Research Paper on:
Ethiopian Romance by Heliodorus

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(v). He goes on to argue that it was the legacy of these ancient romances that taught later ages many things regarding the art of narrative-"melodramatic plots, for example" (vi).  This is undoubtedly true, but Hadas goes on to argue that the greatest gift that this legacy gave later writers was the example of a "complex and sustained form"  in which one finds an "artificial set of moral premises" (vii). In this artificial model for behavior, vice is never made attractive, virtue is always rewarded, and the hero and  "heroine are superlatively gallant and beautiful and virtuous" (vii). If this formulaic scenario sounds strikingly similar to the novel as we know it today, there is a reason for  this-modern writers learned a great deal from their ancient predecessors. As Hadas, further points out, In novels, such as Heliodorus Ethiopica, the reader is clearly intended to relate emotionally  to Charicleia, to "agonize" over her perils and "exult" in any sudden improvement in her fortunes (Hadas vii). Of course, there are also other factors in the novel that relate  to the role played by Charicleia. Hadas states that, in effect, the book is a "glorification of a dark-skinned race" (ix). This is personified in Charicleia, who is a long-lost  princess of an Ethiopian queen, even though she appears to be white. Heliodorus relates that her white color resulted from her mother staring at Andromeda, but-nonetheless-her African heritage shows itself  in a black-skinned armband, a birthmark that encircles her left arm (Heliodorus 256). During the story, Hadas relates, that a "descendant of Achilles himself" falls in love with the  Ethiopian girl "who is shown to be fully his social equal" (ix). Therefore, it is clear that one of the main themes of this novel was to demonstrate that, in