Achilles Tatius's Harvest Festival and the Eucharist

The harvest festival in honor of Dionysus in Leuc. Clit. 2.2 comes at a pivotal point in Clitophon's first-person narrative.Footnote ⁸ Since Leucippe's arrival in Tyre, Clitophon has been filled with an unshakable desire for her. In spite of having been promised in marriage to his half-sister Calligone, under the tutelage of Clinias he begins to woo her. The festival provides a fortuitous opportunity for Clitophon to realize his erotic intentions. Prone to digression as he is, Clitophon recounts the Tyrian myth of the origin of wine associated with the festival. Dionysus, he relates, is regarded by the Tyrians as their own deity in their singing of the myth of Cadmus (τὸν γὰϱ Διόνυσον Τύϱιοι νομίζουσιν ἑαυτν, ἐπε κα τὸν Κάδμου μθον ᾄδουσι; 2.2.1).Footnote ⁹ In the harvest festival, they commemorate the god's gift of wine to the Tyrians. Dionysus once visited a certain herdsman who hosted him generously but, because vines did not yet exist, their “drink was the same as that of the oxen” (ποτὸν δὲ παϱ’ αὐτος οον κα ὁ βος ἔπινεν; 2.2.3).Footnote ¹⁰ In response to his hospitality, Dionysus pledged the herdsman “a cup of friendship and the drink was wine” (αὐτ πϱοτείνει κύλικα φιλοτησίαν· τὸ δὲ ποτὸν ονος ; 2.2.4). The herdsman in his joyful response mistook the new beverage for “sweet blood” (αμα γλυκύ; 2.2.4) and praised its ability to kindle the “fire of pleasure” (ἡδονς πϱ; 2.2.5). The following words and actions of Dionysus are particularly striking for their resemblances to the Eucharist:

Similarities with the institution narrative in the Gospel of Mark are underlined in the following passage:Footnote ¹¹

The novel shares at least four elements with the New Testament narratives.

1. 1) As in Mark and Matthew, Achilles Tatius has Dionysus repeat the phrase τοτό ἐστιν. Dionysus's words, “this is blood of a grape” (τοτ’ ἔστιν αμα βότϱυος), are nearly identical with Jesus's words, “this is my blood of the covenant” (τοτό ἐστιν τὸ αμά μου τς διαθήκης).

2. 2) As in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 1 Corinthians, in Achilles Tatius's myth too, the wine is associated with blood.Footnote ¹⁵ First, the herdsman identifies the wine as “sweet blood” (αμα γλυκύ; 2.2.4) and the god later modifies this declaration to “blood of a grape” (αμα βότϱυος; 2.2.5).

3. 3) Dionysus's actions (λαβὼν ἅμα κα θλίβων κα δεικνύς; 2.2.6) resemble those of Jesus at the Last Supper (λαβὼν ἄϱτον εὐλογήσας ἔκλασεν κα ἔδωκεν; Mark 14:22).

4. 4) Both divine benefactions are understood as part of a formal relationship—“a cup of friendship” (κύλικα φιλοτησίαν) in Leuc. Clit. 2.2.4 and a sign of the covenant (“my blood of the covenant” [τὸ αμά μου τς διαθήκης; Matt and Mark]; “this cup is the new covenant” [τοτο τὸ ποτήϱιον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη; Luke and 1 Cor]) in the eucharistic narratives—and both result subsequently in ritual commemorations.Footnote ¹⁶

These shared elements are too strong to be accidental and certainly could not have gone unnoticed by a reader with knowledge of Christianity.Footnote ¹⁷ Before considering the import of these observations within the novel's immediate context, it will be helpful to address several issues of relevance to its wider interpretation.

Leucippe and Clitophon as Parody

Achilles Tatius's novel is filled with many absurdities that make it difficult to take seriously. Indeed, as Graham Anderson's important study has shown, a central shortcoming in twentieth-century evaluations of ancient novels is the failure to recognize their humor.Footnote ¹⁸ Anderson maintains that “Achilles Tatius clearly sees himself as a Plato eroticus, and much of the first two books as an anti-Phaedrus,” in which “for the great syncrisis between ‘Lysias’ and Socrates he substitutes a travesty, comparing the advantages of boys and women as lovers.”Footnote ¹⁹ He regards Achilles Tatius as a “virtuoso saboteur,” who “flaunts all kinds of sexuality while maintaining the appearance of utmost respectability.”Footnote ²⁰ The chastity ordeal in book 8 where Melite passes by an absurd technicality provides a clear example of Achilles Tatius's contempt for the ideals of the romantic genre. The hypothesis of R. M. Rattenbury seems correct, namely, that the function of the chastity ordeals was to ridicule the novelistic conventions because “Achilles Tatius felt that the moral standard set by his predecessors was too strict to be possible.”Footnote ²¹

The first scholar explicitly to characterize Leucippe and Clitophon as parody is Donald Durham. Developing Rattenbury's analysis, he argues that Achilles Tatius found “the idealism of his predecessors insipid and ridicule[d] it by parody.”Footnote ²² Durham regards Heliodorus's Aethiopica as the primary target of Leucippe and Clitophon's parody, but this relative chronology of the two novels has now been disproved. Nevertheless, the identification of parodic elements in Leucippe and Clitophon persists. Kathryn Chew argues, in contrast to Durham, that Leucippe and Clitophon has elements of “a thematic rather than a philological parody,” aimed at the novelistic conventions generally rather than at a particular author.Footnote ²³ In her view, the treatment of the classical myth of Zeus and Europa in the novel's opening ekphrasis well illustrates Achilles Tatius's larger literary aims. The anonymous narrator describes in vivid detail a painting of the abduction of Europa that ends thus: “[Eros] turned to Zeus and smiled, as though mocking him; for on his account [Zeus] had become a bull” (μετέστϱαπτο δὲ ὡς ἐπ τὸν Δία κα ὑπεμειδία, ὥσπεϱ αὐτο καταγελν, ὅτι δι’ αὐτὸν γέγονε βος; 1.1.13). Chew comments that “depicting the king of the gods as a prime example of love's fool is programmatic for Achilles Tatius’ parodic treatment of his novelistic and Classical tradition.”Footnote ²⁴

One of the most distinctive features of the novelistic genre is the emphasis on mutuality in erotic desire, with a degree of reciprocity unprecedented in Greek literature.Footnote ²⁵ The symmetrical nature of the relationship between hero and heroine is often highlighted by the former's passivity (at times bordering on cowardice) and at the same time by the latter's active and self-reliant role.Footnote ²⁶ The novelistic plots present countless threats to the lovers’ fidelity that in the end are overcome so that they may be united in marriage. To regard Leucippe and Clitophon, however, as Michel Foucault does, “as a kind of odyssey of double virginity [une sorte d’odyssée de la double virginité],” overlooks important literary features, not least Achilles Tatius's use of humor and irony.Footnote ²⁷ Repeatedly throughout the novel, Clitophon's chastity is shown to be a sham. The clearest instance of this is when, after long resisting Melite's demands for sex while he thought Leucippe was dead, he finally gives in after learning that she is in fact alive (5.26–27). Chew rightly sees this as “a wild parody of reciprocal romantic love.”Footnote ²⁸ This, however, is not the only failure in his chastity. In his debate with his companion, Menelaus, regarding the preferability of women versus men as lovers, he feigns naïveté: “I am inexperienced in women insofar as I have [only] had association with those who sell themselves for Aphrodite” (ἐγὼ μὲν πϱωτόπειϱος ὢν εἰς γυνακας, ὅσον ὁμιλσαι τας εἰς Ἀφϱοδίτην πωλουμέναις; 2.37.5). The incongruity of Clitophon's claim to sexual inexperience both with his acquaintance with prostitutes and with his detailed descriptions of sex does not go unnoticed by Menelaus, who comments: “But you seem to me not inexperienced but rather to have become a veteran in Aphrodite” (Ἀλλὰ σύ μοι δοκες,” ἔφη, “μὴ πϱωτόπειϱος ἀλλὰ γέϱων εἰς Ἀφϱοδίτην τυγχάνειν; 2.38.1). Later, Clitophon assures Leucippe of his virginity in a letter, writing, “You will learn that I have imitated your virginity” (μαθήσῃ τὴν σὴν με παϱθενίαν μεμιμημένον), adding the caveat, “if indeed any virginity exists among men” (εἴ τις κα ἐν ἀνδϱάσι παϱθενία; 5.20.5). He later repeats this caveat when recounting his misadventures to Leucippe's father and adds (because he has by now had sex with Melite) that his virginity (παϱθενία) is “with respect to Leucippe” (πϱὸς Λευκίππην; 8.5.7). For her part, Melite is able to pass the test of her chastity only on the technicality that it applied to the period of her husband's absence abroad (8.11).

Leucippe's chastity is also treated ironically. Not long after meeting Clitophon she is eager to make love to him in secret (2.19). She nevertheless maintains her virginity not, as other novelistic heroines, due to her own fortitude but rather because her mother, reacting to a dream of her daughter being violently attacked, storms into her room to find her with Clitophon (2.23).Footnote ²⁹ She defends herself to her mother, insisting that her chastity is intact and that she can prove it “if there is some test of virginity” (εἰ παϱθενίας ἔστι τις δοκιμασία; 2.28.3), an assertion that anticipates book 8. It is ironic that there, when she is finally given the test she requested in book 2, she has in fact demonstrated her fortitude, having overcome countless threats and attacks to her virginity, whereas in book 2 she is prepared to give it up straightaway with Clitophon.Footnote ³⁰ These observations support Chew's contention that Achilles Tatius's “use of chastity tests is a self-conscious allusion to his parody of romance morality.”Footnote ³¹

Thus, parody is a central literary feature of Leucippe and Clitophon. Its most immediate target is the generic conventions of the romantic novel, although its satire covers a wider range, including classical mythology and philosophical dialogue. The novel's parodies are often aimed at a deflation of the sexual ideals embodied by its literary predecessors.

Literary theorists provide insights into the nature of parody that are useful for understanding Leucippe and Clitophon. Simon Dentith gives a broad definition: “Parody includes any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice.”Footnote ³² Applied to literature, parody is one of many possible ways in which one text can be formally related to another; that is, it is a mode of intertextuality. Margaret Rose suggests that a central feature of parody is a text's ability to disrupt the reader's expectations. She defines parody as “the critical refunctioning of performed literary material with comic effect,” produced primarily by the surprising incongruity between the parodied text and its new context.Footnote ³³ The novel's transformation of the Europa myth in its opening ekphrasis illustrates this point: what might have been understood as a story of Zeus's sexual conquest over Europa is recast in Leucippe and Clitophon as a demonstration of Eros's ultimate power to undermine and subvert even the strongest subjects.Footnote ³⁴ By thus inverting the reader's expectations, the parodic refunctioning of the traditional myth invites the reader to reexamine the nature and power of erotic attraction.

Rose also provides a useful analysis of a reader's response to parody, suggesting that parody has four possible outcomes.Footnote ³⁵ 1) A reader may not recognize the parody due to a failure to perceive the presence of the quotation or allusion. 2) A reader may recognize the parodied text but, because of sympathy for it, fail to recognize its ironic treatment. In this case, the reader him- or herself can be seen as a victim and target of the parody. 3) A reader may recognize the parodic treatment and perceive him- or herself to be the target. 4) The “ideal reader” “recognizes the parodistic effect from the discrepancy between [the two contexts] and also enjoys the recognition of the hidden irony and satire against the parodied text and [is] sympathetic to it.”Footnote ³⁶

Rose's discussion of parody coheres well with other contemporary literature of the Second Sophistic.Footnote ³⁷ Lucian, for example, makes the aims of his parody explicit in the preface to A True Story:

This programmatic statement is a challenge, as it were, to the ideal reader to identify the frequent literary allusions throughout his fantastic tale. As Aristoula Georgiadou and David Larmour point out, parody “is, of course, most effective when it does not announce itself directly.”Footnote ³⁹ Lucian masterfully plays on his audience's knowledge of literature by manipulating his sources with surprising and ridiculous twists.Footnote ⁴⁰

Lucian is particularly relevant for this study because (like Celsus, who is discussed below) he read Christian texts and was acquainted with Christian practices, both of which he subjects to his satiric wit.Footnote ⁴¹ Hans Dieter Betz has noted several parallels, for example, between Lucian's description of the paradisal city in A True Story and the heavenly city described in the Book of Revelation.Footnote ⁴² Later in the same work, Lucian describes water that becomes wine, in a scene that some scholars have suggested shares similarities with Christian mysteries (Ver. hist. 2.47).Footnote ⁴³ In another work, Lucian's satiric fiction ridicules Christians by depicting them as followers of a new mystery cult (καινὴ τελετή; Peregr. 11) who are so gullible as to be deceived and manipulated by Peregrinus, a false philosopher who is in fact a criminal.Footnote ⁴⁴ Lucian's parodies of Christians and biblical texts of course do not establish the existence of a Christian parody in Leucippe and Clitophon; rather, they simply demonstrate that a contemporary reader might have been expected to recognize and appreciate an allusive transformation of a Christian source within a fictional narrative.Footnote ⁴⁵

In sum, contrary to Bowersock, parody is a central feature of Achilles Tatius's novel that is directed at diverse sources often by means of subtle allusions that could easily go undetected. For Achilles Tatius, the idealistic sexual morality of the genre of Greek romance is a frequent target of parody, and, as I argue below, a similar focal point can be observed in his transformation of the eucharistic narratives. Moreover, a parody that subtly imitates the Christian rite within a fictional narrative—either derived from literary sources or as part of a larger social critique—is in keeping with other parodic writings of the Second Sophistic.

The Eucharist in the Second Century

An interpretation of Achilles Tatius's transformation of the eucharistic words of Jesus as parody assumes some knowledge of and agonistic attitude toward the source both by the author and the implied ideal reader. It is therefore necessary to give a historical account both of the possibility that the Eucharist and its narratives could have been known to a non-Christian in the late second century and of how they may have been viewed.

Within Christian literature, Jesus's words in the institution narratives are broadly attested. Joachim Jeremias argues that their “antiquity approaches that of the earliest kerygma.”Footnote ⁴⁶ He suggests that these words circulated widely, primarily through liturgy, even prior to their first literary attestations.Footnote ⁴⁷ Indeed, the oldest literary traditions—Markan and Pauline/Lukan—“are independent of each other and do not go back to the same Greek source.”Footnote ⁴⁸ Even the Gospel of John, though it lacks an institution narrative, preserves a paraphrase of Jesus's words.Footnote ⁴⁹ Thus, it is important to recognize that from the earliest period, although there was a high degree of diversity both in eucharistic practice and in the form of its narratives, the broad attestation of the eucharistic words of Jesus nevertheless points to their importance across a wide spectrum of the earliest Christian communities.Footnote ⁵⁰ In the mid-second century, evidence for the prominence of the eucharistic narratives is found in Justin Martyr, who cites them in a form that appears to be a conflation of Matthew and Luke. He mentions the words of institution in the context of his description of the eucharistic meal and cites the Gospels as his source.Footnote ⁵¹ Although not all second-century descriptions of eucharistic practice include the words of institution (e.g., Did. 9–10), it is nevertheless certain that they continued to be widely known and used by Christians throughout the second century.

The extent of knowledge of Jesus's eucharistic words outside of Christian circles in the late second century is less certain. Jeremias notes that from very early on there was an “effort to protect the eucharistic words from profanation and misconstruction” and they were thus kept from the general public.Footnote ⁵² He points out that the use of secret or esoteric words existed not only in the Hellenistic world but also in sects of Judaism; some of the teachings of Jesus were in fact treated in this way.Footnote ⁵³ In the second century, only the baptized were admitted to the celebration of the Eucharist, and, therefore, if the words were recited there, only converts would have heard them (Did. 9.5; Justin, 1 Apol. 66.1). Nevertheless, increasingly outsiders were gaining knowledge of Christian ritual practice. Pliny the Younger, for example, learned of a sacred Christian meal by word of mouth, extracting information from former converts in Bithynia and reporting it to Emperor Trajan in 112 c.e. (Ep. 10.96). The eucharistic ritual in particular was the subject of rumors and suspicions of various sorts of outlandish sexual and sacrificial practices.Footnote ⁵⁴ A different sort of acquaintance with Christianity is found in Galen. Although there is no evidence that he had specific knowledge of the Eucharist, he was familiar with Christian practices and ways of life and was particularly impressed by their ability to refrain from cohabitation and exhibit self-discipline in matters of food and drink.Footnote ⁵⁵ In addition to such anecdotal reports, by the second half of the second century, critics were reading Christian literature for themselves. The most notable examples are Lucian, whose parodic treatment of biblical texts is discussed above, and Celsus, who subjects the Christian Gospels to detailed analysis and criticism (see below).

In sum, the eucharistic words of Jesus had a prominent place in the earliest Christian communities, and this continued throughout the second century. Specific knowledge of Christian practice and literature was increasingly becoming available to outsiders so that by the end of the century Achilles Tatius and his audience may certainly have known the eucharistic words of Jesus, either by word of mouth or from reading the Gospels.

Jesus and Dionysus in Second-Century Religious Discourse

In his conflation of Dionysiac and Christian myth and ritual, Achilles Tatius was employing a well-established polemical trope. Indeed, Dionysus and Jesus provided an especially apt point of comparison between Christianity and polytheism.Footnote ⁵⁶ Both deities had divine and human parentage, a claim that was consequently suspected by some as a cover-up for illegitimacy. Both were viewed as newcomers, foreign invaders; both were subjected to violent and bloody deaths (Jesus by crucifixion, Dionysus—in the Orphic myth—by the Titans). The followers of both were accused of consuming raw flesh. Both were known for their close association with women devotees. Particularly important for the present discussion, both were in some sense bestowers of wine, and consequently wine was an important element in their ritual worship. Finally, a common feature between Christianity and the Dionysiac religion of the Roman period was that they advanced largely in localized private associations.Footnote ⁵⁷

Comparisons between Dionysus and Jesus are already implicit within the New Testament itself. In the miracle at Cana in John 2:1–11, for example, Jesus transforms water into wine, a feat typically associated with Dionysus.Footnote ⁵⁸ Indeed, John's Jesus—perhaps, over against Dionysus—emphatically declares himself to be the “true vine.”Footnote ⁵⁹ The Acts of the Apostles also shares several elements with Dionysiac mythology, such as miraculous prison breaks complete with earthquakes and doors that open spontaneously (Acts 12 and 16), the use of the term θεομάχος (fighting against god) to characterize human opposition to a divinely sanctioned cult (Acts 5:39), and the phrase “to kick against the goads” (πϱὸς κέντϱα λακτίζειν), which was attributed by Euripides to Dionysus (Bacch. 794–95) but in Acts is spoken by Christ (26:14).Footnote ⁶⁰ These examples suggest that it was Christian authors, not their critics, who first began to develop comparisons between Dionysus and Jesus. While an exploration of these and other New Testament texts lies beyond the scope of the present study, it seems they were aimed in part at demonstrating the superiority of Christianity to Dionysiac cult.

In the second century, Justin acknowledges the similarities between Jesus and the sons of Zeus in Greek mythology (including Dionysus) and claims that these myths were inspired by demons (1 Apol. 21.1–23.3). And Celsus develops the comparison between Jesus and Dionysus in his critique of Christianity in two ways that are important for the present study.Footnote ⁶¹ First, he compares the New Testament account of Jesus's trial by Pilate with Pentheus's trial of Dionysus in Euripides's Bacchae in order to demonstrate the implausibility of the Christian narrative. In his judgment it is impossible that a god in human form who is ridiculed and suffers injustice from men would allow them to go unpunished. He cites Dionysus's prescient words to Pentheus (“the god himself will set me free whenever I wish it” [λύσει μ᾽ ὁ δαίμων αὐτός, ὅταν ἐγὼ θέλω]) and notes that in the end it is Pentheus, not the god, who is torn to shreds (Origen, Cels. 2.34–35; Bacchae 498). Jesus's persecutors, by contrast, receive no punishment for their actions. In addition thus to criticizing Christian narrative, Celsus also suggests that similarities existed between Christian teaching and those of the Bacchic mysteries, primarily in that they targeted “uneducated” persons (ἰδιται) who were particularly susceptible to the use of “phantoms and terrors” (τὰ φάσματα κα τὰ δείματα) by religious authorities (Origen, Cels. 4.10).Footnote ⁶²

This latter accusation—that Christian ritual resembled mystery rites—was an especially strong concern for second-century apologists. Justin, for example, in his discussion of the Eucharist is aware of the similarities between the use of bread and the cup in Christianity and the mysteries of Mithra; he regards the latter as an imitation of the Christian Eucharist given by demons (1 Apol. 66).Footnote ⁶³ Wine was apparently recognized by some Christians as having too close of an association with polytheistic ritual meals. Thus, in the Eucharist, certain ascetic communities—particularly in Syria and Asia—used water in its place. As Andrew McGowan argues, for some of these Christians the use of water functioned as an alternative to polytheistic sacrificial meals.Footnote ⁶⁴

The association with mystery cults was particularly offensive to certain second-century Christians because of its implications with regard to sexuality. Indeed, the close relationship between men and women in Christian communities was a persistent source of suspicion that Christians were engaging in cultic sexual practices.Footnote ⁶⁵ In the eyes of the critic, therefore, Dionysiac religion shared a key feature with Christianity: the prominence of women and feminine eroticism.Footnote ⁶⁶ In view of this, many second-century Christians sought to establish their identity as a sexually chaste community over against these suspicions; as Justin insists, “Licentious intercourse is not a mystery rite for us” (οὐκ ἔστιν ἡμν μυστήϱιον ἡ ἀνέδην μίξις; 1 Apol. 29.2). In order to illustrate this, he reports a most severe example: one young man in Alexandria, in his zeal to remain chaste, sought permission to have himself castrated (1 Apol. 29). Justin seeks to demonstrate that the Christian commitment to chastity was not limited to this one extreme example but was in fact a widespread virtue: “Men and women now in their sixties and seventies who have been disciples of Christ from childhood have preserved their purity [ἄφθοϱοι διαμένουσι]; and I am proud that I could point to such people in every nation” (1 Apol. 15).Footnote ⁶⁷

Christian ideals of chastity can also be seen in narrative texts. The apocryphal Acts are particularly relevant here because they serve as Christian counterparts to the Greek novels.Footnote ⁶⁸ In their treatment of sexuality and chastity, they borrow and transform novelistic themes in a variety of ways.Footnote ⁶⁹ As with the novels, heroines in the apocryphal Acts overcome repeated threats in maintaining their chastity. There is, however, a fundamental difference. Whereas in the novels the hero and heroine remain chaste for the sake of their mutual romantic commitment culminating in marriage, chastity in the apocryphal Acts entails a repudiation of the traditional civic and familial institutions that marriage represents. The story of Thecla illustrates this point.Footnote ⁷⁰ When she hears the preaching of Paul, she becomes infatuated with him (Acts Paul 7), not unlike when a novelistic heroine first encounters her lover in a public gathering. Thecla's encounter with Paul, however, results in her devotion to chastity much to the dismay of her betrothed, Thamyris. For Paul and Thecla, like the heroes and heroines of the novels, their commitment to chastity leads to a series of misadventures; in their case, they suffer persecution at the instigation of Thamyris and the civic authorities who perceive the socially subversive nature of Paul's message. As Kate Cooper suggests in her contrast of the apocryphal Acts with the ancient novel, “we move from celebration of sexuality in the service of social community to a denigration of sexuality in the service of a challenge to the establishment.”Footnote ⁷¹

In sum, in the late second century, comparisons between Christian and Dionysiac myth and ritual were known to both Christians and non-Christians. On the one hand, critics like Celsus could ridicule Christian narratives by demonstrating their inferiority to the myths of Dionysus. On the other hand, Christianity could be slurred for its apparent similarities to Bacchic (and other) mysteries. Christians’ insistence on chastity developed in part from their desire to separate themselves from the sexuality associated with such cults.

Leucippe and Clitophon 2.2 as Parody of the Christian Eucharist

The foregoing sections have established the strong likelihood that Achilles Tatius's Dionysiac ritual imitates the Christian Eucharist and subjects it to critical parody. In addition to the striking linguistic and conceptual parallels between his novel and the New Testament narratives, it is clear that the eucharistic words of Jesus had a prominent place in Christian communities and that their texts and practices were becoming increasingly known to non-Christians. A reader who had such knowledge and shared a critical attitude toward Christianity would certainly have picked up on and enjoyed this transformation. I now offer some further observations regarding Leucippe and Clitophon that suggest that, in keeping with his larger use of parody, Achilles Tatius has created an incongruity that centers on questions of sexual morality.

Achilles Tatius offers several hints that his etiological myth is unlike any other literary version of the story. He has Clitophon introduce it by stating, “they tell a story, the origin of the feast, when wine as yet did not exist anywhere among human beings” (τς ἑοϱτς διηγονται πατέϱα μθον, ονον οὐκ εναί ποτε παϱ’ ἀνθϱώποις ὅπου μήπω παϱ’ αὐτος; 2.2.2). He then disrupts the readers’ expectations by differentiating the Tyrian wine from several types of well-known wines from Greek literature: “not the dark and sweet-smelling, nor that of the vine of Biblia, nor the Thracian of Maron, nor the Chian from Laconia, nor that of the island of Icarus” (οὐ τὸν μέλανα τὸν ἀνθοσμίαν, οὐ τὸν τς Βιβλίας ἀμπέλου, οὐ τὸν Μάϱωνος τὸν Θϱᾴκιον, οὐ Χον ἐκ Λακαίνης, οὐ τὸν Ἰκάϱου τὸν νησιώτην; 2.2.2).Footnote ⁷² These famous Greek wines, Clitophon insists, in fact “were all colonized from the Tyrian wines” (τούτους μὲν ἅπαντας ἀποίκους εναι Τυϱίων οἴνων; 2.2.2). In addition, Achilles Tatius through Clitophon differentiates his myth from the most famous Greek myth of the origin of wine, noting that the Tyrian story about the herdsman is “like what Athenians say about Icarius” (οον Ἀθηναοι τὸν Ικάϱιον λέγουσι; 2.2.3). In this latter account, Dionysus is hosted by Icarius, who, upon receiving wine from the god, joyously distributes it to his fellows. As a result of their drunkenness, they kill him and subsequently his daughter, Erigone, hangs herself from grief.Footnote ⁷³ Achilles Tatius's version of the myth differs significantly in its points of emphasis. Whereas the traditional myth emphasizes the power of wine to induce madness and violence, his narrative highlights its sexual potency. Indeed, the connection between Dionysus, wine, and sex was a well-established trope in Greek literature.Footnote ⁷⁴

The subsequent events in book 2 of Leucippe and Clitophon demonstrate that the immediate effects of wine are erotic rather than tragic. In Achilles Tatius's myth, when the herdsman first tastes the wine, he observes that “leaping down into the belly it kindles the fire of pleasure from below” (εἰς τὴν γαστέϱα δὲ καταθοϱὸν ἀναπνε κάτωθεν ἡδονς πϱ; 2.2.5). Similarly, Clitophon reports that the wine produces a heightened effect on the gaze between him and Leucippe: “As the drink advanced, now I was also looking at her without shame” (το δὲ πότου πϱοιόντος ἤδη κα ἀναισχύντως ἐς αὐτὴν ἑώϱων; 2.3.3). Likewise, “now also she herself dared to look at me more intensely” (ἤδη δὲ κα αὐτὴ πεϱιεϱγότεϱον εἰς ἐμὲ βλέπειν ἐθϱασύνετο; 2.3.3).Footnote ⁷⁵ Achilles Tatius has Clitophon make the relationship between wine and erotic love explicit:

In Leuc. Clit. 2.9, the enjoyment of wine is linked to the experience of kissing: the lovers exchange their cups of wine and imagine themselves offering a “missive kiss” (ἀποστολιμαον τοτο φίλημα; 2.9.2). The ultimate result is a chain of events that leads inexorably to their failed and disastrous attempt at a sexual rendezvous, the single lapse in Leucippe's commitment to chastity (2.2.23). Thus, the novel leaves the clear impression that the religious celebration of wine necessarily entails erotic effects.

Achilles Tatius's harvest festival, therefore, stands in sharp contrast to the Christian celebration of wine in the Eucharist. Whereas many Christians labored to distinguish their practices from polytheistic cult and to establish sexual chastity as fundamental to their own identity, Achilles Tatius reminds his readers that for Greeks religious celebrations of wine were inherently erotic. Thus, the effect of the parody depends on the recognition of the incongruity between Christian professions of sexual renunciation, on the one hand, and the erotic effects of wine, on the other.