Antonius Diogenes () was the author of an ancient Greek romance entitled The Wonders Beyond Thule (Τὰ ὑπὲρ Θoύλην ἄπιστα Apista huper Thoulen). Scholars have placed him in the 2nd century AD, but his age was unknown even to Photios, who wrote a synopsis of the romance. The romance was a novel of twenty-four books and was written in the form of a dialogue about travels. It is highly praised by Photios for its vivid narration, its clearness, and the gracefulness of its descriptions.
Scholars have tended to take it as a given that Lucian of Samosata had Diogenes' work principally in mind when he wrote his celebrated parody, the Verae Historiae (True Histories), but J.R. Morgan has more recently questioned this accepted notion upon extensive comparative study of the two works.
Summary of the novel in Photios
The current knowledge of the novel's content is from Photios, who left a brief summary in his Myriobiblos, a lengthy volume advising his idle brother, Tarasios, which books to read. Two sections in Porphyry also partially survive, where the novel is used as a historical source for his Life of Pythagoras, but neither section is very helpful about the plot. The few surviving papyrus fragments of the novel, however, do reveal some aspects of the structure and content.
Even though Photios praises the work in high tones, both for its style clarity and its plot credibility, the summary of the content that he presents creates a confusing impression, mainly because of the multiple nested levels of narration.
The novel begins in an outermost layer where the author introduces a Roman, Faustinus, who travels the world in search of rare books to give to his bibliophile sister Isidora. His latest journey has taken him to Tyros. A corresponding letter of the author follows a dedication to his own sister, also named Isidora.
Faustinus discovers a letter whose contents form the novel's first frame. It was written by a Greek, Balagros, a member of the Somatophylax Guard of Alexander the Great, to his wife Phila, the eldest daughter of Antipater; the couple are genuine historical figures incorporated into the novel. Balagros reports that after the conquest of Tyros, Alexander, Hephaistion and Parmenion were shown a hypogeium containing several stone sarcophagi. These were adorned with peculiar inscriptions:
"Lysilla lived 35 years" "Mnason, son of Mantinias lived 66 years, then 71 years" "Aristion, son of Philocles lived 47 years, then 52 years" "Mantinias, son of Mnason lived, 42 years, then 706 nights" "Derkyllis, daughter of Mnason lived, 39 years, then 760 nights" "Deinias the Arcas, lived 125 years"
Thus, the readers are introduced to the novel's significant characters. Also in the hypogeum was a box of cypress wood, bearing the inscription: "Oh, stranger, who opens this, learn from the miracles." Inside, Alexander and his companions found documents composed by Deinias and Derkyllis, which form the main narrative of the novel.
In this narrative, two Greek natives of Arcadia, Deinias and his son Demochares, are off on a journey to the outermost edges of the Oikoumene. Beyond the Pontos they reach the springs of the river Tanais and the Rhipaean Mountains, and, beyond these, the outer ocean. After a long journey across Oceanus—in the course of which three traveling companions called Karmanes, Meniskos, and Azulis join them—they at last reach the legendary island of Thule (perhaps Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, or Norway).
There they find a certain Phoenician noblewoman named Derkyllis, a native of Tyros. Derkyllis and Deinias fall in love with each other, and she reveals to him the adventurous but sad and rather convoluted fate of her and her brother Mantinias. Years later, an elderly Deinias confides the stories of Derkyllis and Mantinias, as well as his own experiences, to Kymbas, an envoy of the Arcadian League, sent to Tyros to summon Deinias back home.