Achilles Tatius

A piece of Greco-Roman popular culture: The plot is inevitable, the characters are unnuanced, and the story is filled with unlikely coincidences and loose ends. But the novel is well-paced and it provides priceless glimpses of everyday life in the 2nd century. There is a marvelous description of Alexandria, which makes it sound like the Los Angeles of the eastern Mediterranean. There are also court scenes, pirates in the Nile Delta, shipwrecks on rocky shores, candid debates about sexual practices, and remarkable examples of the role of pagan religion in everyday life.… (altro)