Word: ethiopica
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Thus Heliodorus opens his swashbuckling Ethiopica, one of the ancestors of the historical novel. Even when it first appeared−about A.D.250−it was a full-fledged historical, for Heliodorus was writing about a period 750 years before his own time. This early blood-and-thunder melodrama comes magnificently alive in this new translation by Columbia University's Jay Professor of Greek, Moses Hadas...
...probable purpose in his writing: to propagandize for the gentle philosophy of the gymnosophists, an obscure ascetic Hindu sect, and to proclaim the humanity, culture and martial skill of the dark-skinned Ethiopians. Today, nearly 1,700 years after his death, both messages have relevance, but the Ethiopica will mostly be read now, as it always has been, as a rattling good adventure story...
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