Major Authors Greek (A-E) and Roman (F-H)

The trial has all Babylon agog at Callirhoe's beauty, and taking sides. In a dramatic debate, conducted according to proper rhetorical procedure, Dionysius accuses Mithridates of forging the letter and attempting to seduce another man's wife. With the definitive establishment of the Roman Empire, and especially after the troubled Julio-Claudian period, there came to the Greek world a degree of pros- perity that led to a period of renewed self-confidence and cultural self-consciousness. In short, Chariton's so-called background amounts rather to a general evocation of fourth-century history than to accurate exploitation of a given historical situation. Heliodoros is a highly literary writer. Even in the relatively straightforward narrative sections of the novel, he uses a wide range of unusual but evocative vocabulary and his sentences, while made up of elements that are simple enough in themselves, tend to be long and complex. Keywords: Chariton; Dionysius; Greek world; Heliodoros; Roman Empire

Ancient history · Classical Antiquity Studies · History