View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy The Art of Deception: Longus and the Ancient Novel A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Don M. Burrows IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Nita Krevans, Adviser August 2014 ©2014, Don M. Burrows Acknowledgments: This dissertation would never have been possible without the continued support from the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. I would especially like to thank Prof. Nita Krevans, my adviser, for her constant guidance throughout this process, and throughout my graduate career. It was in her class in 2010 that I discovered this topic. Also Prof. Christopher Nappa, whose knowledge on the ancient novels was indispensable, and the other members of my committee, Profs. Philip Sellew and George Sheets, both of whom guided me through many classes during graduate school. I would also like to acknowledge Richard Graff, associate professor of Rhetoric in the Department of Writing Studies, for his guidance on ancient rhetoric, as well as the remainder of the CNES faculty, and my colleagues, both past and present, in the CNES grad office. Finally, and most importantly, this never would have been completed without the support of my wife Laura, my parents, and my in-laws, all of whom provided moral support and child care so that this goal could see fulfillment. i For my wife and children ii NOTE ON TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS Standard Greek and Latin texts are used throughout. For the Greek and Latin passages of the novelists, the following were used: Longus: Reeve’s 2001 Teubner Chariton: Reardon’s 2004 Teubner Xenophon: O’Sullivan’s 2005 Teubner Achilles Tatius: Garnaud’s 1991 Bude Petronius: Muller’s 2003 Teubner Apuleius: Zimmerman’s 2012 Oxford Classical Text Translations are mine unless stated otherwise. iii Table of Contents Introduction: Fiction and Falsehood ................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: Longus and the Art of Deception ................................................................................. 12 Chapter 2: Deception in the Second Sophistic ............................................................................... 44 Chapter 3: Lies in Lucian ................................................................................................................ 75 Chapter 4: Lies and Fiction in the Greek Novels I – Chariton and Xenophon ................................ 94 Chapter 5: Lies and Fiction in the Greek Novels II – Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus ................... 137 Chapter 6: Deception and Storytelling in the Latin Novel ........................................................... 169 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 206 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 211 iv Introduction: Fiction and Falsehood When the horror movie The Blair Witch Project hit screens in 1999, the internet was abuzz with debate and discussion among ardent theater-goers, many of whom were convinced that the events in the film had actually happened. They pointed to “real” police reports online and newsreel-style interviews about the missing teenagers featured on screen, and the very real nature of the film itself. Even a trip to the Internet Movie Database revealed that the actors were “missing” and “presumed dead.”1 At the heart of this confusion was the movie’s documentary-style format, a format hitherto (with a few comic exceptions) reserved for actual documentaries. It authenticated itself in a variety of ways, stating in the beginning that what audiences were watching was the actual footage of three young people who vanished in the woods, and its cinematography presented a shaky, seemingly unscripted series of events that showed minimal amounts of traditional, horrific action. To make matters murkier, the filmmakers created a promotional website featuring those police reports and news interviews that believers were pointing to, leading many people to call the film the “first internet movie.”2 In fact, the “found footage” format – now so common that fewer individuals might be persuaded to take a movie like The Blair Witch Project as actual, documentary material – is a device with its roots in antiquity. The Ephemeris Belli Troiani of Dictys 1 Meslow 2012 2 Weinraub 1999 1 Cretensis, a supposedly first-person account by the Cretan Dictys of the Trojan War written in the first or second century CE,3 includes just such an authenticating preface: Dictys, genere Cretensis de civitate Gnoso iisdem temporibus quibus et Atrides fuit, peritus vocis ac literarum Phoenicum, quae a Cadrao Achaiam fuerant delatae. Hic fuit socius Idomenei, Deucalionis filii, et Merionis, ex Molo qui duces cum exercitu contra Ilium venerant, a quibus ordinatus est, ut annales belli Troiani conscriberet. Igitur de toto hoc bello sex volumina in tilias digessit Phoeniccis literis : quae iam reversus senior in Cretam, praecepit moriens ut seciim sepelirentur. Itaque ut ille iusserat, memoratas tilias,instannea arcula repositas, eius lumulo condiderunt. Verum secutis temporibus, tertiodecimo anno Neronis imperii, in Gnoso civitate terraemotus facti, cum multa, tum etiam sepulcrum Dictys ita patefecerunt, ut a transeuntibus arcula viseretur. Pastores itaque prastereuntes cum hanc vidissent, thesaurum rati, sepulcro abstulerunt : et aperta ea invenerunt tilias incognitis sibi literis conscriptas : continuoque ad suum dominum Eupraxidem quendam noraine pertulerunt: quiagnitas quaenam essent literas Rutilio Rufo illius insulae tunc Consulari obtulit. Ille cum Eupraxide ad Neronem oblate sibi transmisit, existimans in his quaedam secretiora contineri. Heec autem cum Nero accepisset, advertissetque Punicas esse literas, harum peritos ad se vocavit: qui cum venissent, interpretati suut omnia. Cumque Nero cognovisset, antiqui viri, qui apud Ilium fuerat, haec esse monumenta, iussit in Graecum sermonem ista transferri e quibus Trojani belli verior textus innotuit. Tunc Eupraxidem muncribus et Romana civitate donatum ad propria remisit. Annales vero nomine Dictys inscriptos in Graecam Bibliotliecam recepit. Quorum seriem, qui sequitur textus, ostendit. (Preface) 3 Merkle, in Tatum 1994, 183-185 2 Dictys, a native of Crete from the city of Cnossos and a contemporary of the Atridae, knew the Phoenician language and alphabet, which Cadmus brought to Achaea. He accompanied the leaders Idomeneus and Meriones with the army that went against Troy. (Idomeneus and Meriones were the sons of Deucalion and Molus respectively.) They chose him to write down a history of this campaign. Accordingly, writing on linden tablets and using the Phoenician alphabet, he composed nine volumes about the whole war. Time passed. In the thirteenth year of Nero’s reign an earthquake struck at Cnossos and, in the course of its devastation, laid open the tomb of Dictys in such a way that people, as they passed, could see the little box. And so shepherds who had seen it as they passed stole it from the tomb, thinking it was treasure. But when they opened it and found the linden tablets inscribed with characters unknown to them, they took this find to their master. Their master, whose name was Eupraxides, recognized the characters, and presented the books to Rutilius Rufus, who was at that time governor of the island. Since Rufus, when the books had been presented to him, thought they contained certain mysteries, he, along with Eupraxides himself, carried them to Nero. Nero, having received the tablets and having noticed that they were written in the Phoenician alphabet, ordered his Phoenician philologists to come and decipher whatever was written. When this had been done, since he realized that these were the records of an ancient man who had been at Troy, he had them translated into Greek; thus a more accurate text of the Trojan War was made known to all. Then he bestowed gifts and Roman citizenship upon Eupraxides, and sent him home. - Trans. R. M. Frazer Jr. 3 Likewise, the Acts of Pilate, a fifth-sixth century treatment of the Gospels material,4 contains a very similar authenticating story of an account by Nicodemus discovered and then translated from the original Hebrew: Ἔγω Ἀνανίας προτίκτωρ ἀπὸ ἐπάρχων τυγχάνων, νομομαθής, ἐκ τῶν θείων γραφῶν τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν ἐπέγνων τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν πίστει προσελθών , καταξιωθεὶς δὲ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου βαπτίσματος. ἐρευμήσας δὲ καὶ τὰ ὑπομνήματα τὰ κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον πραχθέντα ἐπὶ τοῦ δεσπότου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἅ κατέθεντο οἵ Ιουδαῖοι ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου, ταῦτα εὗρον τὰ ὑπομνήματα ἐν ἐβραικοῖς γράμμασιν, καὶ θεοῦ εὐδοκίᾳ μεθερμήνευσα γράμμασιν ἑλληνικοῖς εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν πάντων τῶν ἐπικαλοθμένων τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ δεσπότου ἡμῶν Φλαβίου Θεοδοσίου, ἔτους ἑπτακαιδεκάτου, καὶ Φλαβίου Οὐαλεντινιανοῦ τὸ ἕκτον, ἐν ἰνδικτῶνι θ’. Πάντες οὖν ὅσοι ἀναγινώσκετε καὶ μεταβάλλετε εἰς ἕτερα βιβλία, μνημονεύετέ μου καὶ εὔκεσθε ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ, ἵνα ἰλεός μοι γένηται ὁ θεὸς καὶ ἱλάσηται ταῖς ἁμαρτίας μου ἅς ἅμαρτον εἰς αὐτόν. Εἰρήνη τοῖς ἀναγινώσκουσι καὶ τοῖς ἀκούουσι καὶ τοῖς οἰκέσταις αύτῶν. ἀμήν. (Prologue) I, Ananias, an officer of the guard, being learned in the law, came to know our Lord