Morales, H., Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

Rimell, V., Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

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At the American Philological Association Meeting in New Orleans, 3-6 January 2003, there will be a special panel of five speakers addressing the subject, "The Ancient Novel Since Perry." The texts of the five speakers will be available on the Ancient Narrative web site after 15 November 2002, and those planning to attend the APA meeting in New Orleans should read the papers before the meeting. The speakers will only summarize the main points of their papers at the APA, and the session will be devoted to discussions, questions and answers. The organizer hopes to make this session different from the usual APA sessions. The program will be as follows

• G. Schmeling, Organizer
• B.P. Reardon, "To Assess Ancient Romance"
• E.L. Bowie, "A Chronology for the Greek Novels"
• S.J. Harrison, "Constructing Apuleius: the Emergence of a Literary Artist"
• M. Zimmerman, "Latinizing the Novel: Greek ‘Models' and Roman (Re-) creations"
• S. Panayotakis, "Apollonius on Trial: Intertextuality and Characterization in The Story of Apollonius"

Alain Billault and Antonio Stramaglia will start the questioning.

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Michael Paschalis and Stavros Frangoulidis announce the second Rethymnon International Conference on the Ancient Novel (RICAN). The theme of this conference is "Metaphor in the Novel and the Novel as Metaphor." The conference is sponsored by the University of Crete, Department of Philology, Division of Classics, and will be held in Rethymnon, Crete on 19-20 May 2003.

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The Society for the Study of Narrative announces its 18th annual conference, 27-29 March 2003, University of California, Berkeley. More information is available from www.vanderbilt.edu/narrative/ or from www.narrative-conf.ucdavis.edu.

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Niklas Holzberg would like to express his regret at having allowed a rather sweeping statement about another book on the ancient novel to have crept into the recently published, revised, and updated edition of his Der antike Roman. There, on p. 74, Niklas writes that the theory advanced in James O'Sullivan's book Xenophon of Ephesus (Berlin 1995) was "unanimously rejected" by other scholars. This is, as Niklas now acknowledges, not a fair representation of reactions to the book, which in fact aroused a great deal of interest and sparked off lively discussion. He would like to take this opportunity to apologize for this generalization and to point out to all that the very fact that James O'Sullivan's book is considered in the Einführung - in a work, then, that has to be compact and therefore highly selective - does mean that Niklas wanted, in a sense, to recommend it as essential reading.

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• Richard Hunter, "Telling Tales: Narrative Exchange in the Ancient Novel."
• David Scourfield, "Girl Power and the Greek Novel."
• Brian Arkins, "The Roman Novel in Irish Literature."
• E.L. Bowie, "Rape, Violence, Gender and Story-Telling in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe."
• Maeve O'Brien, "Apuleius Metamorphoses: the Geography of Lucius' Journey."

Niall Slater, "Petronius and Priapus Come to the New York Classical Club."

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Panel on the Ancient Novel.

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Report on the Papers on the Ancient Novel and associated topics presented at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association, 3-6 January 2002.

Jean Alvares

At the 2002 annual meeting of the American Philological Association quite a few papers , in various sessions, were presented concerning the Greek and Roman novel and associated genres and topics. The papers were of good quality and the discussion was often lively, testifying to the importance of these areas of study and their promising future in a changing environment of Classical studies.

One entire section (#18) on January 4 was devoted to the novel, during which five papers were presented. Daniel B. McGlathery's "Cave Canem: Cynic Tropes in Petronius" discussed the use of Cynic themes and motifs by Petronius, who employed the satire-form developed by the Cynic Menippus. In the Cena Trimalchio, who has a dog carved on his tomb as did the Cynic Diogenes, is rather like a failed Cynic king who rules over an inverted Saturalian world. Both Cynics and Trimalchio had contempt for philosophers, and Trimalchio's gross habits (e.g. public urination) recall the Cynics' notorious contempt for conventional manners. Eumpolpus' demand that his body be eaten (Sat. 141) recalls Cynic justifications of cannibalism. The underworld visit is another Cynic literary trope, and, as Bodel showed, the Cena is type of underworld, which Encolpius, an Odysseus figure, visits. In fact Odysseus, the wandering, shameless beggar was a favorite Cynic figure. The Satyrica's metaphor of the world as a stage was also associated with the Cynic writer Bion.

Vicky Rimell, in "Losing the Plot: Narration and Intoxication in Petronius' Satyricon," demonstrates how the characters' intoxication and proclamations of drunkenness create considerable interpretive problems. At Quartilla's brothel and during Trimalchio's Cena figures report events experienced while intoxicated; at the brothel Encolpius and Ascyltos are forced to drink the aphrodisiac satyrion, which makes Encolpius lose the thread of the story (20.5). His account is accordingly disjointed; the entire Satyricon seems composed in such a spirit of intoxication, which serves as a metaphor for artistic license; intoxication also introduces an element of uncertainty, danger and mystery. A pose of drunkenness is also a device used by several characters. The late-arriving Habinnas employs this pose, as did Alcibiades in the Symposium, although Habinnas is quite articulate and his speaking effective. Slaves pretend to start a drunken brawl as part of Trimalchio's plan to surprise guests with another course (Sat. 70.4-9). Such scenes make readers question other proclamations of intoxication. On leaving the feast Encolpius is terrified by a real dog exactly where earlier he'd been frightened by a dog's image. Was the second dog too an image - or was the earlier image a real dog? The Satyricon makes its readers wonder exactly what is real and whether, rather like the Satyricon's drunken narrators, they have been made drunk, not by wine but by this hallucinatory text itself.

In "The Robbers' Cave: the Significance of an ecphrasis in Apuleius' Metamorphoses," Karen Gunterman focused on the ecphrasis of the robbers' cave in the Metamorphoses 4.6 and its use as a rhetorical device. Unlike the ecphrasis of Actaeon's statue, this passage purportedly describes the real world, yet the features described seem to have little connection with the surrounding narrative of the robbers. The tower is particularly out of place, since the robbers do no even use it for their watches (4.6), and few details relate to subsequent action. Lucius must assert (4.6) that this is robbers' atria. The details of the ecphrasis seem derived from "sacral-idyllic" scenes in Roman wall painting, such as are observed in examples from Boscetracase, Ostia and Tascia. Apuleius' readers would have found humor in the incongruity of an idyllic landscape being associated with an ominous lair of robbers. Philosophical considerations are always important for interpreting Apuleius, and here one should consider allusions to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave." By providing an illusionary description of the robbers' cave, Apuleius alludes to the Platonic doctrine of the world we see as a misleading image of reality, and indeed here Apuleius himself provides a narrative equivalent to this visual illusion.

Edmund Cueva in "Who's the Woman on the Bull?: Achilles Tatius 1.4.2-3," considered the opening ecphrasis of Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon, noting that most extant manuscripts have Selene, not Europa, as the lady pictured on the back of the bull. Gaselee and others have adopted Europa against the manuscripts because the myth's erotic themes would then connect to the erotic themes of Clitophon's tale. But Vilborg and Plepelitis offer good reasons for "Selene" as the proper reading. Selene is the lectio difficilior, and Selene on a bull is an image with connections to Phoenicia, where Clitophon comes from. Aspects of Leucippe's character are also vital for identifying this woman. Selene was commonly associated with witches, and in several passages Leucippe is given the attributes of a witch. Near the novel's opening Leucippe uses magic to charm away a bee sting, and at the end she becomes Lacaena, whom Melite asks for herbs (which she picks by moonlight, 5.26.12) so that by magic Clitophon might sleep with her.

Thomas Ephraim Lyte, in "A Narratological Argument for the Authorship of the Spurcum Additamentum," noted that objections to Apuleian authorship were often based on moralizing, while the passage's Greekisms and its supposed borrowing of music terminology from Boethius are inconclusive proof at best. Indeed, the passage fits well with Apuleius' overall narrative strategy. Detailed knowledge of animal behavior was at that time common. Lucius' known status as an unreliable narrator is further illustrated by his frequent inability, after his transformation, fully to see himself exhibiting behavior and having experiences typical for an ass. Apuleius often juxtaposes the narrator's deluded viewpoint and that of a more knowing reader and often presents graphic portrayals of emphatic male sexuality (e.g. 3.24). The Additamentum conforms to these stylistic tendencies. The deluded Lucius sees his episode with the matrona (10.20-22) as something tender and romantic; the Additamentum provides an Apuleian undercutting of this perspective by showing the act's similarities to the mating of a donkey with a mare, which Apuleius' reader would have recognized. The matrona plays the part of the "handler" in a breeding barn, who used wine and even applied ointment to prepare the animal, just as Lucius is presented wine and anointed in a specially prepared chamber, and even has his genitals washed, as was also done to animals. These arguments make the case for the Apuleian authorship much stronger.

In a section on the reception of ancient texts (#41) Kathryn Chew in "Theorizing the Ancient Novel," pointed out how the designation of "low" vs. "high" literature is meaningless for describing the literary world of the Greek novelists, where literacy was confined to the elite, who alone could purchase substantial numbers of books. Thus literature necessarily reflected their interests and ideologies. While the ancient novels were not "popular," they were more "personal" in their orientation toward the interests and needs of private individuals. But the personal is not necessarily the popular. Further, as a result of their non-canonical status, the novels had no tradition of representing any particular group or class, a fact in harmony with then-current concepts of cultural identity linked to education and behavior, no notion of origin. This innate adaptability helps explain why this form was later adopted by Christian writers for what was truly more "popular" literature. It was further suggested that, after the Christians' widespread adoption of this form for hagiographic and other writings, it became so associated with them that it could no longer be used as a form for erotic romance, and thus the Greek novel died.

In the same section, in "Two Horns, Three Religions. How Alexander the Great ended up in the Quran," Rebecca Edwards demonstrated how the Dhul-Qarnain ("two-horned one") of the Quran (18th Surah) is certainly Alexander the Great and how this could be. By the time of the Quran's composition there was widespread belief in a mythical Alexander, a pious follower of the one true god, who had built a wall in Asia to shut out Gog and Magog. This process had begun earlier, with Alexander's identification with Ammon and Plutarch's description of various miracles associated with Alexander's life and claim to divinity. Jewish writers likewise rewrote Alexander as one who sacrificed to Yaweh and was part of a divine plan against the Persians. In the Alexander Romance the horned Ammon is presented as Alexander's father and later the story of the building of the great wall was added to this romance. This story is evident in a sixth century Syrian text attributed to Jacob of Serugh, in which Alexander is a pious Christian commanded by God to build the wall. Later Arabic literature and art testifies to the popularity of this mythical Alexander, most notably Iskandarnamah, which makes Alexander a brother of Darius who visits the land of the fairies, the Zinj and the realm of Gog and Magog. It is from these traditions that Mohammed would have learned of Alexander.

Another section (#53) was devoted to translations of Classical texts. There Gerald Sandy in "Jacques Amyot and the Epopée Héroïque in Prose. The Savant Translateur," showed how Jacques Amyot, in his desire to make a good translation of Heliodorus, was forced, by his discovery of a better text, to become an innovative philologist and text critic as well as translator. Further, the publication of Alessandro de' Pazzi's translation of Aristotle's Poetics in 1536, two years after Amyot's translation, led Amyot, influenced by Heliodorus' use of Homer's beginning in medias res, to see the Ethiopian Story as an example of the epopée héroïque. Scaliger and Tasso, despite the fact that the central theme of the Ethiopian Story was romantic, nevertheless saw in Amyot's Helidorus a model worth imitating for creating heroic epic, as did the Spanish literary theorists Pinciano and Gracián. Thus Amyot's Helidorus became an influential model for the epopée héroïque in both prose and verse.

Federica Ciccolela de Luigi, "When Dialogue Becomes Idyll. A Seventeenth Century Italian Translation of Lucian's Dialogue of the Sea Gods," considered one of the recently recovered Italian translation of Greek and Latin texts found in Michelangelo Torcigliani's Echo cortese (Venice 1680). The erotic and satirical nature of these translations were out of touch with Counter-Reformation Rome and the Papal Court's increased demand for high moral content for artistic productions. Torcigliani's choice of texts and his departure from their original literary genres in his translations can be seen as an expression of opposition to these trends. While Lucian was then generally interpreted as a model of seriousness, his Dialogues of the Sea Gods with their burlesque tone was often neglected. Torcigliani translated these prose works into high literary poetry, using different meters to distinguish the ethos of various characters, producing continuous variations of tone, content and form in order to amaze the reader, creating a "polyphonic idyll," a genre more popular in the previous century. This fact coupled with the sensuality of Torcigliani's style, made him less successful than his achievement warranted.

Thomas E. Jenkins' paper, "An American ‘Classic.' Hillman and Cullen's Dialogues of the Courtesans," concerns a privately printed edition of Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans, whose translator, A.L. Hillman, intended, in translating this dialogue, to make it more "frank" and "natural" and thus appealing to a coterie of gay men involved in progressive politics in the late 1920s in New York. These dialogues were illustrated by the progressive Art Deco artist Charles Cullen, who had previously illustrated the African-American poet Countee Cullen's Copper Sun. Cullen's illustrations (often departing significantly in tone from Lucian's text) are full of sensual nudity, visual quotations from Greek art, and highly suggestive poses (including an orgy scene), suggesting that Lucian's text became the excuse for a presentation of frank erotica. Yet Cullen also was using the Classics and their prestige at a time of changes in cultural attitudes toward sex to influence the direction of that change. (For an image of one of the illustrations to the Dialogues shown during the presentation, see http://www.trinity.edu/tjenkins/luteplayer2.jpg).

Deborah Roberts in "Petronius and the Vulgar Tongue: Colloquialism, Obscenity, Translation," examined a variety of translations of similar passages of Petronius by Peck, Lowe, Heseltine, Mitchell, Wilde (as Sebastian Melmoth), Firebaugh, Lindsay, Arrowsmith, Sullivan, Walsh, Branham/Kinney and Ruden and these authors' use of colloquialism in their translations. Such colloquialism is most apparent in the speech of the Petronius' freedmen, but the rendition of such speech in an English translation varies widely according to the targeted audience and the varied purposes of the translators. For example, some translators emphasis the erotic and obscene, or simply wish to make the text more accessible to a non-scholarly audience. Such comparisons vividly demonstrate the interplay between changes in cultural taste and the art of translating.

The program for the 2002 meetings of the APA can be found at http://www.apaclassics.org/AnnualMeeting/02mtg/program.html, where abstracts of many of the presentations are available in HTML format.

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Jean Alvares

The program of the ninety-eighth annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle-West and South contained several papers of considerable interest to scholars of the ancient novel and ancient narrative. The entire CAMWS program can be found at http://www.rmc.edu/~gdaugher/tx02/prog.html. Below is a brief summary of the papers which most directly concerned these topics.

On April 6th an entire session of papers was devoted to the ancient novel. In the first paper, "Abduction and Elopement in the Greek Novel," Joan Burton discussed an important difference between the earlier Greek and the later Byzantine novels: in the classical Greek novels only rogue suitors ever violently abduct the heroine, and never the hero; the abduction which Theagenes undertakes in Heliodorus is feigned. But in the twelfth century Byzantine novels several such acts do occur, most notably the hero of Theodore Prodromus' Rhodanthe and Dosikles violently abducts the heroine without her permission. Such aggressive action by the hero is far removed from the relative equality of action found in the earlier Greek romances; in some ways such abductions hearken back to the rape of heroines by protagonists in New Comedy. But these abductions must be appreciated in the context of the control which the Byzantine state tried to exert over marriage and the fact that the audience for this novel was Christian, not pagan. Further, the Byzantine government, since marriage was an important component of power relations within society, upheld laws on abduction marriages which were considerably harsher than those held by the Orthodox church. Such behavior makes Prodromus' hero more a figure of rebellion than his equivalent in the earlier Greek novels.

In "The Spectacle of Genre in Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis" Zara M. Torlone argues against seeing the Satyrica as a "realistic" work in any way. The Cena, far from being realistic, is instead a collection of fragments from various literary genres, purposely juxtaposed in order to create jarring effects. Just as Trimalchio's cooks fool the guests by making one food look like another, so Petronius mixes conventions of genre to create hybrid concoctions that both scandalize and entertain. This process of mixing is thematized at various points during the Cena, most notably in the description of the original or Corinthian bronze, which is made by melting together bronze, silver and gold, being ex omnibus in unum, nec hoc nec illud (50.3-7), as is the Satyrica. Likewise Trimalchio has his Greek flute players perform Latin tunes and his Greek comic players perform Atellan farces. Petronius means to shock with this mixing, as Trimalchio's players shock Encolpius by their mixing of genres and conventions.

In "Latrones in Apuleius' Metamorphoses Books 1-3" Katherine Panagakos shows how Lucius' interactions with robbers parallel his encounters with witches. As in Book One, Lucius hears stories about witches (Meroë, Panthia), so he also listens to stories about bandits. Stories of and encounters with witches and bandits add to the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of the novel. Later both witches and robbers become more central, as events bring Lucius into more direct contact with both groups, especially in his magic-induced encounter with the supposed robbers, who turned out to be magically animated wineskins; note how in that episode Lucius had ignored clear warnings about both magic and witchcraft. Finally Lucius becomes the victim of both groups: of witches because of his metamorphosis into an ass, and of robbers when he is finally abducted. Further, witches and robbers are parallel creatures in the way they steal and otherwise prey upon people, as the witches who rob the corpse guarded by Telephron.

Michael A. McGinn in "The Golden Ass: A Hitchhiker's Guide to Enlightenment" starts from the well known abundance of Platonic images in Apuleius' Metamorphoses and examines to what extent Apuleius styles his text as something of an autobiographical account of the soul's enlightenment. One indicator of this possible reading is that Augustine believes that the story of Lucius' transformation might actually have happened (see de Civ. Dei 18.18), and this enables him to read the novel as if it were autobiographical. The Confessions are used for further comparison, especially as relates to the verb induo (8.12.43): induite dominum Iesum Christum, and it is argued that Apuleius' concept of transformations in the Metamorphoses must be seen in the light of this more "spiritual" use of induo to refer to a type of spiritual metamorphosis.

In "Lucius' Problematic Roman Career in Apuleius' Metamorphoses" Jean Alvares considered what, in terms of cultural negotiation, it might have meant for the North African-Roman Hellenophile Apuleius to create his representation of Lucius, a Greek of august traditional lineage (with decent from Plutarch) who abandons traditional Greek religion for Isis-worship and his Greek homeland for a Roman career. This novel was written at a time of increasing opportunities for non-Romans, opportunities sought by many Greeks, who also strove to promote Greek culture. Lucius and his career illustrate the conflicted position of many Greeks due to these conditions. Lucius combines ambition, careerism and a propensity to self-delusion. He earlier idealized the powers of magic, ignoring clear warning signs. He similarly idealizes Roman power. The Metamorphoses' world is too chaotic for family and national bonds to provide safety; in joining the Isis cult Lucius moves to the center of spiritual power, as in moving to Rome he joins the safer center of worldly power. Yet when Lucius arrives as an advena in Rome, the malevolorum disseminationes he hears can be seen as arising not only because he is a pastophor for Isis, but because he is, to Romans, another all-too-clever graeculus. The novel ends on a note of ambiguity about both Lucius choice of religion and career.

D. Scott Van Horn was not able to present his paper "CIL VI.3719 and The Satyrica: has Eumolpus Been Found?"

In another session which was otherwise devoted to Greek comedy, David D. Leitao presented a fascinating paper, "Lucian's Pregnant Moonmen, or the Travails of a Fractured Body." One of the most bizarre aspects of Lucian's Moonmen is that they are all male and must plant their testicles to get children from a phallus-tree. But these children are born as corpses, and artificial genitals must be provided. Lucian undercuts and explores the complicated problematics of notions of male birth, which is an act of male power, but also one that feminizes the body by requiring penetration, and thus must be given special protections. Further, a common butt of Lucian's satire is the tendency for philosophers (such as Socrates) to engage in homosexuality and pederasty under the guise of philosophic practice and the education of young men. While Lucian's lunar society recalls some aspects of the utopian speculations of philosophers, his depiction of the Moonmen's bizarre male reproduction hints at the unnaturalness and sterility of such philosophic practice. Finally it was suggested that this imperfect process of birth reproduces Lucian's own fractured, artificial and imperfect relationship to the Greek tradition to which he made himself heir.

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