Maculate Conception: Sexual Ideology and Creative Authority in Heliodorus' Aethiopica

Abstract

This article reconsiders the role of sexual and romantic ideology in Heliodorus' Aethiopica , focusing particularly on Persinna's account of her daughter's conception. I contend that the triangulated sexual dynamics of the conception deviate from the binary, symmetrical romantic model embodied by Charicleia and Theagenes, complicating the novel's apparent norms. I suggest that the sexual multiplicity of Charicleia's conception mirrors the narrative complexity of the Aethiopica , as the authorial decision to include the conception story—despite its disruptive potential—privileges the plot-generating creation of Charicleia over and above a monolithic adherence to sexual and romantic ideology.

THISBE'S NOVEL: WRITING ROMANCE IN HELIODORUS’AETHIOPICA

“…75 Working in a slightly different vein, Virginia Burrus observes that Charicleia is 'a queer kind 72. Olsen (2012). Cf.…”

“…He thus figures both Thisbe and her text as speaking subjects, endowing Thisbe with a form of agency that transcends death and simultaneously imagining the inanimate 17. On Charicleia's conception, see further Reeve (1989), Hilton (1998), andOlsen (2012). 18.…”

“…73.Cf. Olsen (2012), 320. On the ‘multiplication of perspectives’ as a narrative strategy of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica , see Whitmarsh and Bartsch (2008), 244f.…”

“…6. Konstan (1994), 90-8, Ramelli (2009, and Olsen (2012), 303-30. Foucault (1976, 262-6, saw this emphasis, across the Greek novels, as evidence of emerging Christian sexual ideology; on Foucault's engagement with the Greek novels, see further Goldhill (1995) and Morales (2008).…”