Chariton - Callirhoe - Plot Outline

Plot Outline

The story is set against a historical background of ca 400 BC. In Syracuse, Chaereas falls madly in love with the supernally beautiful Callirhoe, and they are married, but when her many disappointed suitors successfully conspire to trick Chaereas into thinking she is unfaithful, he kicks her so hard that she falls over as if dead. There is a funeral, and she is shut up in a tomb, but then it turns out she was only in a coma, and wakes up in time to scare the pirates who have opened the tomb to rob it; they recover quickly and take her to sell as a slave in Miletus, where her new master, Dionysius, falls in love with her and marries her, she being afraid to mention that she is already married (and pregnant by Chaereas). As a result, Dionysius believes Callirhoe's son to be his own.

Meanwhile Chaereas has heard she is alive, and has gone looking for her, but is himself captured and enslaved, and yet they both come to the attention of Artaxerxes, the Great King of Persia, who must decide who is her rightful husband, but is thinking about acquiring her for himself. When war erupts, Chaereas successfully storms the Persian stronghold of Tyre on behalf of the Egyptian rebels, and then wins a naval victory against the Persians, after which the lovers are finally reunited. Callirhoe writes to Dionysius, telling him to bring up her son and send him to Syracuse when he grows up. Chaereas and Callirhoe return in triumph to Syracuse, where Callirhoe offers prayers to Aphrodite, who has guided the events of the narrative.