ABSTRACT
Slavery is a master metaphor that resonates throughout Heliodorus’ Aethiopica. Slavery characterizes unchaste erōs and distinguishes it from the chaste love of the protagonists Charicleia and Theagenes. Slavery also helps articulate the novel’s complex narrative strategy. Two tales of unchaste love each feature the activity of a wicked slave go-between, Thisbe and Arsace. In contrast, Calasiris, the go-between for the protagonists’ love story, is a chaste and pious priest. At the same time, Heliodorus depicts Charicleia and Theagenes as human beings, not philosophical abstractions. Their love may have been chaste in practice but was carnal in feeling, and slavery figures here again. Their physical desire is described as a form of metaphorical slavery; Calasiris himself usurps the role of the servus callidus, the clever slave whose scheming brings together the lovers in comedy. In the end, Heliodorus affirms the virtue of his elite protagonists. Wicked slaves confirm the elite stereotype of slaves as cunning and immoral. In contrast, the protagonists are able even to withstand horrible torture, in ideological engagement with the protagonists in Xenophon and Chariton, who are broken by the torments of enslavement.
