The first time I opened Heliodorus's Aethiopica, I found myself asking numerous questions. Who is Thyamis? Why has the story suddenly shifted to an Athenian named Cnemon? Why are entirely new characters introduced before earlier ones have even been explained? Heliodorus expected his readers to tolerate uncertainty. He refused to explain everything immediately because he wanted his readers to reconstruct the story themselves. Only gradually did I realize that what initially ap