Daphnis and Chloe, a pastoral romance attributed to the Greek author, Longus (flourished 3rd century), inspired other writers, scholars, musicians and artists for centuries. Little mattered to them but the spirit of the work, a quality that endured and made it a popular predecessor to the modern novel.

As the writer of an enduring work, Longus was a man about whom virtually nothing was known. Only through the diligent work of scholars and historians could he be placed into an approximate time period and locale. According to William E. McCulloh, Classics professor at Kenyon College in Ohio until the late 1990s, in his 1970 work entitled Longus, there were four factors that went into determining when Longus might have lived and wrote. The first argument is based on the literary influence of Longus over the work of Alkiphron, a Greek writer who is easier to date. Other arguments relate...