http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
1 online resource (xvi, 283 pages) : illustrations, maps.
In this richly detailed study, Robert Cioffi explores the signficance of the Nile River Valley as the geographic centre of the ancient Greek novel during the genre's heyday in the Roman empire. He shows how the region is repeatedly portrayed in these fictions as a dual-site of ethnographic representation and of resistance to imperial power.
Introduction: In the Month of Hathor -- Between Representation and Resistance -- Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Greek Novel: A Brief History -- The Famous Five and the Fringe: Greek Novels, World Travelers -- Structure of the Argument -- 1: Religion, Revolt, and Rome in Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, and Apuleius
Chariton and Egypt: Chabrias, Alexander, and Chaereas against Persia -- An Ephesian Tale in Egypt -- Isis Saves: Greek Novels, Egyptian Religion -- Apuleius' The Golden Ass and Isis -- Conclusion -- 2: Where the Wild Things Are: Achilles Tatius and Egyptian Animals -- Collecting Animals: A Very Short History of Environment, Ethnography, and Empire -- The Egyptian Menagerie of Leucippe and Clitophon -- Capturing the Hippopotamus: The Ethnographic Gaze and the Dynamics of Description -- Writing the Unmentionable: Ekphrasis, Identity, and the Phoenix in Achilles Tatius
Conclusion: The Phoenix and Achilles Tatius' Egyptian Landscape -- 3: The Lives of Others: The Boukoloi, the Nile Delta, and the Frontiers of Knowledge in Achilles Tatius -- First Encounters: Rebels in the Nile Delta -- Alternative Histories: Boukoloi, Tragedy, and Mime -- Landscapes of Papyrus: The Resistance of the Boukoloi -- The Boukoloi and Their Egyptian Contexts -- Greek Novels and Egyptian Fictions -- Conclusion -- 4: Alexandria and Apocalypse: Representation, Resistance, and Time -- Achilles Tatius: The City and the Crocodile -- The "Acts" of Habrocomes
Apocalypse Then: Heliodorus, the Beach, and the Alexander Romance -- Conclusion -- 5: An Ethiopian Story in Egypt -- Bandits of Isis: Rewriting the Boukoloi -- A Long, Twisting Road: The Labyrinth of the Boukoloi -- Isis and Heliodorus' Egypt -- Calasiris and the New Ethnography: Chemmis and Delphi -- "It is only among the Egyptians . . . ": Ritual and Spectatorship up the Nile -- From Memphis to Syene: Ethnography on the Edge of the Earth -- Conclusion -- 6: The Ends of Ethiopia in Heliodorus' An Ethiopian Story -- Beyond Egypt, beyond Persia, beyond Rome: Moving to Meroë
Ritual Crisis on the Edges of the Earth -- Charicleia's Homecoming: Performance, Mimēsis, and Succession in Ethiopia -- Theagenes, the Giraffe, and the Meroitic Empire -- Theagenes and the World of Sport: Athletics, Culture, and Dénouement -- Closure and Transformation -- Conclusion: The Future of Meroë -- Epilogue: Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Americas-The Greek Novels' Early Modern Readers.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2024