The discovery of the first fragments of the so-called ‘Ninus Romance’ (NR) and their publication in 1893 by U. Wilcken mark a turning-point in the study of ancient narrative literature. The NR was the first of a large number of other Greek novels recovered from Egyptian papyri. Its early dating (not later than the 1st cent. AD) led to the rejection of E. Rohde's thesis, widely accepted at that time, that the flowering of the Greek novel was connected with the Second Sophistic (2nd cent. AD) [1].
As well as fragments A and B of the PBerolinensis 6926 (ed. Wilcken), …