"The (Un)happy Romance of Curleo and Liliet". Xenophon of Ephesus, the Cyropaedia and the birth of the ‘anti-tragic’ novel

In part 1, I argue that in Roman Greece Panthea and Abradates’ novella from the Cyropaedia was so extraordinaraly famous that Xenophon of Ephesus must have borrowed and allusively adapted their names so as to give sprechende Namen to his novel’s heroes. In part 2 and 3, I explore the intertextual potential of such a reference. Echoes from the Cyropaedia prove an important ingredient of Xenophon’s novel, helping define its fictional status in and against the background of its classical model. In part 4 I turn to the names themselves, arguing that Xenophon felt the need to hellenise his character names, which suit very well his implicit ‘revision’ of Panthea’s novella.