Contemporary Elements in Achilles Tatius's Leucippe and Clitophon‪.‬

Introduction The author whom we know as Achilles Tatius is an enigma. His first name, Achilles, identifies him as a Greek, and his evident interest in Alexandria (cf. 5.1) suggests that he was a Greek living in Egypt. However, his second name, Tatius or Statius, is probably Roman. (1) The dramatic date of his novel is supposedly the time of Persian rule in Egypt (between 410 and 323 BC), as there is a reference to the Persian satrap (4.11.1) and the 'royal family' (7.12. 1). This is also certainly the case in Heliodoros's Aethiopica--a novel that shows many similarities to Leucippe and Clitophon. However, the Persian setting is not consistently maintained in Leucippe and Clitophon, and, since Achilles Tatius lived at the height of Roman power in Egypt (the 2nd century), (2) it is likely that he would have been familiar with Roman ways. (3) Of all the novelists who have survived from antiquity, his fiction resembles Petronius's Satyricon most closely. (4) This article investigates possible traces of contemporary Roman life in his narrative.