Aethiopica
Emesa
H
Heliodorus of Emesa
Heliodorus of Emesa
c. 300 CE–c. 375 CE · Emesa
Heliodorus of Emesa was a Greek novelist, generally dated to the 3rd or 4th century CE, from Emesa in Syria. He wrote the 'Aethiopica' (Ethiopian Story), the longest and most admired of the surviving ancient Greek novels, a tale of the separated lovers Theagenes and Charicleia notable for its intricate, non-linear narrative structure. It strongly influenced later European fiction.
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EmesaSyria
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About Emesa
Emesa, modern Homs in western Syria, is a city on the Orontes River that rose to prominence under Rome, notably for its cult of the sun god Elagabal, and gained wider influence when Emperor Septimius Severus married into a family of Emesene notables. The novelist Heliodorus, author of the Aethiopica, describes himself as a Phoenician of Emesa. Christianity took hold in the city relatively late because of the strength of the sun cult, but it became a bishopric, and the hymn-writer Romanos the Melodist was born there in the late 5th century. Muslim forces took the city in 637, and as Hims it became the capital of a district of Islamic Syria.
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