Greek novelist, author of Chaereas and Callirhoë, probably the earliest fully extant romantic (Hellenistic romance) novel in Western literature. The romances of Chariton and of Achilles Tatius are the only ones preserved in a number of ancient papyri. The complex but clearly narrated plot concerns a husband and wife whose love is tested by a series of fast-moving, perilous adventures in Sicily, Persia, and Egypt, ending in eventual happiness. Historical persons (for example, Hermocrates of Syracuse, who was mentioned by the historian Thucydides in the 5th century BC) are introduced as characters but are treated with free invention. (See also Hellenistic romance.)