593
All three completely preserved Byzantine novels – namely Theodorus Prodromus’s Rodanthe
and Dosicles, Nicetas Eugenianus’s Drosilla and Charicles, and Eustathius Macrembolites’s Hysmine
and Hysminias – abound with more or less direct references to ancient literary products, but a lot
of such allusions, rather citations, are to be found especially in the second mentioned novel. The
fact of the matter here is a speech of more than 200 verses from the 6
th
book of the Eugenianus’s
novel, delivered by a somewhat rude character (Callidemus) in an attempt to seduce the novel’s
heroine: in view of that he uses, as arguments in persuasion, a wide repertoire of famous classical
and hellenistic love-stories, whose enumeration assumes a comical effect, having in mind that the
speech was devised as formal in keeping with prescriptive rhetoric. The most interesting feature
in this passage is that here, besides Homer, Plato, Musaeus and Theocritus, he is referring to, or
directly citing from, two ancient, so-called sophistic novels, originating from the late imperial
Roman period, namely Heliodorus’s Theagenes and Chariclea and Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe,
whose protagonists and some of their antagonists are explicitly used as examples whose purpose is
to persuade, in a sort of interplay with the older tradition of the genre.
For this occasion we shall attempt to make a connection between this treatment of the classical
novelistic genre with other middle Byzantine literary-historical and literary-critical evaluations of some
representatives of the same genre by such important figures as Michael Psellus in his essay on Heliodorus
and Achilles Tatius, but also by some less influential authors, such as Philip “the Philosopher“ in his
allegorical interpretation of the Aethiopica (if we assume his identification with Philagathus of Cerami
and thereby date this opusculum back to the 12
th
c.). As for Longus’s novel, on the other hand, it is much
more difficult to find the reason for this procedure, having in mind that Daphnis and Chloe was far
less commented on and did not nearly enjoy the fortune of the manuscript tradition of Heliodorus or
Achilles Tatius; but it seems plausible that the intertextual use of Longus’s text by Eugenianus depends
on the overall impression that bucolic atmosphere dominates in Drosilla and Charicles. Finally, it does
not seem unreasonable that Eugenianus’s heavy relying on some themes and motives from Theocritus
reflects the beginning of renewed Byzantine writers’ interest in pastoral poetry, whose influence will in
the following centuries rise primarily as a result of its reading in an allegorical key.
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