"The Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre" : A Commentary

The origins of the anonymous Late Latin Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre (Historia Apollonii regis Tyri), are disputed, with the narrative commonly being seen as a Christianised folktale of a sub-literary character. Scholars focus mainly on questions of editing the text, seeking its origins (Greek or Latin, pagan or Christian) and exploring its afterlife. This literary and philological commentary discusses aspects of language, style, characterisation, intertextuality, and narrative technique in the earliest existing version of the Story of Apollonius, recension A. It situates the Late Latin text in the context of both ancient prose fiction and pagan and Christian literature. The author offers new arguments in the ongoing debate about the alleged Greek background of the Latin text, and his analysis enables readers to assess the literary character of this unique narrative, which contains elements of “popular” culture (e.g. riddles) and displays thorough knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics. The Commentary views the Story of Apollonius as a crossroad in which the notions of pagan and Christian, Greek and Latin, popular and sophisticated meet and interact in a complex way, reflecting the cultural atmosphere of the era of its creation.