Latinising the Novel. Scholarship Since Perry on Greek 'Models' and Roman (Re-)Creations‪.‬

1. Introduction This paper discusses some aspects of what I would call 'latinising' the novels: the ways some Latin authors, motivated and inspired--among other things--by Greek fictional material, created novels of their own. (1) These texts often proudly and self-consciously display--and no doubt expect their audience to recognize--their Greek background. At the same time these products clearly situate themselves in the tradition of Roman literature, and seem to breathe a distinctly Roman atmosphere. (2) In the next few pages I will look at some of the processes which may contribute to this 'Roman flavour'. In the course of this investigation, which refers to important publications over the past decades, it will, I hope, become apparent what has happened in research on the Roman novels since Perry, and what has caused our views and insights--and, perhaps more importantly, the questions we ask--to differ from Perry's. (3) It is important to note that, although Walsh's The Roman Novel was first published in 1970, only three years after Perry's Ancient Romances, and in parts as a strong reaction to Perry's analysis of Petronius and Apuleius, it already belongs to another world altogether. The same can be said of Sullivan's literary study (1968) of Petronius' novel. (4) This is no doubt due to the fact that the roots of Perry's book of 1967 go back to insights developed during a much earlier period: not just to the Sather Lectures of 1951, but to his dissertation on the Metamorphoses (1919), and on articles both on Apuleius and on Chariton which had been published in the1920s and '30s. (5)