A further passage shows the imagination and craft of Achilles Tatius taken to a still greater degree, as he depicts the hero Cleitophon at the terrible crisis of believing his beloved to be dead. The narrative is suspended as the writer develops, at remarkable length, a psychological and physiological observation on delayed effects. Where Heliodorus had heaped up imagery with abundance, Achilles develops with skilled organization a single line of thought and imagery, developing it and enriching it as he goes. Rhythm plays a vital part in this remarkable union of tight order and inventive imagination. The expansion and the deployment of science have a Plutarchan element; but the fantasy and the tautness create something quite different out of rhythm.
(H.) Morales Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon. Cambridge UP, 2004. Pp. xiii + 270, illus. £45. 0521642647.
