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MINDING THE MIDDLE IN HELIODORUS’ AETHIOPICA: FALSE CLOSURE, TRIANGULAR FOILS AND SELF-REFLECTION*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Jonas Grethlein
Jonas Grethlein*
Affiliation:
University of Heidelberg
*
jonas.grethlein@skph.uni-heidelberg.de
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Extract

A change in the form of narrative presentation divides Heliodorus’ Aethiopica in two halves, the first embracing Books 1–5, the second Books 6–10. The shift has been described in different terms: Keyes notes that, whereas the first part uses an in medias res opening, the second follows by and large chronological order. Morgan ascribes to the first half a ‘hermeneutic impulse’ that gives way to an ‘end-directed’ drive in the second half. Using Sternberg's concept of narrative time, one could say that by and large the first five books are dominated by curiosity, the second five books by suspense: after trying to fathom the prehistory, the reader then directs her attention to the further development of the plot. The shift, however, concerns not only the orchestration of time, but also the stance of the narrator: while Hefti juxtaposes the net of embedded narratives in the first five books with the predominance of the primary narrator in the last five books, Futre Pinheiro considers the shift in terms of ‘showing’ and ‘telling’. The difference between the two halves of the Aethiopica thus hinges on the central narratological categories of time and voice.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , May 2016 , pp. 316 - 335
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Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank CQ's anonymous reader as well as John Morgan and the participants in his Heliodorus panel at the Celtic Conference in Classics 2014 for their thought-provoking comments. This paper is part of the work of the ERC project ‘Experience and Teleology in Ancient Narrative’ (312321, AncNar).

References

1 On book divisions in the ancient editions of the novel see T. Birt, Das antike Buchwesen in seinem Verhältniss zur Literatur: Mit Beiträgen zur Textgeschichte des Theokrit, Catull, Properz und anderer Autoren (Berlin, 1882), 286–341; T. Hägg, ‘The Ephesiaca of Xenophon Ephesius—original or epitome?’, in L.B. Mortensen and T. Eide (edd.), Thomas Hägg, Parthenope: Selected Studies in Ancient Greek Fiction (1969–2004) (Copenhagen, 2004), 159–98, at 182 n. 44 with further literature (originally in C&M 27 [1966], 118–61); T. Whitmarsh, ‘Divide and rule: segmenting Callirhoe and related works’, in M. Paschalis, S. Panayotakis and G. Schmeling (edd.), Readers and Writers in the Ancient Novel (Groningen, 2009), 36–50.

2 Keyes, C.W., ‘The structure of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica ’, SPh 19 (1922), 42–51 Google Scholar, at 44.

3 Morgan, J.R., ‘A sense of ending: the conclusion of Heliodorus’ Aithiopika ’, TAPhA 119 (1989), 299–320 Google Scholar, at 303; cf. J.R. Morgan, ‘The story of Knemon in Heliodoros’ Aithiopika’, in S. Swain (ed.), Oxford Readings in the Greek Novel (Oxford, 1999), 259–85, at 270–1 (originally in JHS 109 [1989], 99–113) .

4 Sternberg, M., ‘Telling in time (II): Chronology, teleology, narrativity’, Poetics Today 13 (1992), 463–541 Google Scholar. For an attempt to make the narrative dynamics of the Aithiopika fruitful for the current discussion in narratology and aesthetics, see Grethlein, J., ‘Is narrative “the description of fictional mental functioning”? Heliodorus against Palmer, Zunshine, & Co.’, Style 49 (2015), 259–83Google Scholar; id., ‘Social minds and narrative time: collective experience in Thucydides and Heliodorus’, Narrative 23 (2015), 123–39Google Scholar; id., ‘Aesthetic experiences, ancient and modern’, New Literary History 46 (2015), 309–33Google Scholar.

5 This of course needs to be qualified: when, for example, the camp of the buccaneers is attacked at the end of Book 1, the attention of the reader is directed at the further development of the action.

6 V. Hefti, Zur Erzählungstechnik in Heliodors Aethiopica (Vienna, 1950), 121, who, however, argues that the encounter of Calasiris and Charicleia with the Bessaean witch smooths the transition. See also Effe, B., ‘Entstehung und Funktion “personaler” Erzählweisen in der Erzählliteratur der Antike’, Poetica 7 (1975), 135–57Google Scholar, at 152 for the juxtaposition of ‘personaler’ and ‘auktorial-allwissender Perspektive’.

7 Pinheiro, M.P. Futre, ‘Time and narrative technique in Heliodorusʼ Aethiopica ’, ANRW II.34.4 (1998), 3148–78Google Scholar, at 3156.

8 On the beginning, see, for example, Bühler, W., ‘Das Element des Visuellen in der Eingangsszene von Heliodors Aithiopika ’, WS 10 (1976), 177–85Google Scholar; J.J. Winkler, ‘The mendacity of Kalasiris and the narrative strategy of Heliodorus’ Aithiopika’, in S. Swain (ed.), Oxford Readings in the Greek Novel (Oxford, 1999), 286–350, at 289–93 (originally in YClS 27 [1982], 93–158); J.R. Morgan, ‘Reader and audiences in the Aithiopika of Heliodorus’, in H. Hofmann and M. Zimmermann (edd.), Groningen Colloquia on the Novel IV (Groningen, 1991), 85–103, at 86–90; Telò, M., ‘The eagle's gaze in the opening of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica ’, AJPh 132 (2011), 581–613 Google Scholar. On the ending, see especially Morgan (n. 3); Elmer, D.F., ‘Heliodoros’ “sources”: intertextuality, paternity, and the Nile river in the Aithiopika ’, TAPhA 138 (2008), 411–50Google Scholar.

9 Cf. Morgan (n. 3), who elaborates on a negative scenario that competes with the expectation of a happy ending. On the tension between closural and centrifugal elements in the ancient Greek novel, see T. Whitmarsh, Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance (Cambridge, 2011), 177–213.

10 There are however also anticlosural elements such as Charicleia being ‘tossed on a tide of conflicting emotions, midway between sorrow at being parted from them and joy at her hopes for the future’ (6.1.2).

11 M. Fusillo, ‘How novels end: some patterns of closure in ancient narrative’, in D.H. Roberts, F.M. Dunn and D. Fowler (edd.), Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton, NJ, 1997), 209–27, at 214. On circularity as a closural device in the modern novel, see M. Torgovnick, Closure in the Novel (Princeton, NJ, 1981), 13.

12 For a comparison with flashbacks in cinema, see Winkler, M.M., ‘The cinematic nature of the opening scene of Heliodorus’ Aithiopika ’, Ancient Narrative 1 (2000), 161–84Google Scholar, at 180–1. As Ruth Webb points out to me, there is something uncanny to the second rendering of the scene on the beach. At the end of Book 5, the reader learns about the presence of a person, that is Calasiris, of whom she had not been aware at the beginning of the novel. The reader has been not only a beholder but also the object of a gaze.

13 There is another correspondence between the opening scene and the frame around Calasiris’ narration. At the beginning, Charicleia is described like a statue. Now, after ending the symposium, Calasiris finds her asleep at the foot of the statue of a god in a temple. The case is less incisive than the ‘mixed’ symposium, but one could argue for a similar deflation of tension.

14 See, for example, Socrates’ comment on the spectators of tragedy who cry and simultaneously feel pleasure in Pl. Phlb. 48a.

15 See, however, Tagliabue, A., ‘The Ephesiaca as a Bildungsroman’, Ancient Narrative 10 (2012), 17–46 Google Scholar for a qualification of the Ephesiaca's closure.

16 On the closing function of summaries in the ancient novel positioned at the end, see Fusillo (n. 11), 216.

17 Winkler (n. 8).

18 Morgan (n. 3).

19 See, however, T. Paulsen, Inszenierung des Schicksals: Tragödie und Komödie im Roman des Heliodor (Trier, 1992), 139–41.

20 E.L. Bowie, ‘Names and a gem: aspects of allusion in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica’, in D.C. Innes, H.M. Hine and C.B.R. Pelling (edd.), Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford, 1995), 269–80, at 278 identifies a further level of significance: Nausicleia, the name of Nausicles’ daughter, whom Cnemon marries instead of joining the quest for Theagenes, evokes the Nausicaa-episode in the Odyssey. Cnemon's decision to stay is thus thrown into relief by Odysseus’ strong desire for his nostos that makes him immune to the temptation of Nausicaa.

21 CQ's anonymous reader makes the intriguing observation that in using ἐπτοημένον for Cnemon's feelings the text stops short of attributing true love to Cnemon. And yet, the following part of the sentence claims explicitly that he ‘has fallen prey to the same passions’ as her. The nuance thus seems to be a very fine one.

22 Cf. Paulsen (n. 19), 128–39. See also R. Brethes, De l'idéalisme au réalisme: Une étude du comique dans le roman grec (Salerno, 2007), 115–24.

23 Cf. Paulsen (n. 19), 134–5 for a detailed comparison of the two passages. The fragility of human life is emphasized along similar lines by Calasiris in 4.9.1 and 6.9.3 as well as by Theagenes in 5.4.7. On lament in Heliodorus, see Paulsen (n. 19), 56–66; in the Greek novel, see M. Fusillo, Il romanzo greco. Polifonia ed eros (Venice, 1989), 36–40 especially on links to tragedy; J. Birchall, ‘The lament as a rhetorical feature in the Greek novel’, in H. Hofmann and M. Zimmermann (edd.), Groningen Colloquia on the Novel VII (Groningen, 1996), 1–17 on rhetorical features.

24 Think, for example, of Menander's Dyskolos. Cf. P.-E. Legrand, Daos: Tableau de la comédie grecque pendant la période dite nouvelle (Κωμωιδία Νέα) (Lyon and Paris, 1910), 258–9. I am not fully convinced by Brethes (n. 22), 123, who argues that specifically the motif of the nuptial torch present in καταλάμπειν evokes the world of comedy. On comedy as a frame of Cnemon's story, see also Bowie (n. 20), 271.

25 See, for example, Fusillo (n. 23), 43–55; N.J. Lowe, The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative (Cambridge, 2000), 222–58.

26 Paulsen (n. 19), 139.

27 Here, I part company with Fusillo (n. 23), 55, who emphasizes the comic features of the Aethiopica's closure. He is correct to adduce the happy ending that ‘excludes the grotesque and the aggressive’ as a comic element, but does not factor in the long build-up that deviates from most comedies. The comment by Charicleia in 9.24.4 can be read as a metanarrative reflection on the retardation of the ending; cf. T. Whitmarsh, ‘The birth of a prodigy: Heliodorus and the genealogy of Hellenism’, in R. Hunter (ed.), Studies in Heliodorus (Cambridge, 1998), 93–124, at 114; Elmer (n. 8), 430.

28 I am grateful to Ruth Webb for pointing this out to me.

29 See, for example, the scholion praising Homer for foreshadowing the capture of Troy in Iliad 15:

In addition, he [i.e. Homer] comforts the reader by adumbrating for him the sack of Troy. For who could have borne it, with the Greek ships being burnt and Ajax fleeing, unless the fact would have been kept in store for the readers’ souls that the people who had done it [i.e. the Trojans] will be defeated?

πρὸς δὲ τούτοις παραμυθεῖται τὸν ἀκροατήν, τὴν ἅλωσιν Τροίας σκιαγραφῶν αὐτῷ· τίς γὰρ ἂν ἠνέσχετο ἐμπιπραμένων τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν νεῶν καὶ Αἴαντος φεύγοντος, εἰ μὴ ἀπέκειτο ταῖς ψυχαῖς τῶν ἐντυγχανόντων ὅτι οἱ ταῦτα πράξαντες κρατηθήσονται; Schol. bT Il. 15.56.

For more examples, see G.E. Duckworth, ‘Προαναφώνησις in the scholia to Homer’, AJPh 52 (1931), 320–38, at 330–5. Cf. also R. Nünlist, The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia (Cambridge, 2009), 37–8.

30 On the flamingo in antiquity, see D.W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Birds (Hildesheim, 1966), 304–6; on birds as gifts especially to the erōmenos, but also to women, see K.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London, 1989), 92; on birds as a metaphor for sexual organs, see J. Henderson, The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (New Haven and London, 1975), 147. O'Connor, E.M., ‘“A bird in the bush”: the erotic and literary implications of bucolic and avian imagery in two related episodes of Longus’, RhM 134 (1991), 393–401 Google Scholar argues for erotic implications of avian imagery in Longus.

31 Morgan (n. 3), 273. On the narrative economy of the passage, see G.N. Sandy, Heliodorus (Boston, 1982), 31.

32 E.L. Bowie, ‘Phoenician games in Heliodorus’ Aithiopika’, in R. Hunter (ed.), Studies in Heliodorus (Cambridge, 1998), 1–18, at 11.

33 Bowie (n. 32), 12.

34 Cf. Bowie (n. 32), 8. For the virtuous play with these two symbols at the end of the Aethiopica, see Winkler (n. 8), 349.

35 Bowie (n. 32); Jones, M., ‘Heavenly and pandemic names in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica ’, CQ 56 (2006), 548–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quotation on p. 549.

36 On theophoric names, especially those deriving from Isis, see Dow, S., ‘The Egyptian cults in Athens’, HThR 30 (1937), 183–232 Google Scholar, at 216-23; R. Parker, ‘Theophoric names and the history of Greek religion’, in S. Hornblower and E. Matthews (edd.), Greek Personal Names: Their Value as Evidence (Oxford, 2000), 53–79, at 74.

37 On this passage, see especially J.R. Morgan, ‘La culte du Nil chez Héliodore’, in C. Bost-Pouderon and B. Pouderon (edd.), Les hommes et les dieux dans l'ancien roman (Lyons, 2012), 255–67.

38 Cf. Whitmarsh (n. 9), 133.

39 Winkler (n. 8), 343-4, quotation on p. 344.

40 Such hints are crucial to Merkelbach's allegorical reading of the Aethiopica as a novel on the mysteries (R. Merkelbach, Roman und Mysterium in der Antike [Munich and Berlin, 1962], 234–88; on the Nile digression, 281–3).

41 For a more down-to-earth interpretation that by no means excludes the one advanced above, see J.R. Morgan, ‘Heliodorus: An Ethiopian Story. Translated by J.R. Morgan’, in B.P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2008), 349–588, at 544 n. 206: ‘The metaphor is chosen to remind the reader of the torch-lit processions and ceremonies of the Isiac mysteries.’ In a later paper, Morgan (n. 37), 266 proposes that the lamp ought to be seen as part of the semantics of the sun, particularly prominent in Book 9. On the use of λαμπάδιον in the Aethiopica, see Bowie (n. 32), 14–18.

42 Whitmarsh (n. 9), 133–4.

43 Morgan (n. 37), 266-7.

44 Paulsen (n. 19), 212–3; Morgan (n. 3), 273.

45 See, for instance, B. Rochette, Le latin dans le monde grec: Recherches sur la diffusion de la langue et des lettres latines dans les provinces hellénophones de l'Empire romain (Brussels, 1997); J.N. Adams, M. Janse and S. Swain (edd.), Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text (Oxford, 2002); J.N. Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Cambridge, 2003). Note, however, also A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011), 529–31, 641–4, who is more sceptical about the familiarity of Greeks with Latin in the Imperial Age, emphasizing its use for administrative purposes.

46 Cf. the convenient list in R.A. Pack, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (Ann Arbor, 1967), 145–7. For discussion, see Rochette (n. 45), 188–98.

47 Cf. Baldwin, B., ‘Vergilius Graecus’, AJPh 97 (1976), 361–8Google Scholar; Rochette (n. 45), 271-2.

48 On Lucian, see Rochette (n. 45), 243–4, 266–7. Another case in point is Quintus Smyrnaeus; cf. U. Gärtner, Quintus Smyrnaeus und die Aeneis: Zur Nachwirkung Vergils in der griechischen Literatur der Kaiserzeit (Munich, 2005).

49 Cataudella, Q., ‘Riflessi virgiliani nel romanzo di Caritone’, Athenaeum 5 (1927), 302–12Google Scholar; S. Tilg, Chariton of Aphrodisias and the Invention of the Greek Love Novel (Oxford, 2010), 261–97.

50 T.K. Hubbard, ‘Virgil, Longus, and the pipes of Pan’, in M. Fantuzzi and T. Papanghelis (edd.), Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 499–513, at 508.

51 R. Kussl, Papyrusfragmente griechischer Romane: Ausgewählte Untersuchungen (Tübingen, 1991), 138–40.

52 Cf. Copley, F.O., ‘ Servitium amoris in the Roman elegists’, TAPhA 78 (1947), 258–300 Google Scholar; Lyne, R.O.A.M., ‘ Servitium amoris ’, CQ 29 (1979), 117–30Google Scholar.

53 On the dating of the Aethiopica, see J.R. Morgan, ‘Heliodorus’, in G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World (Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1996), 417–56, at 417–21.

54 Cf. Irmscher, J., ‘Vergil in der griechischen Antike’, Klio 67 (1985), 281–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rochette (n. 45), 269–79.

55 Rochette (n. 45), 264.

56 Cf. Rochette (n. 45), 268–9.

57 Winkler (n. 8), 297–8.

58 On Emesa, see C. Chad, Les dynastes d’Émèse (Beirut, 1972).

59 Cameron, A., ‘Poetae novelli’, HSPh 84 (1980), 127–75Google Scholar, at 135–9, quotation on p. 139.

60 For a take on the ‘middle’ in narrative very different from the one pursued here, see D. Fowler, ‘Epic in the middle of the wood: mise en abyme in the Nisus and Euryalus episode’, in A. Sharrock and H. Morales (edd.), Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations (Oxford, 2000), 89–113, who takes middle not as the symmetrical centre, but as the labyrinthine space between the more marked beginning and ending. M. Douglas, Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition (New Haven and London, 2007) opens up a broader horizon that brings together literature with anthropology: while not directly focussing on the middle, her exploration of ring composition as a mode of archaic thinking pertains to the middle in narrative.

61 G.B. Conte, ‘Proems in the middle’, YClS 29 (1992), 147–59, a revised version of G.B. Conte, ‘Proemi al mezzo’, in G.B. Conte (ed.), Il genere e i suoi confini: Cinque studi sulla poesia di Virgilio (Turin, 1980), 122–36; Thomas, R.F., ‘Virgil's ecphrastic centerpieces’, HSPh 87 (1983), 175–84Google Scholar; Thomas, R.F., ‘From recusatio to commitment: the evolution of the Vergilian programme’, PLLS 5 (1986), 61–73 Google Scholar; R.F. Thomas, ‘“Stuck in the middle with you”: Virgilian middles’, in S. Kyriakidis and F.D. Martino (edd.), Middles in Latin Poetry (Bari, 2004), 123–50.

62 For poetological reflections on the middle in Greek literature, see F. De Martino, ‘In itinere’, in S. Kyriakidis and F.D. Martino (edd.), Middles in Latin Poetry (Bari, 2004), 371–6.

63 S. Harrison, ‘Lyric middles: the turn at the centre in Horace's Odes’, in S. Kyriakidis and F.D. Martino (edd.), Middles in Latin Poetry (Bari, 2004), 81–102, at 97–9. On false closure in Greek lyric, see I. Rutherford, ‘Odes and ends: closure in Greek lyric’, in D.H. Roberts, F.M. Dunn and D. Fowler (edd.), Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton, NJ, 1997), 43–61, at 58–61.

64 On the macrostructure of Leucippe and Clitophon, see Sedelmeier, D., ‘Studien zu Achilleus Tatios’, WS 72 (1959), 113–43Google Scholar; Nakatani, S., ‘A re-examination of some structural problems in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon’, Ancient Narrative 3 (2003), 63–81 Google Scholar.

65 If we follow Winkler (n. 8), 294 in entertaining the idea that Heliodorus’ reference to a crocodile without ekphrasis (6.1) is intended to contrast with the ekphrasis in Achilles Tatius, then it is striking that both passages are placed in the middle. For a comparison of the two, see also S. Bartsch, Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (Princeton, NJ, 1989), 123.

66 On Book 5 of Leucippe and Clitophon as a new starting point, see Nimis, S., ‘Memory and description in the ancient novel’, Arethusa 31 (1998), 99–122 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 109–10; Whitmarsh (n. 1), 44–5.

67 On the summary at the beginning of Book 5 of Chaereas and Callirhoe, balanced by another recapitulation at the beginning of Book 8, see T. Hägg, Narrative Technique in Ancient Greek Romances: Studies of Chariton, Xenophon Ephesius, and Achilles Tatius (Stockholm, 1971), 251–2; Whitmarsh (n. 1), 40–3. Müller, C.W., ‘Chariton von Aphrodisias und die Theorie des Romans in der Antike’, A&A 22 (1976), 115–36Google Scholar, at 119–20 and E.L. Bowie, ‘The ancient readers of the Greek novels’, in G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World (Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1996), 87–106, at 98 even argue that the beginning of Book 5 marks the beginning of a second papyrus.

68 S. Nimis, ‘In mediis rebus: beginning again in the middle of the ancient novel’, in S. Panayotakis, M. Zimmerman and W. Keulen (edd.), The Ancient Novel and Beyond (Leiden and Boston, 2003), 255–69, at 262. See also Tilg (n. 49), 185–6, who sees in the reference to Eros a metaliterary comment.

69 Conte (n. 61), 157.

70 Cf. Winkler (n. 8); Morgan (n. 8); id. (n. 3); R.L. Hunter, ‘The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond interpretation?’, in R.L. Hunter (ed.), Studies in Heliodorus (Cambridge, 1998), 40–59; P. Hardie, ‘A reading of Heliodorus, Aithiopika 3.4.1–5.2’, in R.L. Hunter (ed.), Studies in Heliodorus (Cambridge, 1998), 19–39. But see also Whitmarsh, T., ‘Written on the body: ekphrasis, perception and deception in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica ’, Ramus 31 (2002), 111–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who focuses on ekphrasis, and Elmer (n. 8), who makes a case for the metapoetic significance of the Nile.