HELIODORUS, of Emesa in Syria, Greek writer of romance. He was the author of the Aethiopica, the oldest and best of the Greek romances that have come down to us. It was first brought to light in modern times in a ms. from the library of Matthias Corvinus, found at the sack of Buda (Ofen) in 1526, and printed at Basle in 1534. Other codices have since been discovered. The story is that the daughter of Persine, wife of Hydaspes, king of Aethiopia, was born white. Fearing an accusation of adultery, the mother gives the babe to the care of a gymnosophist. The child is finally taken to Delphi, and made a priestess of Apollo under the name of Charicleia. Theagenes, a noble Thessalian, comes to Delphi and the two fall in love with each other. He carries off the priestess with the help of an Egyptian, employed by Persine to seek for her daughter. After many adventures the chief personages meet at Meroe at the very moment when Charicleia is about to be sacrificed to the gods by her own father. Her birth is made known, and the lovers are married. The rapid succession of events, the variety of the characters, the graphic descriptions of manners and of natural scenery, the simplicity and elegance of the style, give the Aethiopica great charm. As a whole it offends less good taste and moral decency than other romances of its class. Homer and Euripides were the favourite authors of Heliodorus, who in his turn was imitated by French, Italian and Spanish writers. The early life of Clorinda in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (canto xii. 21 sqq.) is almost identical with that of Charicleia; Racine meditated a drama on the same subject ; and it formed the model of the Persiles y Sigismunda of Cervantes. According to the ecclesiastical historian Socrates (Hist. eccles. v. 22), the author of the Aethiopica was a certain Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca in Thessaly. But it is now generally agreed that the real author was a sophist of the 3rd century A.D.
The best editions are: A. Coraes (1804), G. A. Hirschig (1856) ; see also M. Oeftering, H. and seine Bedeutung fur die Literatur, with full bibliographies (tool) ; J. C. Dunlop, History of Prose Fiction (1888) ; and especially E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman (1900) . There are translations in almost all European languages.