Of LONGUS himself we know nothing except that he was a Byzantian, and lived at the beginning of the 5th century A.D. He was one of the later members of the school of Greek prose romancers which flourished in the third and following centuries, and revived the pastoral idyll of Theocritus in a new form, which was to be definitely established more than a thousand years later in the great school of modern novelists. The romance of Longus is called Daphnis and Chloe, a pastoral tale of the passion and sufferings of two lovers, who, like Paul and Virginia, their modern counterparts, grow up from childhood together. The other great name in the Byzantian school is Heliodorus, a Christian bishop in the third century, who wrote a story called Æthiopica, and gave up his bishopric rather than his art. The Æthiopica is a story of adventure; but the interest of Daphnis and Chloe lies in pure affection and simplicity of character. The romance of Daphnis and Chloe forms one of the landmarks of literature. It is almost the last product of classical Greek, and is about twelve centuries later than Homer. It is an utterly pagan work of fiction, written in the capital, a century after the official establishment of Christianity. And it is among the earliest specimens of what in modern times is known as the romance of sentiment.

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