c. 100 BCE - 50 CE
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The Ninus Romance is an unusual example of a Greek novel on a non-Greek subject, telling the story of the love affairs and adventures of Ninus, the mythical Assyrian king. The novel is Hellenistic, dating to sometime between the 100 BCE and 50 CE. (The papyrus on which it is written contains notes on the back from the year 101 CE.) The novel's author is unknown, though Xenophon of Antioch (known only from the Suda), where a book about Babylon is attributed to him, and Nicolaus of Damascus have both been proposed as possible authors. The text survives in four fragments, two of substance and two in poor condition, the latter two being identified much later than the former two, which were first published in 1893. The woman Ninus romances in the longest surviving passages is unnamed, though she is often thought to be Semiramis, Ninus' wife in legend. However, the story given in the fragments does not match the version given by Ctesias more than three centuries earlier, where Ninus forces Semiramis' husband to give her to him. For this page, I have provided S. Gaselee's English translation of the first two fragments from the 1916 edition of Daphnis & Chloe by Longus with commentary I have translated from the French analysis of Henri Weil in his Études de littérature et de rhythmique Grecs (1902). Note that due to the fragmentary state of the papyri, the translation of even the best-preserved parts is somewhat conjectural. While the fragments A and B were originally thought to follow one another in that order, today it is considered probably that B preceded A, as Gaselee deduced. I have provided a rough translation of the two additional fragments, which seemingly take the action to Colchis, where Ninus was on some kind of mission.
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THE NINUS ROMANCE
In 1893, Wilcken published fragments of a Greek novel that I call Ninopedia; he had discovered it among papyri sent from Egypt to Berlin. Comparing the pieces yielded two fragments (A and B), each composed of several fairly narrow columns: there are only about 20 letters per line. The writing is very beautiful uncial, and does not contradict the chronological clues taken from a document from A.D. 101. The editor believes that the papyrus could be from the middle of the first century, and that the writing of the novel could date back to the previous century. The hero of the novel, the famous Ninus, founder of Nineveh, son of Thambe (his new name), is passionately in love with his cousin, daughter of Derkeia, Thambe’s sister. The two lovers have their aunts as confidantes; the two sisters favor, even encourage, their love affair. The fragments give a glimpse of the story of these loves; they also contain the beginning of the story of a great military expedition of Ninus. The name of the young princess does not appear in these fragments, but all the legendary traditions suggest the name Semiramis, and Δερκεία is evidently only a form of Δερκετώ ου Δέρκη, who was said to be the mother of this queen. The beginning of the work has not come down to us. Fragment A takes us to the middle of the story. We will first give the first part, except for verses 1-33, which are too mutilated to be able to extract a continuous text from them. However, the words σφόδρα ἐρῶν (n. 3) prove that it was a question of Ninus’ love for his cousin, and the words πρὸς τ[ὴν ἀναβολὴν τῶν γάμων] (n. 23-24) already relate to the conversation which is to follow.
Before going any further, let us translate:
Before going any further, let us translate:
FRAGMENT A
“(A I.) Ninus and the maiden were both equally anxious for an immediate marriage. Neither of them dared to approach their own mothers-Thambe and Derceia, two sisters, the former Ninus' mother, the latter the mother of the girl-but preferred each to address themselves to the mother of the other: for each felt more confidence towards their aunts than towards their own parents. So Ninus spoke to Derceia: "Mother," (A II.) said he, "with my oath kept true do I come into thy sight and to the embrace of my most sweet cousin. This let the gods know first of all--yes, they do know it, and I will prove it to you now as I speak. I have travelled over so many lands and been lord over so many nations, both those subdued by my own spear and those who, as the result of my father's might, serve and worship me, that I might have tasted of every enjoyment to satiety-and, had I done so, perhaps my passion for my cousin would have been less violent: but now that I have come back uncorrupted I am worsted by the god of love and by my age; I am, as thou knowest, in my seventeenth year, and already a year ago have I been accounted as having come to man's estate. Up to now I have been nought but a boy, a child: and if I had had no experience of the power of Aphrodite, I should have been happy in my firm strength. But now that I have been taken prisoner-thy daughter's prisoner, in no shameful wise, but agreeably to the desires both of thee and her, how long must I bear refusal?
"That men of this age of mine are ripe for marriage, is clear enough: how many have kept themselves unspotted until their fifteenth year? But I am injured by a law, not a written law, but one sanctified by foolish custom, that (A III.) among our people virgins generally marry at fifteen years. Yet what sane man could deny that nature is the best law for unions such as this? Why, women of fourteen years can conceive, and some, I vow, even bear children at that age. Then is not thy daughter to be wed? 'Let us wait for two years,' you will say: let us be patient, mother, but will Fate wait? I am a mortal man and betrothed to a mortal maid: and I am subject not merely to the common fortunes of all men--diseases, I mean, and that Fate which often carries off those who stay quietly at home by their own fire-sides; but sea-voyages are waiting for me, and wars after wars, and I am not the one to shew any lack of daring and to employ cowardice to afford me safety, but I am what you know I am, to avoid vulgar boasting. Let the fact that I am a king, my strong desire, the unstable and incalculable future that awaits me, let all these hasten our union, let the fact that we are each of us only children be provided for and anticipated, so that if Fate wills us anything amiss, we may at least leave you some pledge of our affection. Perhaps you will call me shameless for speaking to you of this: but I should indeed have been shameless if I had privily (A IV.) approached the maiden, trying to snatch a secret enjoyment, and satisfying our common passion by the intermediaries of night or wine, or servants, or tutors but there is nothing shameful in me speaking to thee, a mother, about thy daughter's marriage that has been so long the object of thy vows, and asking for what thou hast promised, and beseeching that the prayers both of our house and of the whole kingdom may not lack fulfilment beyond the present time."
So did he speak to the willing Derceia, and easily compelled her to come to terms on the matter: and when she had for a while dissembled, she promised to act as his advocate. Meanwhile although the maiden's passion was equally great, yet her speech with Thambe was not equally ready and free; she had ever lived within the women's apartments, and could not so well speak for herself in a fair shew of words: she asked for an audience-wept, and desired to speak, but ceased as soon as she had begun. As soon as she had shewn that she was desirous of pleading, she would open her lips and look up as if about to speak, but could finally utter nothing: she heaved with broken sobs, her cheeks reddened in shame at what she must say, and then as she tried to improvise a beginning, grew pale again: and (A V.) her fear was something between alarm and desire and shame as she shrank from the avowal; and then, as her affections got the mastery of her and her purpose failed, she kept swaying with inward disturbance between her varying emotions. But Thambe wiped away her tears with her hands and bade her boldly speak out whatever she wished to say. But when she could not succeed, and the maiden was still held back by her sorrow, "This," cried Thambe, “I like better than any words thou couldst utter. Blame not my son at all: he has made no over-bold advance, and he has not come back from his successes and his victories like a warrior with any mad and insolent intention against thee: I trust that thou hast not seen any such intention in his eyes. Is the law about the time of marriage too tardy for such a happy pair? Truly my son is in all haste to wed: nor needest thou weep for this that any will try to force thee at all": and at the same time with a smile she embraced and kissed her. Yet not even then could the maiden venture to speak, so great was her fear (or, her joy), but she rested her beating heart against the other's bosom, and kissing her more closely still seemed almost ready to speak freely of her desires through her former tears and her present joy. The two sisters therefore met together, and Derceia spoke first. "As to the actual (marriage ?)," said she. . . . .
One can imagine the outcome of this deliberation between two women who favored the love of their children and who wished to unite them as quickly as possible. However, custom opposed this desire, and it seems necessary to obtain the king's consent. However, it is very likely that the immediate marriage was resolved by mutual agreement, and certain expressions in fragment B seem to support this hypothesis. If this is so, the wedding must have been arranged in the gap, and we see that the newlyweds did not enjoy their happiness for long. Ninus had to leave again for war, if not the day after the wedding, at least soon after.
Before leaving for the war, where he would earn his spurs, the young prince had pledged himself to remain faithful to the lover his mother had promised him, and upon his return, he had gone to embrace her. Here is the continuation of the story:
Before leaving for the war, where he would earn his spurs, the young prince had pledged himself to remain faithful to the lover his mother had promised him, and upon his return, he had gone to embrace her. Here is the continuation of the story:
FRAGMENT B
B II..... According to the instructions of his father, Ninus took the whole body of the Greek and Carian allies, seventy thousand chosen Assyrian foot and thirty thousand horse, and a hundred and fifty elephants, and advanced. What he most had to fear were the frosts and snows over the mountain passes: but most unexpectedly a gentle south wind, much more summer-like than the season would warrant, sprang up, both melting the snow and making the air temperate to the travellers beyond all that they could dare to hope. They had more trouble over crossing the rivers than in traversing the high passes: they did have some losses of animals and of their servants, but the army regarded it not, and from its very dangers came through all the more bold to contend against the enemy; having overcome the impassability of roads and the enormous breadth of rivers, it thought that it would be but a slight labour to capture a host of mad Armenians. Ninus invaded the river-country, taking much booty, and built a fortified camp on a piece of flat ground: and there for ten days he halted his army, especially the elephants, who were very tired (B III.) from the journey: then, seeing the enemy advancing in great numbers against him, led out his troops and disposed them thus. On the wings he put his cavalry, and the light-armed troops and scouts outside them again; in the centre the solid phalanx of infantry was deployed; in! front of the phalanx, between the two opposing armies, were the elephants, some considerable distance from one another and each armed with a turret upon its back ; and behind each there was a space left between the different companies of the phalanx, so that if the beast were frightened, it would have sufficient room to retire between the ranks. These intervals were so arranged that they could be quickly filled up? if necessary, and again opened—the latter to receive the retiring elephants, the former to stop a charge of the enemy.
Thus Ninus arranged his whole force, and began the advance at the head of his cavalry: and stretching out his hands as if (offering sacrifice?), “This,” he cried, “is the foundation and crisis of my hopes: from this day I shall begin some greater career, or I shall fall from the power I now possess. For the wars against the Egyptians and the others (through which I have passed were nothing in comparison to this... .)”
In other Greek novels that have come down to us, all later than ours, we find a large number of words and phrases that appear in the fragments we have just read. Wilcken, Piccolomini, and Levi diligently collected them. In style, too, all these productions resemble each other. Their authors were trained in the school of rhetoricians. They write with refined elegance, they abound in false brilliance, striking metaphors, subtle reasoning, whether they are narrating or having a character speak. Ninus' speech is a learned argument, conducted according to all the rules of art. Our novel also presages the others by combining the depiction of love with the more or less fanciful description of distant lands and the story of battles. This was the taste of the time: Greek novelists always sought to interest readers by mixing fragments.
Subsequent Commentary by S. Gaselee (1916)
THE papyrus was first published by Ulrich Wilcken in Hermes 28 (1893), p. 161. Help towards establishing the text may be found in Schubart, Pap. Gr. Berol. 18 (a fascimile), and in articles by Enea Piccolomini (Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei V. ii. (1893), p. 313), Lionello Levi (Rivista di Filologia 23 (1895), p. 1), and Girolamo Vitelli (Studi Italiani di Filologia classica 2, p. 297). Piccolomini has written on the literary value of the fragment in the Nuova Antologia 46 (130), p. 490: and perhaps the best estimate of its position in the history of Greek fiction is to be found in the work of Otmar Schissel von Fleschenberg, Entwickelungsgeschichte des griechischen Romanes im Altertum (Halle, 1913), p. 14.
The papyrus comes from Egypt--we do not know with certainty from what part of the country. On the back of it are written some accounts of the year A.D. 101: the writing of the Romance is careful and calligraphic, and experts have considered that it may be dated between B.C. 100 and A.D. 50. It consists of two unconnected fragments, and I have printed the texts in the order of their original publication by Wilcken: there are the remains of five columns on the first, and three on the second. It is quite doubtful whether this order is correct: in the first (A) the hero, Ninus, and the heroine (unnamed), deeply in love with one another, approach each the other's mother and set forth their love, asking for a speedy marriage; in the second (B) the young couple seem to be together at the beginning, but almost immediately Ninus is found leading an army of his Assyrians, with Greek and Carian allies, against the Armenian enemy. If this is the right order of the fragments there is comparatively little missing: but it seems to me on the whole rather more probable that the order should be reversed, in which case it is more likely that there is a large gap between them, and B may be near the beginning of the story, while A will come almost at the end, shortly before their final and happy union. Ninus is doubtless the mythical founder of Nineveh, and his beloved may perhaps be the famous Semiramis, who is represented as younger and more innocent than the Oriental queen of mythology. Early as the Romance is, compared with our extant Greek novels, there are resemblances with them in language and in the situations, and it may be regarded as in the direct line of descent of them all. It would take too long here to attempt to estimate its exact place in Greek fiction; the arguments will be found in the articles mentioned above. Much of the papyrus is so fragmentary that restoration and translation are highly conjectural.
The papyrus comes from Egypt--we do not know with certainty from what part of the country. On the back of it are written some accounts of the year A.D. 101: the writing of the Romance is careful and calligraphic, and experts have considered that it may be dated between B.C. 100 and A.D. 50. It consists of two unconnected fragments, and I have printed the texts in the order of their original publication by Wilcken: there are the remains of five columns on the first, and three on the second. It is quite doubtful whether this order is correct: in the first (A) the hero, Ninus, and the heroine (unnamed), deeply in love with one another, approach each the other's mother and set forth their love, asking for a speedy marriage; in the second (B) the young couple seem to be together at the beginning, but almost immediately Ninus is found leading an army of his Assyrians, with Greek and Carian allies, against the Armenian enemy. If this is the right order of the fragments there is comparatively little missing: but it seems to me on the whole rather more probable that the order should be reversed, in which case it is more likely that there is a large gap between them, and B may be near the beginning of the story, while A will come almost at the end, shortly before their final and happy union. Ninus is doubtless the mythical founder of Nineveh, and his beloved may perhaps be the famous Semiramis, who is represented as younger and more innocent than the Oriental queen of mythology. Early as the Romance is, compared with our extant Greek novels, there are resemblances with them in language and in the situations, and it may be regarded as in the direct line of descent of them all. It would take too long here to attempt to estimate its exact place in Greek fiction; the arguments will be found in the articles mentioned above. Much of the papyrus is so fragmentary that restoration and translation are highly conjectural.
Additional Fragments
FRAGMENT C
[fragmentary words]
constantly this
became--
for them, Ninus
the warriors,
and he [...] them
[fragments]
FRAGMENT D
On the shore of the [river] Hippos
([?to me revered] Lady [vocative] as [?you have shown/proved it by taking me in])
([?although] I was a helpful sailor and experienced helmsman – no one else (namely) was safer from the shift of the wind from/to the north – [?we were] driven to the coast of Colchis) and above it (her) a shady grove.
A spring flowed through it (to) the shore, providing enough water for a stream. The ship, however,– because the coastal waters were shallow – had run aground on some sandbanks lying underwater, and was in danger of being tossed back and forth by the force (of the waves) and sinking. The crew waded through the water, up to their necks in the surf. And after they had brought everything that was in the ship safely to shore, they lay down on the beach.
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Sources: Henri Weil, Études de littérature et de rhythmique Grecs (Paris: Librairie Hatchette et Cie, 1902), 90-103; S. Gaselee, "The Ninus Romance," in Daphnis & Chloe by Longus (London: William Heinemann, 1916), 382-400.
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