ABSTRACT
This chapter draws together and reviews the key aspects of Xenophon’s and Chariton’s representation of slavery. Both Xenophon and Chariton implied authorial personas suggestive of a background in slavery. In addition, the chapter hypothesizes that educated ex-slaves were among their readers: These elite ex-slaves had the means, opportunity, and motive to read the novels. The chapter then reviews selected motifs from the socially conditioned perspective of ex-slave readers. In particular, the ambivalent note attached to the sympathy for “slaves behaving badly” reflects the complex identity of these ex-slave slave-owners. A particular achievement of Xenophon and Chariton as early novelists may have been to associate the emerging genre with the narration of enslavement from a perspective that was in basic, if complicated, sympathy with the slave.
