J. Hilton (2009). Contemporary Elements in Achilles Tatius's Leucippe and Clitophon, Acta Classica 2009 101-112, argues that although the novel is ostensibly set in the time of Persian rule in Egypt, A.T. lets slip multiple references to the Roman imperial era. However, the setting cannot be in the Persian period because the author describes the Pharos lighthouse, a monument from the Ptolomaic era (V.6.2-3). The reference to the ‘satrap’ of Egypt in IV.11.1 is a term that by the second century just meant ‘governor’ (Philostratus Lives of the Sophists 1.22). And the reference to the ‘royal family’ of the magistrate in Clitophon's trial (VII.12.1) is just confusion with the administration of law at Athens where the archon who presided over lawsuits in the Prytaeum, as here (VIII.8.6) was of the royal house (E. Vilborg (1962). Achilles Tatius Leucippe and Clitophon A Commentary, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, p.122). The references to the Roman imperial era are valid, but they don't refine the dating any further than placing the novel in the first or second centuries.
