ABSTRACT
It is fair to state at the outset that the ancient Greek novels have not always had a good press. From Rohde’s early assessment of the genre as Trivialiteratur (1914: 354-5), scholarly opinion has progressed through Highet’s (1949: 165) and Perry’s (1967: 5) now equally famous (or notorious) assertions that the genre appealed to the juvenile or poor-in-spirit. There has existed in the past the unspoken assumption that the prose romance is not an entirely suitable topic for serious investigation. Associated with this is the postulation of a direct and unproblematic equation between romantic reading matter and a female and/or uneducated audience.
