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 the five largely complete Ancient Greek novels that still exist today.

Evidence of fragments of the text on papyri suggests that the novel may have been written in the mid 1st century AD, making it the oldest surviving complete ancient prose romance and the only one to make use of apparent historiographical features for background verisimilitude and structure, in conjunction with elements of Greek mythology, as Callirhoë is frequently compared to Aphrodite and Ariadne and Chaereas to numerous heroes, both implicitly and explicitly.^[1] As the fiction takes place in the past, and historical figures interact with the plot, Callirhoe may be understood as the first historical novel; it was later imitated by Xenophon of Ephesus and Heliodorus of Emesa, among others.