ABSTRACT
The novel represents the single most important literary innovation of Greek culture under the Roman empire.1 Although the writers of this period were certainly not as derivative and uncreative as an older generation of scholars liked to suggest, nothing (not even Lucian’s satire) can match the range and sophistication of the novel, or its influence upon subsequent literary traditions. Within this genre, Heliodorus’ Aethiopica stands out for a number of reasons. It is by far the longest of the extant texts, the most narratologically sophisticated, and almost certainly the latest;2 there are, as we shall see, a number of other reasons why it deserves special consideration.
