1The degradation of the protagonist is a standard element of the he plot of the Greek novels. It sets up the final restitution and reunion of the long lost lovers at the end of the novel. There are too many illustrations of this formula to enumerate easily, but one example in particular stands out. It occurs in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, where Theagenes, the novel’s handsome and aristocratic hero, finds himself in Memphis as a guest of Arsace, the imperious wife of the absent Persian satrap. Enraged at the chaste hero for rejecting her sexual overtures, Arsace’s despotic temper flares. In order to dominate the object of her lust, she degrades him from guest to slave : because Theagenes and his beloved Charicleia came to her palace as prisoners, she claims ownership over them. As the mistress of the palace, she gets rid of Charicleia by betrothing her to another slave of the court. She then declares Theagenes her servant and commands him to change into a luxurious Persian costume, and, in accordance with the typical depiction of Persia where even menial tasks are elaborate rituals requiring expertise to fulfill, he is put under supervision of the same court slave who is destined to be Charicleia’s new husband. Theagenes obeys, but as he puts on the golden chains and gem-studded collars, the author adds the detail that he did it « willingly to a degree, and unwillingly » (στρεπτοις τε χρυσοις και περιαυχενίοις λιθοκολλήτοις εκών τε το μερος καί άκων εκοσμειτο, VII, 27, 1).

2This curious characterization of the protagonist’s complicity-to a degree-in his own subordination points to a favorite scenario in the Greek novels : the freeborn, high-status Greek who is forced to be a slave. In Theagenes’ case, his excellence transcends the boundary between slave and free. When the court slave tries to teach him the art of cup-bearing, Theagenes proudly declares : « I have no need of teachers, but self-taught, I shall serve the mistress without affectations over such simple things » (Ουδέν, έφη, δέομαι διδασκάλων, άλλ' αυτοδίδακτος υπουργήσω τη δέσ-ποίνή τα οϋτω ραστα μή θρυπτόμενος, VII, 27,1). That said, he mixes a bowl of wine and with perfect finesse, presents it to his mistress, who drinks in the sight of the object of her desire serving her.

3The hero’s enslavement presents a paradox : he makes a desirable slave because of his beauty and his untutored gracefulness, the very qualities that signal his free and noble status. Yet his attitude to his degraded state is curiously ambivalent : he is willing to a degree but unwilling εκων τε τό μερος καί ακων, to put on the lavish costume of a court slave2. Although by the end of the episode, it is Arsace who is enthralled by Theagenes, he does not assert his freedom, but merely asks his mistress the favor of ordering him to wear the outfit only when he is serving her : Πρωτήν αίτω χάρίν, ω δεσποίνα, εψή ό Θεαγενής, ϋπήρετοϋντα με μόνον αμπίεννυσθαί ταϋτή τή στολή κελευσον (VII, 27, 4).

4The motif of the protagonist « dressing down »-that is, assuming the clothing of a lower social status-has a long literary history. Odysseus’ disguise as a beggar is perhaps the most familiar example of a motif which appears in folklore throughout the world. The motif acquired a particular immediacy during the second through fourth centuries A. D., as evidenced by its shape and frequency in the surviving five Greek novels written during this period 2. During this time, more Greeks had access to Roman law, which provided the legal tools for accommodating the development of specialized types of work performed by people who were slaves. Manumission and the establishment of networks of patronage allowed for a richer variety of social dependence, and thereby complicating the deeply ingrained dichotomy of slave vs. free in Greek thought. In practice the distinction between, for example, free wagelaborer and imperial libertus challenged the orthodoxy that freedom was always preferable to slavery, a point made by Jacques Ramin and Paul Veyne in their examination of the paradox of « l’esclavage volontaire » in Roman law and society3. Scenes of a character who crosses the boundary between slave and free expose some of the assumptions regarding the nature of slavery and freedom within the complex social and political hierarchies of the Roman Empire.

5Not all protagonists in the Greek novels embrace their servitude with quite the same savoir faire as does Theagenes, but there are enough examples of the protagonists’ false enslavement to merit closer analysis. In a sense, these represent a type of cross-dressing : the protagonists undergo experiences where they are (usually) forced to assume different social roles ; however, the characters themselves do not essentially change over the course of the plot4. In effect, the protagonists try out alternate identities as if they are changing costumes. The changeability of clothing highlights the essential identity that remains constant over the course of the plot-the protagonists’ beauty, mutual fidelity, and their paideia.

6The corollary is that a slave’s essential identity is also constant : crossdressing does not occur in the opposite direction in the Greek novels. In the imaginative universe of the Greek novels, it is unthinkable for a slave to pass as a free person. Likewise, instances of dressing across the gender boundary are rare. Compared with, for example, the intensity with which fifth-century Athenian drama used female characters to reflect upon important political and ethical issues, the normative vision of the Greek novels is that men and women alike know where they belong. The generic plot of the Greek novels centers on a girl and a boy-both of them young, beautiful, Greek-who are equally in love with each other. These couples are distinctive in that « the erotic relationship... is marked by a similarity rather than by a radical dimorphism » of active erastês and passive erômenos 55. Boy and girl alike passively undergo a series of tests that almost always involve their alienation from their proper status as free and noble citizens of Greek poleis. They become captives, foreigners, and slaves where they are under the control of others-an inversion of the presumed frame of reference of the novel’s elite, urban readers6.

7Clothing is the site for negotiation between the protagonists’ natural status and the degraded positions into which Fate thrusts them. Dress is a symbol of social and ritual status. It is depicted in ritual settings such as weddings7, religious processions and ceremonies8, or ordeals9. Occasionally the clothing is the centerpiece of a tableau. For example, the dress of Persian royalty is the means by which the author is able to convey the impression of extraordinary wealth. Theagenes’ costume of « golden chains and gem-studded collars » is but one example. Persianness is inseparable from ostentatious luxury throughout Charinton’s novel10. For instance, the primary purpose of the Persian king’s hunting expedition is to give the king an opportunity to present himself as « impressive » (σοβαρός) because « It is the hallmark of Eros to love adornment » (το φιλοκοσμον, C VI, 4, 3). He wears clothing that represents empire : Tyrian purple, Babylonian textiles, a Persian tiara dyed the exotic color of hyacinth, a golden sword, a Chinese quiver (C VI, 4, 2). Even his Nisean horse is costumed in gold. At the same time, he fantasizes about seeing Callirhoe as Artemis, her skirt hitched up to reveal her lower legs, her arms bared, cheeks flushed, breast heaving (C VI, 4, 5)11.

8Clothing without a wearer is commodity to be given, sold, stolen, or lost. Clothing (έσθής) and ornament (κόσμος) are frequently listed in conjunction with gold and silver in descriptions of wedding clothing and dowries12, grave goods13, plunder14, possessions of the Persian court15, tribute16, and dedications17, the cargo of traders and travelers18. The fates of the clothing are parallel to the fates of the novel’s protagonists : the luggage is homologous to the traveler. Clothing is a symbolic extension of the wearer’s self and serves as a token of identity. As an object that retains a very personal, specific connection with its owner, clothing provides a useful element in plots of separation and reunion, a clue planted for a future scene of recognition. That clothing serves as token of identity is best illustrated by the fact that in the novels birth tokens-the signs of the « true » or essential identity of the character-are always forms of clothing19. For example, the mere sight of his wife’s clothing aboard a pirate’s ship is enough to plunge Chariton’s hero Chaereas into grief for her presumed death (C III, 3, 15). Lovers vicariously embrace lovers by putting on their clothing20.

9Style of dress usually conforms to state of mind. References to dress are a convenient way for the novelist to depict a character’s emotional state. For example, the mention of the mourning dress of those who are about to give a public speech serves as a shorthand description of their suffering21. Gestures involving dressing and undressing-such as tearing clothing and hair, veiling and unveiling-are also deployed as indicators of grief or shame22.

10The fact that clothing can be changed implies a distinction between external appearance and essential identity. When the outside costume is incongruous with body inside, there is potential for confusion or disguise, with transvestism being the representative example. In the novels, cross-gender dressing is a tactic used in illicit escapades such as elopement, kidnapping, or escape from prison. As such, it is always voluntary. Most examples of cross-gender dressing are from the novel of Achilles Tatius, who frequently uses the device of mistaken identity. In one case, some pirates successfully trick the onlookers at a prenuptial sacrifice by disguising themselves as women, hiding their daggers in dresses, in order to abduct the bride (AT II, 18). In another episode, Melite gives her clothes to Clitophon as a disguise to help him escape from jail. Melite, who has just finally seduced Clitophon, tells him how much more pretty (εύμορφότερος, AT VI, 1, 3) he looks in the dress. The disguise backfires when Clitophon runs into Melite’s husband and friends, who read the violation of gender codes for dressing as evidence of adultery, a violation of sexual boundaries, and throw him back in jail (AT VI, 5, 1). A more successful cross-gender disguise occurs in Xenophon of Ephesus’novel, where two minor characters from Sparta elope by cutting the bride’s hair and dressing her as a young man23. To put on the clothing of the opposite gender does not necessarily imply a transition from active to passive sexual roles or vice versa. The kidnappers dressed as women behave aggressively, and Clitophon does not act significantly more passively when he wears Melite’s clothing than he does in the rest of the novel.

11Despite the Greek novels’interest in sexuality, instances of transvestism are relatively limited in the novels. More common is dressing across social status or class lines. Dressing down the social scale is more common : there are many instances in which a free person of high social status is presented as a slave or a person of low social status. Dressing up, on the other hand while also common, is not the simple reverse-that is, a slave dressing as a person of high social status. The Greek novelists never depict a person who is a slave by nature dressing as a free person. This rule is proved by the exception of two outlaws who adopt the garb of respectable society, Hippothoös in Xenophon of Ephesus, and Thyamis in Heliodorus. When they are introduced into the narrative, they are presumably lower status characters (though, it is to be noted, neither are slaves). Over the course of these novels, their true identity emerges : they are originally members of the privileged class who were exiled and forced into a life of banditry24. Dressing up thus always involves characters who are free and of high social status by nature, but enslaved or degraded in status by accident or by fate ; their dressing up is not a disguise of their true nature, but its revelation or affirmation.

12The essential nature of the protagonists of the novels is invariably distinguished by two qualities : transcendent beauty and a certain grace or refinement of manners which is the mark of paideia, the cultivation and education characteristic of polite society. The genre’s attitude toward beauty is summed up by an aristocratic character from Chariton’s novel who declares : « It is impossible for a body to be beautiful which is not by nature free » (άδύνατον...καλόν είναι σώμα μή πεφυκός ελεύθερον, C II, 1, 5). Although the degree to which cross-class disguise is successful varies, the protagonists’innate and noble qualities ultimately betray their true identities even under the most adverse of conditions.

13The use and abuse of bodies of slaves in the larger context of the authors’and readers’world, informs the backdrop to scenes. Stripping is a sign of humiliation, a preparation for torture, as well as a pretext for displaying the extraordinarily beautiful body to the « gaze » of the reader25. As we shall see in the following examples from the other four surviving Greek novels, the beautiful hero who acquiesces, if not embraces his or her diminished social status was a novelistic formula by the time Heliodorus came to write his scene for Theagenes.

14In the second book of Chariton’s novel, a gang of pirate kidnaps and sells Callirhoe, the heroine, to the manager of a large estate. Her experience as a slave paradoxically begins not with a scene of dressing down, but of dressing up. Her extraordinary beauty has the effect of causing the other servants on the estate naturally to treat her as their mistress. They say that their former mistress would have looked like her slave in comparison (άδύνατον...καλόν είναι σώμα μή πεφυκός ελεύθερον, C II, 2, 3). Fully clothed she strikes the servants with a kind of divine awe ; when she is undressed (for her bath) they are even more stricken (C II, 2, 2). Her status is marked-or unmarked-on her skin : it is so delicate that the other slave fear that « a mere touch of a finger would leave a great wound » (τρύφερα δέ σαρξ, ώστε δέδοικέναι μη και η των δακτύλων έπαφη μέγα τραύμα ποιηση, C II, 2, 2).

15As the slaves bring her clean clothing, dress her up, and arrange her hair, she orders them to bring her a slave’s tunic (χιτώνα μοι δότε δουλικόν, C II, 2, 4), calling them her betters. But, instead of being transformed into a slave, Callirhoe transforms the tunic into an expensive-looking outfit with her radiant beauty26. Her beauty signifies the naturalness of her position as mistress-even in slavery, she uses imperatives-and the slaves naturally defer to her27. In short, the wearer dresses up the clothing.

16Where Chariton merely alludes to torture, Xenophon of Ephesus indulges in a vivid scene description of torture. It begins when Habrocomes, the novel’s hero, becomes the target of the lust of Manto, the daughter of Apsyrtus, bandit-chief by whom he has been taken captive. She pressures the slaves to aid in her plot, but the hero makes a distinction between the himself and the slave’s body, which is an object to be tortured or used28. He asserts : « They have power over my body, but my soul is free29 ! » This presents the same paradox as Callirhoe’s command to be given a slave’s tunic. By definition, a slave is an instrument of the master without any power to control his status. In effect, by defying Manto to torture a « slave’s body », Habrocomes asserts his free nature by deliberately and ostentatiously commanding her to treat him as a slave. And so she does, by making a false claim to her father that his « slave » tried to rape her. Thus, the familiar Phaedra or Potiphar’s wife motif then sets in motion Habrocomes’torture, the centerpiece of this sequence.

17Torture of domestic slaves was a type of punishment that typically would be carried out in the privacy of the oikos. Though torture of slaves forms part of the general social backdrop of the world of the novels, rarely is the actual process described in such explicit detail30. The narrative opens it to the view of the reader : it is a « pitiful spectacle » (ην δέ τό θέαμα έλεεινον, XE II, 6, 3). First, the master verbally chastises Habrocomes, and then orders his slaves to strip him, bring fire and whips, and flog his body, which is « unaccustomed to slavish tortures » (βασάνων αηθες όν οίκετικών, XE II, 6, 3)31. The effects of the beating are patent : as Habrocomes’blood flows his beauty wastes away (το τε αίμα κατέρρει [πάν] καί το κάλλος έμαραίνετο, XE II, 6, 3). It is not the violence of torture per se that incites pity, but rather, the sight of a beautiful person being treated as a slave. Habrocomes is bound in chains and fetters (the costume of captivity) and thrown in a dark cell (XE II, 6, 5).

18Shortly afterwards, Apsyrtus discovers the truth and summons Habrocomes, who falls at his feet (XE II, 10). Apsyrtus admits that he was unjust for believing the accusation, frees Habrocomes, and makes him the manager of his estate, a position of intermediate status. Though he gains riches, he is in effect client of Apsyrtus, which is indicated by the fact that he calls Apsyrtus master, δέσποτα (XE II, 10, 3).

19The large country estate provides a context for scenes involving gradations of slavery. The final books of Achilles Tatius’novel are set around the estate of a wealthy widow of Ephesus named Melite. Another scene of a heroine who goes unrecognized by her lover unfolds against this backdrop, with the twist that it is narrated by the Clitophon, the novel’s romantic hero, thereby creating a delicious irony in this episode of dressing down.

20Assuming that his beloved Leucippe has died, Clitophon tours the country estates with his new wife Melite when suddenly, a woman identified at first only as a gunhv runs up to the carriage and throws herself at the Melite’s knees in a gesture of supplication. The strange woman bears all the signs of slavery : she is bound with thick chains and holds a hoe. Her head is shaved, her body is dirty, and she wears a miserable, unbelted chiton (AT V, 17, 3).

21Yet, she addresses the wealthy widow tersely, yet eloquently : « Mistress, may you, a woman, pity me, a woman who is free by nature but now a slave, as Fate has decreed » (AT V, 17, 3). That the phrase έλευθέραν μεν, ώς έφυν, δούλην δέ νύν is an iambic trimeter is a subtle clue to the astute reader that appearances might be deceiving32. The widow responds that her physical shapeliness « shouts » (κέκραγε, AT V, 17, 4) her noble origins even in such bad circumstances. But the woman identifies herself only as « Lacaina from Thessaly » (AT V, 17, 5). An experienced reader of the genre would be immediately able to identify the slave as Leucippe : her beauty and eloquence can only signify that she is the heroine of the novel. Ironically, this only dawns on the narrator (and her lover) until well after the meeting is over.

22Again, like Callirhoe and Theagenes, Leucippe seems to accept her slave status : she does not ask the mistress to restore her outright to her free status, but rather begs her to act as surety for the price of her freedom, and stipulates that she will be her slave if she fails to repay her (AT V, 17, 5-6). To clinch her appeal, « Lacaina » shows the proof of her degradation : she opens her tunic and shows her bare back « written over » with marks (διαγεγραμμένα, AT V, 17, 6), the welts made by the overseer’s whip. The eloquence of the appeal succeeds in persuading the mistress to release « Lacaina » and send her home gratis, but the added sight of the woman’s bare back creates cognitive dissonance for the narrator, our hero Clitophon. The narrator adds that something reminds him of Leucippe (AT V, 17, 7). Yet even at this point, Clitophon still does not-cannot-equate the naked body of this slave with the object of his love, Leucippe. And so, in the next scene, when he receives a letter from Leucippe, he is completely baffled (AT V, 19, 2). It is only when it is too late for a dramatic reunion that his servant tips him off : he identifies the woman they saw in the fields as Leucippe, saying that her haircut made her look like a teenaged boy (AT V, 19, 2 : έφηβον ούτώ γενομένην) — in effect, the slavery erased the signs of her femininity.

23According to the generic formula, Leucippe is restored to her proper status. She is unshackled, and the abusive overseer is summoned for chastisement. By, in effect, manumitting Lacaina without asking for payment, Melite elevates the transaction from the realm of master-slave relations, which is the context in which Leucippe negotiated, to the realm of an agreement between patron and freedperson. There is no price for freedom for a person who is free born. The mistress then hands her over to her servants, and tells them to bathe and give her a change of clothes, and xtake her to the town (AT V, 17, 10). Dressing down, as we have seen previously in the examples of the false enslavement of Callirhoe and Habrocomes, is routinely followed by a restitution to free status is symbolized in the novel by a bath and a change of clothes33.

24As is typical throughout his pastoral novel Daphnis and Chloe, Longus transposes the established generic formulae of the Greek novel, into a pastoral setting. In the case of the motif of false enslavement and restitution, this involves inverting the primary reference point of the novel, so that the social status of the dependent, rustic laborer defines the normative social frame. The hero and heroine are foundlings who were exposed with expensive-looking clothing and accoutrements, and then reared by country people working on or around the estate of an urban aristocrat. Throughout the first three books of the novel, Daphnis and Chloe work as animal herders-though perhaps « work » is too strong a description for their main activity. They play, sing, scamper about the countryside in states of semiundress, and innocently watch each other bathe (L I, 13). The dichotomy of free versus slave does not really impede upon the narrative until the final book, when the true birth identities of the hero and heroine are revealed, and they are transformed from servants into children of the urban elite.

25It is in the final book that Daphnis and Chloe go through significant social transformations that lead to their marriage and reorient their mutual attraction in the (re) productive direction of life as members of the civic aristocracy. Daphnis is discovered to be the son of his foster parents’master through the revelation of his birth tokens. He is immediately surrounded by a swarm of servants, his parents embrace him before a cheering crowed, and thus is his true nature proved (οϋτω φύσις ταχέως πιστεύεται, L IV, 23, 1-2). His metamorphosis from lowly goatherd to son of the landlord is symbolized by a dressing up : he changes into expensive clothes and forgets about Chloe, his beloved (έλθων είς την επαυλίν έσθήτά τε έλαβε πολυ­τελή και παρα τον πάτερα τον ίδιον καθεσθείς, L IV, 23, 2). The elevation in social status is bittersweet : Longus comments that the familiar is more pleasant than the surprise of new wealth as Daphnis tearfully sacrifices the clothing and other paraphernalia of his life in the countryside with Chloe (L IV, 26, 3).

26In order for Chloe to be recognized by and reunited with Daphnis, she has to undergo a change of status. After she is kidnapped by a gang of rustics, Daphnis wishes to return to his life as a slave. But thanks to the intervention of Gnathon, a slave-by-nature who seeks to ingratiate himself with his new master, Chloe is found, the rustics are punished, and the stage is set for the revelation of the sandals, anklets, and belt that prove that she too is of the daughter of an aristocrat. Daphnis’ mother takes Chloe and dresses her up (εκόσμει, L IV, 31, 3) for the part of her son’s future wife. Longus adds, however, that the birth tokens were superfluous : anyone would have sworn that, even without her birth tokens, she could not have been the daughter of her lowly foster father Dryas. Although according to the novelistic formula she should appear as her « true » self when she is fully dressed up, Chloe is so beautiful that Daphnis hardly recognizes her34.

27Longus situates the reader at a slightly different vantage point : whereas in the other novels, we are used to seeing the hero and heroine as free people fallen into slavery, in Longus’ novel it is only in comparison with the sophisticated culture of the landlord that the life of the shepherd seems lowly. Paradoxically, when the heroine wears the dress appropriate to her natural social status, she is unrecognizable : in Longus, the manifestation of true nature has the same effect as its disguise does in other novels.

28The study of the relations of slavery through the lens of cross-class dressing shows that the five surviving Greek ideal romances are, perhaps not surprisingly, profoundly conservative in their outlook. The conditions of slavery, or poverty, are only pitiable when it is a master who is falsely enslaved. The protagonist’s experience of slavery does not occasion a critique : the institution remains intact. The slave’s tunic is shed, the shackles dissolved, the dirt washed away and forgotten as soon as the romantic heroes reappear as their proper, natural selves : young, noble, and beautiful. The prevalence of these episodes in fiction reflects the blurring of boundaries between free persons and slaves, as well as the fragility of the position of honestiores within the context of the increasing severity of punishments for humiliores in the Roman Empire35. These narratives therefore might be read as reflections of a crisis. The distinction between free and slave was particularly fraught in the Greek world under the Roman empire because of the increasingly differentiated nature of work performed by unfree persons, but also because the dichotomy between slave and free, a staple of Greek thought, did not provide an easy template for accommodating other social and political hierarchies in the Roman Empire. Scenes of mistaken enslavement in the novels represent an attempt to clarify the boundaries, at least in the narrative imagination.