SOURCE: Reardon, B. P. “Chariton: Chaereas and Callirhoe.” In Collected Ancient Greek Novels, edited by B. P. Reardon, pp. 17-124. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

In the following excerpt, Reardon speculates about Chariton's choice of using an historical setting for Chaereas and Callirhoe and explains how the relatively late discovery and editing of the manuscript have damaged Chariton's literary reputation.

Chaereas and Callirhoe is probably the earliest extant work of Greek prose fiction. It is thus the first European novel, and as such is interesting on literary-historical grounds as well as for itself. Its author, Chariton, tells us at the outset that he is from Aphrodisias and is the secretary of the rhetor Athenagoras. The name Chariton means “man of graces,” and was once thought too good to be true for an inhabitant of the city of Aphrodite; but it can be shown to be authentic. Aphrodisias lay...