Achilles Tatius’ novel Leucippe and Clitophon was last edited by Jean-Philippe Garnaud (1991). This edition has become the standard point of reference, displacing the—until then—standard edition by Ebbe Vilborg (1955).Footnote ¹ Garnaud had more textual sources at his disposal (two additional manuscripts and four papyri) than Vilborg; moreover, Vilborg introduced into the text many emendations, a practice which Garnaud's edition avoids. The two editions also differ from each other considerably as a result of the editors’ disagreement in their assessment of the value of the main manuscript families: Vilborg gave preference to the β-family, whereas Garnaud to the α-family, which contains what may be the oldest surviving manuscript of the novel (W, twelfth century).Footnote ² But the case for systematically preferring one family of manuscripts over the other is not strong.Footnote ³ Furthermore, important divergences between some papyri and the medieval manuscripts of AchillesFootnote ⁴ suggest that a fixed form was probably lost early in the novel's tradition.

For all the above reasons, and despite the general quality of Garnaud's edition,Footnote ⁵ Achilles’ text can profit from more textual critical work. Admittedly the richness and the complexity of the manuscript tradition of Achilles’ novel make the prospect of a definitive edition seem hardly attainable. In many cases editorial work on Achilles’ novel does not consist in correcting errors but in selecting among possible variants,Footnote ⁶ a process which is further reflected in commentaries,Footnote ⁷ and is to some extent affected by personal interpretative and aesthetic tastes. However, a reading of Garnaud's text reveals possibilities for editorial improvement at several places, a selection of which is put forward in the present paper. Garnaud's text and critical apparatus are used as the basis of the discussion; the translation of the passages discussed follows Whitmarsh.Footnote ⁸

‘Her [sc. Leucippe's] cheeks were white, a white that blushed towards the middle, a blush like the purple pigment used by a Lydian woman to dye ivory.’ Clitophon alludes to the impression made on him by Leucippe's beauty the first time he set eyes on her. The meaning of this phrase must be similar to that of the Iliadic lines ὡς δ’ ὅτε τίς τ’ ἐλέφαντα γυνὴ φοίνικι μιήνῃ | Μῃονὶς ἠὲ Κάειρα … (4.141–2). Vilborg (n. 7), 22 and recently Whitmarsh (n. 1), 139 rightly see the Ionic form Λυδίη, preserved in the majority of the manuscripts, as suggestive of the Homeric provenance of the simile. The reading of the manuscripts οἵαν εἰς τὸν ἐλέφαντα is preferred by Garnaud (and previously by Gaselee), but is grammatically unsustainable.Footnote ⁹ One way to improve the text is to revert to Vilborg's emendation εἰς οἵαν τὸν ἐλέφαντα.Footnote ¹⁰ In this case, βάπτει would be taken to mean ‘dip into’ (cf. 3.15.4, in the context of Leucippe's fake sacrifice: εἶτα λαβὼν ξίφος βάπτει κατὰ τῆς καρδίας καὶ διελκύσας τὸ ξίφος εἰς τὴν κάτω γαστέρα ῥήγνυσι). But O'Sullivan's emendation οἵᾳ τίς τὸν ἐλέφανταFootnote ¹¹ is a better option. Its main advantage is the ensuing syntactic analogy with the Homeric parallel:Footnote ¹² τίς … γυνή in both passages; οἵᾳ (Ach. Tat.) and φοίνικι (Hom.) as datives of instrument; the syntactical separation of the three terms in agreement, τίς … γυνὴ … Λυδίη, which seems eccentric for prose, invokes the syntax of the Homeric model (τίς … γυνὴ … Μῃονὶς ἠὲ Κάειρα). O'Sullivan supported this emendation with parallels from this novel: τῆς δὲ ἐσθῆτος οὐ πάρεργον εἶχεν ἡ πορφύρα τὴν βαφήν, ἀλλ’ οἵαν μυθολογοῦσι Τύριοι τοῦ ποιμένος εὑρεῖν τὸν κύνα, ᾗ καὶ μέχρι τούτου βάπτουσιν Ἀφροδίτης τὸν πέπλον (2.11.4; cf. 3.7.3 ἀλλ’ οὔτε τῶν παρειῶν τὸ ὠχρὸν τέλεον ἀφοίνικτον ἦν, ἠρέμα δὲ τῷ ἐρεύθει βέβαπται). As O'Sullivan explained, the corruption must have emerged from a misreading of οἵᾳ τίς: ‘a scribe having difficulty in reading οἵᾳ τίς as written in his exemplar might readily have plumped for οἵαν εἰς with βάπτω under the impression that it gave adequate sense.’ A variation of O'Sullivan's proposal is Whitmarsh's οἵᾳ πριστὸν ἐλέφαντα;Footnote ¹³ the phrase πριστὸς ἐλέφας ‘sawn ivory’ has good parallels (it is used in Homer and Lucian as a comparison for light-coloured skin and teeth), but πριστόν seems palaeographically more difficult here than Ο’Sullivan's τίς τόν.

‘Do you not know the words of Zeus: “I shall give mankind a bane in exchange for fire, wherewith all | Might rejoice in their hearts, embracing their bane?”Footnote ¹⁴ Such is the pleasure provided by women, which has similar properties to the Sirens: women too kill with the pleasure of their song.’ This is part of Clinias’ rant against the female sex (Clinias is Clitophon's cousin and adviser in erotic matters, but unlike Clitophon he prefers boys as lovers to women). Göttling's emendation—adopted by Vilborg, Garnaud and Whitmarsh—indeed gives an appropriate sense, but it is worth asking whether the reading of the manuscripts can be salvaged. If we read αὕτη κακῶν ἡδονή (meaning ‘this is the pleasure that comes from evil things’),Footnote ¹⁵ the pronoun would refer to the offering of the female human as a gift by the gods, which is the theme of the Hesiodic quotation; the pleasure derived by men from this gift, says Clinias, is similar in nature (ἔοικε) to that offered by the Sirens,Footnote ¹⁶ who use the charm of their song to lure men to their deaths. For κακῶν ἡδονή, cf. Joseph. AJ 1.74 ὁρῶν δ’ οὐκ ἐνδιδόντας, ἀλλ’ ἰσχυρῶς ὑπὸ τῆς ἡδονῆς τῶν κακῶν κεκρατημένους. Instead of assuming an error emerging from dittography (as Vilborg did), we may posit a deliberate rhetorical repetition (κακόν-κακῶν-κακοῦ) at 1.8.1–3, matching the emotionally loaded tone of the speaker's attack against womanhood.

‘Anything more dainty that it [sc. the proboscis] spies, it encompasses by wrapping itself tightly around this prey, before lifting it up in its entirety and offering it up to its [sc. the elephant's] master as a gift.’ Clitophon and Leucippe have eloped to Egypt; at the river Nile, they watch the hunt of a hippopotamus and listen to an Egyptian's description of another exotic animal, the elephant. The digression regarding elephants refers to this animal's eating habits, as well as to special food, which the elephant chooses to save for his master. The nature of this special food has puzzled editors. λαροτέρων ‘delicious’ is an old suggestion (Lumb [n. 15], 148), which was adopted by Garnaud in the place of Vilborg's ἁβροτέρων ‘more delicate’, an emendation proposed by Jacobs. Cataudella's ἀβρω<το>τέρων ([n. 10], 174), a comparative form of ἄβρωτος ‘inedible’, is unattested. However, there seems to be no need for emending the reading of the manuscripts ἁδροτέρων (W's ἀνδροτέρων must be a corruption of this reading). The adjective ἁδρός is used elsewhere to describe rich meat and fish (ἰχθῦς θ’ ἁδρούς, Alexis, fr. 175 K.–A.), as well as ripe fruit (καρπὸς ἁδρός, Hdt. 1.17).Footnote ¹⁷ Hence it is appropriate here as a designation of good-quality food.

‘The water was now on them [sc. the enemies]: the lakes swelled, tumescent on every side, while the isthmus was submerged, looking everywhere like a sea.’ Clitophon witnesses a clash between the Egyptian army and the gang of the βουκόλοι (‘herdsmen-bandits’), which the latter win with the help of a stratagem: their scouts open the dyke that held the waters of the Nile, flooding the enemies’ path. The swelling of the lagoons and the flooding of the isthmus described in the present passage is the result of the opening of the dyke. Garnaud's ὠγκῶντο has replaced Vilborg's ὠγκοῦντο. Garnaud's apparatus criticus informs us that he is following editions of the papyrus in printing the pluperfect ὠγκῶντο as a correction from the perfect.Footnote ¹⁸ Unfortunately, the grammar in Garnaud's text and apparatus criticus is confused. The verb ὀγκόομαι, -οῦμαι ‘swell’ in the third person plural becomes ὠγκοῦντο in the imperfect, ὤγκωντο in the pluperfect. Vilborg's ὠγκοῦντο (VRG) may gain some appeal from the following ἐπεκλύζετο (also an imperfect form),Footnote ¹⁹ but we should rather follow the combined testimony of Π⁷ and W, correct the accent and print ὤγκωντο.

‘Realizing that consent would not be forthcoming, he [sc. Chaereas] arranged a plot: assembling a band of bandits who shared his trade (he being a man of the sea), he arranged what they had to do.’ The Egyptian fisherman Chaereas desires Leucippe, who does not return his affections; he thus conceives a plan for her abduction, which—according to the transmitted text—includes putting together a band of robbers, ‘who share his art’. The reading of the manuscripts at this point is awkward.Footnote ²⁰ Both Vilborg and Garnaud adopted Schmidt's <ὄχλον> to complete the deficient syntax (cf. 8.16.5 λῃστῶν ὄχλος). This reconstruction, however, would make Chaereas one of the robbers, which is not what the context suggests (he is presented at 4.18 as a fisherman who fights against the βουκόλοι, that is, ‘herdsmen-bandits’); and it would leave the following phrase (ἅτε θαλάσσιος ὤν) unexplained. Litinas's ἁλιεῖς τῶν ὁμοτέχνων, instead of the usually printed ληστῶν ὁμοτέχνων <ὄχλον>, improves the sense of the passage, and is a convincing construction in view of the parallels.Footnote ²¹ Still, it seems that we ought to keep ‘robbers’ in the passage, especially in view of the similar phrase κελεύει λῃστὰς ἐπ’ αὐτὴν συγκροτῆσαι (2.16.2). To achieve this, we could read λῃστὰς τῶν ὁμοτέχνων. The sense would be that Chaereas formed a group of robbers out of his fishermen colleagues (ὁμοτέχνων would refer to Chaereas’ and his men's shared skill of fishing); in other words, he picked some men out of his fellow fishermen to take on the role of robbers. Chaereas’ men are indeed later described as robbers (8.5.1; cf. 2.17.3 λῃστὰς ἁλιεῖς, the abductors of the hero's half-sister, Calligone). It is conceivable that λῃστὰς τῶν was corrupted into λῃστῶν under the influence of the genitive plural immediately following. O'Sullivan ([n. 7], s.v. συγκροτέω) reported Scaliger's λῃστήριον ὁμοτέχνων, a similar structure to the one proposed here but palaeographically and grammatically more difficult.

‘Believe me, Clitophon, I am on fire! I wish I could show you this fire of mine. I wish the fire of love shared the nature of normal fire, so that I could have inflamed you by embracing you.’ This is the Ephesian Melite addressing Clitophon, with whom she has fallen madly in love, during their sea journey to Ephesus (a trip to which Clitophon agrees, assuming, falsely, that Leucippe has perished). The reading of the manuscripts ὄφελον εἶχον is preferable to Göttling's ὄφελον εἶχε, which was printed by Garnaud, as it follows naturally from ὄφελον ἠδυνάμην of the previous sentence (on the rhetorical repetition of ὄφελον with verbs of the same person, cf. 2.24.3 ὄφελον ἔμεινας ἐν Βυζαντίῳ⋅ ὄφελον ἔπαθες πολέμου νόμῳ τὴν ὕβριν).Footnote ²² However, the full version of the manuscripts, printed by Vilborg (ὄφελον εἶχον τὴν αὐτὴν φύσιν τῷ κοινῷ τοῦ ἔρωτος πυρί, ἵνα σοι περιχυθεῖσα κατέφλεξα ‘I should be of the same nature as the common fire of erōs, so as to envelop and burn you’), is unsatisfactory, as this πῦρ is then said to be of a nature that spares lovers locked in embrace (νῦν δὲ πρὸς τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῦτο μόνον τὸ πῦρ ἰδίαν ὕλην ἔχει καὶ ἐν ταῖς περὶ τοὺς ἐραστὰς συμπλοκαῖς ἀνακαιόμενον λάβρον τῶν συμπλεκομένων φείδεται),Footnote ²³ which is not what Melite wants. Overwhelmed with desire for Clitophon, Melite wishes to literally become all fire, so that she can inflame her lover with the same desire (casting herself, we might think, as Zeus to her lover's Semele). The emendations adopted by Garnaud, which introduce a comparison between the fire of erōs and the κοινὸν πῦρ, that is, fire in its literal sense, improve the sense of the passage, but are quite invasive. There is another way to improve the text while retaining the readings of the manuscripts: O'Sullivan (n. 7), s.v. κοινός proposed to eliminate τοῦ ἔρωτος (presumably as an incorrect scribal gloss) and to read ὄφελον εἶχον τὴν αὐτὴν φύσιν τῷ κοινῷ πυρί, or, alternatively, to replace τοῦ ἔρωτος with οὔκ ἔρωτος. The former option seems preferable in terms of style. But perhaps the sense of the passage is further improved if we positFootnote ²⁴ that τοῦ ἔρωτος was displaced from the previous sentence, in which case we might read: ὄφελον ἠδυνάμην δεῖξαι τὸ πῦρ <τοῦ ἔρωτος>⋅ ὄφελον εἶχον τὴν αὐτὴν φύσιν τῷ κοινῷ πυρί, ἵνα σοι περιχυθεῖσα κατέφλεξα ‘I wish I could show you the fire of erōs. I should be of the same nature as the common fire, so as to envelop and burn you.’

‘Melite thought it best if he [sc. Pasion] departed for now, and returned when matters with her husband had been sorted out and his anger had been calmed. That is what he did.’ Melite's husband, previously thought to be dead, reappears, and Clitophon ends up in prison as an adulterer, but escapes with the help of Melite and the guard Pasion. In the present passage, Melite gives money to Pasion and sends him away, until she calms the anger of her husband. Cobet's θῆται (passive aorist subjunctive), which is preferred by both Vilborg and Garnaud, may seem to allow for a smoother syntax than the unanimous reading of the manuscripts θῇ (active aorist subjunctive), given the resulting syntactic parallelism with the following sentence (γένηται τὰ τῆς ὀργῆς ἐν γαλήνῃ), but an emendation is not needed.Footnote ²⁵ θῇ would have Melite as its subject and give her a greater share in the action: she will calm things down with her husband, then Pasion (subject of ἀναχωρεῖν and μετιέναι) can return. This is exactly what she does at 6.9–11.Footnote ²⁶

‘If she feels passionate about that accursed adulterer for the time being, that will last only as long as she knows him alone and has slept with no one else.’ The speaker of these lines is Sosthenes, the servant of Melite's husband, Thersander, who has imprisoned Leucippe (whom fortune has also brought to Ephesus). Sosthenes speaks to his master, who desires Leucippe, about the maiden's obsessive love for the undeserving Clitophon. ἔχει is Garnaud's emendation of πάσχει, the unanimous reading of the manuscripts. Garnaud was not the first editor to reject the transmitted πάσχει. Vilborg, following Gaselee, printed βόσκει,Footnote ²⁷ a reading weakened by the testimony of Π³ (]χει).Footnote ²⁸ On the other hand, Garnaud's ἔχει τὴν ψυχὴν ἐπ’ αὐτόν (‘elle a l’âme fixée sur lui’) is an odd construction. There are two better possibilities to choose from. One is to restore the reading of the manuscripts (with τὴν ψυχὴν functioning as an attribute/accusative of respect), which is reinforced by the following close parallel: ἠδίκει μὲν Ἀγαμέμνων … ἐπ’ αὐτῷ δὲ πάσχει τὴν ψυχὴν Ἀχιλλεύς, καὶ πέρας οὐκ ἦν (‘Agamemnon did him an injustice … so Achilles’ soul suffered to no end on account of him [sc. Agamemnon] or this [sc. his unjust treatment by Agamemnon]’, Procop. Gaz. Decl. 7.3.7–9);Footnote ²⁹ we would then have to replace αὐτόν with αὐτῷ in the prepositional expression,Footnote ³⁰ but the mixing of cases is a much easier palaeographical mistake than the misreading of a verb. The other possibilityFootnote ³¹ is to insert an adverb such as κακῶς before ἔχει (that is <κακῶς> ἔχει τὴν ψυχὴν ἐπ’ αὐτόν ‘she is distressed about him’), which is made attractive by parallels such as 1.6.6 (ἀπῄειν ἔχων τὴν ψυχὴν κακῶς), 6.5.5 (ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν οὕτως εἶχον τὴν ψυχὴν κακῶς) and 6.11.2 (ἡ δὲ Μελίτη κακῶς εἶχε τὴν ψυχήν).

‘In consequence, Thersander gave an unmanly shriek at the blow and withdrew his hand, and was thus stopped in his tracks.’ Melite's husband, Thersander, while trying to hit Clitophon, inadvertently hurts himself and cries in pain. Garnaud adopted Herscher's μαλ’ ἄκων in the place of the reading μαλακόν (Vilborg printed μάλα ἄκων). The parallel at 6.7.8 (ὑπεκστήσομαι καὶ μάλα ἄκων)Footnote ³² and Vilborg's defence ([n. 7], 124–5) suggest μαλ’ ἄκων ἀνακραγών (translated by Garnaud as ‘en criant involontairement’)Footnote ³³ as a possible construction. Schmidt's μαλ’ ἀλγῶν ‘feeling great pain’Footnote ³⁴ also yields an acceptable sense. However, there is arguably no need to replace the reading μαλακόν. Used adverbially to refer to the tone of voice, it conveys a perfectly appropriate meaning (‘he gave a weak cry’; cf. Plut. Ti. Gracch. 2.5 ἐνεδίδου τόνον μαλακόν ‘he gave out a soft key-note’).Footnote ³⁵ Whitmarsh's translation (‘Thersander gave an unmanly shriek at the blow’) is more aligned with the reading of the manuscripts, which was preferred by Plepelits ([n. 7], 70) and seemingly also by O'Sullivan ([n. 7], s.v. μαλακός, ή, όν).

‘I permitted no man at all, whether citizen or foreigner, to approach me for the purpose of a relationship during the time you mentioned.’ This is Melite's affirmation to her husband, who accuses her of having committed marital infidelity during his absence, that she let no one, citizen or foreigner, approach her during that time (technically true, as she only became intimate with Clitophon after her husband's return). Both Vilborg and Garnaud print the transmitted οὐδὲ εἶδον, although both syntax (a verb of perception followed by an infinitive) and meaning are odd. Vilborg (n. 7), 136 doubted the manuscript tradition and proposed to read οὐδὲ εἴων (= imperfect of ἐάω ‘allow’), although he did not adopt this reading in his text; there is no relevant note in Garnaud's apparatus criticus. However, it is the sense of εἴων, not εἶδον, that is reflected in translations: ‘je n'ai laissé aucun citoyen …’ (Garnaud); ‘I never allowed anybody …’ (Gaselee); ‘I permitted no man at all …’ (Whitmarsh); ‘I never allowed any man at all …’ (Winkler). An earlier emendation (οὐδέν’ εἴασα = past tense of ἐάω)Footnote ³⁶ is in the same direction. The text here should probably be emended in favour of οὐδὲ εἴων, which gives better sense than οὐδὲ εἶδον and is not too distant palaeographically from the reading of the manuscripts. The form εἴων is paralleled at 3.13.6 (there a third-person plural); the hiatus after οὐδέ is allowed.Footnote ³⁷