SOURCE: "Erotic Suffering," in The Novel before the Novel, The University of Chicago Press, 1977, pp. 3-10.

In the excerpt that follows, Heiserman briefly summarizes the Cyropaedia, stressing the elements that later authors of early romances could imitate; in this way, Heiserman argues, despite Xenophon's clearly didactic purposes, his work could be the "First Romance in the West."

One candidate for the role of "First Romance in the West" is the Cyropaedia, written by Xenophon, the spartanophile admirer of Socrates, about 400 B.C. More particularly, it is the story of Panthea and Abradatas, woven through books 5, 6, and 7 of the Cyropaedia, that is clearly romantic. This story is indeed exactly the kind of arcane, serious tale that Parthenius would have called an erōtikon pathos: its early date supports its candidacy—though similar stories in Herodotus, and the Odyssey itself, would win on this score; and its fame was apparently...