Chaereas And Callirhoe Analysis

Chariton’s book Chaereas and Callirhoe is centered around the relationship between Chaereas and Callirhoe, despite spending the majority of the book separated. In the course of her adventures, Callirhoe marries another man, Dionysius. But, I argue this second marriage was illegitimate. Callirhoe’s marriage with Chaereas never ended and Dionysius bought her thinking she was a slave, but she was not and you cannot buy a free woman. Therefore, Callirhoe did not marry Dionysius. In this paragraph I will argue that Callirhoe’s “death” did not end her marriage with Chaereas. After being fooled into believing his wife was secretly meeting with another suitor. Chaereas’ foot meets Callirhoe’s diaphragm and stops her breathing (Chariton 1.2). She is presumed dead, then given a burial. But, she never died; instead, she awoke from the tomb to be discovered by tomb raiders (Chariton 1.9). The timeline in the book is not clear, but when Chaereas goes to the tomb to be with his wife in death he does not find her there(Chariton 3.2). Assuming it had only been a matter of days, Callirhoe’s death

Chaereas, like his wife Callirhoe, was captured as a free person and forced into slavery (Chariton 3.10). The only difference between their captures is the place they had been taken from. Callirhoe her tomb (Chariton 1.9) and Chaereas the sea (Chariton 3.9). Chaereas was given freedom from his master upon hearing who his wife was (Chariton 4.3). The text does not provide evidence that Chaereas was formally made a slave through a town registry, thus making him more akin to a prisoner of war than a slave. Chaereas’ enslavement was extralegal, he was a free person captured and forced into labor, possibly never officially becoming a slave. He was later released by his master rebranding him a free person once again. Therefore, Chaereas enslavement did not end his marriage with