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Literary Allusion and Myth in the Five Canonical Ancient Greek Novels

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Literary Allusion and Myth in the Five Canonical Ancient Greek Novels Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1995 Literary Allusion and Myth in the Five Canonical Ancient Greek Novels Edmund P. Cueva Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Classics Commons Recommended Citation Cueva, Edmund P., "Literary Allusion and Myth in the Five Canonical Ancient Greek Novels" (1995). Dissertations. 3511. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3511 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1995 Edmund P. Cueva LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO LITERARY ALLUSION AND MYTH IN THE FIVE CANONICAL ANCIENT GREEK NOVELS A DISSERTATION SUBMITIED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICAL STUDIES BY EDMUND P. CUEVA CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JANUARY 1995 Copyright by Edmund P. Cueva, 1995 All rights reserved. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Brian M. Lavelle, Dr. Edwin P. Menes, Dr. John F. Makowski, and Dr. Gareth L. Schmeling for all the help they have given me in writing the dissertation. I could not have finished this analysis of the ancient Greek novel without their scholarly input and expertise. Gratitude is also due to Fr. John P. Murphy, S. J., who helped me in the start of my research. I am greatly indebted and grateful to my wife Shannon, who has not only shown extraordinary patience and understanding, but has also made the writing of this dissertation possible. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS COPYRIGHT ......................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................iii FOREWORD ...................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter I. THE ANCIENT GREEK NOVEL ...................................................................................6 Origins ............................................................................................................6 Audience ........................................................................................................ 10 lnfluences ..................................................................................................... 12 Myth ............................................................................................................. 16 Dates of Composition of the Extant Novels ................................................... 26 II. CHARITON, HISTORY, AND MYTH ......................................................................... 31 Books 1-4..................................................................................................... 34 Characterization through myth: Callirhoe ....................................... 35 Characterization through myth: Chaereas ....................................... .48 Narrative design and Homer .............................................................. 50 Books 5 -8 .................................................................................................... 55 Ill. XENOPHON, HISTORY, AND MYTHOLOGICAL ALLUSION ....................................... 65 Habrocomes and Hippolytus .......................................................................... 67 Antheia and Artemis ...................................................................................... 72 The Oracle and Possible History ................................................................... 7 4 Habrocornes and Antheia ................................................................................76 IV. LONGUS, MYTH, AND AETIOLOGY ........................................................................ 86 Prooemium to Vaphnis and Chloe, Thucydides ............................................ 88 Location of the Aitia and Structure .............................................................. 94 Aition # 1: the wood-dove .................................................................... 97 Aition # 2: Syrinx ................................................................................ 99 Aition # 3: Echo .................................................................................. 100 Aition # 4: Chloe? .............................................................................. 104 The Aitia.................. .................................................................................. 104 V. THEMATIC MYTHS, PAN, AND ACHILLES T ATIUS .............................................. 114 VI. INNOVATIVE HELIODORUS ................................................................................. 142 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 162 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 170 VITA ............................................................................................................................. 181 j_ V· FOREWORD This dissertation explores the function and frequency of myth in the five canonical ancient Greek novels and will attempt to demonstrate that the utilization of myth increased as the nature of the novel evolved. 1 My evaluation will not touch upon all the facets of myth, but rather only on the novelists' literary application of myth. Consequently, literary antecedents of the myth will be taken into account only when the novelist incorporates a myth into his own text. Extended religious meanings of a particular myth, in particular whether the inclusion of a myth denotes the author's belief in the myth, are outside the scope of this dissertation because the levels of religious beliefs of any of the ancient novelists are not ascertainable.2 The novelists seem to use or to borrow their myths in this fashion: myths found in other literary works are incorporated into the novels. This methodology is similar both to that of the ancients who borrowed myths, lines, or passages from the Iliad and the Olfyssey as a source for their own stories and to that of modem authors who see the Old Testament as fertile source for stories and quotations. These later authors do not necessarily incorporate any religious feeling to their works even though the religious quality of their source is apparent. Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe, written perhaps as early as the first century A.O., represents the earliest complete extant Greek novel. In Chaereas and Callirhoe, 1 The five extant canonical Greek novels are Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe, Xenophon of Ephesus' Ephesiaca, Achilles T atius' Leucippe and C/itophon, Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, and Heliodorus' Aethiopica. 2 On such a question see e.g., Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 2 unlike the later novels, there is an abundance of historical detail which superficially classes this novel with historical works. Since this new form is written in prose and since the major literary genre which employed prose is history, Chariton, with his numerous historical minutiae, could not but have relied substantially on historiographical structures and features. After Chariton, however, the historical setting began to change to a romantic or mythological setting. The question of the importance of myth for the novel appears to some scholars to be implicated with that of the origins of the genre. They argue that the roots of the ancient novel are found in religious texts associated with the worship of such deities as Isis and that the texts, which were used for purposes of instructing and edifying initiates and worshippers, contained myths which pertained to cult and ritual.3 From them, they contend, sprang the secular genre of novel, which nevertheless retained the components of its religious progenitor (as Attic Tragedy retained significant elements of Dionysus- worship). Many scholars have aligned themselves on one side or the other of this controversy; some have simply avoided the issue. Steiner is among the first to set aside the debate on novels as Mysterientexte in favor of determining how myth actually functions in the novels. 4 He suggests that specific myths were used as exemplars for all types of plot situations in which the characters found themselves, and he supplies some uses of myth: ( 1) moral patterns to be imitated; (2) evidence for what may happen under similar circumstances; (3) illustration; ( 4) and graphic analogues. Steiner concludes that the authors of ancient 3 R. Merkelbach, Roman und Mysterium (Munchen/Berlin: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1962); K. Kerenyi, Die griechisch-orientalische Romanliteratur in religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1927). 4 G. Steiner, "The graphic analogue from myth in Greek Romance," in Classical Studies Presented to B. E. Perry (Urbana, Illinois, 1969): 123-37. 3 Greek novels used myth selectively as analogues in certain places in the plots to support, explain, or enhance their meaning. He stops short, however, of a thorough analysis of myth's function
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