Chariton of Aphrodisias and the invention of the Greek love novel

Abstract

The best known variety of the ancient novel - sometimes identified with the ancient novel tout court - is the Greek love novel. The question of its origins has intrigued scholars for centuries and has been the focus of a great deal of research. Stefan Tilg proposes a new solution to this ancient puzzle by arguing for a personal inventor of the genre, Chariton of Aphrodisias, who wrote the first Greek (and, with that, the first European) love novel, Narratives about Callirhoe, in the mid-first century AD. Tilg's conclusion is drawn on Show more