An Ethiopian Story in Egypt

Abstract

Abstract The protagonists of An Ethiopian Story spend virtually the entirety of the novel in Egypt, which in Heliodorus is under the control of the Persian Empire. The Persians affect virtually every aspect of the landscape. Throughout, the narrative emphasizes individuals’ and groups’ independence from and resistance to them. Over the course of the protagonists’ journey up the Nile, Heliodorus practices what the chapter terms an “ethnography of displacement.” On the one hand, An Ethiopian Story reflects the experiences of characters far from home, who struggle to make sense of the world they experience. On the other, Heliodorus’ displacement also works in relation to his readers’ expectations, as the journey to Ethiopia reimagines Achilles Tatius’ Egyptian landscape, systematically relocating the most amazing—and terrifying—elements of his Nile Delta to Ethiopia. Finally, the novel re-writes Egypt’s religious landscape to emphasize the role of Isis above all, an amplification of Xenophon’s own Isiac focus. The chapter thus shows how much richer our understanding of the novel becomes when read in dialogue with Egyptian sources.