This treatise provides the first comprehensive literary and philological commentary devoted exclusively to the sixth book of the novel. Opinions and conclusions expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily attributed to NIHSS and SAHUDA. Abbreviations of periodicals are those of L'Année philologique, and of other modern works those of LSJ9 or OCD4, with the following exceptions:.
1917) Achilles Tatius, Loeb Classical Library 45, Cambridge MA. 1867) Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, enlarged edn.
Author & Date
Whether AT is indeed the author of On the Sphere is not certain, because the Achilles of the Sphere is only referred to by his first name. Indeed, this last point proves the crux of the ongoing scholarly division over whether to date AT to the first or second half of the 2nd century. This puts us in a kind of impasse, since both sides are in fact right in their assessment of the other.
While Whitmarsh (2020: 5) suggests that the stories of doomed homosexual love in the L&C are linked to the equally tragic death of Hadrian's lover Antinous, placing the date between AD 131-138. no. for the composition of the novel.
Texts & Translations
Garnaud's version of the text was revised in 2013 with the addition of a longer, literary introduction, notes and appendices by Frazier. Fortunately, renewed interest in the literary aspects of the novels means that scholarly attention has finally turned to in-depth commentary. Remember the difference (mentioned above) in the order of the text in Bk.
Yatromanolakis (1990) offers a modern Greek translation with his edition of the text and a concise commentary on the novel.
Language & Style
However, two observations can be made for the future: first, although Vilborg and Garnaud have done a lot of skillful and unenviable work in preparing a working text for AT, recently improved by Whitmarsh's (2020) edition of the text of Bks . The use of the optative was also specific to the Atticizing trend, and AT takes a similar flexible approach, limiting its use of mood mainly to “purple passages, speeches and certain set formulas” (cf. 6.1.3n., 6.3.6n .).44 The conditional force is often used to elaborate on sentimental statements made by both the narrator and the characters in the text (for example, AT's prose style can be deceptively simple, and often the brevity of the diction belies the complexity of the equations used, which sometimes makes the meaning rather obscure (for example with nn.).47 Nevertheless, in the course of the novel it becomes clear that the apparent simplicity is by no means due to a lack of skill, as his prose in bordering on the poetic in both respects, its rhythm and its spirited expansiveness, especially in the more flowery digressions.
It becomes clear from this brief conspectus that AT's prose can be both wittily concise and flamboyantly verbose.
Literary & Cultural Milieu
Selden All ancient genres began in significant and recurring situations of real life, and their institutionalization as a pattern of orderly response provided part of the basic architecture (θέμεθλα) for the social order”. A key element of the Acta Alexandrinorum was the stinging ward of the Alexandrian envoy and the offense and disbelief expressed by the emperor at their impudence (eg AA IV Rec. Given the relative uncertainty of meeting the martyrs AT and Alexandria, I believe that it is right, as Morales does with Christian martyrs, to assume "a rather symbiotic relationship of influences," in which each can be read in light of the other.
70 Despite the pronounced anti-Semitism of the Alexandrians, "the main theme of the work [was] the clash between the Alexandrians and Rome" (Tcherikover and Fuks 1960: 57).
Nachleben
Even Christians like Photius read it, even though AT's novel scandalized him.80 As already mentioned (introduction 1.1), AT became a Christian and a bishop apocryphally, and Metaphrastus gives a "Christian continuation" of AT's novel, in in which Leucippus and Clitophon become the parents of Saint Galaktion, converted to Christianity by the miracle of his birth to the apparently barren Leucippus.81 The Greek anthology contains an epigram that praises the Romanesque approach to virginity and marriage, but warns against the off-putting nature of AT's digressive style (Anth. 5– 8, so the Italian translations he produced were also incomplete (his translation was completed a decade later).83 Since then the AT novel enjoyed some popularity and was translated into many European languages and finally in 1597 into English. 84 This popularity was maintained from the 16th to the 18th century.
82 The author is given either Photius or Leo – Plepelits n. 42) suggests that the author is likely Leo considering Photius' apparent anger at the depravity of the OT.
Book 6
Context & Narrative Timeline
As a result of Clitophon's role as first-person narrator (Intro. 2.2), Leucippe's experiences are naturally focalized through his own narrative, and her point of view remains largely unexplored. 6, however, Leucippe's experiences while away from Clitophon are related to his own, that is, in the present fictional time, with Clitophon's knowledge of these events explained later (8.15). Thus Leucippe's kidnapping and Clitophon's escape (and subsequent recapture) take place on the same evening, events made possible (and plausible) by the all-night festival of Artemis (ἦν δὲ τῆς Ἀρτέμμος, μμνα, μνηα, 2. ; παννυχίδος). οὔσης, 6,4 .4).
Clearly, we must understand that the deception of Sosthenes and Thersander occurred simultaneously with the attempt and outburst of Melitus and Clitophon, allowing their narratives to converge naturally with their chance meeting on the street (ἐν τούτῳ, 6.5. 1).
Narrators & Narratees
A similar effect is achieved by Clitophon's persistent interruption of his own narrative with sententious remarks (see Intro. Much recent scholarship on AT focuses on examining the slippage between Clitophon's idiosyncratic portrayal of himself and the actual, deeply ironic, portrayal that emerges from the narrative 113 This 'Contean' approach examines the influence of the "hidden author" who, through various hints and signposts (both covert and overt), draws attention to the narrative dissonance inherent in Clitophon's tale.114 While Whitmarsh concentrates on how the proliferation of narrators creates a "crisis of focalisation", exacerbated by the discrepancy between the seemingly mundane experience of Clitophon the 'narrator' (as depicted in the prologue) and the naïve ignorance of Clitophon the 'agent' (as depicted in the body of his story).115 On the other hand, Marinčič (2007) finds the notion of the "hidden author".
The play between truth and fiction is palpable, and since L&C is in fact a fictional tale, Clitophon's unreliable narration becomes a kind of metonym for the fictionality of the novel itself.
Dramatis Personae .1 Clitophon
- Leucippe
- Melite
- Thersander
- Sosthenes
- Supernumeraries
Indeed, later in the novel, Clitophon freely agrees to embellish his account of the events in Bk. 6 between Thersander and Leucippe (with Sosthenes as accomplice and witness) in which she gives a dramatic and rhetorical defense of her virginity, plays on the syncretism of Leucippe's sexual availability and inviolability, which is at the heart of the erotic tension in the novel First. , Leucippe is apparently happy. Σωσθένης means 'safe/sound strength' and is probably intended to give a Battical quality to the slippage between his brave name and his cowardly character and position as a slave (cf. 7.10.4-5).
Clinias and Satyrus, the former Clitophon's cousin, the latter his servus callidus, both act as praeceptore amoris to him at various points in the novel, regardless of their role in Bk.
Influences & Intertexts .1 Prose Fiction
- Drama
- Rhetoric & Declamation
- Ταῦθ’ ἅμα: Garnaud prefers the apocopic form (α-family) over Vilborg’s “ταῦτα ἅμα”
- Κἀκεῖνος… ἔστη σιωπῇ: ‘And he, as one might expect, on seeing this totally paradoxical spectacle of the deer in the place of the maiden (as the saying goes), was astonished
- Οὐκ ἀπιστοῦσά σοι… οὐ συνεγνωκότι: ‘It is not because I distrusted you to release Clitophon willingly that I made use of this deception, but rather to absolve you from any blame
- Χρυσοῖ δέ σοι οὗτοι δῶρον δέκα… ἐφόδιον: ‘And these ten gold pieces are a gift for you, if you wish to remain here, a bonus from Clitophon; but if you think it better to absent
- Ἦν δὲ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος ἱερομηνία… πλῆθος ἀνθρώπων: ‘It was the festival of Artemis and there were drunkards all over the place, so that all night long the whole marketplace was
- Τοῦ δὲ Σωσθένους αὐτῷ μηνύσαντος… φύσει καλοῦ: ‘When Sosthenes disclosed to him how things stood with Leucippe, theatrically over-elaborating her beauty, Thersander was
- Ἐν τούτῳ δέ: Clitophon now returns to where we left him at 6.3.1, where he broke off to recount what occurred between Sosthenes and Thersander and then Sosthenes and Leucippe
- Χεομένης… περὶ τὸν κύκλον: ‘When the brine of the tears flows around the sphere’
- Ἔστι μὲν γὰρ φύσει… τοσούτῳ καὶ γοητότερον: ‘It is only natural that tears are most alluring to the pity of onlookers: those of a woman even more so, in that they are more
- Ἐπειδὴ γάρ… τὴν πηγὴν συνεφέλκεται: ‘For since the beauty of attractive people lies in their eyes, flowing thence it ensconces itself in the eyes of onlookers, and there it draws
- Ἐν ᾧ δὲ ταῦτα ἐπράττετο…: Clitophon carefully realigns the parallel narratives, and it may be possible to detect a hint of historiographical influence in AT’s transitional phrase (e.g
- Ἓν οὖν σου δέομαι… ἄκουσον: ‘I only need one thing from you: be an impartial judge for me, cleansing your ears of slander and casting anger from your heart, with reason instituted
- Διὰ τοῦτο ἠκολούθησέ μοι: Only this final inference is an “outright falsehood”
- Φήμη δὲ καὶ Διαβολὴ δύο συγγενῆ κακά· θυγάτηρ ἡ Φήμη τῆς Διαβολῆς: ‘Rumour and Slander are two kindred evils: Rumour is the daughter of Slander.’ This opening statement
- Ὅταν οὖν ἡ Διαβολή… Τεχθεῖσα δὲ ἡ Φήμη…: ‘Whenever Slander shoots a story from her bow, it flies forth like an arrow and wounds the person against whom it was sent,
- γένει δὲ πρῶτος… νέος καὶ καλός: ‘He is first among all Ionians by birth – his wealth is greater even than his birth, and his good character greater still than his wealth! As for his
- Πρὸς τοῦτο… Σωσθένην: ‘At this Leucippe could no longer endure Sosthenes’
- Κλεινίας δέ… παρῆσαν: ‘Clinias and Satyrus, on learning that I was locked in prison (Melite had sent a messenger to inform them), hastened straight for my cell though it was still
- Ὁ μὲν δή… ἐγὼ δέ…: This marks the end of Clitophon’s ‘direct’ participation in Bk
- ἀκούουσιν αὐτῆς ποτνιωμένης: ποτνιάομαι (‘cry/wail’) is “found only in later prose”
- Οἴμοι, Κλειτοφῶν: Leucippe opens with the standard lamentatious exclamation (e.g
- Διαλιπὼν οὖν… ὡς ᾤετο: ‘Then, allowing a moment to pass once Leucippe was done soliloquizing so that it did not seem he had overheard anything she had said, Thersander
- Τοιοῦτοι γάρ… χωρὶς ἡνιόχου τοῦ λογισμοῦ λαλοῦσιν: ‘For such are lovers whenever they seek to speak with their beloveds: they fail to put Reason in command of their words, but
- Οὐκ ἀγαπᾷς ὅτι…: Thersander’s indignant questions here echo those of Artaxates to Callirhoe (σὺ δέ, ἡ δούλη, τὴν εὐτυχίαν οὐ φέρεις, οὐδὲ ἀγαπᾷς ὅτι σε παρακαλεῖ κελεῦσαι
- ἀληθινὸν τοῦτο πειρατήριον: Leucippe now explicitly aligns the metaphorical piracy of love and seduction with her real experience of pirates with “the qualification of ἀληθινόν…
This lack of reciprocity is confirmed in the skewed portrayal of one of the romances. Because of the (supposedly) universal nature of these axioms, Clitophon can (or thinks he can) reconstruct the inner emotions of the subjects of his story. See also Saïd for a general comparison of the common room of the agora in the novels.
In the introduction to his edition of the text, Vilborg states his certainty that the archetype "wobbled". The messy alliterative rhyme in the last clause adds to the image of emotional/mental upheaval. In the Phaedran allegory, the flowing stream of beauty enters the eyes of the beholding lover and 'waters' the wings of his soul, which has a strange erotic effect (Pl.
The erotization of the flow of tears plays with Phaedrus' image of liquid desire/beauty in the eye (Pl. Littlewood (1979) and Bartsch have both argued persuasively for the association of the sexual subtext of the (enclosed) garden and its imagery with the blossoming sexuality of the heroines in the novel (cf. generally, Henderson. Consciousness andνόν is a metafictional (even authorial) narrative recognition of inventive embellishment in the ekphrasis of Leucippe's tears (Introduction 2.4.3).
The analogy of the flood and the sight is continued in the description of the storm at sea (3.4.5), as well as in the ecstatic sight of Clitophon of Alexandria (5.1.1; cf. Whitmarsh 2011a: 83-4). Clitophon's account of the back-and-forth conveys many "slaps" (Morales referring to the physical comedy of the scene (where, it should be noted, the act of rape did not appear, Sommerstein 1998: 100). utilizing the anaphora of the verb compounds against- (and the latent Cretan rhythm in the final sentence), Leucippe returns to fut.
Secondary Scholarship
2018) 'Theama Kainon: Panagbasa ti Natural a Pakasaritaan iti Leucippus ken Clitophon ni Achilles Tatius', iti ed. Futre Pinheiro, da Konstan ken MacQueen. 1981) Dialogiko nga Imahinasion: Uppat a Salaysay, trans. Eros, Aphrodite ken Artemis iti Romansa da Leucippé ken Clitophon', iti A. Dagiti Panagadal iti Taga-ugma a Literatura a Naitukon iti Rektor Jacques Bompaire, Paris, p. 2014) "Dagiti pirata iti biblioteka", iti ed. Futre Pinheiro, da Schmeling ken Cueva. 1994) "Ti Panagbasa kadagiti Griego a Novela iti Daan a Lubong", iti ed. Tatum. "Akiles Tatius ken Heliodorus idiay Kristiano a Daya a Siria", iti H. 1999).
2012) 'How to be a Man: Towards a Sexual Definition of the Self in Achilles Tatius' Novel Leucippe and Clitophon', in Futre Pinheiro, Skinner and Zeitlin eds. 2018) “Achilles Tatius’ Ecphraseis of Abused Female Bodies: Interactions of Gendered Metafiction and Intensity,” in Cueva, Harrison, Mason, et al. 2014) Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought, Cambridge, pp. 2006) Authors, authority and interpreters in the ancient novel. 2005) ‘Bullish Looks and Sidelong Glances: Social Interaction and the Eyes in Ancient Greek Culture’, in D. 2005) Body Language in the Greek and Roman World, Swansea.
Narratological Theory on Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives', in de Jong, Nünlist and Bowie eds. 2004) Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, Leiden and Boston MA. 1999) Piracy in the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge. Characterization through Gnomai in Achilles Tatius', Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics b) 'Where Philosophy and Rhetoric Meet: Character Typification in the Greek Novel' in Eds Morgan and Jones. 2019) "Noble Slaves: The Rhetoric of Subversion of Social Status in the Ancient Greek Novel", in Panayotakis and Paschalis eds. 1996) Greek Forms of Address: from Herodotus to Lucian, Oxford.
2018) 'In the Mouth of the Crocodile: Interiors, Exteriors and Problems of Permeability in Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon', in Cueva, Harrison, Mason, et al. 2014) Pseudo-Euripides, Rhesus: Edited with Introduction and Commentary, Berlin. Apagoge to the Eleven and the Furtum Manifestum', in G. 1994) Symposion 1993: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistische Rechtsgeschichte, Cologne, pp. 2001) Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge MA and London.
