation by Clitophon-auctor. In fact, whenever Clitophon reports on Leucippe’s speech to which he was not a direct witness, she is expressing one of three sentiments: her fidelity to Clitophon, the defence of her honour, or an account of her trials and tribulations.139
The climactic final scene of Bk. 6 between Thersander and Leucippe (with Sosthenes as co-conspirator and witness) in which she delivers a dramatic and rhetorical defence of her virginity plays on the syncrisis of Leucippe’s sexual availability and inviolability that is at the heart of the erotic tension in the novel (6.20-22).140 Initially, Leucippe is apparently happy to
136 Cf. Fusillo 1991: 193. On this dissymmetry making the heroine an “object of display”, see Konstan 1994:
64-6; more in-depth, Morales 2004: 156-165.
137 Cf. Morgan 2007: 110; Repath 2013: 257.
138 Rosenmeyer 2001: 149; Létoublon 2003: 288; Morales 2004: 202-3; even, Morgan 2007: 119.
139 See Repath 2013: 259 with refs.
140 See esp. Morales 2004: 199-22; Ormand 2010: 166-79; with Segal 1984.
engage in premarital sex with Clitophon (2.19.1-2), and it is not until Artemis herself intervenes in a dream that she commits to remaining a virgin until dutifully wed to Clitophon (4.1), admitting to both chagrin at the delay and pleasure in the anticipation (4.1.5). From then on, she is forced to defend her virginity from a horde of assailants, culminating with Thersander.
This bivalent approach to virginity is borne out in the two contrasting apologiae she delivers:
the first, an impassioned prevarication to convince her mother that she knew nothing of her nocturnal visitor (viz. Clitophon) (2.25.1-2); the second, a veracious averment in which she must defend not only her prior conduct but also her physical integrity from Thersander (6.20- 22). The ‘recalibration’ of virginity that takes place during the course of the novel, Reardon (1994: 86-7) argues, is a return to the “main structural beam of such a story, namely the impregnable virtue of the heroine”; however, the ambivalence surrounding her virtue is not so easily forgotten, for instance, Chew (2000: 64) reads the chastity test as a parody of romance conventions, pointing out that “when the tests are announced the reader’s first concern is that Leucippe and Melite should fail!”. Indeed, the subtle loophole that Melite exploits in her supernatural test to ‘prove’ her fidelity plants a small seed of doubt that Leucippe may have passed her own by some similar clever evasion.141 Even in the rhetorical acme of her virginity, emphasis is placed on the numerous opportunities she has had to lose it (6.21.3, 6.22.2 with nn.). Leucippe’s commands for Sosthenes and Thersander to bear witness (6.20.3, 6.21.1-2) resound through the text itself, positioning the reader as ‘eyewitness’ to the rhetorical description of her own torture. The dynamics of viewing Leucippe’s body as a metonym for spectacular violence both enacted and resisted has been extensively explored by recent scholars: some emphasise its androcentric voyeurism,142 others its disruption of the patriarchy and/or Roman imperialism,143 while others explore the individual experience of identity and self-hood.144 Leucippe’s bodily integrity comes under constant scrutiny and threat: her mother dreams that she is cleaved in half from her genitalia to her stomach by a brigand’s blade, a symbolic warning that Clitophon is entering her chamber about to ‘deflower’ her (2.23); she
141 Cf. Cresci 1978: 80; Goldhill 1995: 118.
142 See Morales 2004: 156-65, on the more gender-typical scopic order; Ballengee 2009: 65-90, for a more gender-ambivalent reading, highlighting male masochistic anxiety; and Bird 2020: 82-92, who highlights how it is nonetheless still possible to read elements of the ‘real’ Leucippe through “the space created by her obscuration”.
143 E.g. Haynes 2003: 60-1; Burrus 2005; Frilingos 2009; Connors 2008: 169-72; King 2012.
144 See Zeitlin 2012; with, Shaw 1996: 271; Haynes 2003: 59-60.
acts as a virgin sacrifice in the gruesome staging of her disembowelment (3.15); she is driven temporarily insane by a botched love-philtre and has to be restrained after exposing herself (4.9); she is kidnapped by bandits (on behalf of Chaereas) and apparently beheaded (5.7); and she strips bare her scourged back to Melite and Clitophon, testimony of Sosthenes’ assault on her chastity (5.17.6). Although Leucippe’s speech in Bk. 6 invites us to consider rape as the unrestrained transgressive behaviour of tyrants (6.20.3 with n.) and the rapist as someone beneath even the roughest brigands (6.22.3 with n.), that same rhetoric also invites us to envisage her body part by part, highlighting her corporeal vulnerability (6.21.1-2, 6.22.4 with nn.). On one level, then, Clitophon’s narration of the sexual violence enacted upon Leucippe, and her vigorous response, can be read with a suggestion of “rape fantasy”.145