ABSTRACT
Heliodorus’s story was written in North Africa in the third or fourth century C.E. and then lost in the Middle Ages. Missing from standard accounts of this text’s appeal, however, is detailed consideration of what about Heliodorus attracted early modern readers and writers. Heroism in Heliodorus mixes strategic passivity with active dissembling, and outwardly rejects epic martialism. Heliodorus, more than any other writer of Greek romance, singled out this mechanism for self-conscious reflection. The deceptions in which Persinna, Calasiris, and Chariclea engage are not simply cases where ends justify means, because for Heliodorus narrative facility and interpretative duplicity are higher moral values than simple truth. Heliodorus’s prestige with Renaissance scholars like Julius Caesar Scaliger, El Pinciano, and Jacques Amyot contributed to his high status among early modern humanists. Heliodorus’s ideas about Fate and Providence have various sources in classical literature, including Homer, Herodotus, and Greek tragedy.
