THE ROMAN ARMY AND GREEK MILITARISM IN CHARITON'SCHAEREAS AND CALLIRHOE

Abstract

This paper seeks to highlight and assess the presence of allusions to Roman military apparatus in Chariton'sChaereas and Callirhoe. In the introduction, I contextualise the argument within the history of scholarship on the novel, and discuss issues relating to the author's date, Aphrodisian provenance and readership. I then divide the argument into three parts. At the end of the novel, Chaereas returns to Syracuse and publicly displays the spoils won from the east in a manner that, I argue, is highly suggestive of the Roman triumph (Parti). He then extends a grant of citizenship to the Greek element of his army and issues them cash donatives, while Hermocrates gives farmland to the Egyptians. As I demonstrate, this is characteristic of what happens upon the demobilisation of Roman military manpower (especially theauxilia) (Partii). I then draw out the ramifications of an imperial-era author who represents Greek military exploits against the Persians, writing during a period in which Greeks were not interested in military endeavours (Partiii).