ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Achilles was not interested in slavery per se but how slavery could be exploited as a theme for suspense, melodrama, and rhetorical display. In particular, the chapter considers slavery through the prism of Achilles’ first-person narrative: the occasions when the elite and erotically obsessed narrator Clitophon notes – or fails to note – the presence of slaves, that is, when slaves have a role to play – or do not have a role to play – in his desire for the heroine Leucippe. This chapter also discusses how Achilles has adapted other texts and forms, popular and literary, associated with slavery but detached them from the original context. In one instance, however, Achilles has engaged with an important issue concerning master–slave relations, his representation of the complicated relationship between Clitophon and Satyrus, the narrator’s slave attendant, a relationship warped by slavery, in which mutual affection was infected with mutual antagonism.
