ACHILLES TATIUS

'Achilles Tatius' (in Greek 'Ἀχιλλεύς Τάτιος') of Alexandria was a Roman era Greek writer whose fame is attached to his only surviving work, the erotic romance ''The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon''.

Contents

Life and minor works

See also

References

Life and minor works

Very little is known of the author; and the little information provided by the sources, represented by Photius and the ''Suda'' (which refers to him as Achilles Statius), is often misleading. Modern scholars believe, on the ground of papyrus finds, that the author must have lived in or before the late 2nd century. It is generally assumed that he lived and wrote earlier than the Greek novelist Longus. The manuscript tradition assigns him to Alexandria, perhaps correctly but perhaps simply on the basis of the detailed description of the city found in the novel. The claim in the ''Suda'' that he converted to Christianity and became a bishop is often argued to be fictional.
The ''Suda'' also ascribes to the author a work on the sphere (in Greek περι σφαιρας), a fragment of which professing to be an introduction to the ''Phaenomena'' of Aratus may still be extant (in Greek Eισαγoγη εις τα Aρατoυ φαινoμενα). This work is referred to by Firmicus Maternus, who about 336 speaks of the ''prudentissimus Achilles'' in his ''Matheseos libri'' (''Math.'' iv. 10). The fragment was first published in 1567, then in the ''Uranologion'' of the Jesuit scholar Dionysius Petavius, with a Latin translation in 1630. The same source also mentions a work of Achilles Tatius on etymology, and another entitled ''Miscellaneous Histories''.

See also

Achilles Tatius' surviving work:

★ Leucippe and Clitophon
Other ancient Greek novelists:

★ Chariton - ''The Loves of Chaereas and Callirhoe''

★ Xenophon of Ephesus - ''The Ephesian Tale''

★ Heliodorus of Emesa - ''The Aethiopica''

★ Longus - ''Daphnis and Chloe''

References

''please note - references may no longer all be relevant with separate entries for Leucippe and Clitophon''

★ "Achilleus Statios" in the ''Suda''

★ "Achilles Tatius" in the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911)

★ Del Corno, Dario; ''Letteratura greca'' (1988)

★ Photius, ''Bibliotheca'', J.H. Freese (translator) (1920)

★ Smith, William; ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', "Achilles Tatius", Boston, (1867)

★ Leukippe and Kleitophon, complete Greek text

★ Leukippe and Kleitophon, synopsis

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