Callirhoe by Chariton falls firmly into the ancient Greek poetic tradition. Complete with pirates, sex, and faked deaths. Set around 400 B.C. the novel follows two lovers who mistakenly drift apart from one another. Chaereas is married to and madly in love with Callirhoe, the daughter of Hermocrates. She has many bold suitors, but she ignores all of them. Unfortunately the suitors lead Chaereas to believe that she actually has not been faithful to him. In a fit of rage he kicks her so hard that she dies and they bury her in an elaborate tomb. Much to Callirhoe's alarm she awakens in the tomb as robbers open it up to pillage her burial chamber. She had merely fallen into a coma. The thieves kidnap her and sell her as a slave to a man Dionysius who is willing to pay a high price for such a beautiful woman. Already pregnant with her husband's child, the frightened Callirhoe tells her new master that she's in love with him and that the baby is his. Meanwhile Chaereas has discovered his dead wife missing from her tomb and sets off on a grand quest to find her again. He too gets himself captured as a slave. By this time King Artaxerxes of Persia has learned of the two lost lovers thanks to Dionysius and is called upon to determine who is Callierhoe's true husband. He becomes corrupted by her beauty, however, and decides he wants her for himself. Chaereas fights alongside the Egyptians to defeat Persians in the war, when at last he regains his beloved wife. She writes Dionysius and tells him to raise their son and to return him when he's full grown. Back home in Syracuse Callirhoe thanks the goddess Aphrodite for orchestrating the events.
With such a complex plot this proves to be a bit of a challenging read. Chariton has constructed a wild adventure romance which engages readers of any generation. This is one of the earliest examples of long-form Greek prose which is significant. As one of the less commonly known ancient prose fiction, Callirhoe and Chaereas probably lost some acclaim over the years because of it's wandering plot. It aligns better in content to one of Shakespeare's tragedies rather than an of Homer's epics.
All that being said, Chariton does an excellent job building tension and creating flawed characters. Both Callirhoe and Chaereas are guilty of underestimating their lovers and lose each other by consequence. Only thanks to the grace of Aphrodite are they given a chance to reunite at the hand of Artaxerxes. Self-assured because of her appearance, Callirhoe takes Chaereas' love for granted and teases him about taking other lovers. This really backfires for her when he believes her and nearly kills her out of jealousy. She's sent off on her own journey toward humility when she becomes Dionysius' slave. For his part Chaereas must pay for his unnatural violence toward his wife and only regains her after proving his wit and valor in war. Thus the two lovers reunite having worked to repair the broken parts of their own respective souls.
