Greek mythology is certainly not rich in happy-ending stories of mutually faithful love. Yet the five Greek romantic novels that we can read in their entirety (Chaereas and Callirhoe by Chariton, An Ephesian Tale by Xenophon of Ephesus, Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius, Daphnis and Chloe by Longus and An Ethiopian Story by Heliodorus), despite their ultimate optimism, make abundant use of explicit or implicit mythological references in single scenes or long plot segments. This implies that the mythological material is often selected, reinterpreted, recontextualised and modified rather than simply incorporated from epic or tragic sources. A thorough analysis of these processes, like that offered by L. in her monograph, can illuminate the composition of the ancient romantic novels, the sophistication of which has often been underestimated. An important feature of this genre is the prominent role of the female protagonist, and this justifies L.’s selection of four myths with female protagonists: Iphigenia, Phaedra, Penelope and Helen.

The introduction deals with methodological issues, such as the definition of ‘myth’, the role of the visual arts in the diffusion of mythological stories, the interaction between truth and fiction in the ancient novels, and the contract between text and reader. Paramount for L.’s analysis is the move from ‘intertext’ to ‘megatext’, intended (expanding on a definition by C. Segal) as the totality of information about a myth that was available to novelists through oral, visual and written sources, including the ‘network of more or less subconscious patterns … which tales of a given type share with one another’ (p. 17). This wide range of motifs and themes is used in the book ‘to explore the interchange between what a reader is told/reads and what s/he anticipates hearing/read’ (sic, p. 23). The external readers’ expectations and reactions, L. suggests, can be gauged from those of the internal audiences described in the novels.

Three subsequent chapters study how the megatext on the four mythical heroines mentioned above is appropriated by the Greek romantic novels. Each chapter is introduced by a short overview of the myth and by three sections dealing with the visual arts, the literary sources and the megatext connected to the myth. Five more sections are devoted to the five ancient novels and their interaction with the megatext; finally, an ‘In focus’ section recapitulates L.’s findings.

L.’s analysis offers food for thought and useful hints for the interpretation of the Greek novels, but also contains some unclear or debatable points. Sometimes the large number of sources, motifs and themes contained in the megatext leads to interpretative uncertainty, and arguably weak connections are given much importance. For example, on p. 49 L. offers some appropriate cautionary remarks against hasty identifications: ‘Callirhoe was married and thus unlike the virgins Iphigenia, Polyxena and Antigone; unlike Alcestis she is not a victim of self-sacrifice but of slander’. Nevertheless, on the following page we learn that ‘Callirhoe's Scheintod could be read in terms of an Iphigenia or of a Helen tale’, despite there being no substitution of the victim in Chariton or other distinctive traits of Iphigenia's fake killing – are all the false deaths we find in Greek novels to be interpreted in terms of ‘Iphigenia tales’? The connection with Iphigenia is more credible in the case of Leucippe's second apparent death in Achilles Tatius (p. 66), where a substitution is actually involved. Yet, a statement such as ‘Melite promises him [sc. Clitophon] an immediate reunion with Leucippe, hinting at the escape motif from the Iphigenia megatext’ (p. 71, referring to Achilles Tatius 6.1.1) will probably be the source of some perplexity for most readers, since no further explanation is offered. An interesting point is made in the final ‘In focus’ section of the first chapter: unlike Euripides’ tragedies, the novels do not indulge in descriptions of the heroine's emotions when she has to face death. Such scenes, L. argues, were ‘part of a literary fantasy addressing a male audience of onlookers … rather than a deep study of the maiden's psyche from her own point of view’ (p. 103). The most intriguing discussion, in this reviewer's opinion, can be found in the last chapter, where L. describes how Callirhoe conforms to different models in different situations, being characterised at times as a faithful Penelope and at times as a disloyal Helen (with some nuances in between, corresponding to variations found in the megatext). The focalisers of these identifications are, on different occasions, Callirhoe herself, Chaereas, Dionysius and Artaxerxes, each trying to impose his/her own interpretation of the events; consequently, the other characters’ and the external readers’ expectations are often thwarted.

The epilogue recapitulates and contextualises the main points previously made in the book. Greek novels engaged with myths that played an integral part in the Greek educational curriculum and in the ‘Imperial mythical koine’, and revised them along the same lines as the Second Sophistic. The typical blend of mythical, folkloric and novelistic materials is new, but still places the novels in the mainstream Greek culture that interacted with those same myths. Particularly strong are the links with drama, which usually shapes specific episodes, and with epic poetry, which informs longer sections and narrative sequences.

Each reader will probably find a mix of interesting and perplexing suggestions in this book, depending on their own inclinations and on their propensity to go beyond ‘the overwhelming trend towards meticulous intertextual analysis’ (p. 316) in order to engage in an analysis of the megatext. Every reader, however, will probably find that the frequency of typos and misspellings is too high; and one also has to point out that the meaning of several sentences is obscured by the lack of one or more words or generally by garbled syntax. The first example occurs as early as p. 3: ‘The breadth therefore of the mythical vulgate suggests that it is impossible to deduce the “birth” of the novel from one or another kind of myth … but an overview of the variety of sources and media’. Sometimes information is offered in a rather careless way. Figure 12 is presented in the text as a ‘fresco from Apamea’ (p. 179). The caption says this fresco represents Penelope and Odysseus, the latter with his hand on his chin. The actual image, however, is not a fresco but a drawing, where Odysseus has the left hand covered by his garment and the right one resting on his thigh. One has to check the LIMC entry for ‘Penelope’, fig. 36 (referenced in the caption), to see the actual fresco representing Odysseus in the pose described above – but one also learns that the fresco is not from Apamea but from Pompeii. The drawing also differs from the Pompeian fresco in other small details, so it either reproduces a similar but different fresco unknown to this reviewer, or it is simply careless and erroneous. This is an admittedly extreme example, but it is not unrepresentative. It is unfortunate that L., as well as the publisher, did not deem it necessary to have the book thoroughly edited before publication.