Callirhoe (novel)

Callirhoe (or Chaereas and Callirhoe (Ancient Greek: Τῶν περὶ Χαιρέαν καὶ Καλλιρρόην), this being an alternate and slightly less well attested title in the manuscript tradition) is an Ancient Greek novel by Chariton, that exists in one somewhat unreliable manuscript from the 13th century. It was not published until the 18th century and remained dismissed until the twentieth. It nevertheless gives insight into the development of ancient prose fiction and Hellenic culture within the Roman Empire. It is one of five largely complete Ancient Greek novels extant.

Quotes

• “Her knees and heart were unstrung,” as Homer says, for she did not know to whom she was being married. Immediately she became speechless, and a blackness spread over her eyes and she nearly fainted. To those that saw her, this appeared to be her modesty. But as soon as her maids had dressed her, the crowd at her doors went away, and the parents of the bridegroom brought him to the girl. And so Chaereas ran forward and kissed her, and Callirhoe, recognizing her lover, became more stately and lovely than ever, as a flickering lamp again flares up when oil is poured in.
  • Book I, 1 (tr. Warren E. Blake); cp. Odyssey, IV, 703

• There was a cunning rogue named Theron who followed a life of crime upon the sea. He associated with freebooters whose craft rode at anchor in the harbors ostensibly for ferrying: but Theron led them as a pirate crew. Chancing to be present at the funeral he ogled the gold and when he had gone to bed that night, he could not sleep. “Am I to risk my life,” he said to himself, “in fighting the sea and murdering the living for paltry gains when I can become rich from one dead girl? Let the die be cast! I will not miss this chance of profit. But whom shall I recruit for the operation? Think carefully, Theron. Who of those you know is fit for the job? Zenophanes of Thurii? He is intelligent, but cowardly. Menon of Messene? He is brave, but untrustworthy.”
  In his mind he examined each one, like a money-changer testing coins, and rejected many; but some he considered suitable. At dawn he ran down to the harbor and sought them all out. Some he found in the brothels and some in the taverns, a suitable army for such a general.
  • Book I, 7 (tr. G. P. Goold); cp. Suetonius, Caesar, 32: iacta alea est

Translations

• Anonymous, The Loves of Chæreas and Callirrhoe, 2 vols. (London: printed for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1764)

• Warren E. Blake, Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe (University of Michigan Press, 1939)

• B. P. Reardon, "Chariton: Chæreas and Callirhoe", in Collected Ancient Greek Novels (University of California Press, 1989), pp. 17–124

• G. P. Goold, Chariton: Callirhoe, LCL 481 (Harvard University Press, 1995)

• Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Two Novels from Ancient Greece (Hackett Publishing Co. Inc., 2010)