HELIODORUS, the first and best of the Greek romancers, was born at Emesa in Syria, and flourished under Theodosius at the close of the fourth century. Nothing is known of his personal history, except that he became bishop of Tricca in Thessaly, and compelled every married priest in his diocese to put away his wife as soon as he applied for ordination. His famous romance, the Athiopica,—so called, because the scene is laid in Ethiopia,—narrates the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea. The work is interesting, both because it exhibits the first germs of the great modern art of novel-writing, and because the story as a story has very considerable merit. The adventures are, perhaps, too numerous; and, besides following in too rapid succession, are occasionally rather improbable; yet both the main plot and the episodes are well managed, the characters are well drawn, and the scenery is well described. The language, too, though somewhat deficient in point and terseness, is natural and pleasing. The Athiopica was not known to modern scholars except by repute, till the sack of Ofen in 1526, when a MS. copy from the library of Matthew Corvinus fell into the hands of a German soldier, who carried it off with him into his own country. It passed into the hands of Obsopaeus, by whom it was printed at Basle in 1538. Other MSS. were discovered, and new and more correct editions followed. The most recent is also the best—that of Coraës, Paris, 1804.