This course offers an introduction to the literary and cultural life of the Greek-speaking world under the Roman Empire. Our focus will be the Greek novel of Longus, Daphnis and Chloe, a pastoral romance set on the island of Lesbos with erotic confusion, shepherding life, pirates and 'true' love. The romantic novel emerged as a new genre in the Hellenistic and Roman Greek world, and offers us an opportunity to consider how society is presented, questions of sexuality and gendered relations, and explore the unique features of this genre with its shared plot points, foibles and humor.