Ephesian Tale

The Ephesian Tale of Anthia and Habrocomes (Greek: Ἐφεσιακά or Τὰ κατὰ Ἄνδειαν καὶ Ἀβρακόμην) by Xenophon of Ephesus is an Ancient Greek novel written in the mid-2nd century CE.

Translator Graham Anderson sees the Ephesiaca as "a specimen of penny dreadful literature in antiquity." Moses Hadas, an earlier translator, takes a slightly different view: "If An Ephesian Tale is an absorbing tale of love and improbable adventure, it is also a tract to prove that Diana of the Ephesians (who was equated with Isis) cares for her loyal devotees."

Because of its shortness and other factors, some scholars maintain that the version we have is merely an epitome of a longer work. The Suda, a 10th-century Medieval Greek historical encyclopedia, describes the novel as having ten books when the version we have is divided into five. But Anderson suggests that "we may well find that our version is one of not two but a multiplicity of retellings of a familiar story, whose relationships to Xenophon are not easily identifiable." Translator Jeffrey Henderson offers another reason for the disparity: "For the number of books, the itacism of έ ("five") ... is a likelier explanation of Suda's ί ("ten") than the supposition that our text is an epitome. The story is very similar to the later story of Apollonius of Tyre.

In the city of Ephesus, Habrocomes, an attractive, cultured, and arrogant young man of 16, and Anthia, an attractive and chaste young woman of 14, fall helplessly in love with each other after briefly meeting at the festival of Artemis. But because each is afraid to reveal this love to the other, they suffer miserably. Their families, in the hopes of curing them, consult the shrine of Apollo at Colophon. The soothsayer predicts that Habrocomes and Anthia will undergo travails involving pirates, tombs, fire, and flood, but their condition will improve. In an effort to avert such evils, the parents arrange that the lovers will quickly be married to each other and then sent to Egypt for their safety.

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