There seems to be a lot of confusion about when the novel as a literary form developed. Many people think that the novel arose at some point during the Early Modern Period (lasted c. 1450 – c. 1750). Many works dating to this period, such as Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, and Le Morte d’Arthur are often cited as “the first novel.” The popular perception, however, is incorrect.
The novel as a literary form definitely dates at least as far back as the second century BC and probably dates to long before that. Not a single one of the works usually cited as “the first novel” is even close to being old enough to actually be “the first novel.”
The fact is, we don’t know exactly what the first novel was, but, since we have record of works that can only be described as novels dating as far back as at least the second century BC, anything written within the past 2,200 years can’t possibly be “the first novel.”
The misconception of the novel as a recent invention
It is widely but most decidedly wrongly believed among literary scholars and the general public alike that the novel is a fairly recent invention. Works commonly cited as “the first novel” include:
- The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (originally published in 1749)
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (originally published in 1719)
- Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes (originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1616)
- Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Mallory (originally published 1485)
- The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (written in the early eleventh century)
All of these works can certainly be considered novels, but none of these works can truly be considered the “first novel,” since none of them are even close to being old enough. As I shall show, there are well-known ancient novels that easily predate all of these works.
ABOVE: Seventeenth-century fictional illustration by Tosa Mitsuoki of Murasaki Shikibu, the author of The Tale of Genji, which was written in Japanese the early eleventh century. The Tale of Genji is a novel, but not “the first novel” by any means.
What is a novel?
First, before we talk about ancient novels, let’s define exactly what a “novel” is. For the purposes of this article, I will be defining a novel as “a long work of prose narrative fiction written by a single author or a group of authors working in collaboration with the intent of publication in some form.”
I am taking a fairly strict definition here, since I want to show that, even if we define the term “novel” very strictly, the ancient novels that we are about to discuss still easily meet that definition. In order to qualify as a “novel” under my definition, a work must meet all of the following criteria:
- It must be fiction.
- It must be prose.
- It must be a narrative.
- It must be long.
- It must have been written by a single author or by a group of authors working in collaboration—though the names of any such authors do not necessarily need to be known to us.
- It must have been written with the intent of publication in some form.
Some literary critics hold that a work must be strictly realistic in order to qualify as a novel, but I have not included realism as a requirement for my definition here because the term “novel” is almost universally used to refer to works that are not strictly realistic.
For instance, we routinely refer to works like J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, George R. R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings, Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, and Madeline Miller’s Circe as “novels”; only the most utterly stuck-up literary critic would try to insist that these works aren’t truly novels just because they aren’t strictly realistic.
The Milesian Tale by Aristeides of Miletos (written second century BC)
The oldest work I am aware of that can definitively be called a “novel” is The Milesian Tale, a lost work known to have been written in around the second century BC by the ancient Greek writer Aristeides of Miletos. Although the work itself has not survived to the present day, we know about it because it is extensively referenced in surviving classical Greek and Roman sources.
It was evidently a long prose account of a traveler coming into the city of Miletos, which is located on the west coast of what is now Turkey. Miletos was notorious in antiquity for the allegedly debauched and luxurious lifestyle of its inhabitants. Aristeides apparently exploited this reputation by having his protagonist encounter various people, who would tell him all sorts of stories, usually involving fantastic and erotic elements.
Thus, the book was essentially a collection of various stories embedded within a framing narrative of a man visiting the town of Miletos. Stories of the kind told in The Milesian Tale became known as “Milesian tales” themselves.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the ruins of the Ionic Stoa in the ancient city of Miletos
The Ninos Romance (written first century BC)
The Ninos Romance is an ancient Greek historical novel about Ninos, the legendary king of Assyria and founder of the city of Nineveh. It was probably written in around the first century BC, but it is has only survived in fragments.
Judging from the fragments we have of it, the story seems to have centered around the young Assyrian king Ninos, who is desperately in love with his cousin Semiramis. He and Semiramis want to marry, but they are said to be too young. At some point in the novel, they are also apparently shipwrecked.
The elements of the Ninos Romance clearly prefigure what would later become recurring motifs and elements throughout the later Greek romance novels: the young lovers, societal opposition to their union, and a shipwreck.
ABOVE: Depiction of the legendary Assyrian king Ninos, the central character in the Ninos Romance, from Guillaume Rouille’s Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum
Kallirhoë by Chariton (written mid first century AD)
The novel Kallirhoë by the Greek author Chariton probably dates to around the middle of the first century AD, since it is not written in the Atticizing style that became prominent in the late first century and a work by the title Kallirhoë is referenced in the Satires of the Roman poet Aulus Persius Flaccus (lived 34 – 62 AD).
Kallirhoë has survived to the present day complete, meaning it is the earliest novel in the European tradition that has survived to the present day in its complete form. It bears noticeable influences from earlier Greek historical writings, which may be evidence that the Greek novel as a literary form developed from the historical genre.
The Satyrica by Gaius Petronius Arbiter (written third quarter of the first century AD)
The Satyrica, written by the Roman courtier Gaius Petronius Arbiter (lived c. 27 – 66 AD) during the reign of the emperor Nero (ruled 54 – 68 AD), is the oldest novel written in the Latin language that is known to have survived to the present day in any substantial form. The novel has not been passed down to us complete, since most of the novel has actually been lost. Nonetheless, we do have some pretty large chunks of the original novel.
The main character of the novel is a fellow named Encolpius, who struggles with sexual impotence. Encolpius also owns a beautiful sixteen-year-old slave boy named Giton, whom he wants to have sex with. Encolpius’s friend Ascyltos also wants to have sex with Giton. The novel mixes erotic and satirical elements. Much of the work involves various sorts of sexual situations, including orgies.
The most famous episode from The Satyrica is the “Dinner of Trimalchio,” which spans chapters twenty-six through seventy-eight of the preserved text. In this episode, Encolpius, Giton, and Ascyltos attend a banquet hosted by an ostentatious freedman named Trimalchio, whose name is still synonymous even today with the nouveau riche. At the dinner, Trimalchios makes a grotesque display of his wealth and false erudition. The dinner ends with a mock funeral of Trimalchio.
The Satyrica is often incorrectly referred to today as “The Satyricon,” but the original title is actually plural. Petronius’s novel was adapted into a controversial fantasy film in 1966 by the Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (lived 1920 – 1993) known as The Fellini Satyricon. As I discuss in this article from February 2019, it is likely that Petronius’s novel and Fellini’s film based on it are partly responsible for inspiring the widespread misconception that sexual orgies were common in ancient Rome.
ABOVE: Frontisipiece illustration by the French artist Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse to a modern edition of The Satyrica, an ancient Roman novel by Gaius Petronius Arbiter
The Wonders beyond the Thoule by Antonios Diogenes (written mid second century AD)
The Wonders beyond the Thoule, written in the Greek language by the Greek writer Antonios Diogenes, most likely sometime in the middle of the second century AD, is a historical novel about the adventures of the Arkadian Greek explorer Deinias, the Phoinikian noblewoman Derkyllis, and their companions.
In the novel, the heroes encounter various misadventures, hear and tell a variety of embedded stories, and fend off the evil schemes of the Egyptian sorcerer Paapis. At one point in the novel, a story is told as one of the inset tales about a trip to the Moon.
The original novel by Antonios Diogenes has not survived to the present day, but a detailed summary of it written by the Byzantine patriarch Photios I of Constantinople (lived c. 810 – 893 AD) has and it is from Photios’s summary that we know most of our information about the work.
The Ephesian Tale by Xenophon of Ephesos (written mid second century AD)
The Ephesian Tale was written by a man named Xenophon of Ephesos, probably sometime in around the middle of the second century AD. It has survived to the present day complete, although it is possible that version we have now may be a summary of an originally much longer work. The style of the surviving version is rough and unpolished, unlike the highly polished styles of later Greek romance novels such as Leukippe and Kleitophon or Daphnis and Chloë.
Like most other ancient Greek romance novels, The Ephesian Tale centers around two teenaged lovers. The ones in this particular novel happen to be named Anthia and Habrokomes. On account of this fact, the alternate title of the work is Anthia and Habrokomes.
In the novel, the heroes are captured by pirates and sold into slavery. They endure various trials until, in the end, they are finally reunited. They marry and live happily ever after. The Ephesian Tale tends to be less highly esteemed by modern critics than some of the later ancient Greek romance novels.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the ruins of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos
A True Story by Loukianos of Samosata (written third quarter of the second century AD)
The novel A True Story, written in the Greek language by the Syrian satirist and rhetorician Loukianos of Samosata (lived c. 125 – after c. 180 AD), who is known for his tongue-in-cheek style, is a satire directed against people who tell incredible tales and try to pass them off as true. It satirizes aspects of various works of previous Greek literature, including the Odyssey and Antonios Diogenes’s Wonders beyond the Thoule. Unlike The Wonders beyond the Thoule, however, Loukianos’s original Greek text of A True Story has survived to the present day complete.
In A True Story, Loukianos fuses elements of satire, science fiction, and fantasy in a manner reminiscent of Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He begins the novel with an introduction in which he explains that the title is a lie and that there is actually absolutely nothing true about anything he is about to say. He then tells a wild and fantastical tale about how he discovered a new continent in the far west full of strange and exotic sights.
Then he claims his ship was swept up by a tornado and taken to the Moon, where he participated in a war between Endymion, the king of the Moon, and Phaethon, the king of the Sun, which he claims involved all sorts of bizarre alien creatures. He describes life on the Moon. Then, after returning to Earth, Loukianos and his companions are swallowed by a whale that is hundreds of miles long. Inside the whale, they fight a war against various fish people before they escape.
Next, Loukianos and his companions visit the Underworld, where they encounter poets such as Homer, heroes from Greek mythology, and philosophers such as Plato and see famous storytellers like the historian Herodotos of Halikarnassos (lived c. 484 – c. 425 BC) being tortured for their “lies.” They find more strange lands, including an island made of cheese. Then the novel ends with a promise by Loukianos that his adventures will be continued in an upcoming sequel—except no sequel was ever written, proving this to be, as one scholiast put it, “the greatest lie of all.”
Of all the surviving ancient Greek novels, A True Story has consistently been one of the most beloved and influential. It served as part of the inspiration for both Sir Thomas Moore’s philosophical novel Utopia (originally published in 1516) and Johnathan Swift’s satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels (originally published in 1726). Personally, A True Story is one of my favorite works of classical literature.
ABOVE: Modern illustration by Ruth Cobb of a scene from Loukianos of Samosata’s novel A True Story in which Loukianos’s ship is swept up by a tornado and carried to the moon
The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (written third quarter of the second century AD)
The Golden Ass, written in Latin by the Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (lived c. 124 – c. 170 AD), who, as I discussed in this previous article, came from the city of Madauros in what is now northern Algeria and is believed to have been of Berber ancestry. It is the only ancient novel in the Latin language that has survived to the present day complete, since the Satyrica has only survived in substantial portions.
The Golden Ass is based in part on an earlier work in Greek attributed to a Greek author named Loukios of Patrai, who apparently came from the region of Achaia in the northern Peloponnesos. The first part of the novel is essentially a picaresque with influences from Aristeides’s Milesian Tale about a man named Lucius who is accidentally transformed into a donkey by a sorceress. She puts him in the stables for the night and promises to turn him back into a man in the morning, but he is stolen by bandits in the night.
Most of the novel focuses on Lucius’s misadventures in the form of a donkey. Along the way, he encounters various people and hears various inset tales. The most famous of all these stories is the story of “Cupid and Psyche,” which forms a sort of mini-novel on its own, taking up most of Book Four, all of Book Five, and most of Book Six. The ending of the novel is rather peculiar. It ends with Lucius being restored to his original human form by the Egyptian goddess Isis. After being restored to human form, Lucius joins Isis’s cult.
The Golden Ass was apparently quite popular in antiquity and, alongside Petronius’s Satyrica and Loukianos’s A True Story, it remains one of the most famous of all ancient novels. The embedded story of “Cupid and Psyche” has been adapted countless times by various authors, including by C. S. Lewis in his novel Till We Have Faces (originally published in 1956).
ABOVE: Fifth-century AD Byzantine mosaic depicting a scene from The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis, the only complete surviving ancient novel in the Latin language
The Babylonian Tale by Iamblichos of Emesa (written between c. 165 and c. 180 AD)
The Babylonian Tale, written by in the Greek language by the Syrian author Iamblichos of Emesa at some point roughly between c. 165 and c. 180 AD, has not survived to the present day in its original form, but a detailed summary of it written by the Byzantine patriarch Photios I of Constantinople (lived c. 810 – 893 AD) has survived.
According to Photios’s summary, The Babylonian Tale was about a girl named Sinonis and her lover Rhodanes, who are on the run from the fictional Babylonian king Garmos, who wants to force Sinonis to marry him. Along the way, they experience all sorts of misadventures. In addition to Photios’s summary, a few fragments from the original work have also survived.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a kudurru of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon. In Iamblichos’s Babylonian Tale, Sinonis and Rhodanes are on the run from the fictional Babylonian king Garmos.
Leukippe and Kleitophon by Achilleus Tatios (written late second century AD)
Leukippe and Kleitophon, written in the Greek language by the Alexandrian author Achilleus Tatios in the late second century AD, is considered one of the better written surviving ancient Greek romance novels. It has survived to the present day in its entirety. It is very ornate—almost baroque at times—in its literary style and full of literary allusions.
It tells the story of the young lovers Leukippe and Kleitophon. They experience various misadventures involving abductions, mistaken identities, false accusations of crimes, and near death experiences. Eventually, they marry each other in Byzantion and they live happily ever after.
Leukippe and Kleitophon appears to have one of the most popular novels of its time, since numerous papyri containing portions of it have been discovered in Egypt. It has not been nearly as popular in modern times, however, as another surviving ancient Greek romance novel: Daphnis and Chloë.
ABOVE: Photograph of Papyrus Oxyrhynchus X 1250, bearing a portion of the text of Leukippe and Kleitophon
Daphnis and Chloë by Longos of Lesbos (written late second century AD)
Daphnis and Chloë, written sometime around the late second century AD in the Greek language by the Greek writer Longos of Lesbos, is of a somewhat more ambiguous genre than the other surviving ancient Greek novels, since it combines aspects of classical romance novels with aspects of pastoral literature.
It tells the story of the young lovers Daphnis, a goatherd, and Chloë, a shepherd, who grow up together on the Greek island of Lesbos. Although written in the late second century AD, the story is set in a much earlier time. The novel charts Daphnis and Chloë’s growth and development, their sexual awakening, and their misadventures along the way. It ends with the discovery that both Daphnis and Chloë are actually of noble birth. They are happily married to each other and consummate their union.
Daphnis and Chloë is by far the most famous and influential of all the surviving ancient Greek romance novels. It was translated first into Italian and later into English very early on. It was definitely part of the inspiration for Edmund Spenser’s poem The Faerie Queene (originally published in 1590 and 1596) and possibly also William Shakespeare’s comedy The Tempest (first performed in around 1611).
The esteemed German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (lived 1749 – 1832) was a great admirer of it. It was even adapted into a silent film in 1931 by the Greek filmmaker Orestis Laskos, which is sometimes said to have been the first European film to include nude scenes. The 1973 fantasy novel The Princess Bride by William Goldman is also suspected to have been partially inspired by Daphnis and Chloë.
ABOVE: Daphnis and Chloë, painted c. 1850 by the Swiss-French painter Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre, depicting how he imagined the central characters in the ancient Greek romance novel Daphnis and Chloë, written in around the late second century AD by Longos of Lesbos
Conclusion
I think I will stop here. There are other ancient works from later periods, including The Aithiopian Tale by Heliodoros of Emesa (written c. third century AD), The Alexander Romance (written c. third century AD), and The Story of Apollonios, King of Tyre (written c. third century AD, translated into Latin c. fifth or sixth century AD) that I could list here, but that would be beside the point, since I think I have already clearly established that the novel as a literary form is certainly ancient.
The works I have listed here are only the major works that I currently know about! In addition to all the works I have listed here, there are almost certainly even older works from the ancient Near East that I am not currently aware of that could qualify as “novels” under my definition outlined above.
If any of the works I have mentioned above sound interesting, a book that I highly recommend is Collected Ancient Greek Novels, edited by B. P. Reardon and published by the University of California Press. This book contains English translations of everything that survives of all the works I have mentioned above written in Greek, except The Milesian Tale. (It does not contain any of the works written in Latin that I have mentioned, though.)
ABOVE: Front cover of the book Collected Ancient Greek Novels, edited by B. P. Reardon, which contains translations of what survives of all the Greek works mentioned above except Aristeides’s Milesian Tale
