Aethiopica

Aethiopica (Αἰθιοπικά The Ethiopian Story) or Theagenes and Chariclea is an ancient Greek romance or novel. It was written by Heliodorus of Emesa and is his only known work.

Socrates Scholasticus (5th century AD) identifies the author of Aethiopica with a certain Heliodorus, bishop of Trikka. Nicephorus Callistus (14th century) relates that the work was written in the early years of this bishop before he became a Christian and that, when forced either to disown it or resign his bishopric, he preferred resignation. Most scholars reject this identification. The most exact information about Heliodorus comes from Aethiopica itself. The author identifies himself in this manner: "Here ends the history of the Ethiopian adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea written by Heliodorus, a Phoenician of Emesus, son of Theodosius, and descended from the Sun."

The Aethiopica was first brought to light in Western Europe during Renaissance times in a manuscript from the library of Matthias Corvinus, found at the sack of Buda (today the western part of Budapest) in 1526, and printed at Basel in 1534. Other codices have since been discovered. It was first translated into French by the celebrated Jacques Amyot in 1547. It was first translated into English in 1569 by Thomas Underdowne, who used the 1551 Latin translation of Stanislaw Warszewicki to create his Aethiopian Historie. In the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) this novel was known by the Greek readership. For example, the novel is mentioned in a will of a noble man known as Eustathios Voilas (Ευστάθιος Βοίλας). According to this will, dated year 1059, he bequeathed several books to a monastery of the Theotokos, which he had founded, amongst them the Aethiopica. It was printed several times by Giolito de' Ferrari in Venice (1556, 1560, 1586) in an Italian translation from Greek by Leonardo Ghini.

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