Essays on the Greek Romances

Ancient Greek fiction supplies Elizabeth Hazelton Haight with a field of love stories, adventures, pastoral scenes and satire. Her essays consider the individual character of these early prose narratives, asking how new papyrus discoveries change their dating and the theories used to explain their origins. Chapters take up Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius and Longus, before turning to Lucian and a comparison with Apuleius' Metamorphoses.

Haight reads the romances for their literary qualities as well as their place in the history of fiction. Her discussion of Achilles Tatius follows courtroom arguments, competing voices and elaborate descriptions of mythological paintings, showing how training in rhetoric shapes the storytelling. The preface also connects these books with travel, religious worship and life around the Mediterranean under the Roman Empire. Readers interested in classical literature can use the volume to distinguish several kinds of ancient narrative and find a starting point for reading the novels themselves.