Recommended Reading
Enquiring of his friend’s trip to Sicily (Ep. 79), Seneca characteristically seized the opportunity to divert to more instructive matters. Lucilius, as a keen writer, would no doubt want to compose his own poem about Etna (Aetnam describas in tuo carmine, 79.5.5), and the volume of poetic treatments that had come before should by no means deter him. To Seneca’s mind, the more extensive the literary coverage the greater the interpretative fertility; those who came before had opened rather than closed doors (non praeripuisse…sed aperuisse); and those subjects that had been covered should not be seen as consumed (consumptam) but conveniently laid out (subactam) to toy with. In short, it was best to come last (condicio optima est ultimi).
Valerius Flaccus must evidently have shared Seneca’s view. For, in electing to compose his Roman Argonautica, he would have been hard pressed to adopt a more commonly sailed course. This was particularly true within the epic sphere, where not only had Apollonius Rhodius already composed a full-scale treatment, but Varro Atacinus had also translated the Hellenistic Argonautica into Latin some hundred years before.[1] Moreover, the Argonautic myth had become a hackneyed tale in a far broader literary sphere. From Homer to Pindar, from Euripides to Seneca, from Catullus to Horace, not forgetting the numerous Ovidian representations of various angles of the story,[2] allusion to the myth, let alone full-scale rehandlings of it, had become a potential cliché. Indeed, Virgil even overtly refused to adopt the narrative in his Georgics on the grounds that it had been covered too many times before (cui non dictus Hylas puer?, Georg. 3.6). It would, he predicted, nonetheless, inevitably invite further recontextualization:
alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo
delectas heroas
(Ecl. 4.31-6)
Virgil was right; the potentially all-engulfing wave of literary antecedents was not to drown out Valerius Flaccus.
It did, however, set up a duly fascinating relationship between the author and his elected narrative – a relationship that was, in so many ways, to prove intriguingly disjointed. For the Flavian undertaking was underlined by a series of paradoxes that would innately detach the poet from his song; Valerius closely structures his story on Apollonius but firmly emerges as Virgil’s poet; out of a desire to prove his emulative worth he incongruously adopts an adventure famed for its originality; in his opening dedication, which pledges to bathe Vespasian’s recent expansionist campaigns in the reflective splendour of the Argo’s enterprise, he sets himself the task of glorifying what had come to represent the consummate symbol of daring, transgression, and ruthless ambition.
Apollonius or Virgil? The emulative monster
Regrettably, we will forever remain unable to gauge the intended scope of Valerius’ work, which, in the same way as Lucan’s, has come down to us agonizingly incomplete. The narrative tails off midway through its eighth book as the Argonauts, under chase from Absyrtus, frantically resolve to abandon the stolen Colchian princess. Suspecting her betrayal, Medea enters a terrifying frenzy, forcing Jason to initiate a desperate plea to calm her down:
“mene aliquid metuisse putans? me talia velle?”
(8.467)
At this tantalising moment, perhaps somewhat appropriately, Jason runs out of things to say, but, concordantly, our appreciation of the text lies irrecoverably maimed. One only need consider how radically different our understanding of the Aeneid would be without its final plunge of the sword to appreciate our deprivation.
Nonetheless, what we can say is that, as far as he reaches, Valerius essentially bases his narrative on Apollonius, his first four books roughly corresponding to the first two of his Hellenestic predecessor, while, up to its abrupt conclusion, the final four of the former effectively trace the final two of the latter. This ever-present contact is essential to understanding the expressive framework of the Valerian text. Every episode, as well as invariably embroiling itself in discourses with earlier Latin epic or other external models, also faces the inevitable choice of closely translating, visibly remoulding, or consciously disregarding his Hellenistic antecedent. For the most part Valerius takes the second of these three courses, using Apollonius as a dish onto which he may liberally sprinkle any number of other literary inspirations.
We could take his Bebrycian episode (4.99-343) as a case in point. Jason and his men arrive at Bebrycia’s shores to encounter the resident tyrant Amycus, a ferocious figure who welcomes all visitors by, literally, bashing their brains out. In a riveting boxing match, Pollux manages to defeat him. The narrative essentially corresponds to the Apollonian version of events (AR. 2.1-163).
Yet the Valerian episode attains a wholly distinctive flavour through a series of modifications. Rather than jumping straight to the confrontation, as in Apollonius, the Argonauts initially meet with Dymas, who relates the defeat of his comrade, Otreus, advising them to flee (4.133-73). The interlude models itself on a similar meeting with Achaemenides in the Aeneid (3.588-654), who, as eyewitness to the Cyclops’ cruelty, (more successfully) urges the Trojans to depart. As we move on to meet Amycus himself, Valerius, in a brushstroke redolent of Homer’s Polyphemus, then takes the novel step of situating his Bebrycian king in a spelunca (4.177-86), instilling his creation, as Hershkowitz (1998:82) has observed, with a distinctly bestial quality. As a further gloss the Valerian Amycus, unlike his Apollonian predecessor, who issues challenges indiscriminately, will only take on worthy opponents, throwing all others off a cliff in sacrifice to his father, Neptune (4.109-11).
Moreover, the boxing match itself is subject to various tweaks, which Hershkowitz (1998:78-91) again, has meticulously detailed in her close analysis of the scene. Valerius, in particular, derives much inspiration from the boxing match between Entellus and Dares at the funeral games for Anchises (Aen. 5.428-84);[3] the fight is made a decidedly more psychological affair as Pollux cannily waits for his opponent to wear himself out before taking initiative; in another Homeric twist, a divine framework is supplied as Neptune sends a bloody tide (4.131-2) in allusion to the bloody rainfall sent down by Zeus at Sarpedon’s death (Il. 16.459-60).
The Bebrycian episode, in its numerous narrative adjustments and its persistent colorations from sources further afield, epitomizes a magpie-like tendency discernible throughout the Roman Argonautica. Apollonius more often than not provides the underlying material, but Valerius consistently stitches together a kaleidoscopic range of literary fabrics to create a wholly distinctive patchwork.
On occasion, too, Valerius is more than happy to drift entirely, opportunistically grafting on episodes nowhere to be seen in his Hellenistic predecessor to tickle his emulative fancies. After the Argo’s departure, for example, Valerius completely digresses from Apollonius, who leaves Aeson ailing in a sickbed (AR. 1.263-4), to conclude his opening book with the dramatic suicide of Jason’s parents (1.730-850). The scene, in its gruesomely dark blend of necromancy, sacrifice and oozing gore clearly takes its lead from Lucan.[4] It is at Colchis, however, where Valerius takes his greatest liberty of all, dedicating the entirety of his sixth book to a newly invented full-scale war as Aeetes, in prelude to conferring the tasks, demands that the Argonauts fight off his troublesome brother, Perses. The divergence attests to the most glowering literary presence of all within Valerius. No emulation of Virgil would be complete without venturing into the heroism, gore, gladiatorial excitement and underlying futility of widespread bloodshed.
Indeed, for all the Apollonian wind in Valerius’ sails, most dictatorial, undoubtedly, were the generic pressures of confronting his Augustan predecessor, and Malamud and Mcguire (1993:192) provide superlative lucidity when they describe him as ‘consistently reading Apollonius through a Virgilian lens.’ In his opening dedication, Valerius accordingly presents his composition as a contemporary mirror. The mythological glory of the Argo’s expedition, he claims, may aptly venerate Vespasian’s recent expansion of the Empire:
tuque o, pelagi cui maior aperti
fama, Caledonius postquam tua carbasa vexit
oceanus Phyrygios prius indignatos Iulos,
eripe me populis et habenti nubile terrae,
sancte pater, veterumque fave veneranda canenti
facta virum
(1.7-12)
Valerius hereby plunges his adventurous emperor into somewhat murky waters. The enterprise, having become the well-established literary rallying-point from which to target human transgression,[7] by no means offered unequivocal praise. In fact, throughout his work, as will be discussed in due course, Valerius proves his loyalty to Virgil as much by maintaining ambiguous sympathies as by instilling his epic with contemporary urgency.
Of course, as Hardie (1993) has meticulously observed in his tracing of the genre’s dynamics, the emulative demands of the Aeneid weighed heavy on any subsequent Roman epicist. It was the job of every one of them thereafter to construct storms, battles, heavens, hells, katabases, furies, heroes, villains, ecphrases, prophecies, proems and all manner of other epic paraphernalia that would engage with, potentially re-evaluate, and, optimistically, live up to their Augustan predecessor. In his famous closing wish, Statius, a contemporary of Valerius, openly acknowledges the ominous charge of entering this most prescriptive of genres. Pondering the durability of his own Thebaid (durabisne procul, 12.810), he concludes that surpassing the Virgilian landmark amounts to an impossible feat:
vive, precor; nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta
sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora
mox tibi si quis adhuc praetendit nubile livor,
occidet, et meriti post me referuntur honores.
(Stat. Theb. 12.816-19)
To many, this obsessive preoccupation, in itself, denotes the collective failure of so many of Virgil’s successors; they possessed an inferiority complex that choked their writings to the point of suffocation. Yet there is no need to denote such intense rivalry in the first place. We should rather infer from the very language of Statius’ tribute that he rather relinquishes any sense of enmity. His expressed resolve is to follow (sequere) not compete.
Indeed, Hardie has well identified the vibrant effects of this heightened sensitivity. Their retrospective tendencies, far from depriving them of air, breathed into them added life. ‘These monstrous poems’, as Hardie (1993:xi) relates, ‘are possessed of a restless and fertile energy and…close to the surface of their hides there is stretched an intricately sensitive nerve-system.’ The very means of individual expression for these poems lay in their requalification of earlier models. By emulating their antecedents they could find immense articulacy in the slightest deviation. This generic self-reflexivity galvanised the poets’ ability to distinguish themselves while appropriating their individual work to the genre.
However, to deploy Hardie’s terminology, in Valerius’ case, we could well see this ‘restless’ energy as effectively doubling. For, in tracing Apollonius, Valerius provided himself with the unrivalled task of composing the most sensitive ‘nerve-system’ of all. Not only was he, like all the rest, attempting a composition worthy of Virgil, he also kept in constant touch with an alternative epic source. In the process, Valerius created an unprecedentedly frictional, and therefore fertile, ‘monster’ in the Roman epic canon. He persistently re-evaluates on two sustained fronts. Accordingly, too, the author’s relationship to his text is underlined by an ever-present disjunctive paradox. He is at one and the same time telling both Virgil’s and Apollonius’ story.[8]
Daringly unoriginal or unoriginally daring?
Additionally, we must weigh in the paradoxical primacy of a narrative that Valerius evidently adopted for its emulative ripeness. Indeed, from the very opening word, prima, Valerius continually sets what we might call the ‘earliness of his story’ against his own belated authorship. In marked contrast to Apollonius,[9] he thus delights in accentuating the dependency of the Trojan narrative on his story, repeatedly playing on the connotations of praedo to nurture the impression of Jason as a premature Paris.[10] These associations culminate in the fierce opposition of the crew’s seer, Mopsus, to the abduction of Medea; in committing the crime, he will too soon initiate the well-fabled conflict:
quemque suas sinat ire domos, nec Marte cruento
Europam atque Asiam prima haec committat Erinys
(8.395-6)
In similarly self-conscious style, Valerius is unable to resist constant allusions to the future tragedy; before the Argo even sets off, Mopsus enters a vatic frenzy on the shore, foreseeing the conjugal travesties (1.223-6); immediately after the theft of the fleece, Jason invites Medea’s retribution should he prove disloyal in terms that practically spell out his future calamities (7.501-8); and, in an ecphrasis at the Colchian temple (5.416-55), Mulciber has already prophetically (praesaga…arte, 5.433) painted along the temple walls the calamitous breakdown of their marriage.
At this particular instance the onlooking Jason, like Aeneas observing the shield (miratur rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet, Aen. 8.730), is unable to interpret the signs (varia dux laetus imagine templi, 5.416), an allusion itself ironic in modifying Aeneas’ justifiably described ignorance (ignarus) with Jason’s unjustifiably prescribed joy (laetus). However, in yet further jests at belatedness, Valerius’ characters do sometimes even appear to possess a literary knowledge that transcends the very borders of the text. On two occasions, for example, they seemingly confuse the Apollonian story with their own. Mopsus, in the same frenzied speech that anticipates Jason’s devastating future, envisions the abduction of Hylas, a well-known element of the mythology that is set to occur as the Argonauts stop off at Mysia:
subita cur pulcher harundine crines
velat Hylas? unde urna umeris niveosque per artus
caeruleae vestes
(1.218-20)
The vision corresponds with Theocritean and Apollonian versions where Hylas is ensnared by a local nymph when fetching water.[11] It fails, however, to live up to the Valerian modifications, where Hylas, in characteristically Virgilian fashion, is lured to the pool in hot pursuit of a deer (3.549-57). A second confusion then emerges in the aftermath of Hylas’ abduction. As the Argonauts debate whether to abandon Hercules, who has vanished looking for his lost friend, Telamon exhibits a convenient piece of literary awareness in defence of their missing bulwark: they should remember, he asserts, that they are proposing to abandon the man they once proclaimed their leader (3.699-702). Telamon is here appealing to the Apollonian episode, omitted in Valerius, where the Argonauts initially elect Hercules over Jason, before being convinced otherwise (AR. 1.345-347). It would appear that Telamon and Mopsus, in truly Ovidian fashion, have read their own stories before.
However, it is the fabled ship that becomes the ultimate metaphor for Valerius’ belated adventure. For, in the Argo, he possessed the ideal vehicle with which to explore the pressures of his particular challenge. Its audacity as the ‘first ship’ could appropriately symbolize the boldness of his own literary undertaking as he dares to invite comparisons with a whole host of narrative predecessors, not to mention the lofty expectations of genre. At the same time, its seminal status served to highlight the radically different natures of their respective departures. As the Argo boldly ventures into the seas for the first time Valerius audaciously takes on a highly unoriginal enterprise. Yet this antithesis, in turn, sets up another parallel: in literary terms, the challenges he faces are therein just as great. Indeed, in reality, it is paradoxically only Valerius who is new to these ominous trials, and concordantly only he that faces any real threat. The Argo’s triumph is already assured. His own literary success is not.
This intricate relationship is initiated in Valerius’ proem, where the transgressions of ship and author immediately become entwined:
prima deum magnis canimus freta pervia natis
fatidicamque ratem, Sythici quae Phasidis oras
ausa sequi medioque inter iuga concita cursus
rumpere, flammifero tandem consedit Olympo
(1.1-4)
Just as Virgil, at the opening of the Aeneid, nurtures the sense that he is the first to sing (cano…primus) until profugus establishes Aeneas as the actual subject in the subsequent line, so too, here, Valerius mischievously asserts his originality (prima…canimus) before relinquishing the adjective to freta. The poet’s audacity, in this ironic appeal, then transfers to his ship (ausa…/rumpere), and, in the process, an inherent bond is forged between the two as the Argo seemingly emerges with a poetic spirit of its own (fatidicamque ratem).
Davis (1990:46), who has been central in establishing the symbolic importance of Valerius’ ship, has accordingly argued that Valerius effectively sets up his ship as ‘the major protagonist.’ The Argo, not its crew, is promised future deification.[12] In this way, Valerius markedly contrasts Apollonius’ pledge to tell of a past generation’s glories (AR. 1.1-2), and it is perhaps tempting to read this prioritization of ship over heroes politically. As a passive vessel, the Argo cannot be held accountable for the moral ambiguities that surround its voyage, and therefore only it is rewarded. This prognosis can only gain strength when we consider that Valerius’ proem does somewhat amount to a baptism of fire. In christening his enterprise with the inflammatory language of daring and transgression, Valerius promptly plunges it into the well-worn literary debate of prima culpa, and Davis has well observed how the language of his proem appeals to the denunciations of Catullus, Horace and Seneca.[13] That being said, it is wholly conceivable that Valerius should reserve special praise for his ship purely on the grounds of literary self-justification. The headlined importance of the vessel could well be seen to reflect the poet’s (presumable) view that the manner in which the story is conveyed eclipses its mythological substance, otherwise there would be little point in his rewriting such a well-established narrative.
On similar grounds, we may detect in the proem’s pledged katasterismos an early aspiration for poetic immortality, as Davis (1990:48) indeed does: ‘A merging of form and content…made it possible for Valerius to transcend conflict by maintaining that art will survive when particular men and particular societies have perished.’ Although justifiably perceiving the poet’s bold statement of intent, Davis fails to spot the underlying paradox. For, there is within the very concept of the katasterismos an innate irony, namely that the image of the Argo ‘settling’ (consedit) in the fiery firmament contradicts the very nature of Valerius’ mission. Far from setting out to consolidate its position, he is once more dislodging the Argo from its previous literary portrayals for his own purposes of narration. His Flavian undertaking rather serves to reaffirm that the legendary craft will never be allowed to truly rest in peace. In turn, the Argo’s assured settlement could also be seen to jest, in a generic sphere, at the actual impossibility of achieving epic closure.[14] These open-ended poems, as Valerius well knew, could never achieve true perfection. Quite to the contrary, they ever invited requalification – a fact to which, again, his epic stood living testament.
Indeed, Valerius’ ratis duly comes to represent this very element of his literary world. At numerous points its very status as the ‘original ship’ is brought under the microscope to illustrate his inhabitation of a genre that must obsessively revisit in order to move forward. As the Argonauts approach Lemnos, it transpires that the recent slaughter broke out because the wives were enraged to see their husbands sailing back in Lemni puppes laden with Thracian women (2.108-9). Later in the same episode, Hypsipyle rescues her father from the ongoing mass-murder by using a long worn out vessel to transport him to safety:
visa ratis saevae defecta laboribus undae,
quam Thetidi longinqua dies Glaucoque repostam
solibus et canis urebat luna pruinis.
(2.285-7)
At this point in his commentary, Poortvliet (1991:169) rather condescendingly proposes that ‘Valerius has forgotten that the Argo was the only ship.’ But these challenges occur far too frequently to be mere moments of absent-mindedness. Not only twice on Lemnos but also during their stay with the Cyzicans, the Argonauts encounter yet another community with bewildering volumes of nautical experience. At the welcoming feast, king Cyzicus proudly displays the Dolonian cups, which bear illustrations of a historic victory over their rival Pelasgians. In the picture shown, Cyzicus himself sets fire to the enemy ships (meus hic ratibus qui pascitur ignis, 2.658). One might add that, at Colchis too, (though clearly a challenge more intrinsic to the mythology) Absyrtus possesses a ready-made barbara ratis (8.292) with which to pursue the Argonauts.
These recurring ships are no mistakes on Valerius’ part, but conscious plays on the disjunctive relationship between the author and his narrative. As Valerius revisits well-covered episode after well-covered episode the tell-tale signs of unoriginality refuse to go away.
Observational platforms: the author in the text
It has been frequently observed that the Flavian Argonautica’s plays on primacy, its prolepses, its continual gestures towards external models, and the metaphors so intricately emblazoned on its glorified vessel, all reflect an intensely self-analytical streak.[1] A further symptom of its self-conscious authorship has nonetheless remained virtually untouched. Little, if anything, has been made of the epic’s frequent tendency to reveal events through the eyes of its characters.[2] There are continual moments, in Valerius, where we delve into hidden psychologies, where duplicitous acts are meticulously observed, where transitions are effected through a protagonist’s concerns, an individual’s reaction, or an observer’s eyes, on moments, in other words, where gaps between veiled sentiment and external visage, between underlying motives and construed intention, between reality and perception, become exposed. This bears immediate relation to Valerius’ creative process. For, in so diligently ‘Romanizing’ Apollonius’ epic, his role is precisely that of the observer, refocalising a well-established narrative through his own particularised lens. Accordingly, in what becomes an extended metaphor throughout the text, his characters’ faculties of perception are invested with immense importance.
If we take the opening scene, this characteristic fascination immediately becomes apparent. Valerius follows Apollonius in taking the conception of the enterprise as his starting point; Pelias, fearing Jason as a threat to his power, contrives to dispose of him by ordering the retrieval of the fleece. For Apollonius, the tyrant’s malice merely serves to get the story under way. Pelias witnesses the fulfilment of a fearful prophecy (Jason returning with one sandal) and reacts accordingly. His plan is hatched and executed in three lines.
Valerius differs in focus. He seizes the opportunity afforded by Apollonius’ brief statement to initiate an extended account of exactly how Pelias manipulates proceedings, spinning what we know to be an intended death sentence (letique vias, 1.33) into an alleged opportunity to achieve unprecedented renown (hanc mihi militiam, veterum quae pulchrior actis, 1.40). In the very framework of the scene, Valerius invites us to dwell on the potential for misinterpretation. We are given lengthy insight into Pelias’ megalomaniacal concerns (1.22-37) before witnessing the very moment at which the task is conferred (1.39-57). In careful preparation for his fraudulent ‘sell’ Pelias assumes his most innocuous expression:
tum iuvenem tranquilla tuens nec fronte timendus
occupat et fictis dat vultum et pondera dictis.
(1.38-9)
The lines possess an underlying force that gesture to the powers of re-presentation. While occupare should be understood in its most colloquial sense of ‘(approach and) start a conversation with’, the martial undertones should not be overlooked, particularly in light of the fact that, in the very next line, Pelias begins his suasoria by casting the enterprise in specifically militaristic language (hanc militiam mihi, 1.40). Moreover, there is the lingering sense of the poet’s presence, not only in Pelias’ scrupulous attention to the details of presentation, but in the very object of the speech. In selling the enterprise as a glorified pursuit, Pelias is replicating exactly what Valerius has promised to do only moments before.
As it turns out, Jason manages to read the situation correctly (mox taciti patuere doli, 1.64). However, as the narrative progresses, misinterpretations frequently become the more common motif. When the Argonauts, for example, pass the future site of Troy, Hercules is taken in by the treacherous assurances of Laomedon, who promises that, in return for rescuing his daughter, the hero will have his prize horses. In reality, his taciti doli consist even of killing Hercules in his sleep (2.567-9).
The infida promissa tyranni (2.577) then re-emerge in the shape of Aeetes on Colchis, who uses Jason to rid himself of a (seemingly innocent) adversary on the pretext of giving him the fleece. Only after tortuous battle, the pointlessness of which is made abundantly clear, does Jason realize he’s been fooled:
quo versa fides? quos vestra volutant
iussa dolos? alium hic Pelian, alia aequora cerno
(7.92-3)
The identification of Aeetes as alium…Pelian strongly recalls the Cumaean Sibyl’s identification of Turnus as another Achilles: alius Latio iam partus Achilles (Aen. 6.89). Jason’s exclamation appropriately invokes the language of Virgil in recognition of a further impediment. Just as the ultimate obstacle for Aeneas will prove to be Turnus, the ultimate obstacle for Jason has proved to be two-faced tyrants. Therein lies an important distinction: the Sibyl’s foresight only serves to illuminate the impotence of hindsight in the case of Jason – a failure all the more pronounced in light of his earlier perception of Pelias’ wiles (1.64).
Indeed, only in the divine sphere does complete transparency between reality and interpretation prevail as Juno puts on her best smile to trick both Minerva (3.487-508) and Venus (6.455-76) with little success. While Minerva instantly recognises her mother-in-law’s insidiae and false assumption of blandos…vultus (3.506-7), Venus is equally quick to spot Juno’s tricks (sensit diva dolos, 6.467). Notwithstanding, Juno manages to enlist both of their support. Pallas still agrees to delay Perses from attacking Aeetes before the Argonauts arrive (3.508), and Venus, herself eager for Colchis’ ruin, willingly hands over her cingula for Medea’s seduction (6.467-8). Just as quarrels dissolve to feasting and laughter at the end of the first book of the Iliad, so here Juno’s attempted exploitations are amusedly acknowledged and played along with. The very choice to play out this particular antithesis of reality and interpretation, as the Iliad chooses to play out a contrasting version of egoistic strife on the Olympian plain, serves to highlight its importance within the Valerian Argonautica.
[1] Davis 1991:46-73; cf. Malamud and McGuire in Boyle 1993:192-217; Hershkowitz 1998:35-104.
[2] The very concept of ‘focalisation’ is, however, indebted to Genette’s (1980) literary theory.
[3] Perses, as well as wishing to return fleece, initiates the war because of divine omens (6.729-31).
[1] Varro Atacinus’ Argonautae emerged in the 1st BC. Surviving fragments (fr.3-12 Courtney) suggest it was essentially a free translation of Apollonius.
[2] Homer attests to the myth’s universality (Od. 12.70); Pind. Pyth. 4; Eur. Med; Sen. Med; Cat. 64; Hor. Od. 1.3; Ov. Her. 6, 12, 17.229; Met. 6, 7; Am. 2.11.1-6, 2.14.29-34, 2.18.23, 33; Fasti 3.851-76; Trist. 3.9; Ars Am. 3.1.33-4; cf. Ovid’s lost Medea.
[3] Hershkowitz (1998:87) particularly notes the ‘violence often verging on madness’ that characterizes both contests.
[4] See, for example, Luc. 6.589-830.
[5] Hom. Il. 20.144-8; cf. Diod. Sic. 4.32, 42, 49.3ff.; Ovid Met.11.194-217.
[6] Poortvliet (1991:239-43) addresses the numerous structural and linguistic parallels.
[7] See, for example, Sen. Med; Cat. 64; Hor. Od. 1.3.
[8] Although there is, of course, the further complication that Virgil himself derived inspiration from Apollonius – a complex dynamic forming somewhat of an ‘epic ménage-à-trois’ as Hershkowitz (1998:106) deliciously puts it.
[9] Apollonius, as Barnes (1981:360) notes, prefers to dwell rather ‘on the traces of the expedition that have survived in his own time.’
[10] Aeetes labels Jason as a praedo when conferring the tasks (7.50), as does Medea’s mother, lamenting the abduction of her daughter (8.150-2). Absyrtus, pursuing the Argo, levels the same charge (8.267-8).
[11] Theocritus 13.39; AR. 1.1207; 1235-7.
[12] At 5.294-5 the Argo’s katasterismos is again exclusively assured.
[13] See Cat. 64.11: Hor. Od. 1.3.25-6; Sen. Med. 301-2.
[14] Hardie (1993:1-18) has well explored this paradox.
