Believable Lies and Implausible Truths: Negotiating Late Antique Concepts of Fiction in Heliodorus's Aithiopika

Abstract

Despite the long debate over whether it was composed in the third or fourth century CE, Heliodorus’ Aithiopika has usually been understood through the imperial literary contexts which characterize earlier novels. This article inverts this perspective to explore instead how the novel fits into contemporary late antique considerations about fiction. By reading the Aithiopika against late-fourth and early-fifth century discussions of falsehood and plausibility found in Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, this article argues that the Aithiopika not only reworks classical models for reading fiction , but also illuminates late antique concerns about fiction, falsehood, and belief.