Egypt Ethiopia And The Greek Novel

There is no region more central to the ancient Greek romance novel than the thousand or so miles stretching from Alexandria to ancient Ethiopia that comprise the Nile River Valley. Yet, for all its importance, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Greek Novel: Between Representation and Resistance is the first book-length study of how this region is depicted in a literary genre whose fictional tales of love, travel, separation, and reunion flourished during the Roman imperial period. Employing approaches from Literary Studies, Classics, and Egyptology, Robert Cioffi explores the Nile River Valley in the ancient Greek romance novel through two fundamentally related concepts: representation and resistance. On the one hand, these novels develop an image of Egypt and Ethiopia that is in close dialogue with the Greco-Roman ethnographic tradition, characterized by extraordinary marvels such as grand cities, ancient religious rites, and a dizzying array of animals—some real, some imaginary, and some so incredible as to seem make-believe. On the other hand, this depiction often figures Egypt and Ethiopia as sites of resistance, revolt, and rebellion against—or political, cultural, and religious alternatives to—an array of dominant imperial powers in the region, from the Persians to the Romans. This dual reading enriches our understanding of these texts' relationship with the real and imagined frontiers of Roman political, military, and intellectual power. It also raises a broader set of questions—some literary, some cultural-historical—about the interrelation of humans, their environment, and the topographies of cultural identity in the Roman empire.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The central love-struck characters are Charicles, the beautiful daughter of the Ethiopian queen, and Theagenes, a Thessalian aristocrat. The story unfolds with all the twists and devices any writer would employ today, with the added attractions of dreams, oracles, and exotic locales in the ancient Mediterranean and Africa."--BOOK JACKET.

Prose fiction, although not always associated with classical antiquity, flourished in the early Roman Empire, not only in realistic Latin novels but also and indeed principally in the Greek ideal romance of love and adventure. Enormously popular in the Renaissance, these stories have been less familiar in later centuries. Translations of the Greek stories were not readily available in English before B.P. Reardon’s first appeared in 1989.Nine complete stories are included here as well as ten others, encompassing the whole range of classical themes: romance, travel, adventure, historical fiction, and comic parody. A foreword by J.R. Morgan examines the enormous impact this groundbreaking collection has had on our understanding of classical thought and our concept of the novel.