Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Clitophon

Oxford World's Classics

Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon is the most bizarre and risqué of the five 'Greek novels' of idealized love between boy and girl that survive from the period of the Roman empire. Stretching the capacity of the genre to its limits, Achilles' narrative covers adultery, violence, evisceration, pederasty, virginity-testing, and (of course) an improbable happy ending. Ingenious and sophisticated in conception, Leucippe and Clitophon is in execution at once subtle, stylish, moving, brash, tasteless, and obscene. This new translation aims to capture Achilles' writing in all its exuberant variety.