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Two Novels from Ancient Greece: Callirhoe and An Ephesian Story
Here in one convenient volume are the two earliest examples of the ancient Greek novel.
236 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2010
10 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Chariton
26 books5 followersChariton, (flourished 1st century ad, Aphrodisias, Caria, Asia Minor), Greek novelist, author of Chaereas and Callirhoë, probably the earliest fully extant romantic novel in Western literature. The romances of Chariton and of Achilles Tatius are the only ones preserved in a number of ancient papyri.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 1, 2022
both 'Callirhoe' and 'an Ephesian Story' were enjoyable but I liked 'an Ephesian Story' better to be honest. read them both for my ancient novel class and if you have any interest in ancient novels i recommend them! obviously, they come with all the warnings and problems that plague ancient stories though. both stories also follow the same basic plotlines which is unsurprising for ancient novels.
tw// discussions and threats of rape and sexual assault, violence, slavery, sexism & sexist stereotypes, racism & racist stereotypes
tw// discussions and threats of rape and sexual assault, violence, slavery, sexism & sexist stereotypes, racism & racist stereotypes
January 21, 2015
These were fun! Silly and melodramatic, and at times I caught myself skimming, but not unenjoyable. Interesting to see romantic conventions at play in familiar ways. These novels both fall into the same "chronotope" that Bakhtin identifies: the "adventure-time" of the "adventure novel of ordeal." Essentially, two lovers meet, fall in love, marry, then are separated and a bunch of wild things happen to them, but when they meet again (and they always do), everything is just as it was before they were separated. There is a beginning point and an end point, and whatever happens in the middle is largely irrelevant, though exciting; it doesn't change the characters or their outcomes. Formulaic in similar ways as contemporary "genre fiction," in that you always know the outcome but it's what's in between that is fun and exciting.
December 21, 2020
Possibly the earliest full Romantic novel that has survived Western history comes to us from the scratchy quill of Chariton and it pre-dates but also establishes the crowd-pleasing, happy-ever-after fundamentals of the genre that are still being recycled today. It's a classic boy-meets-girl-they-fall-in-love-and-marry storyline, followed by boy accidently "kills" girl, girl is buried alive, girl is kidnapped by grave robbing pirates and sold into slavery. Not sure if contemporary readers would have considered the melodrama as fun, but I did.
May 18, 2013
It's kind of fun to read what may be just about the earliest examples of novels we have, although I can't say I personally found them all that good.
They shared similar basics: boy sees girl; girl sees boy; both are super-hot, so they fall madly in love. They get married, but fate screws them over and separates them for years, forcing them to endure many trials, tribulations and near-misses before they find their way back to each other. They live happily ever after.
Naturally, everywhere they go, pretty much every single man manages to fall head over heels for our heroines, because they are just that stunning. And naturally, the mere presence of these women makes all other women (including Helen of Troy) look like week-old garbage (I've complained before about our inability to compliment one woman without dissing another, and apparently that goes waaaay back.) because they are just that pretty. Did I mention how pretty they are? Did I also mention that they're smart and resourceful, and have otherwise great personalities? No? I didn't? Yeah, neither did the authors. Again, I understand the time-and-place implications, and I get that these books were written at a time when women really were valued for two things: ability to bear children and ornamentation. But still, it does get somewhat tiresome to read over and over and over about how beautiful they are and how all the men fall in love with them because they're just so damn beautiful. Especially when there are hints of the rest. Anthia, in An Ephesian Story, in particular, comes up with plan after plan to preserve her virtue (not even getting into that) during her separation from Habrocomes, with very little help from anyone else. And while many of the men in these stories fell in love on sight, some of them only fell in love after spending some time with the heroines, which implies to me that their personalities may have played some role in that. But we never talk about that. We just talk about their insane hotness.
An Ephesian Story did at least play around a bit with the gender-related stuff, with Habrocomes occasionally the hottie that some random other person wants (in fact, at the beginning of this story, he was actually presented as the über-attractive one, although we were reassured fairly promptly that Anthia was also beautiful, so yes, she did bring something to the relationship). Even more interestingly, on at least two occasions, the person in question was a dude. And, for the record, these situations were not treated as any more horrifying than the times when a woman wanted him or a man wanted Anthia. It was just the way it was. So there's that.
They shared similar basics: boy sees girl; girl sees boy; both are super-hot, so they fall madly in love. They get married, but fate screws them over and separates them for years, forcing them to endure many trials, tribulations and near-misses before they find their way back to each other. They live happily ever after.
Naturally, everywhere they go, pretty much every single man manages to fall head over heels for our heroines, because they are just that stunning. And naturally, the mere presence of these women makes all other women (including Helen of Troy) look like week-old garbage (I've complained before about our inability to compliment one woman without dissing another, and apparently that goes waaaay back.) because they are just that pretty. Did I mention how pretty they are? Did I also mention that they're smart and resourceful, and have otherwise great personalities? No? I didn't? Yeah, neither did the authors. Again, I understand the time-and-place implications, and I get that these books were written at a time when women really were valued for two things: ability to bear children and ornamentation. But still, it does get somewhat tiresome to read over and over and over about how beautiful they are and how all the men fall in love with them because they're just so damn beautiful. Especially when there are hints of the rest. Anthia, in An Ephesian Story, in particular, comes up with plan after plan to preserve her virtue (not even getting into that) during her separation from Habrocomes, with very little help from anyone else. And while many of the men in these stories fell in love on sight, some of them only fell in love after spending some time with the heroines, which implies to me that their personalities may have played some role in that. But we never talk about that. We just talk about their insane hotness.
An Ephesian Story did at least play around a bit with the gender-related stuff, with Habrocomes occasionally the hottie that some random other person wants (in fact, at the beginning of this story, he was actually presented as the über-attractive one, although we were reassured fairly promptly that Anthia was also beautiful, so yes, she did bring something to the relationship). Even more interestingly, on at least two occasions, the person in question was a dude. And, for the record, these situations were not treated as any more horrifying than the times when a woman wanted him or a man wanted Anthia. It was just the way it was. So there's that.
December 12, 2016
If you are a romantic, read these novels. You will be delighted.
These novels are not what we consider "high" literature. Rather, they are intended as popular fiction — and yet it is important to remember that, in that day, ALL literature was, to a certain extent, "high." The literate audience was comparatively small (next to today), and it was well-educated. Considering the audience to which these novels catered, they are an extremely interesting cultural study. They reveal some of the things a late antique audience looked for in their pleasure reading, and therefore suggest what many romanticised in their everyday culture: the importance of love, loyalty, and family is much more heavily emphasised than it is in "high" classical literature. Homosexual love is described without a blink, and the roles of female characters are equally as prominent as those of the males. Of course everything is HEAVILY dramatised (do NOT consider these as realistic narratives!), but these novels are a fascinating way to insert oneself into the world of a late antique reader.
That said, I thought Callirhoe was a more interesting read. It was extraordinarily dramatic. Everyone FELT everything to an amazing extent. The villains were very satisfyingly villainous and the protagonists were tragically, gratifying, foolishly in love.
These novels are not what we consider "high" literature. Rather, they are intended as popular fiction — and yet it is important to remember that, in that day, ALL literature was, to a certain extent, "high." The literate audience was comparatively small (next to today), and it was well-educated. Considering the audience to which these novels catered, they are an extremely interesting cultural study. They reveal some of the things a late antique audience looked for in their pleasure reading, and therefore suggest what many romanticised in their everyday culture: the importance of love, loyalty, and family is much more heavily emphasised than it is in "high" classical literature. Homosexual love is described without a blink, and the roles of female characters are equally as prominent as those of the males. Of course everything is HEAVILY dramatised (do NOT consider these as realistic narratives!), but these novels are a fascinating way to insert oneself into the world of a late antique reader.
That said, I thought Callirhoe was a more interesting read. It was extraordinarily dramatic. Everyone FELT everything to an amazing extent. The villains were very satisfyingly villainous and the protagonists were tragically, gratifying, foolishly in love.
November 17, 2010
I read Callirhoe for my Classical Traditions class, and it has to be one of my favorite works of literature from ancient Greece. It's the first romance novel; it has tragic love, suicidal tendencies, pirates, the whole shebang. It was unintentionally hilarious and overall just epic. 3 1/2 - 4 stars
April 12, 2020
Callirhoe may be the earliest extant novel, but we don't really know because scholars have found no definite way of dating it more accurately than somewhere within a range of three centuries. It's pretty good, but has many flaws and limitations. As an early try at creating a new genre, it deserves to be forgiven some of its warts, but it did not come into being in a vacuum. Chariton certainly had Homer, Aeschylus and Sophocles as examples of character development, psychololgical depth and dramatic construction, and Callirhoe comes nowhere close to these models. But Callirhoe was probably only intended as a light diversion for the educated idle rich, so to expect it to be in the same league as Homer is like expecting Fifty Shades of Gray to measure up to Jane Austen.
Still the novel has some interesting points. The characters' actions are all reasonably well motivated. Chariton tries to explore their psychologies, and Callirhoe herself is an admirable if somewhat limited character. She understands that her beauty is in many ways more of a curse than a blessing. It makes her more human and sympathetic, though for the rest of us without godlike good looks, it's a big boo hoo. Chaireas is less interesting. The main thing he does before the final two books is to repeatedly threaten suicide.
The Ephesian Story reads like a condensed version of Callirhoe. It has many of the same themes and plot points, but with less detail and development and consequently less interest. It certainly seems to have been written by someone familiar with Callirhoe, though the dating is so uncertain that it is possible, as the introduction explains, that the reverse is true and that Callirhoe is an expanded and improved rip off of The Ephesian Story.
Either way both stories are interesting and fun and worth reading for anyone who likes novels and would like to know more about the origins of the fiction genre that has come to dominate in the modern world.
Still the novel has some interesting points. The characters' actions are all reasonably well motivated. Chariton tries to explore their psychologies, and Callirhoe herself is an admirable if somewhat limited character. She understands that her beauty is in many ways more of a curse than a blessing. It makes her more human and sympathetic, though for the rest of us without godlike good looks, it's a big boo hoo. Chaireas is less interesting. The main thing he does before the final two books is to repeatedly threaten suicide.
The Ephesian Story reads like a condensed version of Callirhoe. It has many of the same themes and plot points, but with less detail and development and consequently less interest. It certainly seems to have been written by someone familiar with Callirhoe, though the dating is so uncertain that it is possible, as the introduction explains, that the reverse is true and that Callirhoe is an expanded and improved rip off of The Ephesian Story.
Either way both stories are interesting and fun and worth reading for anyone who likes novels and would like to know more about the origins of the fiction genre that has come to dominate in the modern world.
December 29, 2018
I read this book because Chariton's Callirhoe and Chaireas is on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. I had never heard of this novel before, so I am glad I read it, because I really enjoyed it.
Just as the ancient Greek plays were often the same story line, Greek novels (of which only 5 exist today), have a very similar story line: beautiful boy meets beautiful girl, they fall in love instantly, and they marry. They instantly have problems because a god is upset that they are so beautiful. They sail across the seas, they are beset by pirates, taken separately, so the couple are then searching for each other. They are taken into slavery or forced into another marriage, but convinced the other is dead. They end up finding each other and live happily ever after.
Just as the ancient Greek plays were often the same story line, Greek novels (of which only 5 exist today), have a very similar story line: beautiful boy meets beautiful girl, they fall in love instantly, and they marry. They instantly have problems because a god is upset that they are so beautiful. They sail across the seas, they are beset by pirates, taken separately, so the couple are then searching for each other. They are taken into slavery or forced into another marriage, but convinced the other is dead. They end up finding each other and live happily ever after.
November 6, 2020
I’ve recently become intrigued and enamored by ancient/classic novels. (I’d previously read Petronius’ Satyricon and Apuleius' Golden Ass.) It’s fascinating to see how these writers handled characters and structure, all the things we take for granted in modern novel writing, and to learn from them. And while they’re imperfect novels, they’re an awful lot of fun. I liked Callirhoe more than An Ephesian Story; Callirhoe made wonderful use of dramatic irony and was just a bit more fleshed out. (Both novels, if written today, have a lot of areas/scenes that could be expanded upon, offering more insight into characters, etc.)
July 2, 2022
A surprisingly fitting read for Pride month especially the second story. The text was easy to understand and yet still retained the Greek storytelling aspect as these two couples are subjected to all sorts of slavery, war, torture, and numerous unwanted marriages.
Callirhoe really steals the show until Chaireas decides to go all John Wick at the end. The second story starts out a little rough but just gets more and more ludicrous until it is wrapped up in a nice little bow.
Honestly though well worth the read if you're looking to read an Ancient Greek novel.
Callirhoe really steals the show until Chaireas decides to go all John Wick at the end. The second story starts out a little rough but just gets more and more ludicrous until it is wrapped up in a nice little bow.
Honestly though well worth the read if you're looking to read an Ancient Greek novel.
December 24, 2023
The Ephesian Story is the shortest and sweetest of the five ancient Greek novels that still survive, and Callirhoe is the one that started it all! The notes are located on the same page with additional technical notes at the end, explaining many intertextual connections that are beyond me. And the translation is so natural that I never once worried I was missing out on something.
February 7, 2019
An Ephesian Story is the exact same story as Callirhoe. The only difference is the male love interests of Habercomes, where Chaereas had none. It was okay, but ancient romance novels were very formulaic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2020
The two novels here were a little too similar, too meh for me but they are interesting for their literary importance and place in history.
June 15, 2020
I LOVE Callirhoe, the empty tomb, the grave robbery, the crucifixion, the love triangle, fast past!
September 28, 2022
OH MY LORDDDDDD the drama is just too much. I had to read this for a class and it was never ending but at least it had a good love story/good ending.
January 9, 2025
We need these writers back
February 5, 2025
God I love a good Greek story
May 8, 2025
Callirhoe 2.5/5
Ephesian Story 3/5 fun nonsense
Ephesian Story 3/5 fun nonsense
Read
June 24, 2015I had a great deal of curiosity about how the ancient Greeks approached the novel form. By modern standards, they seemed to me like romantic comedy, and farcical at that. They reminded me of Shakespeare's comedies of mistaken identities and calamitous coincidences (A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It), although there isn't as much depth of characterization; and the characters are so earnest, I'm not sure that the intention was satire.
Both novels concern a very similar theme: supernaturally beautiful people falling in love, only to be torn apart by fate (but victorious in their noble vow to be faithful to one another in the end). Of the two, I actually enjoyed the lesser known Ephesian Story better. I think that was due in good measure to the fact that the male partner in the duo is pursued by other men in a matter-of-fact manner. No one can help himself or herself from falling in love with the handsome Habrocomes. He can barely contain his own self-admiration. :)
Still, an interesting discovery is that by form, these novels are pretty similar to modern romances, and there are plenty of compelling obstacles thrown in true love's way. The heroines possess a bit more agency than you might expect for the time period. Callirhoe uses her intelligence to keep suitors at bay. Anthia does as well, and she also physically defends herself. Go Anthia! In fact, in both cases, I'd say the heroines keep the story moving forward a lot better than the heroes who tend to brood and be hapless much of the time.
Both novels concern a very similar theme: supernaturally beautiful people falling in love, only to be torn apart by fate (but victorious in their noble vow to be faithful to one another in the end). Of the two, I actually enjoyed the lesser known Ephesian Story better. I think that was due in good measure to the fact that the male partner in the duo is pursued by other men in a matter-of-fact manner. No one can help himself or herself from falling in love with the handsome Habrocomes. He can barely contain his own self-admiration. :)
Still, an interesting discovery is that by form, these novels are pretty similar to modern romances, and there are plenty of compelling obstacles thrown in true love's way. The heroines possess a bit more agency than you might expect for the time period. Callirhoe uses her intelligence to keep suitors at bay. Anthia does as well, and she also physically defends herself. Go Anthia! In fact, in both cases, I'd say the heroines keep the story moving forward a lot better than the heroes who tend to brood and be hapless much of the time.
September 21, 2016
Couldn't find a web page for just "Ephesian Story" so I picked this one. It was good, not nearly as good as Callirhoe however. The idea of Greek novel seems contradictory or impossible, but here they are, and I've heard there are several more.
March 28, 2015
Only read Callirhoe
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews