Love on the waves: the reversal of a topos in Achilles Tatius

In the Greek novel love and sea are two opposite polarities: lovers must experience the sea and its negative force to have the right to come back to love and its positive energy. In Achilles Tatius’ romance this rule is, at least apparently, respected, because Leucippe is kidnapped in the island of Pharos by pirates who escape on a boat, in vain followed by Cleitophon’s vessel. But in two occasions, at the end of book two and in book five, navigation turns to be the setting of erotic conversations: a debate on homosexual and heterosexual love and a oarismo‘s between Melite and Cleitophon. This paper discusses how Achilles Tatius accepts the traditional opposition of sea and love only to refuse it, showing once again his freedom in the treatment of novelistic conventions.