The date of about A.D. 300 is probably right for the novel because the author seems to imitate the style of certain romancers of the third century and because a recently discovered papyrus fragment[137] shows that for palaeographical reasons this earliest manuscript could not have been written later than the first half of the fourth century. This evidence about the lateness of Achilles Tatius we shall find borne out by a deterioration in style from Chariton’s simplicity to an over-elaboration and exaggeration and a change in spirit from sincerity to ironic parody.[138] One important reason for knowing Achilles Tatius is “his contributions to Elizabethan prose fiction and, through this, to the making of the modern novel.”[139] The first Greek text was not published until 1601 but before this he was made known to the sixteenth century by translations in Latin, Italian and French. And in 1597 the first English translation, that of William Burton, appeared. Todd succinctly states his resulting influence: “With Heliodorus, though in less measure, he furnished structure and material for Sidney’s Arcadia, and thus was among the influences that formed the novels of Richardson and Walter Scott; of Greene, as Dr. S. L. Wolff puts it, he was the ‘first and latest love’; in Lyly himself, and not only in him, we recognize Tatius as one of the sources of English Euphuism.”[140] My plan in taking up Achilles Tatius is first to analyze briefly his plot and then summarize its similarities to _Chaereas and Callirhoe_ and the other Greek novels. Then I shall discuss more in detail the unique features in Tatius and his special characteristics. An epigram in the Palatine Anthology, attributed to Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, but by some to Leon the philosopher gives a bird’s eye view of the story.[141] “The story of Clitophon reveals to the eyes, as it were, a bitter love but a virtuous life. The very virtuous life of Leucippe puts all in ecstasy, (for the story tells) how she was beaten and shorn of her hair and clothed pitiably, and—the greatest point—having died three times she endured to the end. And if you too wish to be virtuous, friend, do not consider the side issues of the plot, but learn first the outcome of the story, for it joins in marriage those who love sanely.” For the expansion of this epitome it is necessary to have before us a list of the many characters in the romance. Chief characters: _Clitophon_, a Greek of Tyre, son of Hippias _Leucippe_, daughter of Sostratus of Byzantium, the uncle of Clitophon _Clinias_ of Sidon, cousin of Clitophon _Chaereas_ of Pharos, a fisherman _Melitte_, a woman of Ephesus _Thersander_, the husband of Melitte _Callisthenes_ of Byzantium _Calligone_, the half-sister of Clitophon Minor characters: