I. Definition
The term ‘novels’ and ‘romance’ are not ancient, but the latter dates from the Middle Ages, when it denoted a work written in the Romance vernacular. There was no specific term for the genre in Antiquity (drâma was common in Greek [1], fabula, in Latin, Apul. Met. 1.1, or argumentum, Macrob. Sat. In Somn. 1,2,8).
II. Greek
A. Overview and development of the genre
In Greek literature, ‘novel’ denotes a series of texts of fictio…