Mythos, Fiktion, Geschichte: Ein Beitrag zum 'Realismus' der antiken Romane

In this paper I argue that the description of literary narrative in ancient rhetoric could have provided Greek and Roman novelists with a critical vocabulary, and that this vocabulary is reflected in their works. The major category by or against which novelists define their writing turns out to be μῦθος / fabula , which implies the idea of an unreal and unlikely narrative. I analyze the most significant passages and conclude that the first novels, which were posing as history, avoided looking unreal and unlikely, while later novelists were free to play with the concept of μῦθος / fabula on an individual basis. Given that exactly the Roman novels (and Achilles Tatius) are most defined by μῦθος / fabula , my result also questions our modern critical vocabulary according to which these novels are often called ‘realistic’. Stefan Tilg holds an Ambizione scholarship of the Swiss National Science Foundation and is hosted by the Klassisch-Philologisches Seminar of the University of Zurich. He is the author of Chariton of Aphrodisias and the Invention of the Greek Love Novel (Oxford 2010) and is currently writing a monograph on Apuleius’ Metamorphoses .