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Love
and Desire in the Ancient Novel
By Michael Scott
Love is the one of the most represented themes in ancient Greek stories. It surrounds and captivates the readers’ interest in the story. As P.H. Epps observes in Greek Literature in Translation:
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In almost all the novels written in antiquity, love plays a role in some aspect. In the novels journeys come and go, but the love between the hero and heroine that surrounds all the voyages and challenges is forever there to stay.
In some instances, love in ancient novels is not really love (in the sense of two souls bonding together) in the beginning but more lust ("intense sexual desire") than anything. The lust comes from the impeccable beauty that the hero and heroine have been given from the gods. This kind of love is represented in the story of Chaereas and Callirhoe:
Chaereas was walking home from the gymnasium; he was radiant as a star, the flesh of exercise blooming on his bright countenance like gold on silver…at the corner of a narrow street the two [Chaereas and Callirhoe] walked straight into each other…at once they were both smitten with love…beauty had met nobility (Chariton 22).
This beauty always brings trouble and trials that have to be encountered and overcome, while the lovers stay committed to each other, before they can at last live a life of love together.
In almost all the novels there are many voyages that are destroyed by wrecks or overrun by pirates, separating the lovers for long periods of time. In Chaereas and Callirhoe, after the burial of Callirhoe, the pirate Theron breaks into the tomb and takes her away, which sends Chaereas on a journey to find her. Also in Leukippe and Kleitophon and An Ephesian Tale, the hero and heroine leave their homeland on a voyage and suffer terrible shipwrecks that separate them and send them on long journeys to find each other once again. As they tried to find each other, each of the lovers underwent their own trials, resisting others who tried to pursue their love. But they stay true to each other, waiting till the day they would meet again. And when at last they are reunited with one another they come together as though love had overcome all things.
Another form of love that is represented in ancient Greek novels such as Daphnis and Chloe, is a type of love directed by the gods. This is an innocent kind of love. In A Handbook of Greek Literature, H.J. Rose says:
. . . they [grew] up in pastoral surroundings having all the artificial prettiness to be expected…and in due course fall in love with each other, but are too innocent to know what love is…the young lovers are not like most of [the] heroes and heroines, simply puppets, [but are] swayed by emotions so strong as to resemble a violent illness (Rose 416).
Even thought this may seem to be the perfect kind of love, as in all the other love stories in Greek literature, Daphnis and Chloe too had trials to overcome. However, their trails were not as life threatening nor were they separated for such long periods, they instead were much gentler with no voyages to overcome. This style of love was portrayed by ancient authors as more common for the lower classes, where as other novels portray that the elite fell more into lust and desire for beauty.
Homosexuality plays a role in every ancient novel. The favorite hangout of young boys and men was the gymnasium. At the gymnasium, young boys looked up to the older stronger men. In An Ephesian Tale and Chaereas and Callirhoe, Habrocomes and Chaereas were represented as being the most admired and desired of all the men. Charles Beye states in Ancient Greek Literature and Society, “Homosexuality, however, was not reprehensible or ridiculous, unless it was coupled with effeminacy” also “ respectable aristocratic and monied males sought the company of handsome teenage boys. Emotional, intellectual, and physical ties grew strong… this relationship was the most serious in a man’s life” (Beye 106-107). In antiquity it seems that homosexuality was a very open subject among all of the people of this time and was totally acceptable for an older man to take a young man to be his own lover. “Male homosexuality, it sometimes seems, carried an ideological message of coversation…male homosexuality also reinforced the aristocratic emphasis on exclusiveness…partners in anal intercourse is tamed and bonded in a certain sense” (Beye 108). The girls in this period were not allowed to be seen in public, so therefore “it is no wonder that teenage boys became objects of sexual interest” (Beye 108). This behavior in antiquity was very accepted, but after a man reached a certain age or got married there was not any more room for homosexuality in his life.
In the ancient Greek novels, many writers have emphasized the force of love. Charles Beye writes that:
It has been suggested that love became so important…because as the frames of reference for the individual faded, as the support system of polis, religion, society failed, as the individual increasingly lost a sense of scale in his life, sensual experiences alone continued to validate him and make him feel a sense of self (Beye 275).
Love has so many different ways of showing itself. With Daphnis and Chloe it was an innocent love that built on a slow progressive feeling but with Habrocomes and Anthia, Leukippe and Kleitophon, and Chaereas and Callirhoe it was a lust for beauty that ended in love. But all in all, love is still love. In most of the ancient romances, love stories both entertain and express the way life was at that point in time. They show the way life was, because they focus on real people as well as gods and goddesses, to make the story all the more captivating.
Bibliography
Beye, Charles Rowan. Ancient Greek Literature and Society. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1987: 106-108, 275.
Epps, Preston Herschel. Greek Literature in Translation. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1948: 625
Reardon, B.P. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkley-Los Angeles-London: University Of California Press, 1989: 22
Rose, H.J. A Handbook of Greek Literature. London: Methuen & Co. LTD, 1961: 416