Heliodorus of Emesa

▪ Greek writer

flourished 4th century AD, Emesa [now Ḥimṣ, Syria]

      Greek writer, author of the Aethiopica, the longest and most readable of the extant ancient Greek novels.

      The Aethiopica tells the story of an Ethiopian princess and a Thessalian prince who undergo a series of perils (battles, voyages, piracy, abductions, robbery, and torture) before their eventual happy marriage in the heroine's homeland. The work, written in an imitation of pure Attic dialect, shows an uncommon mastery of narrative technique and plot development. In spite of its amplitude, its complexity, and its large cast of characters, the story never becomes confused. Through flashbacks, the appropriate linking of accessory episodes, and surprises intervening at the right moment, the tension of the narrative is never relaxed. The characterization, however, is rather weak. The Aethiopica is pervaded throughout with the author's deep religious faith, which centres in the book on the sun god Helios. The Aethiopica was popular with Byzantine and Renaissance critics because of its good entertainment value and high moral tone and was used as a model by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso and the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes.

Additional Reading

A translation by J.R. Morgan of Aethiopica is included in B.P. Readon, Collected Ancient Greek Novels (1989). Analytical works include Gerald N. Sandy, Heliodorus (1982); Shadi Bartsch, Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (1989); G.W. Bowersock, Fiction As History: Nero to Julian (1994); and Richard Hunter (ed.), Studies in Heliodorus (1998).

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