Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 45 (2005) 75–90 © 2005 GRBS A Novelist Writing “History”: Longus’ Thucydides Again Stephen M. Trzaskoma HE THUCYDIDEAN COLORING of Longus’ prologue to Daphnis and Chloe has attracted a good deal of scholarly attention.1 In 1998 I first suggested that a further con- nection between the two authors had escaped scrutiny.2 This was a deliberate attempt by Longus to create at the beginning of his third book an echo of the famous Mytilenean debate between Diodotus and Cleon in Thucydides’ history (3.37–48), a view that I now set forth here in print. E. Cueva has since made a related point by expanding upon an observation of J.- R. Vieillefond,3 good evidence, I think, that something Thu- cydidean lies beyond the well-plowed ground of the prologue. In 1987 Vieillefond could write of the connections between Longus and Thucydides in the novel’s second and third books, “on n’a pas jusqu’ici porté suffisamment d’attention.” But 1 G. Valley, Über den Sprachgebrauch des Longus (diss. Uppsala 1926) 102, attributes the initial connection of Longus’ kt∞ma terpnÒn (pr. 3) with Thucydides’ famous kt∞ma §w ée¤ (1.22.4) to J. Boissonade, whose notes are incorporated into E. Seiler, Longi Pastoralia2 (Leipzig 1843). The connection appears now to be universally accepted by critics. 2 See S. Trzaskoma, A Commentary to Daphnis & Chloe Book 3 (diss. Univ. Illinois 1998) 24–28. I presented an expanded version of this idea, incor- porating material from the second book, that same year in a talk (“Longus, Thucydides and their Mytilenean Debates”) at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association. I am grateful to that audience for its questions and to the anonymous referee of this journal for helpful comments on the presentation of my argument. 3 E. Cueva, “Longus and Thucydides: A New Interpretation,” GRBS 39 (1998) 429–440. He provides a bibliography for the Thucydidean allusion at 429 n.1. His starting point comes from J.–R. Vieillefond, ed., Longus: Pastorales (Paris 1987) cxix, which I discuss below. T 76 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” Vieillefond himself went a long way toward redressing this situation by providing an outline of Longus’ narrative here. The beginning of the third book ends a larger complex that starts in 2.12 with the arrival of the vacationing Methymnaean youths. By 2.19 Mytilene and Methymna are at war, just as they are in the third book of Thucydides and “A priori [Longus] ne pouvait par ignorer ce texte.” Whether he could or not, he certainly did not. Vieillefond lists several points of contact: the wars come to abrupt but amicable ends; the wars are fought by land and sea; there are landings, episodes of pillage, and so on. Altogether, then, Longus presents something like a pastiche of the historian, though as to its ultimate significance Vieillefond remains agnostic, calling it “peut-être inconscient, peut-être ironique, en tout cas amusant.” The sheer number of verbal reminiscences of the historian (Vieillefond adds several to those collected earlier by Valley) in this section of the novel seems unlikely to be unconscious. One of Vieillefond’s finds has special significance, par- ticularly in light of his establishment that Thucydides is clearly in the forefront of Longus’ mind as he narrates the war be- tween Methymna and Mytilene. At 2.19.1 Longus writes of Daphnis, after he is rescued from the Methymnaean youths by his rural compatriots, tÒte m¢n dØ parå tosoËton Dãfniw ∑lye kakoË. Vieillefond compares Thucydides 3.49.4 parå tosoËton m¢n ≤ MutilÆnh ∑lye kindÊnou, describing the narrow escape of the Mytileneans from destruction with the arrival of the Athenian trireme carrying the orders to spare them. Thus one of the most dramatic scenes in Thucydides is brought to mind. Vieillefond’s introduction (cxix) explicitly mentions both pas- sages in Longus and the Thucydidean reference, but a note ad loc., to which we are referred, does not pursue the matter. Cueva’s article nicely ties these observations together. Lon- gus uses a Thucydidean tag to describe Daphnis’ escape from the rough justice of the Methymnaeans. That tag in its original context describes the deliverance of the Mytileneans from Athenian justice. Therefore, Longus intended us to read the debate that occurs between Daphnis and the Methymnaean youths at 2.15–16 as parallel with the debate in Thucydides. In fact, the only parallel Cueva adduces is the presence of the STEPHEN M. TRZASKOMA 77 theme of pity in both. Diodotus and Cleon both reject o‰ktow as a rationale for deciding Athenian foreign policy, but Philetas, the rustic serving as a judge in the debate in Longus, is specifically moved by the pity Daphnis elicits (2.17.1 toÊtoiw §pedãkrusen ı Dãfniw ka‹ efiw o‰kton Íphgãgeto toÁw égro¤kouw polÊn) and declares the boy innocent. In a context so full of Thucydidean reminiscences surely there can be little doubt that Vieillefond has found and Cueva elaborated on an intentional juxtaposition designed to recall the third book of Thucydides. But the theme of pity is a minor one in the Mytilenean debate and its presence in Longus is just as likely to evoke memories not only of the common motif of pity swaying juries, but more specifically of the many cases in the novels where it appears, usually to save the heroes from juries’ guilty verdicts and other horrible fates.4 Furthermore, any dramatic impact of the phrasing is somewhat lessened by the presence in the preceding book of the strikingly similar ka‹ ı m¢n kindÊnou parå tosoËton §ly≈n (1.22.1) after the cowherd Dorcon escapes mauling by the dogs of Daphnis and Chloe. It is difficult to argue for a strong Thucydidean context in the earlier passage. Nor does there seem to be any other basis for arguing a strong parallel between the content of Daphnis’ “trial” and the Mytilenean debate in Book 2. There are no shared themes, no evocation of the language of the latter in the former, no way to align the arguments of Daphnis and the youths with those of 4 From those novels almost certainly predating Longus, compare the end of Chaereas’ trial in Chariton, Callirhoe 1.5–6, and Theron’s almost success- ful evocation of pity in the assembly at 3.4 (heroes get pity, villains do not!). Anthia and Habrocomes beg pity from the pirates in Xenophon of Ephesus, Ephesiaka 1.13; Anthia begs pity from the goatherd Lampon in 2.9 and 2.11 and from the Ephesian doctor in 3.5; Habrocomes receives pity from the Sun in 4.2 while being crucified and then while being questioned by the Egyptian prefect in 4.4; he begs Apollo to take pity and bring the oracles to a successful conclusion in 5.2; Anthia prays for and receives pity from Apis in 5.5; in 5.7 people take pity on Anthia while she fakes an epileptic fit outside of a brothel. In the later novels one might compare the trial scene in Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon 7.9, when Clinias weeps in the court- room while pleading on Clitophon’s behalf. 78 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” Diodotus and Cleon. And the deliverance of Daphnis has more to do with the physical strength that country living provides his fellow rustics; for after pity moves Philetas, the Methymnaean youths, unsatisfied with the verdict, attempt to impose their own rough justice before being beaten and chased off.5 The situation of the trial, the specific content of the speeches given on each side, and the outcome have nothing whatsoever to do with the historian’s Mytilenean debate. Longus is reworking Thucydides, but the weight of that reworking cannot fall on the tagline in 2.19.1, which is merely a teaser. After all, the im- mediately following words are tÚ d¢ prçgma oÈ taÊt˙ p°pauto, which is amusing enough for anyone who recognizes the pre- ceding allusion. That is the real reversal of Thucydides here. The Mytilenean debate and the dramatic deliverance of the Mytileneans are the end of the hostilities on Lesbos, but the trial of Daphnis is the beginning of them. It therefore precedes the mass of Thucydidean allusions in the description of that war in Longus. The reference to Daphnis’ deliverance is simply the first of many evocations of the historian in the second book designed to prepare the audience to recognize the real parallel to Thucydides’ Mytilenean debate in Longus—the decision by the Mytileneans in 3.1–2 to spare the Methymnaeans and end the war. Cueva reads this in a way opposite to my own. For him the narrative of the end of the war is simply a way that Longus “drives home the point that he is reworking Thucydides” (439) at 2.19.1.6 Believing that no serious reworking can be occurring 5 The Thucydidean tagline’s precise location is of significance. It comes after the innocent verdict and after the rustics begin to drive off the Methymnaeans, but more importantly it comes immediately after Chloe washes, feeds, and (above all) kisses Daphnis while the battle is still going on. Daphnis’ deliverance is thus now independent of the hostilities—a point made clear by the subsequent war’s irrelevance to the hero and heroine as well as to the plot they share. 6 Cueva cites the undoubted “abundance of historical and military ter- minology” and provides a list. Most of these are so common that they can- not be confined to Thucydides in particular. On 436 n.12 he lists possible parallels put forward by other scholars in the second and third books and then adds several of his own. He cautiously and quite correctly adds, “This STEPHEN M. TRZASKOMA 79 in that context, I think the priorities need to be reversed. The opening narrative of 3.1–2 is the culmination of Longus’ inter- action with Thucydides and not an addendum. When we consider the first two chapters of Book 3 in isola- tion from the rest of the Mytilenean-Methymnaean war of Book 2, they look very strange indeed, particularly when we take into account their marked position in the novel. Longus’ book divisions matter in terms of the organization of the novel, as for instance one can see in the seasonal patterns and the transition of the plot from erotic aporia to elusive marriage. Longus prominently and explicitly informs his readers that his work contains four books (pr. 3, t°ttaraw b¤blouw).7 Thus the beginning of the third book, the exact middle, is presumably less marked than the prologue and the conclusion, but more marked than any other portion of the narrative between. And if one doubts that this spot is emphasized structurally, Longus has provided another clue in his prologue: the painting that sup- posedly inspired the literary work. That the description of the scenes in the painting corres- ponds to the plot of the novel is an easy observation to make. But it is what is not in the painting that is of interest here, for that is what a reader is meant to notice above all. Although Mittelstadt calls the details of the painting “a kind of program for the entire plot” (emphasis his), 8 that is precisely what it is not. Mittelstadt reads eight “scenes”: (1) women giving birth, (2) women swaddling infants, (3) children exposed, (4) animals nursing them, (5) shepherds taking them up, (6) young people courting, (7) pirate raid, (8) enemy invasion. Now, Mittelstadt (and Fleschenberg, whom he was following in demarcating the ___ is not to say that Longus borrowed each and every instance from Thu- cydides.” See n.20 below for further caution on military terminology. 7 For book divisions in the novels see T. Hägg, Narrative Technique in Ancient Romances (Stockholm 1971) 314 with n.4. He remarks that Longus “lets the compositional form predominate over the narrative material” and explains that “An external sign of this is the deliberate composition in four books of equal length.” 8 M. C. Mittelstadt, “Daphnis and Chloe and Roman Narrative Painting,” Latomus 26 (1967) 752–761; the citation is from 756. 80 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” episodic nature of the plot) does not equate each of the paint- ing’s scenes with an episode of Longus; in fact, the first episode (1.1–11) covers scenes 1, 2, and 3 implicitly and 4 and 5 ex- plicitly. Scene 6 might also be included here, depending on how one takes n°oi suntiy°menoi, for already at 1.7 the foster fathers have dreamt of Eros and at 1.8 the young people are in the field herding together. Still, even if one wishes to take this as more specifically referring to their mutual love9 (Mittelstadt’s “courting”), this makes no real difference. We have only two scenes left and we are hardly through the first book. The pirate raid (scene 7) occurs in 1.28 and the enemy invasion (scene 8) in 2.19ff. In fact, if Longus is giving us a program for the “entire plot,” he is doing a rather poor job of it,10 since Mittel- stadt’s episodic reading of the plot requires one to dispense with direct alignment of episodes with painted scenes. Mit- telstadt plays some sleight of hand by taking scene 6 as a repeatable catchall that includes any erotic activity between the two lovers11 and having the painting’s scenes 7 and 8 stand in for any number of the novel’s episodes. The real key here is what Mittelstadt does not focus on, for Longus goes on after the enemy invasion to specify that he also saw pollå êlla ka‹ pãnta §rvtikã (pr. 3).12 9 Following the lead of the §rvtik«w written into the Vaticanus gr. 1348 by an unknown hand. 10 Perhaps a more interesting way of putting it is that if Longus really expects us to think of his novel as an ecphrasis, he problematizes the pro- cedure immediately. The births, swaddling, and exposure must have taken place, of course, but they are not really described until the end of the last book. We thus almost immediately know that at the very least we are meant to think of a process much more sophisticated than the turning of each scene on a painting into an “episode” in a novel in the same order. 11 Mittelstadt, Latomus 26 (1967) 757: “The remainder of the plot consists mainly of idyllic portraits—variations of scene 6, the courting—with some expansion of scenes 7 and 8 or scenes similar to these.” But to what scene does Lycainion belong? Or the reunion of Daphnis and Chloe with their parents? Or their wedding? 12 Mittelstadt took, with all editors up to that time, these words as part of the next sentence. Reeve’s edition punctuates with a stop after §rvtikã, taking the phrase as a continuation of the description of the painting’s contents. In fact, even without Reeve’s new punctuation the sense clearly STEPHEN M. TRZASKOMA 81 In other words, the prologue contains in the description of the painting a tantalizing vagueness about what happens after the enemy invasion, which, as we know, apparently ends in 2.30 with the reunion of Daphnis and Chloe. The implication we are meant to carry through the novel is that it is faithfully representative of the painting, an implication that is seemingly validated by the dedication at 4.39.2 of efikÒnew by Daphnis and Chloe.13 The painting can easily be read as containing eight described scenes which match up with the plot as we have it in order: birth, swaddling, exposure, animals as nurses, adoption, the teenagers spending time together, the pirate raid, the Meth- ymnaean invasion. It is much more natural to assume that these are simply the first scenes of the novel in brief compass and that the rest is left hanging with a tantalizing and erotic “etc.” than to assume that some of these are repeated in differ- ent forms or to stretch the meaning of suntiy°menoi to cover nearly everything in the book. What we have is a teaser in the prologue that directs us to whatever comes after the enemy invasion. Thus I take the resumption of the narrative of war at 3.1, so carefully prepared for and yet so unusual, as a sort of second prologue, one which forces us to think once more of the Thu- cydidean allusions (particularly those in the first prologue) and about the nature of Longus’ kt∞ma.14 Of course it is also a con- tinuation of events in the second book, but Longus needed neither to place the continuation here nor even to include it at all. In fact, the “pocket war” could easily have been dispensed with in a sentence or two after 2.29 and the return of Chloe. ___ requires that the words refer to what is on the painting; otherwise, we are left with the idea that there are a lot of other erotic objects around which inspire the narrator’s desire to emulate the painting, which is odd and unnecessary. 13 R. Hunter, A Study of Daphnis & Chloe (Cambridge 1983) 42: “although Longus does not mention a cave in the êlsow of the prooemium, it is hardly fanciful to equate the efikÒnew with the painting of which the whole novel is a description.” 14 The inspiration for this is perhaps Thucydides himself, whose history famously contains a second preface at 5.26.1–6. 82 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” For instance, Longus might have had Pan order Bryaxis simply to release all of the captives and return all of the booty as punishment for the Methymnaean offense. But Longus takes care to arrange it so that only Chloe is freed and only the lovers’ goats and sheep returned. What is more, he raises the possibility of counterattack in 2.21 and 2.25. Still, Longus recounts not only the reunion of the lovers, but also their sacrificial thank-offering, their impromptu party, the fortuitous arrival of Philetas, the errand of Philetas’ son to fetch a syrinx, the inset mËyow of Syrinx, the detailed description of the fes- tivities, and the scene of oaths exchanged between the lovers. In all, this takes some three and a half Teubner pages—con- siderable space in a work of only sixty-five. There is nothing really comparable to this interrupted narrative elsewhere in the novel. To be sure, characters sometimes appear, disappear, and then return later, but to a purpose. Dorcon helps to save Daphnis, then reappears to contest with Daphnis for Chloe’s kiss (and failing that to ask for her hand and then attempt to rape her) and finally to be killed by the pirates. But each of his entrances onto the stage directly affects the hero and heroine and is logically self-contained. The narrative of war at the start of Book 3 serves no such purpose aside from setting up the conceit that war was less grievous to Daphnis and Chloe than winter. If this is all the episode accomplishes, the only com- parable “fat” on the body of the novel are the short digressions on swimming cows (1.30.6) and low-growing vines on Lesbos (2.1.4), which are very different (and both are much shorter). Assuming for the moment that the opening of the second half of the novel in Book 3—this second prologue—contains a conscious Thucydidean echo, just as the prologue does, we may presume to search for compatible interpretations in both instances. Scholars have argued a wide array of positions re- garding Longus’ purpose and intent in consciously comparing his own delightful kt∞ma with Thucydides’ eternal one.15 Tur- ner, to take one extreme, has written that Longus was saying 15 The most thorough attempt to view the entire prologue as Thucydi- dean is R. Lugenbill, “A Delightful Possession: Longus’ Prologue and Thu- cydides,” CJ 97 (2002) 233–247. STEPHEN M. TRZASKOMA 83 that “his purpose was quite as serious as that of the great historian (i.e. to make people understand human life), that he too had tried to produce something of universal significance (‘a possession for all men’).”16 On the other side one might cite Hunter’s view that our author has “fun … in the prologue with the historiographical tradition.”17 But how extreme are these extremes? Almost all discussions of the prologue are in essential agreement about how Longus is utilizing the historiographical tradition and Thucydides; it is in their search for his motive that they differ so dramatically.18 16 P. Turner, “Daphnis and Chloe, an Interpretation,” G&R 7 (1960) 117– 123, at 118. Turner phrased it a bit differently in “Novels, Ancient and Modern,” Novel 2 (1968) 15–24: “Longus calls it a verbal equivalent of a picture that he has seen in Lesbos; but by using the word historia, and echoing a famous phrase of Thucydides (1.22) he implies that he has written an authentic history, recording a universal fact of human experience” (16). That supposed seriousness of purpose is to be found in one form or another also in H. H. O. Chalk, “Eros and the Lesbian Pastorals of Longus,” JHS 80 (1960) 32–51, especially 48–51; in D. Teske, Der Roman des Longos als Werk der Kunst (Munich 1991) 1–6; and in A. Wouters, “Longus, Daphnis et Chloé,” ÉtCl 62 (1994) 131–167, especially 142–144. T. Pandiri, “Daphnis and Chloe: The Art of Pastoral Play,” Ramus 14 (1985) 116–141, especially 116– 118, also sees Longus as making essentially the same serious claim but with the added twist that the universality and seriousness of Longus is achieved by valuing what Thucydides sees as valueless, namely terpsis. 17 Hunter, Study 47. That is not to say that Hunter does not pay it serious attention, but he finds in it more literary play than seriousness of intention. M. Philippides, “The Prooemium in Longus’s Lesbiaka,” Classical Bulletin 59 (1983) 32–34, also characterizes Longus’ allusion as “superficial,” but again does not dismiss it as unimportant or uninteresting, merely as a “literary tool.” Contrast E. Haight’s attitude that the prologue is fun, superficial, and unimportant: Essays on the Greek Romances (New York 1943) 121 (cited by Philippides). 18 One might specify further: W. McCulloh, Longus (New York 1970) 31, speaks of the allusion giving “additional external validation”; he is referring to the claims of utility and universality that almost all other investigations also highlight. Turner’s formulation, Novel 2 (1968) 16, is more pointed: “Longus … claims to be a historian representing ‘Human Nature.’” J. R. Morgan, “Daphnis and Chloe: Love’s Own Sweet Story,” in J. R. Morgan and R. Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context (London/New York 1994) 64–79, argues that Longus is not only appropriating Thucydides to support such claims, but in fact “subverts” (73) the historian by fusing the 84 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” The opening of the third book is clearly a rejection of the kind of political and military history that it mimics, to judge by its irrelevance to the larger plot, and one can read it quite seriously. The novel may not seem serious, with pirates and goats and cheeses—and lovers who cannot quite figure out what to do with the interesting parts of their bodies—and so our author offers a kind of proof. For the space of two-thirds of a page, his style, his vocabulary, his theme—his novel—become history. One moment Chloe is happy that Daphnis has sworn an oath by goats and sheep, and the next we have Mitulhna›oi d¢ …w æsyonto tÚn §p¤ploun t«n d°ka ne«n (not unlike Thuc. 1.116.1 ÉAyhna›oi d¢ …w æsyonto, which is not far from the equally colorless oÈk°ti énasxetÚn poie›syai [1.118.2] that is compared by Valley to Longus 3.1.1 oÈk énasxetÚn nom¤san- tew). There is no rhyme, no repetition, no chiasmus, no ascend- ing tricola—in short none of the apparatus of Longus’ normal style.19 The pastoral world retreats entirely (gevrgo¤ and poi- m°new make their appearance, but in a contemptuous aside, as ___ opposites of history and myth into a coherent whole. For our fundamental inability to determine whether Longus is serious or not as an intentional result of Longus’ art see B. Reardon’s perceptive remarks in “MËyow oÈ lÒgow: Longus’s Lesbian Pastorals,” in J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore/London 1994) 135–147. 19 B. MacQueen, Myth, Rhetoric, and Fiction (Lincoln/London 1990) 64, has noticed the oddity: “The aesthetic effect of this intrusive piece of quasi- serious history is striking and unusual. It is rather as though a chamber orchestra has been playing Vivaldi, when suddenly the cellos begin to play a few bars of Beethoven at his most serious, only to drop it after a few bars and go back to playing Vivaldi. The effect is at least in part humorous, but there is clearly something ominous about it, too. For some reason, yet to be revealed, Longus has seen fit to remind us, just here, of a wider world, full of violence and danger on a far larger scale than anything Daphnis and Chloe are likely to encounter on their isolated farm.” This overstates the case. By 3.2.1, when Hippasos refuses to plunder the territory of his enemies out of high-mindedness, Longus is already revealing his design. When the general is almost immediately met (3.2.2) by a k∞ruj suing for peace (and in a pÒlemow that is supposed to be ékÆruktow, 2.19.3), no reasonably informed reader of ancient history can really think that we have a description of a war that purports to be historical, even when Longus keeps up his linguistic imitation of the historians for several more sentences. STEPHEN M. TRZASKOMA 85 something not worth warring over) and the world of the novels is pushed into the background (when the Mytilenean general refuses to behave like a pirate). In their place come technical terms: tÚn §p¤ploun, §j°pemcan … tÚn strathgÒn, ˜pla kine›n, katal°jantew ésp¤da … ·ppon, and so on.20 And while much of this language can be paralleled as standard in a number of ancient historians, Thucydides should be foremost in our minds, because of both the prologue and the Thucydidean character of the events of the second book as outlined by Vieillefond. And so we are left with the third books of two works, both taking as their main theme events on Lesbos during wartime. Mytilene and Methymna are at odds in both, but this is a fact that obscures what Longus is doing. It is the revolt of the Mytileneans from the Athenians, not the minor rivalry between the Lesbian cities, that matters for Thucydides. That revolt cul- minates in the Mytilenean debate. It is my contention that Longus encapsulates the significant features of the historian’s narrative and produces an episode that preserves only the most superficial stylistic relation to real history, all the while produc- ing something that contains none of the seriousness of the original and which is, in fact, practically irrelevant to the novel 20 The only completely convincing echo of Thucydides in this passage is 3.2.3 éde«w §pim¤gnusyai ka‹ katå g∞n ka‹ katå yãlassan which obviously derives from Thuc. 1.2.2 oÈd' §pimignÊntew éde«w éllÆloiw oÎte katå g∞n oÎte diå yalãsshw. Longus has either not remembered Thucydides’ vari- ation of the prepositions or has purposefully chosen to alter it to the more usual formulation found in other historians, katå g∞n ka‹ katå yãlassan (e.g. Xen. Hell. 1.6.19, 2.2.10). ˜pla kine›n is the runner-up here. Valley, Sprachgebrauch 101, compares it to Thuc. 1.82.1 ˜pla m¢n mÆpv kine›n. Hunter, Study 126 n.6, says this “probably echoes” that passage, but it can remain only a possibility since the phrase is hardly unusual in later Greek. See Trzaskoma, Commentary ad loc., for its appearance in other authors. Caution is warranted because it is clear that Longus uses technical ter- minology which does not derive from his reading in the classical historians but which was current in writers certainly closer to his own time. At 3.2.4, for instance, he uses the idiom stratÒpedon bãllesyai, which does not seem to occur in the earlier historians but is common in Josephus (AJ 5.20, 5.34, 6.238, etc.) and also appears in military contexts in Plutarch (Aem.Paul 11.7, Lys. 3.3, etc.). 86 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” as a whole. For this is a history totally subservient to an erotic context (in fact, it is a flstor¤a ÖErvtow,21 as we ought to re- member from the prologue), and war in this romance is simply an external intrusion that has by this point already served its limited purpose. How does history look in a history of Love? Rather different, of course. The Athenian Paches devastates the countryside of Lesbos; the Mytilenean Hippasos refuses to do so. Longus has his general send to his home city for instructions, just as Paches does, though the outcomes differ. In the historian we have the extended set-piece Mytilenean debate; in Longus there is no debate—or rather, there must have been, but Longus makes it conspicuous by its absence. Two days pass before a messenger delivers orders to Hippasos. What do the Mytileneans do dur- ing those two crucial days?22 They deliberate, of course, though Longus does not explicitly say so, just as the Athenians spent two days deliberating the fate of Mytilene. On the first day the Athenians decide to kill all the Mytilenean men and enslave the 21 Granting however that the wide-ranging uses of flstor¤a in later Greek to cover everything from myths to the contents of paintings should give us pause before we rely too heavily on it. 22 The number in Longus demands attention. Although Longus has used ≤m°ra some seventeen times before dÊo diagenom°nvn ≤mer«n in 3.2.5, it is usually in stereotyped phrases (“when it was day,” “the next day,” etc.). Daphnis swears to Chloe at 2.39.1 that he will not live miçw xrÒnon ≤m°raw, but this numeral in association with day does not violate Longus’ normal avoidance of specific intervals of time. In a similar fashion all distances in Daphnis and Chloe are round numbers and usually qualified with ˜son. The specification of two days is surprising, then, and raises the question why the detail is included. Although the rhythm of the seasons is key to the novel and the alternation of day and night is an important narrative element, it is only here—outside of the pastoral milieu—and at 4.9.2, when the news arrives from the outside world that Dionysophanes is coming to visit his rural estate in three days, that this near timelessness is broken. Another one- day period is specified at 4.24.2 when Dionysophanes reveals that his two older children died of illness on the same day. One could argue that this too takes place outside of the pastoral world, but that seems unnecessary. Like the single day at 2.39.1 this is nothing like the two unusual occasions on which events in the main narrative are said to occur at some time other than “the next day.” STEPHEN M. TRZASKOMA 87 women and children. The cruelty of destroying the innocent along with the guilty causes a second day of discussion, however, and the Athenians reverse themselves after a debate between Cleon and Diodotus in the assembly. Both Athenian speakers focus on a single question: what is more advantageous to the city? As it turns out, the Mytileneans in Longus seem to have raised the same question and reached a simple conclu- sion, namely to cease hostilities and do no more harm to their prone foes, the Methymnaeans. But that conclusion is intriguing because it hides within it the third and last of a series of historiographical references. In the prologue Longus claims Thucydidean utility and seriousness for his novel (whether to subvert it or not is unimportant for the moment) by emphasizing its Herodotean “mythical” character. In the second book Longus narrates an invasion with numerous echoes of the language of Thucydides; but that invasion is won with the help of Pan, a connection with Herodotus’ narration of the battle of Marathon that has not gone unnoticed.23 Finally here too in the third book a Thucydidean situation has been raised. The issues at stake are not identical, but boil down in the end to self-interest and advantage.24 Thucydides’ Athenians are barely able to discern what is truly in their own interest, but they do so in the end. In Longus the Mytileneans seem to have no trouble reaching the conclusion that peace is more profitable than war (3.2.5, pol°mou går ka‹ efirÆnhw §n aflr°sei genÒmenoi tØn efirÆnhn eÏriskon kerdalevt°ran). That sentiment accords with one expressed in Herodotus,25 and we should recognize 23 E.g. by Hunter, Study 59. 24 The context of 3.1–2 contains another state determining advantage and justice. Even if the Methymnaeans do not come across as well as the Mytileneans in Daphnis and Chloe, one should note that they too contrast favorably with the historian’s Athenians, insofar as they realize and regret without hesitation their hastiness in warring upon their neighbors. And while Cleon argues for punishing all for the crimes of a few, the Athenians align themselves with Diodotus’ view, that blaming and punishing as few as possible is the most advantageous course. 25 O. Schönberger, Longos: Hirtengeschichten von Daphnis und Chloe3 (Berlin 1980) 193, seems to have been the first to suggest a connection with Hdt. 1.87.4, oÈde‹w går oÏtvw énÒhtÒw §sti ˜stiw pÒlemon prÚ efirÆnhw aflr°etai. 88 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” Longus’ playful appropriation of the language of history here too. The whole mechanism of history and warfare, therefore, is introduced by Longus only to point up its irrelevance. It threatens briefly to intrude with devastating consequences into our flstor¤a ÖErvtow, but the incursion by the Methymnaeans is cut short by Pan, enraged that war has been brought to his “beloved countryside,” before it can harm the lovers. Longus then purposefully leaves strings untied so that in the third most structurally important point of his novel he can once more allow war to rear its ugly head. Not only does the opportunity allow him to idealize his Lesbos (and particularly his pro- tagonists’ home city) and his war in contrast to Thucydides’, it also allows him to reinforce the claims of his original prologue by dismissing history through mimicry and encapsulation. On its own terms, in other words, Daphnis and Chloe really is a kt∞ma that is defined by its being terpnÒn rather than by its en- gaging with military and political matters however tangentially. And if Thucydides can claim that his is a kt∞ma §w afie¤ without t°rciw (and with ¶rvw as it appears in the novels completely absent), Longus can claim that his work will last m°xriw ín kãllow ¬ ka‹ Ùfyalmo‹ bl°pvsin, which comes to the same thing as §w afie¤ for all practical purposes. Is this all serious? In one sense, I think not. My instinct is to regard it as impossible that Longus here is leveling serious ___ The Methymnaeans’ initial regret upon learning the truth (3.2.3, mete- g¤nvskon m¢n ÙjÊtera tolmÆsantew efiw ge¤tona pÒlin µ svfron°stera) had already been connected (cf. Seiler’s edition ad loc.) to Hdt. 3.65 (§po¤hsa taxÊtera µ sof≈tera) and 7.194 (gnoÁw …w taxÊtera aÈtÚw µ sof≈tera §rgasm°now e‡h). Even this is, however, only part of the complexity. The use of kerdale≈terow and the language here might also be intended to recall Xenophon’s De Vectigalibus. On the face of it, this connection is even stronger than the Herodotean; Xenophon explicitly raises exactly the question here and goes on to argue strongly that peace is the more profit- able for Athens (5.11): efi d° tiw aÔ efiw xrÆmata kerdale≈teron nom¤zei e‰nai tª pÒlei pÒlemon µ efirÆnhn. Behind Longus’ ability to mimic historical writing (both classical and contemporary) may lie a stronger familiarity with historiography than has been suspected. De Vectigalibus was hardly the most widely cited work in antiquity. STEPHEN M. TRZASKOMA 89 criticism at historians or their works, particularly Thucydides. A pastoral novel is simply a bizarre medium for attempting to resolve debates over the proper nature or methods of histori- ography or the relative merits of its early practitioners. But I would urge that the critique is meant seriously in the context of ancient fiction. It is difficult to imagine Daphnis and Chloe as polemic, but perhaps by going out of his way to appropriate and distort history so completely to serve the purposes of his fiction, our sophistic novelist is issuing a declaration of indepen- dence from what may have been the genre’s narrative strictures and its allegiance to the historical mode of narrative26—for want of a better phrase, its lack of self-confidence that can be seen in a romance like Chariton’s27 or the Ninus. Others may have dressed their novels in the clothes of history,28 but not Longus, and the presence of the historians in his work is de- signed to emphasize that fact forcefully. In the midst of the Mytilenean debate of Thucydides, Diodotus, the Athenian speaker whom we must think of as “the good guy,” remarks ¥ te §lp‹w ka‹ ı ¶rvw §p‹ pant¤ … ple›sta blãptousi (3.45.5). But it is Eros that defines the extant Greek novels, and hope always 26 E. Schwartz, Fünf Vorträge über den griechischen Roman (Berlin 1893), made the first extended argument that novelistic fiction in antiquity derived from the tradition of Greek historiography, but there is no need to see novelistic fiction as having derived from history to note the latter’s impact on the former. Cueva, GRBS 39 (1998), provides a good overview of the literature on historiography and the novel at 429 n.2. 27 J. Alvares, “Chariton’s Erotic History,” AJP 118 (1997) 613–629, demonstrates the extraordinary interweaving of the themes of history into Chariton’s romance. Although Chariton clearly subordinates such motifs to his main purpose, it is impossible to assert that he rejects and removes them as Longus does. In fact, my point is exactly that Chariton exploits and interweaves history into his work to an extraordinary degree, and perhaps it is that to which Longus is responding. 28 Generally, see S. Stephens and J. Winkler, Ancient Greek Novels. The Frag- ments (Princeton 1995), for the remains of other early novels with historical settings or preoccupations, particularly Metiochus and Parthenope (72, “self- consciously historical”), Sesonchosis (246, “skeleton of ‘historical facts’”), Chi- one, and Antheia (277, “events cast against an historical or pseudo-historical backdrop”). See also 471 no. 13 for a fragment whose very genre, history or romance, is impossible to determine. 90 A NOVELIST WRITING “HISTORY” turns out to be fulfilled. Longus’ dismissal of history as a rel- evant force in the lives of his hero and heroine is a reminder that we need not be ashamed of literature in which that is true. August, 2004 Dept. of Languages University of New Hampshire Durham, NH 03824 smt3@cisunix.unh.edu