HELIODORUS

Form: Heliodoros.

A Greek writer of romance, born at Emesa in Phoenicia. He was a pagan Sophist, who probably flourished in the second half of the 3rd century A.D. At one time he was erroneously identified with another Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca in Thessaly, who flourished about 390 A.D. A romance of his called Aethiopica, in ten books, has come down to us. Its subject is the strange story of Theagenes the Thessalian and Chariclea, the daughter of the king of Aethiopia. This book served as a model for most of the later Greek writers of romance, and may be classed with the novel of Longus as one of the best specimens of this kind of literature which Greek antiquity has to show. It is remarkable for original power, clear sketches of character, beauty of drawing, and moral intention; the style is pure, simple, and elegant.