This introductory chapter examines the scope and range of wonder and the marvellous between Homer and the Hellenistic period, explores the significance of ancient conceptions of wonder in the modern literary critical tradition and outlines this book’s theoretical underpinnings and the scope and content of the subsequent chapters.

This chapter examines Dio’s presentation of wonders in relation to his characterization of emperors and Roman power. After analysing Dio’s ‘lexicon of wonder’ in the Roman History, the chapter offers a close reading of two case studies: (i) the rain miracle during the extraordinary battle (AD 172) between the Romans and the Quadi on the Danube under the leadership of Marcus Aurelius (72[71].8); (ii) the case of Pedo Apronianus, accused (AD 205) on apparently flimsy grounds of aspiring to become emperor, which results in thedemise of the innocent and unlucky bald-headed senator Baebius Marcellinus (77[76].8.1 [Xiph.]). These case studies support the following conclusions. It is clear even from the epitomized narrative that Dio finds wonders expressive and rich in meaning. Dio’s wonders operate on a broad spectrum, running from the uplifting and positive to the humiliating and negative, thus evoking the dynamics of exemplarity in Roman historiography. Generally, although narrative modes of wonder can potentially be problematic for the heavyweight and serious genres of historiography, Dio embraces wonders which are expressive about his perceptions of the nature of imperial power. Dio’s wonders are clearly a hugely important thread in the fabric of his distinctive brand of historical writing.

This chapter assesses Phlegon of Tralles’ paradoxographical works Peri Thaumasion and Peri Makrobion, and demonstrates that Phlegon’s use of source citation and other strategies of authentication in these works is designed to appeal to a range of readers and reading cultures in the cosmopolitan Roman empire. In the tradition of Greek paradoxography that dates back to the Hellenistic era, Phlegon offers many citations from literary sources for the marvels he reports; these are all Greek authors, and predominantly Hellenistic or earlier in date, and would fulfil Greek-speaking readers’ expectations for the traditions of paradoxography. Other strategies, however, seem designed to appeal to Roman expectations. Phlegon’s use of autopsy as an authenticating trope echoes what Latin authors (Mucianus, Pliny the Elder) brought to the genre. Finally, Phlegon’s citation of documents such as census records is designed to appeal to inhabitants from across the empire who would have had personal experience of Imperial record-keeping. By combining all three of these authenticating methods so that they mutually reinforce one another, and dovetail in a believable way with readers’ extratextual experiences, Phlegon updates what was originally a Hellenistic, highly literary genre for the contemporary era and his boundary-crossing readers.

Chaucer’s God considers how characters invoke God, both in terms of the everyday language of late medieval England and in the ways that the idea of God is reflected in Chaucer’s fiction. Conventional, non-theological utterances of the names for God by Chaucer’s characters as part of their, by turns, outwardly pious and unthinkingly impious phraseologies are discussed in the opening section, God Woot – ‘God knows’. Under the heading God Forwoot – ‘God foreknows’, some of the more challenging invocations of God are considered, such as the implications of divine foreknowledge and predestination on human free will in the Knight’s Tale, the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Troilus and Criseyde. The concluding section, God in a Cruel World, asks whether in the Clerk’s Tale and the Franklin’s Tale, if Chaucer allowed his tales to reflect, and characters to reflect upon, the heretical notion of a God lacking in compassion for humanity.

‘Secularity’ is here taken to involve matters which are lay and earthly as opposed to otherworldly and spiritual. Personal experience was being allowed its own authority, a principle which often features in Chaucer’s poetry, as when he portrays a woman with much experience of marriage and a marquis who obsessively tests his wife’s virtue. Certain marvels were acknowledged to have natural rather than miraculous causes; this belief features in the tales told by the Squire and Franklin. Chaucer condemns false alchemists who dupe victims into believing that they are seeing precious metals being created. As far as astrology/astronomy is concerned, he makes use of secular science whilst disassociating himself from the pagan beliefs held by its ancient proponents. His sociopolitical values often reflect those associated with recently recovered works by Aristotle. Secularity and religiosity were not invariably in opposition, but sometimes the strains showed – as in Chaucer’s Retractions.