Steven Jackson

APOLLONIUS OF RHODES: ENDYMION

O?x ap' eye!) [jio?vy) [xexa AaxfAiov ?vxpov aX?axco, o?S' o?Y) XaXw 7i?piSa(,o(jiat 'EvSu[jl?covc. ~H flafxa Sy) xal oslo, x?ov, 8oXc7)giv ?oiSalc

fjLVY]CTa(ji?v?) (ptXOTYjTo?, ?va oxotLt] ?vl vuxxl

cpap[xacra7]? suxyjXo?, ? toi cptXa epya TSTuxxac. vuv Se xal a?TY) S?j&ev 0[xo?y]? efxfjiope? ?ctyjc, Sc5xe S' ?vcYjp?v toi T/jaova 7ry?fxa yev?a^ac 8a?(ji(ov ?Xycvoec?. 'AXX' ipxeo> ^"STXaB-c S' ?fjwnrj?, xal 7TCVUT1Q 7iep ?ouoa, tcoX?otovov aXyo? ?eipeiv.

(A. R. Arg. 4, 57-65)

This is F. Vian s edition of Apollonius' text,1 and he retains the tradi tional reading of verse 59 (underlined), including the vocative form kuon: "Bitch". Vian s apparatus for this verse reads:

59 x?ov ?Q Sjpar: xuwv E xLov B2YP et Chrestien (cf. Val. Fl. 8, 29) x?&ov Fr?nkel | | SoX?yjcjcv W: -?oLiGiv Q I I post u. lac. susp. Campbell.2

P. Green (ad loe.)2 is, I think, right to suggest that there is no need for edi tors to challenge the MS tradition here, and he further suggests, after E.

Livrea (ad loe.),3 that Apollonius would want to echo what is a common term of abuse in Homer. Also, no doubt, there is a nice hint of the hell

hounds which usually accompany Hecate (Arg. 3, 1216-1217; Theoc. Id. 2, 11-13; Virg. Aen. 6, 257-258).

There is still, however, a more significant, more subtle interpretation, which I believe should be expressed in support of the traditional reading, and which, so far, has been overlooked by scholars.

Let us recall, first of all, the extant pre-Apollonian sources for the story of Endymion. Hesiod (fr. 245 M.-W. = Sch. A. R. 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wen del) tells us that Endymion was the son of Aethlius, son of Zeus, and Ca lyke. He received from his grandfather Zeus the gift of being able to die

whenever he wished. Other pre-Apollonian sources to record these ge nealogical details were Pisander of Rhodes (FGrHist 16 F 7 = Sch. A. R. 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel), Acusilaus of Argos (FGrHist 2 F 36 = Sch. A. R.

1 F. Vian, Apollonios de Rhodes. Argonautiques in, Paris 1981. 2 P. Green, The Argonautika by Apollonios Rhodios, Berkeley 1997. 3 E. Livrea, Apollonii Rhodii Argonauticon: Liber iv, Florence 1973.

12 STEVEN JACKSON

4> 57-5%> pp. 264-265 Wendel) and Pherecydes of Athens (FGrHist 3 F 121 = Sch. A. R. 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel). The Apollonian scholiast goes on to say that some authors relate that this particular Endymion was a man of Sparta, while others record that he came from Elis. Ibycus of Rhegium (PMG. fr. 284 = Sch. A. R 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel) says in his first book that he was actually King of Elis. At any rate, he was portrayed as a man of the P?loponn?se. We are told by a Hesiodic source (fr. 260 M.-W. = Sch.

A. R 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel) that Zeus carried this Endymion up to heaven, where he was deceived into making love to a phantom of Hera in the shape of a cloud; and then, because of his lust, he was thrown out of

heaven down into Hades. Epimenides of Crete (3 B 14 D.-K. = Sch. A. R. 4> 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel) tells us that Endymion spent his time among the gods making love to Hera, wherefore, Zeus being angry, Endymion asked to sleep forever (ocxporco? utivo?: cp. Sch. Theoc. 3, 49-5ib, p. 133 Wen del). In another, separate episode of the tale, Lesbian Sappho speaks of the moon Selene's love for Endymion (test. 199 V = Sch. A. R 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel).

In his explanation of Apollonius' reference to the Latmian cave in con

junction with Endymion, the Apollonian scholiast recalls that there is a mountain in Caria called Latmus, and that in this mountain there is a cave where Endymion used to live. And there is also a city there called Heraclea. And it is said that Selene came down to Endymion in this cave. The source of this latter statement is not specified by the Apollonian scholiast, but it

is, almost certainly, an Alexandrian one, i.e. an Alexandrian innovation, or additional element to the already long established Endymion myth. Caria

was, after all, wholly under the sway of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Alex andria was the natural goal for all ambitious Carians at this time.1 In the

wake of such mutual interest between the Alexandrians and the Carians, Apollonius himself composed a ktistic poem concerning a leading Carian

city, Caunou Ktisis . This ktistic piece might well have presented its audience with the Alexandrian slant on the Endymion myth. The Apollonian scholi ast adds that some say that Endymion was a hunter who hunted at night by

moonlight because the animals came out at this time to eat and that during the day he rested in a cave, with the result that everyone thought that he

was asleep all the time. At any rate, in early third century Alexandria, the

'sleep of Endymion (axpoTco? ?ttvo?) was proverbial (Theoc. Id. 3, 49-50).2

1 As the Zenon papyri make abundantly clear, see C. Prajaux, Les Grecs en Egypte, Brus sels 1947,12-14; P. M. Fraser, P. A. 1 67-68; A. Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics, Princeton

1995, 9 2 Others see the myth on allegorical terms saying that Endymion was the first to explore

the nature of the heavenly bodies, and to study the comings and goings of the moon, on

APOLLONIUS OF RHODES! ENDYMION 13

The contention that the story of Selene's nocturnal visits to Endymion specifically in the Latmian cave in Caria was an Alexandrian addition to the established myth is supported by the argument of Nicander of Colo

phon who, according to Et. M. 153, 4, asserts that the 'Acr?XTjva op7? near Trachis (cp. Ther. 215) were so called because when Selene slept there with Endymion the rest of the world went moonless. In the second book of his

Aetolica, Nicander follows Hesiod (fr. 245 M.-W = Sch. A. R. 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel = Nie. frr. 6-7 G.-S. = Et. M. 153, 4) in saying that Endymi on was the son of Aethlius, son of Zeus, and Calyke, and that he received from his grandfather Zeus the gift of being able to die whenever he wished.

Nicander further states that Endymion sleeps all day and hunts at night in the light of the moon (fr. 147 G.-S. = Sch. Theoc. 3, 52, pp. 131-133 Wendel).

Nicander recounts the story of Selene and Endymion in the second book of his Europia (fr. 24 G.-S. = Sch. A. R 4, 57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel). Signifi cantly, Nicander's locating the love affair between Selene and Endymion in the district of Trachis suggests that the romance of Selene and Endymion

was an integral part of the original Endymion myth which had its setting in the P?loponn?se, and that, specifically, the topographical depiction of Selene's nocturnal visits to Endymion in the Latmian cave in Caria com

prised an Alexandrian innovation. The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius narrates a much bigger fabula

than the one told in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the overriding factor being the method of creative selectivity employed by the poet compared with a

simple pleasure of narration which dominates the Homeric poems.* The verses concerning Endymion are no different. Not surprisingly, Apollonius elected to disregard that part of the myth which involves an act of violence

erotique perpetrated against the goddess Hera. For Apollonius, Hera is the

goddess who loves and protects Jason throughout his voyage, and the story of Endymion's attack on her would have been quite inappropriate to Apol lonius' context. Nor would it have been of any great interest to Alexan drians that Hera was once molested by a man of the P?loponn?se, be he a peasant of Sparta or a King of Elis. But a tale of a poor shepherd who

was paid romantic visits by the moon, Selene, in a cave near Heraclea-by Latmus in Caria, an area which was a possession of Ptolemy Philadelphus,

account of which he did not sleep at night but rested during the day. Sch. Theoc. 3, 49-5ia and c, pp. 131-133 Wendel. Cp. also A. S. F. Gow, Theocritus 11, Cambridge 1950, 74 n. 49; Me

leager (A. R 5,165 = 51, 6 Clack); and R. L. Hunter, Theocritus: A Selection, Cambridge 1999,

127 nn. 49-5oa, for an interesting discussion on the sleep/death ambiguity: aTpo7ro

14 STEVEN JACKSON was both more appropriate and more significant. In this part of the story, Endymion was a passive lover, almost effeminate, a semivir

1 in a romantic

setting, a scenario which therefore contrasted sharply with the aggression and violence erotique of the earlier episode. And, the active lover here, Se

lene, was, like Medea, a female taking the initiative in love. An established part of Apollonius' method of creative selectivity was

his habit of playing a literary game with his sophisticated audience to test their knowledge of any sources, or any elements of sources, that he may

have rejected for his presentation. To achieve this he would set deliberate literary clues for them. In the case of Arg. 4, 59, Apollonius uses the abusive kuon as a literary pointer to his rejection of an early episode in the End ymion tale involving Hera, which he deemed inappropriate, while at the same time indicating his remembrance of an episode in Homer involving

Hera Parthenios, which was relevant to his context. The abusive kuon appears a total of sixteen times in the Iliad and the Od

yssey , in various case-forms. On five of these occasions it appears in the vocative singular.2 Although the vocative form appears in the middle of the verse on each of these five occasions, M. Campbell3 has suggested that the verse which Apollonius echoes at Arg. 4, 59 is Od. 18, 338:

Y] x?yoi TY?XefJi?^o) ?p?co, x?ov, oi' ?yope?eic. While this suggestion is perfectly feasible in purely philological terms, and while Campbell's reading rightly draws on the almost mandatory compar

ison of Apollonius' Argonautica with Homeric epic, it does not preclude Apollonius' additionally intending for his audience a second echo, or re

membrance, of a much more recent, indeed contemporary, source which was more apposite to the context of his poem than the Homeric one.

This second source, a verse of Callimachus of Cyrene, not only contains the vocative form of the abusive kuon in the middle of the verse but also, quite significantly, starts with Hera. Callimachus, fr. 75, 4 Pf, reads:

"HpYjv yap xot?

APOLLONIUS OF RHODES! ENDYMION 15

In this verse from his poem on the Acontius and Cydippe romance, Cal limachus rebukes himself for almost saying the unspeakable about Hera. For Cydippe's people on Naxos practise a strange marriage custom. A girl

must spend the night with a boy at her side before she marries, and the

boy must have both his parents living. This aetion is explained by the fact that Hera once upon a time... and here Callimachus calls himself a dog (cur) for almost revealing what it is not appropriate to divulge about Hera.

But by the time Callimachus breaks off we already know, of course, what he is thinking. At Iliad 14, 295-296, there is a recollection of how Zeus and Hera on the island of Crete, before they were married, had made love for the first time, concealing their act from their parents:

0I0V OT? TCptOTOV 7T?p ?fJH(TY?(T&Y]V ClX?TYJTl, el? ?UVY]V 901T(OVT?, 9?X0U? Xy)#OVT? TOXYjOCC.

The Naxians clearly equated their pre-nuptial rite with the conduct on Crete of the greatest of the immortals when she was still Hera Parthenios

(sch. T 7?. 14, 296). The fact that the Naxian parents not only knew what was happening but actually made sure that it did happen was not allowed

to ruin a good aetion. Nor was the idea that the young couple were not the future bride and bridegroom permitted to interfere with a good myth. It could be argued, too, that they were not brother and sister like Zeus and

Hera, and that they did not have actual intercourse. All of these inconsist encies between myth and custom Callimachus ignores under the guise of

piety (cp. Pind. 01. 9, 35-40; Nem. 5,14-18), even though he tells us all about it elsewhere (fr. 48 Pf. = fr. 36 Massimilla), where he emphasises just how long Zeus and Hera pursued their passion without the knowledge of their

parents, namely three hundred years!1 Clearly, Callimachus wished, in this

instance, to register rather than recount the aetion.2

Apollonius' intention was similar. He wished to draw his audience's at tention specifically to Hera Parthenios

'

concealing her passion from her par ents. This emphasis is all the more piquant in Apollonius, of course, since it is Hera herself who inspires Medea Parthenios with a nightime flight and

with a disregard for parental knowledge of what she was doing. Herein, too, lies the irony. The moon, Selene, who, like Hera, is romantically linked to Endymion in myth, fails to recognise what the audience sees in Apol lonius' verse. For, in her annoyance at Medea for past disruptions to her own amorous visits to Endymion,3 Selene assumes only that an amorous

1 Cp. G. B. D'Alessio, Callimaco. Aitia Giambi e altri frammenti n, Milano 1996, 437, fr. 48,

n. 41. 2

Cp. Cameron, op. cit. 18-22; F. Nisetich, The Poems of Callimachus, Oxford 2001, 278 nn.

41-47. 3 So often in the past, Selene had been 'called down by Medea and thus prevented from

16 STEVEN JACKSON

adventure is Medea's intent, while in fact Medea's real purpose in setting out at

night is to conceal her actions from her parents and to avoid what would be certain parental punishment if she were discovered.*

In addition to the philological and contextual affinity of the Callimachean and Apollonian verses, there is also a strong historical link between firstly the Cean romance of Acontius and Cydippe, secondly Selene's romantic visits to Endymion in his cave at Heraclea-by-Latmus in Caria, and thirdly the dynasty of the Ptolemies in Egypt. Carians were early immigrants to

Ceos from the coast of Asia Minor ca 900 BC. Callimachus himself refers to this immigration at fr. 75, 60-64 Pf.2 And, both Acontius' home island of Ceos in the Cyclades and all of Caria on the coast of Asia Minor were, in Callimachus' and Apollonius' time, possessions and dependencies of

Ptolemy Philadelphus.3 These historical links between the two tales finely complement the philological and contextual affinity of the Callimachean and Apollonian verses.

Still in connection with Iliad 14, 295-296 and the union on Crete of Zeus and Hera Parthenios, it is almost certain that Callimachus fr. 75, 4 Pf. is in turn an echo of a verse attributed to Sotades of Maronea, who allegedly

had Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe II in mind when he penned the fol

lowing verse, the first half of which is mirrored by Callimachus' verse (CA Sotad, fr. inc. 16, p. 243 Powell):

"Hp7)v ttots 9aaiv Ala tov Tepmx?pauvov.4

Sotades, it will be remembered, had somewhat coarsely castigated Phila

delphus and Arsinoe for doing the unspeakable through their incestuous

relationship (CA Sotad, fr. 1, p. 238 Powell = Plut. De puer. educ. 11a):

visiting her beloved Endymion. Magical device of calling or drawing the moon out of the

sky to earth (for references in ancient literature, see W Roscher, Selene und Verwandtes, Leipzig 1890, passim, and A. M. Tupet, La Magie dans la po?sie latine, Paris 1976, 92-103).

Medea required darkness for her own rituals, and so affected with her machinations, in

mythological terms, a lunar eclipse (see Livrea, op. cit. 27-28). 1 Vian notes this in passing but does not pursue the point (op. cit. 149 n. 65). 2

Callimachus (Aet. 3, fr. 75, 53 ff. Pf. = FGrHist 442 T 2 and F 1) openly declares that he gleaned the story from the local historian Xenomedes of Ceos ifl ca. 450). But there were

many other sources (Vian, op. cit. nn. ad loc. pp. 271-273) which no doubt would have been collated and circulated in the Callimachean circle by pupils such as Istrus and Philostepha nus (see my Istrus the Callimachean, Amsterdam 2000, passim). 3 See P. M. Fraser, P. A. 1 309 and 11 464 n. 20; Call. H. 4,162; Theoc. Id. 17, 89-90. For the use of Ceos as a base for the Ptolemaic fleet in the Chremonidean war see L. Robert, Hel lenica xi/xn, Paris i960, 146-160. See, also, R. S. Bagnall, The Administration of the Ptolemaic

Possessions outside Egypt, Leiden 1976,141-145; and Cameron, op. cit. 257-258. 4 Cp. D'Alessio, op. cit. 480, fr. 75, n. 65. For Hera as goddess of weddings and funerals,

see W Burkert, GR, Cambridge Ma. 1985,133.

APOLLONIUS OF RHODES! ENDYMION V

el? o?x oac?jv xpufJiaXt/yjv to x?vxpov cottel?.

It seems reasonable to assume now, after R. Pretagostini and A. Cameron,1 that fr. 16 and Sotades' most infamous verse fr. 1 are constituent parts of one and the same poem, and that Sotades began this poem with fr. 16 and finished it with fr. 1 which, as quoted by Athenaeus (621a), ended with the form co&el, where Zeus was the original subject. Sotades' castigation of the incest of Philadelphus and Arsinoe was, therefore, by implication only. Philadelphus and Arsinoe, however, construed their marriage as a dis

tinctly holy state through its imitation of the union of Zeus and Hera. In other words, they extenuated their behaviour by the exemplum of Zeus and Hera.2

Like the Naxians in Callimachus, Philadelphus and Arsinoe clearly equat ed their own marital custom with the conduct of the greatest of the im

mortals, albeit in a different aspect, and in so doing they made it respectable and acceptable. Medea's behaviour in Apollonius, too, namely her pursuit of love without parental knowledge or permission, can similarly be equat ed with the conduct of Zeus and Hera on Crete and thus also deemed re

spectable and acceptable, especially when this selfsame behaviour is being encouraged by Hera herself. The link, then, between our Apollonius text, the Callimachus fragment, and the Sotades fragments, is the exemplum of

Zeus and Hera at Iliad 14, 295-296, a Homeric verse which in Apollonius' Alexandria had not only become synonymous with clandestine affairs (cp. Theocritus, Id. 15, 64) but was also commonly used by the protagonist as an extenuation of his/her circumstances. Apollonius' plan was to draw his audience's attention firstly to how Hera Parthenios had concealed her pas sion on Crete from her parents, secondly to the irony of Hera herself en

couraging Medea Parthenios to do the same in Colchis, and thirdly to the

irony of Medea's nocturnal flight to achieve this end being misinterpreted as an amorous adventure by the moon, Selene,3 who, like Hera, was ro

mantically linked to Endymion in myth.

1 R. Pretagostini, Ricerche sulla poesia alessandrina, Roma 1984, 139-147; A. Cameron, op. cit. 18-22.

2 This interpretation is endorsed by Theocritus in his panegyric on Philadelphus (Id. 17,

128-134; cp. Gow, ad loc, and Cameron, op. cit. 19), and Callimachus at least acknowledges it (SH 254, 2). Apollonius also reflects it in his brother-sister analogue of King Alcinous and

Queen Arete in the fourth book (990 ff.) of the Argonautica. 3 D. Nelis, Vergil's Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, Leeds 2001,170, com ments that the shining of the full moon is significant here in that it suggests that Medea's

departure will result in marriage with Jason. On these nuptial associations of the full moon

see also J. M. Bremer, 'Full Moon and Marriage in Apollonius' Argonautica, Class. Quart. 37,1987, 423-426.

18 STEVEN JACKSON

Of course, Caria, a region ruled by the incestuous Ptolemies, where Se lene visited her beloved Endymion in his cave near Heraclea-by-Latmus,

was closely connected in myth with another tale of incestuous desire. In

dubitably, Apollonius recounted this particular fable, i.e. the love of Byblis for her twin brother Caunus, in his ktistic poem Caunou Ktisis. He could

hardly have done otherewise. I have discussed elsewhere1 the close con

nection, and the all but certain parallels, between the suicide of Cleite as described by Apollonius in his Argonautica (1, 1063-1069) and that of Byblis as Apollonius, surely, must have described it in his Caunou Ktisis. Both girls hung themselves because they could not have in their lives the man whom

they wanted. In Cleite's case this was her husband Cyzicus who had been killed by the Argonauts. In the case of Byblis, daughter of the eponymous

Miletus, it was her twin brother Caunus who had rejected her incestuous advances. As with Hera, Selene, and Medea, Byblis had taken the initia tive in love.

Only five verses of Apollonius' Caunou Ktisis are extant (CA A. R. 5, 3, p. 5 Powell), but Ovid's version of the Byblis/Caunus story (Met. 9, 454-665) seems to have had much in common with Apollonius' ktistic poem, whose local Milesian source was Aristocritus' Peri Miletou (FGrH 493 FF 1 and 3).

Moreover, for his depiction of Byblis herself, Ovid owes as much to Apol lonius' portrayal in the Argonautica of both Cleite and Medea as he does, no

doubt, to that of his Byblis in the Caunou Ktisis. In Ovid, Byblis and Cau nus are the twin children of Miletus, as we may safely assume they were in Apollonius too, especially when one considers the latter's local Milesian source. In Ovid, too, it is Byblis who falls in love with her brother and takes the initiative. Her initial hesitations to declare her love are, without doubt, transferred by Ovid (Met. 9,474 and 522-527) from Medea's vacillations in the

Argonautica (3, 636 and 645-655).2 We cannot tell, of course, whether or not Apollonius' Caunou Ktisis preceded the extant version of his Argonautica, but we can rest assured that the vacillations and concerns which Medea expe rienced in the Argonautica must have been similarly suffered and presented by Byblis in the Caunou Ktisis. Significantly, Ovid has Byblis using the Hera/ Zeus relationship as an extenuation of her own circumstances. Ovid does not, however, mention Endymion.3 But this is not enough to say that Apol lonius did not include Endymion in his poem. For Endymion, at least for the Alexandrians, was a Carian hunter, just like the eponymous Caunus.

1 See my Apollonius of Rhodes: The Cleite and Byblis Suicides', Studi it.filol. class. 15/1, 1997, 54.

2 Cp. R. L. Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica m, Cambridge 1989,10. 3 Ovid goes on to say that, following her rejection by Caunus, who then fled the coun

try to escape her still persistent advances, Byblis became mad with grief and roamed the

countryside of Caria and of the Leleges, reaching Limyra in eastern Caria opposite the

APOLLONIUS OF RHODES.' ENDYMION 19

Interestingly, the lover's use of the exemplum of Zeus and Hera at Iliad 14, 295-296 as an extenuation of his/her circumstances does appear along side the Selene/Endymion story in Nonnus' account of the Byblis/Caunus tale (Dionysiaca 13, 546-561). In Nonnus, it is Caunus who desires Byblis, and not the other way round. This reversal of roles notwithstanding, Caunus'

presentation of his suit comes in the form of a song of seduction which recounts the story of Hera and Zeus and of the Latmian cowshed, or cave, of Endymion and his love-smitten Selene. The seductive tones of Caunus' serenade act as a strongly expressed extenuation of his desires. Nonnus is

clearly following an Alexandrian source here (most likely Apollonius of Rhodes' Caunou Ktisis) which, in its adaptation of early versions of the Endymion myth, had specifically transferred the topographical depiction of Selene's nocturnal visits to Endymion from the district of Trachis in the

P?loponn?se to the Latmian cave in Caria. Scholars have argued over what they see in Nonnus as an obscure con

nection (made all the more so because of the mutilated text) between the story of Zeus and Hera and that of Endymion and Selene. J. L. Lightfoot presents us with a full list of the arguments, sources, and versions of this

myth;1 but Lightfoot, too, reaches no firm conclusion. However, we should note that traditionally the father of Caunus and Byblis was the eponymous hero Miletus (Aristocritus, Peri Miletou FGrHist 493 F 1 = Parthen. Narr. am. 11). This Miletus, whom Nonnus (v. 547) makes a brother of Caunus,2 was the founding father not only of the city which bore his name but in effect of the whole of Caria. And he originally came to Caria from the island of Crete (Aristocritus Peri Miletou FGrHist 493 F 3 = Sch. A. R. 1, i85-i88a, pp. 23-24 Wendel), where Hera Parthenios and Zeus had made love for the first time, concealing their love from their parents just like Caunus and Byblis, and where, let us recall, the Endymion myth, along with its romantic links to both Hera and Selene, was a tale familiar to the Cretan Epimenides3 who

Chelidonian Islands, before, finally, committing suicide. The Chelidonian Islands are also

mentioned by Apollonius in the five extant verses of his poem (CA A. R. 5, 3, p. 5 Powell), which describe in allegorical terms the extent of the Ptolemaic sway in this area.

1 J. L. Lightfoot, Parthenius of Nicaea, Oxford 1999, 433-436; see esp. n. 146 (pp. 433-434)

for a comprehensive list of the sources. 2 According to Nonnus, Miletus and Caunus were the sons of Asterius. But scholars

agree that this was simply an attempt at a peaceful reconciliation of traditions of the na

tive Asterius (Pausanias 7, 2,5) and the incoming Miletus; cp. Lightfoot, ibidem. At any rate, Nonnus' making Miletus a brother of Caunus, and not his father, does not in any way viti

ate the current argument. 3 Seemingly in its entirety; Epimenides claimed descent from Selene herself (Aelian, HA

12, 7) and had slept (Endymion style) in a Cretan cave for forty years (Paus. 1,14, 4) or even

fifty-seven years (Diog. Laert. 1,109). Cp. G. L. Huxley, Greek Epic Poetry, London 1969, 82 83.

20 STEVEN JACKSON

duly gave his own account of it (3 B 14 D.-K. = Sch. A. R. 4,57-58, pp. 264-265 Wendel). Nonnus (through the words of Caunus' serenade) describes the

immortal pair's passion as being entirely mutual: ?(jlo^tqXwv stzi Xexxpwv (v. 552). Yet, later, as we know from the earliest sources, Zeus' own grandson Endymion, whom Zeus himself had carried up to heaven, tried to force himself upon Zeus' consort Hera. Endymion was subsequently cast out of heaven by Zeus who gave him to Selene. Now (and here we see Nonnus fol lowing his Alexandrian source

- se. Aoctjjuov... ?oauXov, v. 554) Selene visits Endymion at Heraclea-by-Latmus in Caria where, like the Carian founder

Miletus' son (brother in Nonnus) Caunus, he spends his days hunting. Furthermore, in his serenade, Caunus actually describes the lovemaking

of Zeus and Hera as a mutually passionate affair like his own (v. 552): aVTlTUTTOU CpiXOTYjTO? O^o?iqXwV ?7rl X?xTpWV.

This suggests, of course, that the passionate feelings between Byblis and Caunus were mutual, rather than unrequited, and that so too were those between Zeus and Hera and Endymion and Selene respectively. This goes a long way to explain the conflict in different authors' accounts as to who

was the initiator of the affair, some authors apparently plumping for Byb lis, others for Caunus.

In perpetrating his act of violence erotique against Hera, Endymion emu lated Ixion, a legendary king of Thessaly. Both of these men were primal offenders against divine order and each tried to rape Hera soon after Zeus had taken them up to heaven. Each man, too, it seems, was deceived by Zeus into making love to a phantom of Hera in the shape of a cloud. Ixion, for his punishment, was crucified on a fiery wheel which revolves through out eternity, the wheel no doubt being the sun.

* Thus Ixion, like Sisyphus, Atlas and Prometheus,2 became part of the operating mechanism of Zeus' universe. It is tempting to believe, and certainly feasible, that Endymion's task was something similar, except of course in his case it was in relation to the moon, and that thus he too became part of the operating mecha

nism of Zeus' universe.3 In presenting Selene's vitriolic soliloquy against Medea, and especially

her use of the abusive kuon, Apollonius stirred in his audience's imagina tion a number of mythical and literary recollections which ranged from the

1 See Pindar, Pyth. 2, 21-48 and Sch. 2, 4oa-45a, 11 pp. 38-40 Dr. = FGrHist 3 F 51a; also Sch.

A. R. 3, 62, pp. 218-219 Wendel = FGrHist 3 F 51b.

2 Sisyphus heaves the sun disc up to the zenith only to see it roll back down again (Od.

11? 593-600), Atlas supports the weight of the sky at its western limits (Hesiod, Theog. 517 520; Od. 1, 52-54; Aesch. PV348-350; Herodot. 4,184, 3; Virg. Aen. 4, 246-251), and Prometh eus does a similar job at its eastern (Hesiod, Theog. 506-616; Aesch. PV 442-525). 3 See above p. 11 n. 2.

APOLLONIUS OF RHODES! ENDYMION 21

scene on Crete where Zeus and Hera made love for the first time, conceal

ing their act from their parents, to the earliest versions of the Endymion legend which were set in the P?loponn?se and romantically linked Hera to Endymion, and on through to the Alexandrians' adaptation of the End

ymion story and their relocation of it to the Latmian cave in Ptolemaic Caria. Selene, like Hera, was romantically linked to Endymion in myth, and Apollonius' plan was to draw his audience's attention firstly to how

Hera Parthenios had concealed her passion on Crete from her parents, sec

ondly to the irony of Hera herself encouraging Medea Parthenios to do the same in Colchis, and thirdly to the irony of Medea's nocturnal flight to achieve this end being misinterpreted as an amorous adventure by the

moon, Selene, angry at Medea for past disruptions to her own amorous visits to Endymion.

Selene's reference to 'some bloody-minded deity having given Medea Ja son to her grievous hurt' (w. 63-64) no doubt echoes her own sentiments on Zeus having given her Endymion. None of these echoes and allusions

would have been lost on Apollonius' audience.

Trinity College Dublin

Nicholas Lane

SOME ILLUSIVE PUNS IN THEOCRITUS, IDYLL 18 GOW

It is hard to read Idyll 18, a wedding song for the marriage of Helen and

Menelaus, without experiencing a certain discomfort in the face of its

irony. It is therefore, as Hunter remarks in his study of the poem, un

surprising that "ironic" readings of the poem have been fashionable.1 This note identifies some puns and allusions which do not seem to be noted

elsewhere, but which tend to support an ironic reading. The maidens in the introductory passage who sing the epithalamium are

apparently unaware of the tragic association of the hyacinth flowers they are

wearing in their hair, ^?XXovxa x?fxoac u?xiv&ov ?joigoli (2). Leaves of hyacinth were thought (e.g. Moschus 3, 6) to display the letters AI or

AI AI, both cries of grief (LSf s.v. uaxiv?oc 2). Theocritus too shows him self familiar with the common aetiology for the writing on the leaves of the flower (if indeed he did not help to make it a literary motif), when he

writes (Idyll 10, 28) "the written hyacinth", ? ypocrexa ??xiv&oc. Gow's note ad loe. gives a detailed account of the tradition. We know also that various

Hellenistic poets (after Theocritus) wrote about Hyacinth, Apollo's unfor tunate boyfriend: e.g. Euphorion, Bion and Nicander.2 Against that back

ground we find here within the word for hair (and leaves), x?pmc (2), the same gasp. It is an inauspicious, graphic cry of grief (occurring three times in the line, as if growing), which invites the reader to look more closely at the writing of this poem.

Theocritus assembles the chorus of maidens "before a newly painted bridal chamber" (Gow's translation), izp?o?e vsoypaTtxw oaXajjiw (3). Gow's is a scholiastic translation, but the beauty of hapax legomena like veo

Yp?7iTco is that absence of comparanda leaves us having to guess at their

significance. There are other examples in Greek literature of bridal cham bers being decorated and/or specially adapted for weddings, and Gow's note on this line conveniently collects them. But could veoyp?Tixw not also

suggest a new way of writing? This idea can only be traced in a very ten

1 R. Hunter, Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry, Cambridge 1996,164. Hunter

briefly considers the treatments of irony by B. Effe, 'Die Destruktion der Tradition: Theo

krits mythologische Gedichte', Rh. Mus. 121,1978, 48-77, at 74-76, and J. Stern, Theocritus's

Epithalamium for Helen , Rev. belg. phil. hist. 56,1978, 29-37. 2 Cf. Coluthus 240-248 for the aetiology in later Greek poetry.

24 NICHOLAS LANE

tative way, but it is possible that ?aAocjjio? refers to the main section of the poem (the song itself) and that Theocritus imagines it as a oaXajjio? of new

writing in the way perhaps that Pindar likens Pythian 6 to a treasury of songs (Pyth. 6, 7-8 Sn.-Maehl.). The idea of setting out a manifesto for a new

writing in the context of an archaising poem would certainly be a bold one. The underlying meaning of &?Xa?jioc, to which the new writ ing concept would have to apply, is "inner chamber", but it can be used to describe various, including metaphorical, repositories (LSJ s.v. 11). The ety

mological echo in 9aX?[xw of o?XXovxoc (2) may hint at a link between the writing on the hyacinth and the new writing of this wedding song. Echoes and repetitions are a significant feature of Idyll 18

- the numerous repeti tions1 and variations2 contradict its sly packaging as ev fjiXo? (7)

-

because, while repetitions and variations are a usual feature of Greek poetry, their

frequency here is unusual. The uncertain future of this poem's marriage and the possibility of an as yet unidentified external influence dissolving it are further hinted at by eight appearances of the indefinite pronoun (in 10, 11, 16, 21, 25, 32, 35 and 37). We all know that ultimately Paris must come to claim Helen as his prize

for judging Aphrodite the most beautiful of the goddesses.3 What, then, of Paris in Idyll 18? Cameron thinks "there is nothing in Theocritus 18 itself to evoke the Paris episode",4 and Konstan that "Theocritus has refrained from

anything more than a hint at Helen's future elopement".5 On the contrary, there is something in Idyll 18 to evoke the Paris episode. The name Paris itself appears, at least twice, in the poem.

Comparing things is always odious, which may be why Zeus delegated the judgement of the goddesses to Paris. But when the maidens of Idyll 18 sing that not one of the two hundred and forty Spartan d?butantes is fault less when compared to Helen, zkz? ^ 'EX?vqc Ttapiqco&yj (25), we find the letters Paris embedded right next to Helen in the text, making this com

1 Meya (4, 21 and 29), 7iacrai (7 and 22), ya[x?pe (9, 16 and 49), ??3 (14 and 55), op&pov (14

and 56), afjifjie? (22, 39, and 56), x?a\ioq (29 and 31), rcpaTai (43 and 45) axisp?v and TtXax?vLcr Tov (44 and 46), xa^P0^ (49, x 2)> Aaxc? (50, x 2), K?7ipic (51, x 2), Ze?c (52, x 2), and ?XX?Xwv (52 and 54).

2 E.g. (x 2) Cav^?Tpc^ (1) and euxpi^a (57)? [?arpe (13) and fjtaxepi (21), rcevikpov (18) and

s?n?vi?spe (49), ?yxpoTsoicrat, (7) and xporrjciac, (35); (X3) ev (7), (x?av (19) and o?$s[jlI' (20), veo yp?7TTto (3), vewTspo? (6) andveoXa?a (24), ?(jtevaiw (8), Tfnqv and Tfiivaie (both 58), cpiXuTrvo? (10), cpiXocrT?pyw (13) and cpiX?TYjxa (54), and ?eiSov (7), ?e?Soicia (46) and ?oiSo? (56). 3 All three judgement goddesses are present and counted in Idyll 18

- Hera (10-11, hidden in the chant-like r? p? ... r? pa ... r? pa), Athena (36), and Aphrodite (51, x 2). 4 A. Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics, Princeton 1995, 435.

5 D. Konstan, A Note on Theocritus Idyll 18\ Class. Philol. 74,1979,233-234, referring to the

ambiguity as to whose the '?[xepoi are in line 37. This view seems to be shared by Hunter, art. cit. 164.

SOME ILLUSIVE PUNS IN THEOCRITUS, IDYLL l8 GOW 25

parison delightfully double-edged. The effect of the maidens' words could be conveyed in English: "of whom not one is faultless in comparison with Helen". Indeed, the sentence's lack of a main verb almost throws the sub ordinate verb into relief. The name also occurs in a word describing the act of comparison, the very act Paris must perform in order to judge the god desses and claim Helen as his prize. The letters of the name Paris make a second appearance five lines later when Helen is described adorning Sparta in the way that a cypress tree adorns a garden, x?rcco xmrapio-Q-o? (30). These references to Paris are reinforced subliminally by the frequent occurrence in the poem of I1AP and PIS sounds. Outside TtapiorcoirYJ and xuTtapicro-oc they occur seven and six times each in the poem.1

In 30, the likening of Helen to cypress tree and horse is densely allusive. It is necessary to work backwards to try to appreciate this. The comparison of girls to horses was traditional (see Henderson's note on Ar. Lys. 1307 1308). Alem?n, for example, had compared Agido, the chorus leader in his Louvre Partheneion, to a horse (fr. 1, 45-49 Davies), and there are other ob vious connections between Idyll 18 and Alem?n.2 But there exists a more subversive tradition, which might also have been in Theocritus' mind. Se

monides, in his poem about womankind, says in a neat chiasmus that the woman who is born of a horse appears beautiful to other men, but is a

problem for her husband, fr. 7, 67-68 West, xaXov (jtiv wv &?Y?[jia toioc?ty] yuvY)/ ?XXoioT, to &' ?^ovxc ylvexoa xax?v. Helens appeal to other men and injury to her husband is precisely the problem Menelaus must con front. But the allusion may represent something more than just "trouble and strife" (in the Semonidean sense). The word ?7i7to? is used elsewhere to describe lecherous women (so Arist. Hist. An. 18, 572a and Ael. HA 4, 11). So Helen's comparison to a horse may not be a simple allusion to the problems she will present to Menelaus. It might also suggest that she was herself somehow culpable for them.

The comparison to a cypress tree is more difficult. The comparison may have been traditional. For example, Nausicaa is compared to a palm tree at Horn. Od. 6,160-169. But its significance was probably not as obvious as that of the horse comparison. Why is Helen compared to a cypress tree?

1 S?c?pra ... reap (i), Ttapfoevixal (2), rcap? (13), ZreapTav (17), Trap' (23), Tcaptt?v (47); ?pia

T?zq (17), xp^afx?vat? ?vSpiGT? (23), Acopiar? (48), Kimpi? ... K?7ipi? (51). It is perhaps worth

noting that, outside the name Paris, the letters FIAPIS occur rather infrequently in extant

Greek literature. 7tapi,crnr)[xi provides most instances (Horn, x 35, Tragedy x 8, and Theocr. x 2). xim?piaaoc is the next most common source of examples (Horn, x 4, Pind. x 1, and Theocr. x 2). In poetry rcapiaow occurs here and at Archimelus, SH 202, 5, and in prose rcapiaoufjiai does occur twice in Herodotus. I am grateful to Dr. Coulter George for fur

nishing me with statistics for the authors principal. 2 Examined by Hunter, art. at. 152-157.

26 NICHOLAS LANE

Leaving theories about her possible vegetation deity status aside, I think that perhaps a clue lies in the fact that the word Paris lurks within the word for cypress tree. At Horn. Od. 8, 492-493 the Wooden Horse is described as inizov xoo-jjiov ... / Soupax?ou, the point of the Wooden Horse being to hide some men and deceive others. Helen here is also termed a x?ct?jioc (lines 29 and 31, framing the comparison). Taken together, Helen compared to a tree and a horse could, at a push, be seen as an allusion to the Wooden

Horse, and the two puns on Paris's name, in possible allusions to the Judge ment of Paris and the Fall of Troy respectively, would neatly top and tail

the mythological history upon which Idyll 18's irony rests. I think there might even be a third appearance of Paris. In 47, the irony

of including an unnamed passer-by, which is how Paris would have ap peared to the maidens, is perhaps obvious. That Helen's name is here being inscribed in the bark of a tree may be intended to mirror the writing of

Paris' name in the xurc?piaaoc earlier (30). Can it then be coincidental that the unspecified passer-by is described as Ttapic?v xi?, concealing the name of Paris, this time in two words? Perhaps that is far-fetched, but by what

would otherwise be an extraordinary coincidence the words Ttapiwv xi? can mean

something other than "some passer-by". With the pi capitalised and a

change of accent, Flapiwv xc? could mean "some Paris or other". This would add force to Acopiaxi (48), because in the Doric dialect the genitive plural of Paris would have been Ilapiwv,x whereas in koine or Attic it would have been FlapLScov.2 Idyll 18 is overtly Doric after all.3

London

1 napL? is declined like n?Xic, in Doric. The genitive plural 7roXiwv occurs in another

"Doric" poem of Theocritus 17, 82, and the genitive singular ttoXlo? in this poem (line 4). On 7UO?C? in the Doric dialect, see K?hner-Blass, 1, 443-445, and A. Thumb

- E. Kieckers - A.

Scherer, Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte 1, Heidelberg 1932-59, 71. 2 So Pind. Pyth. 6,33 and Pae. 6, 79 Sn.-Maehl. have the genitive singular napio?, whereas Aesch. Ag. 1156 (Page) has Il?piSoc. 3 I am grateful to Dr. R. D. Dawe and Dr. Neil Hopkinson for challenging a draft of this note.

Lee M. Fratantuono

DIANA IN THE AENEID

In Book i of the Aendd, Diana is mentioned twice (once by name, once obliquely) in two significant contexts. Aeneas' mother Venus visits him near Carthage, where he has landed after Juno's storm sent him away

from his desired Italy. For reasons Virgil does not make explicit, Venus ap pears dressed in the usual accoutrements of Diana, the virgin huntress: she bears a bow and has her robes raised up above the knee to facilitate quick

movement in a forest. Virgil compares her to some Spartan girl or Thra cian Harpalyce, and Aeneas, uncertain of her identity, asks if she is either

Apollo's sister or a nymph (1, 327-329): o - quam te memorem, virgo? namque haud tibi vultus

mortalis, nee vox hominem sonat; o dea certe!

an Phoebi soror? an Nympharum sanguinis una?

At length Venus identifies for her son the country and people of Carthage, with special emphasis, of course, on Dido. Aeneas begins to explain his own identity and recent troubles, but is cut short by his mother (who had only a short while before been complaining about the very same troubles to Jupiter). Before leaving she urges him to press on towards the Tyrian city and not to worry about his missing companions, whose safety she in

terprets from a portent of twelve swans (her own bird). As she leaves, Ae neas

recognizes at last that this is his mother. It is unclear exactly how this moment of recognition occurs; he reproaches her for not speaking to him without disguise, but she departs in silence.

Only a short while later, after Aeneas has arrived at Dido's temple to Juno (the poem's air thus heavy with irony already), Dido herself is compared to Diana by Virgil in an extended simile. Dido enters the temple escorted

by her entourage, and sits down to oversee her task of lawgiving and man

agement of the building of her city (1, 496-504):

regina ad templum, forma pulcherrima Dido, incessit, magna iuvenum stipante caterva.

qualis in Eurotae ripis aut per iuga Cynthi exercet Diana choros, quam mille secutae

hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades; ilia pharetram fert umero gradiensque deas supereminet omnis; Latonae taciturn pertemptant gaudia pectus: talis erat Dido, talem se laeta ferebat

per medios, instans operi regnisque futuris.

30 LEE M. FRATANTUONO

The significance of both comparisons is their inappropriateness to the con texts. Neither Venus nor Dido can accurately be compared to Diana, the

virgin huntress. In the instance of Venus, who deliberately assumes Diana's

dress, there is an implicit element of mockery. In the instance of Dido, the case is more poignant. Since the murder of Sychaeus, Dido has been living a celibate life in a wild place. But in the context of Aeneas' first sight of

her, she is more akin to Minerva or even Juno, fulfilling the role of city builder and lawgiver, watching over her people with a mother's affection. There is nothing of Diana about her, except her beauty and towering over the women in her procession; in this regard she could be compared to any

goddess. The prominence of the simile, however, cannot be denied; this is the first appearance of Dido in the poem, and in a sense it sets the tone for the reader's image of her.

While it is understandable that Venus, laughter-loving and playful, might engage in mockery of the goddess who is her opposite, Virgil's point in

comparing Dido to Diana is less clear as the reader moves through Book i. At most it adds a vague and indefinite layer of uneasiness to what is al

ready an uneasy book, loaded as it is with both the trials of Aeneas before he reaches Carthage and the awareness on the reader's part that the trick eries of Venus and Juno, in particular their agreement to have Dido fall in love with Aeneas, will no doubt have tragic consequences.

The next mention of Diana in the poem, while eerie and memorable in its context, is without significance for understanding Virgil's characteriza tion of the goddess. At the end of Aeneas' recounting to Dido of his jour

ney from Troy to Carthage, the immediate adventure before the death of Anchises and subsequent storm is the escape from the Cyclopes. In one of the more memorable similes in Virgil, the menacing Cyclopes are seen by the Trojans from their boats, standing like immense trees on the seashore (3, 677-681):

cernimus astantis nequiquam lumine torvo

Aetnaeos fratres caelo capita alta ferentis,

concilium horrendum: quales cum v?rtice celso

aeriae quercus aut coniferae cyparissi constiterunt, silva alta Iovis lucusve Dianae.

In Book 4, Dido and Aeneas consummate their love in the midst of a rain storm that has interrupted their hunt. Again, Virgil's scene introduces Di ana, this time obliquely, as the two soon-to-be lovers ride out on horseback.

This time it is Aeneas who is compared to one of Latona's children, com

pleting the image Virgil began in Book 1 with Dido and Diana. Significantly, Dido's hunting attire is made of gold and purple, the marks of royalty, not the insignia of the more humbly dressed Diana (whose bow is traditionally golden, but clothes never of either gold or purple) (4, 138-139):

DIANA IN THE AENEID 31

cui pharetra ex auro, crines nodantur in aurum,

aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem.

All is gold; Dido is playacting Diana, and we think of Marie Antoinette

playacting a shepherdess. The significance of this gold and purple will not become clear until much later in the poem.

When Dido resolves to commit suicide, in what is the coda to the whole

tragedy of the first four books of the Aeneid, she conceals her plans by strange rites allegedly intended to break the spell of love. Anna falls for the ruse, not fearing that her sister will actually take her own life. The Mas

sylian priestess Dido has secured for the ritual invokes the triple goddess (the virgin moon in the sky, the virgin huntress on earth, the virgin witch in the underworld) (4, 509-511):

stant arae circum et crinis effusa sacerdos

ter centum tonat ore deos, Erebumque Chaosque tergeminamque Hecaten, tria virginis ora Dianae.

The mention of Diana in her manifestation as witch-goddess is to be ex

pected in a passage so full of sorcery and magic. But Dido has come full

circle; inappropriately compared to Diana when she was introduced, her

priestess now invokes the chthonic Diana as the queen prepares to com mit suicide.

Virgil's point in his deliberately inappropriate introduction of Diana in the Dido story remains unclear as Book 4 closes. Still, as the reader moves

through the rest of the first half of the poem and into the beginning of the war in Italy, there is no sense of serious problem in the narrative; especially

since Virgil has compared Aeneas to Apollo, there seems a justification in comparing any exceptionally talented and beautiful young person to some

goddess or god. Virgil's point will remain unclear until Book 11. Diana is next mentioned in a bitter catalogue by Juno, wherein she la

ments that she is unable to finish her enemies the way other divinities are

(7, 305-306): ... concessit in iras

ipse deum antiquam genitor Calydona Dianae ...

More interesting and important our understanding Diana's role in the epic, however, is the extraordinary tale told later in Book 7 towards the end, where we learn that Hippolytus' son (how and with whom the sex-hating Hippolytus had a child is not explained)1 Virbius is one of Turnus' native

1 A similar, though less audacious, example of ascription of a genealogy to a notorious

celibate is Statius' giving of a son, Parthenopaeus (Virgin Face!), to Atalanta (Thebaid 4, 246-344).

32 LEE M. FRATANTUONO

Italian allies. In the version Virgil relates, Hippolytus was brought back to life by Asclepius's art and Diana's love.1 Virgil is silent as to the fate of this son of Diana's favorite. He is the first of the last three heroes in the cata

logue of Latin warriors. After him comes Turnus, and last of all, in the

emphatic final note of the book, is Camilla, Diana's other favorite. We must expect that Virgil's audience was very much aware of the Hip

polytus myth, and much less aware of Camilla. The question of Camilla's invention is one of the fundamental problems of understanding the charac ter. Did Virgil invent her, or was the story of this virgin huntress and war rior heroine known to the educated antiquarians of Virgil's time? While the question cannot be solved definitively, what is clear from the pendant to Book 7 is that Camilla is a sort of reappearance of Dido. She wears the same purple and gold, and she is, like Dido, the leader of her people (the

Volscians). We know nothing more about her from the introduction we receive in the catalogue, and she will not reappear for three and a half books. Significantly, there is no mention of Diana in the Book 7 passage;

we remember Dido, and Diana is nowhere in mind (7, 803-817): hos super advenit Volsca de gente Camilla

agmen agens equitum et florentis aere catervas,

bellatrix, non illa col? calathisve Minervae femineas adsueta manus, sed proelia virgo dura pati cursuque pedum praevertere ventos,

illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret

gramina nec te?eras cursu laesisset aristas, vel mare per medium fluctu suspense tumenti ferret iter c?leris nec tingeret aequore plantas, illam omnis tectis agrisque effusa iuventus

turbaque miratur matrum et prospect?t euntem, attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro

velet honos levis umeros, ut fibula crinem auro internectat, Lyciam ut gerat ipsa pharetram et pastoralem praefixa c?spide myrtum.

We know nothing of Camilla's romantic life from this introduction (though both mothers and young men find her desirable as she rides by), but we do see that unlike Diana, she is a leader of military forces and more akin to

Minerva, the only goddess mentioned. In fact, the reader of this passage remembers how Dido was strangely compared to Diana, and feels more comfortable with this passage, where the war goddess is mentioned instead of the huntress. Still, the mention of purple and gold evokes Dido, and the confusion mounts. It will remain until the crucially important revelations and actions in Book 11.

1 The story is also told by Ovid (Metamorphoses 15, 497-546).

DIANA IN THE AENEID 33

The battle situation at the beginning of Book 11 is one of weariness. Ma

jor players on both sides of the war are dead: Pallas, Lausus, Mezentius. Cries are mounting for the unpopular war to end with a single combat be tween Aeneas and Turnus. A truce is called for the burial of the dead, and

while there is momentary peace the Latins hold a council of war. Here matters come to a head between Turnus and Drances, his bitter enemy. Turnus correctly notes that the Italians still possess significant forces, in

cluding Camilla and her Volscian cavalry, who are finally mentioned again after so long. While the council is deliberating word arrives that the Tro

jans have begun to move into the plain before the capital. Here Virgil is very unclear about the state of the war. If we are to accept that the truce for the burial of the dead has expired, we must then also assume that Tur nus and the other Latin commanders have forgotten that it is time for hos tilities to commence (there is no mention of the expiration of the truce).

An alternative is to argue that the Trojans have broken the truce, and this possibility must be acknowledged. Whatever the case, scouts have notified Turnus that Aeneas' plan of battle is to feign a frontal attack with cavalry to cover an infantry assault from over difficult terrain. Turnus decides to lie in wait and ambush Aeneas, while sending Camilla to handle the eques trian maneuvers.

At this stage in the narrative, on the edge of the battle that could have determined the outcome of the war, Virgil interrupts to introduce Diana's role in the story of Camilla, told by the goddess to her nymph Opis.1 We now learn that Camilla had been promised to Diana as a votive offering

made by her father, Metabus, when he was fleeing Privernum as an exile on account of his tyrannical ways. The Volscians were hot on his trail and the River Amasenus treacherous to cross; Metabus made a prayer to Diana to

give over his daughter to her care if she would protect her from harm. He tied Camilla to a spear and flung her to safety over the river.2 After escap

1 The point of the nymph's name is uncertain. Servius Danielis ad loc. records a tradi tion that Opis and Hecaergon were nurses of Apollo and Diana after their birth on Delos.

Callimachus In Dianam 204 and 240 addresses the goddess herself with the title/name Opis (where there seems to be some playing on the idea of Artemis as a "far-sighted" huntress); similarly In Delum mentions a Hyperborean girl, Opis, who stays with Artemis after bring

ing votive offerings to Delos. Thomas ad Georges 4,343 hypothesizes that the name became

transferred from one of the goddesses' nymphs to herself, but it seems more likely that

the reverse is true, and that as a cult-title of the goddess, the name was felt suitable for a

votary of the goddess. Despite the learned associations of the name, especially for Hel

lenistic poets, in a real sense Virgil is depicting Diana as talking to herself; just as Camilla should not have entered battle, so Diana herself will not.

2 The story reflects Diana's traditional patronage over childbirth and the development of female children in general.

34 LEE M. FRATANTUONO

ing the pursuing Volscians, Metabus and his daughter eschewed urban life and lived in the wild, living off of the land as hunters. Camilla's childhood and adolescent dress is carefully described, and at last we see the goddess

Diana's true image: Camilla explicitly wears no gold, but instead a tigress' pelt as a covering (11, 576-577):

pro crinali auro, pro longae tegmine pallae tigridis exuviae per dorsum a v?rtice pendent.

As the story unfolds, we are struck by the change that has apparently come over Camilla since the days of her adolescence. Diana does not explain why Camilla abandoned her sylvan existence and decided to go to war. Nor does she explain how Camilla, the exiled daughter of the Volscian tyrant, has somehow managed to return to her people and become their military leader.1 The one definitive constant between the narrative Diana tells in

Book 11 and the introduction to Camilla in Book 7 is her desirability for

marriage (11, 581-582): multae illam frustra Tyrrhena per oppida matres

optavere nurum ...

While Camilla's virginity was not explicitly mentioned in Book 7, here her attractiveness is at once followed by explanation for her celibacy (11, 582 584):

... sola contenta Diana

aeternum telorum et virginitatis amorem

intemerata colit.

Diana's purpose in telling the story of Camilla to Opis is simple: Opis must

avenge Camilla and kill whoever it is who kills Diana's favorite. Meanwhile Diana herself will take the body, unspoiled, back to Camilla's patria, pre sumably Priver num.

Camilla's exploits on the battlefield are astonishing. She successfully con trols the development of the cavalry battle, and the Trojans are thrown into chaos. One of her victims is in many ways a mirror image of herself

(11, 677-683): ...

procul Ornytus armis

ignotis et equo venator Iapyge fertur,

1 The seeming inconsistencies between the narratives in Books 7 and 11 have led some

to speculate that the Camilla epyllion in Book 11 was originally composed as a separate

short epic in the Hellenistic tradition and was inserted, more or less satisfactorily, into the narrative of the war in Italy. This misses Virgil's deliberate point; somehow, in some way, Camilla has

undergone a change of circumstance. Her story offers a profound reflection on the nature of adolescence and its frequently reckless decisions.

DIANA IN THE AENEID 35

cui pellis latos umeros erepta iuvenco

pugnatori operit, caput ingens oris hiatus et malae texere lupi cum dentibus albis, agrestisque manus armat sparus; ipse catervis

vertitur in mediis et toto v?rtice supra est.

Camilla mocks Ornytus, asking him if he thinks he has come to a hunt. The air is heavy with irony here, since Camilla's own background is identi cal. Still, Ornytus is dressed as a hunter, not in the gold and purple Camilla has acquired since leading her people into battle. Ornytus' hunting cos tume underscores the change in Camilla's life; she is no longer the sylvan

huntress, but, like Dido, a leader dressed in the colors of royalty. It is as if

Camilla, on the threshold of adulthood, sees Ornytus and scoffs that he has not yet matured beyond hunting to war.

Left to their own devices, Camilla's forces would have routed the Trojan horse while Turnus waited to ambush Aeneas. At this point in the narra

tive, Jupiter intervenes and rouses up Tarchon to push the attack against the Latins. In some sense this is suspiciously at variance with Jupiter's own edict at the beginning of Book 10 for the immortals to refrain from inter

fering in the battle; in any case, the effect is clear, and the tide begins to turn in favor of the Trojans.1 Arruns, an Etruscan whose exact provenance on the battlefield is never made entirely clear (he could be one of Aeneas' allies, or even one of Turnus' forces, upset at how a woman is taking all the glory on the battlefield), begins to circle Camilla, seeking to slay her

unawares.2 Camilla, meanwhile, notices one Chloreus, a Phrygian who was once a priest of Cybele. His clothing is exceedingly garish and out of char acter for a male warrior on the battlefield: gold and purple (the colors we associate with Dido's hunt in Book 4 and Camilla herself on the battlefield, and not with Camilla's youthful tiger cloak), and saffron, predominate in his effeminate attire (11, 774-777):

aureus ex umeris erat arcus et ?urea vati

cassida; turn croceam chlamydemque sinusque crepantis carbaseos fulvo in nodum

collegerat auro

pictus acu tunicas et barbara tegmina crurum.

1 It should be noted that Diana, who was more than willing to raise Hippolytus from

the dead with Asclepius's help (as related in Book 7), is not willing to save Camilla; the point seems to be that Diana, unlike her father, is actually obeying his edict. Further, while

commentators have agreed with Diana herself that Camilla should never have entered this

war, the reason is not because she is incapable of performing superbly: it will take two

gods to destroy her. 2 The fact that Arruns is readily able to pursue Camilla surreptitiously does point to

wards his being one of her own allies, and thus able not to arouse her suspicions.

36 LEE M. FRATANTUONO

Camilla may very well have been better off staying in the woods and hunt

ing animals, but she has so far performed ably and well in a male-dominat ed war. Chloreus gives the air of not having any idea where he is; a eunuch

priest of Cybele, his effeminacy is the effeminacy for which the native Ital ians have so readily mocked the Trojans thus far in the poem.

Camilla is confused. In Book 7 she had been called a bellatrix, but now

Virgil calls her a venatrix (the change is significant); she hunts Chloreus down, stalking him like a animal. Her confusion is over the fate of his

gold and purple spoils. She cannot decide whether they should be hung in a temple (presumably Diana's) as a votive offering, or worn by her, the

huntress (11, 779-780)\l ...

captivo sive ut se ferret in auro

venatrix ...

Her pursuit of him is blind and incautious, and motivated by an irrational desire for booty and love of spoils (11, 782) :2

femineo praedae et spoliorum ardebat amore.

Much has been made of Camilla's distraction as the cause of her death. In

terestingly, Virgil does not simply describe Arruns as taking his lucky shot because of Camilla's distraction. Instead, he has Arruns pray to Apollo that

1 Cf. K. W Gransden, Virgil Aeneid xi, Cambridge 1991, ad loe. He notes that one usually dedicates hunting trophies, not military ones, to Diana. This is precisely the point; Camilla has gone so astray from her roles as devotee of Diana and huntress that she conflates the

world of the hunt with the world of war and fails to see the inappropriateness of her ac

tions, with disastrous results. A real warrior would wear his enemy's spoils (like Turnus), despite the risk of revenge or set them up on a tropaeum, as Aeneas does with Mezentius' arms. But no true huntress would wear this purple and gold costume; only those who

playact the hunt, like Dido in Book 4. All the emphasis of this passage is on 780 venatrix, to underscore the utter inappropriateness of wearing this costume while hunting animals.

The two lives of Camilla, bellatrix and venatrix, have met. 2

"Irrational", as Servius correctly glossed femineo. Virgil's point is that Camilla has mis taken Chloreus as prey for a hunt (understandably enough, since he cuts such a pathetic figure in combat). The huntress pursues her prey single-mindedly, though in battle one

must be on guard from all sides, including, apparently, one's own allies (if Arruns is taken to be an

ally of Turnus). Some have taken this line to mean that Camilla has a woman's love of fine clothes, but Camilla's problem is not so much what she wants as her uncertainty over what to do with it. Camilla, like any obsessive hunter, has an irrational passion for the

booty and spoils of the chase. Femineo is a good reminder, however, that Camilla remains a woman despite her entrance into war, though she has suppressed the traditional roles of a woman's life. Just as she has a choice over the fate of the robes, so she had a choice over her own life; Chloreus' rejection of his masculinity is permanent. The imperfect ar debat well describes her continuous burning desire for the trophy as she pursues Chloreus

through the crowd of warriors.

DIANA IN THE AENEID 37

he might both kill Camilla and return home, however inglorious (because he has killed a woman, and not even in direct combat). Apollo grants the first part of the wish and ignores the second. So Virgil takes pains to point to the divine intervention in Camilla's death, which helps underscore his

respect for her: the implicit point is that she could have killed Chloreus without help, but Arruns needs divine assistance even to kill the distracted Camilla. Frightened at his very luck, Arruns flees away but is killed by Opis, and Camilla's death serves as an example to the women of Latium, spur ring them on to risk their lives to defend their home. While it is true that Camilla confuses the world of the hunt and the

world of war, she performs exceedingly well in either, and it is highly sig nificant that only Jupiter's direct intervention and Apollo's aid to Arruns

stops her aristeia. Still, she has no place in this war, as Diana laments. Vir

gil frames Camilla's exploits by the two unfortunate men, Ornytus and

Chloreus, both of whom would have been better off avoiding battle (like Camilla). Ornytus was dressed in hunting attire, like Camilla before she entered this war. Camilla's dress in Book 7 was described as gold and pur ple, the royal colors befitting a leader of her people, and more similar to Chloreus' gold and purple priestly robes than to her old tiger skin costume. So when Camilla sees Ornytus, she sees herself, as she once was, a fellow

hunter, woefully out of place. When she sees Chloreus, she sees herself once

again, but this time in a more complex and confusing way, in a sense as she is now: Chloreus, like her, is a devotee of a deity who imposes celi

bacy. Like Camilla, Chloreus has left the service of his deity to enter this war.l Just as Camilla has abandoned the traditional Roman conceptions of womanhood, so Chloreus abandoned his masculinity to become a eunuch

priest of Cybele (the irony being, of course, that despite his abandonment of Cybele for war he cannot regain his manhood).

While seeing two men who represent the two facets of life she has aban

doned, the hunt and religious service, it is the clothes of Chloreus that confuse her. Somehow, not only did Camilla manage to become the Vols cians' leader, but also she assumed new gold and purple robes (how easy it would have been for Virgil to have let her keep her tiger skin and appear as the quintessential native Italian, defending her country). Presumably her

Volscian subjects gave her these robes, as clothes befitting a leader. They may be appropriate for war, but not for a huntress, and so the clothes re

flect the inappropriateness of Camilla's participation in the war. She does not belong in them any more than she belongs in this war. Ornytus elic ited real hatred in Camilla, because his hunter's dress gave the appearance

1 il, 768 olim sacerdos means he was "once a priest", not that he has "long been a priest".

Camilla, likewise, has left Diana's service.

38 LEE M. FRATANTUONO

that he was denigrating his opponents and making them out to be mere

game (especially a woman like Camilla). Chloreus, though, elicits silence from Camilla. Her confusion is profound. While he clearly does not belong in war and does not cut the figure of a threatening opponent, he has the same gold and purple she is wearing, and he looks more female than male

(further underscoring their similar appearance). This is why she wonders whether or not to wear his clothes, as opposed to hanging them in a tem

ple. Camilla saw herself in both Ornytus and Chloreus. In Ornytus' case, she thought she saw only what she once was, forgetful of how, tragically, she is still the same huntress girl. In Chloreus' case, she sees herself as she is now, a former religious votary dressed in foreign clothes who does not

belong in war. The lessons she failed to grasp when she saw Ornytus, she sees now in Chloreus, but dimly; before she can connect the dots, Arruns strikes. Put another way, Camilla saw her old but true self in Ornytus, and reacted contemptuously (with a tone of, "I was once where you are, but have now outgrown that"), while in Chloreus she saw what she now had become, but, a venatrix at heart, she did not clearly see the implications of her new role as bellatrix. The clothes, as it were, suddenly did not seem to fit as well.

The Camilla narrative forces the reader to remember the unfinished

questions of Books i and 4 and the Dido narrative. Diana's role in Book 11 is without controversy or confusion; since Camilla remained a virgin, Di ana's affection for her is without surprise.1 But why was Dido, in her pur ple and gold, compared to Diana? How do we remember Dido when we read of Camilla in Book 11? Is Virgil implicitly comparing and contrasting these two similar, yet quite different women?

The Roman audience of Virgil's day would have seen little in Dido be sides Cleopatra, ready to seduce another Roman and threaten his fate. In the Camilla epyllion (notwithstanding any displeasure at the notion of a

1 What is subtly interesting, though, is that Virgil preceded his introduction of Camilla

with mention of Hippolytus' resurrection. In the Camilla narrative, Apollo is the direct

agent of Camilla's death, whereas in the raising of Hippolytus, Apollo's son had worked with Diana to save her favorite. The conflict in Book 11 between sister and brother has not been examined closely (there may be some mitigation, admittedly, in that Apollo does not fully answer Arruns' prayer, and does nothing to protect him from his sister's agent of death). There may also be significance in the fact that Apollo and Diana are both dei ties who preside over sudden death; Camilla's decision to enter the man's world of this

war may be reflected, subtly, in Apollo's oversight of her sudden death: she has become a man, in a sense. Further, Apollo's decision to ignore Arruns' prayer for his own safety has significance because Arruns is Apollo's own priest and should be able to expect his

protection.

DIANA IN THE AENEID 39

woman in battle), the primitive, native heroism of Italy is everywhere.1 In terestingly, in more recent times Dido has received the sympathy of many readers of the Aeneid, and Camilla has been savaged as a vicious, uncontrol lable monster, really because she, a woman, dares to fight (old prejudices, it would seem, die hard). Even in her purple and gold on the battlefield,

Camilla the huntress still manages to succeed. Her participation in the war

may be a "mistake", but she dies only because of divine intervention, not because of any faults of her own. Dido, in her purple and gold (appropri ate for a queen, but not for a hunt), playacted Diana and ended up finishing the hunt in a most un-Diana-like way, by consummating her love with Ae neas. The sexual union between Dido and Aeneas in the cave, orchestrated

by Venus and Juno, utterly perverts Diana's world of the hunt.2 When we meet Dido, she has been widowed for some time and in her lonely celi

bacy (having rejected many suitors), she has become Diana-like in some

1 Camilla fills the Penthesilea-role in Virgil's war in Italy. For whatever reasons, Virgil has selected a major episode of the post-Iliadic tradition and placed it as the penultimate event in his Aeneid. Virgil has delved into cyclic epic before in the Aeneid, notably in Book 2's ex

tended treatment of the wooden horse. But that subject matter was essential to his plot, while the Camilla episode exists, significantly, without Aeneas

- this Achilles never meets

his Penthesilea, because his heart had already been stolen by a character Achilles never

faced, namely Dido. Virgil's master-stroke in adopting Troy-lore for his Italian war is that

he saw the advantage in having his Penthesilea serve, like Pallas for Aeneas, as a scapegoat for his Hector, Turnus. Thus in the Aeneid Camilla must die before Turnus, and indeed her death will be marked by the same line as his (11, 831-12, 952), while in the Troy-lore Penthesilea dies after Hector. Hence Book 11 must open with the burial of Pallas, and end

with the burial of Camilla. It is also interesting, and perhaps significant, that Aeneas never

meets Camilla. Virgil has preserved the virginal qualities of his Camilla, in a rejection (or at least suppression) of the Greek tradition of Penthesilea, who was most probably not a

virgin, and definitely aroused the sexual interest of Achilles (though it should be noted that Turnus seems better suited to a relationship with Camilla than with Lavinia). The point, though, is that the romantic associations attached to Penthesilea also redound to Camilla.

Virgil underscores this by his repeated indication of her attractiveness to mothers and their

sons, and lastly by his noting that her death spurred the Latin women on to fight for their

country: cf. 11, 892 monstrat amor verus patriae, ut videre Camillam. It should be noted that

Penthesilea had a good reason for going to fight at Troy; she was seeking to expiate the

death of sister Hippolyta, accidentally killed by her when she meant to slay a stag (Quint. Smyrn. Posthorn. 1, 25-27). M. Paschalis, Virgil's Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names,

Oxford 1997, p. 369, sees a connection between Camilla's separation from her horse at the moment she is shot and the traditional Amazon name Hippolyta, but this is overly subtle.

More noteworthy is that a horse, however indirectly, is involved in Camilla's death, as in

Hippolytus'; Diana's cult at Aricia had a prohibition against horses. 2 Juno, of course, wants Dido and Aeneas to fall in love to delay the inevitable founding

of Rome. Venus is afraid that Dido will in some way harm Aeneas, and wishes to safeguard her son and bestow her usual blessings of sexual pleasure. Juno comes off as the smarter

of the two.

40 LEE M. FRATANTUONO

regards, but, unlike Camilla, she is forever separated from Diana because she is not a virgin. Dido may have fallen in love with Aeneas because of the

machinations of Venus and Juno (though one imagines the goddesses did not have much work to do), but her suicide is her own choice. In Dido we see an image of Eastern irrationality, of not only Cleopatra but also Me dea. There is a very real sense of fear for both Aeneas and Ascanius as the news of the imminent departure of the Trojans reaches Dido. In Camilla there is none of this. Even her admittedly vicious battlefield exploits are no

bloodier than anything performed by Aeneas or Turnus during the war. At her death, Camilla is concerned only with having word brought to Turnus that he should maintain the ambush (which still would have been severely damaging to Aeneas, notwithstanding her own death) and continue the battle. Her death inspires the women of the capital to fight; in her death she becomes an example of extreme heroism.

In a sense, Diana presides over the deaths of both Dido and Camilla, both of whom die with their faithful friends (Anna and Acca, not insignifi cantly similarly named) close at hand. In Dido's case, Diana was invoked in a manner utterly foreign to the Camilla narrative, as the witch-goddess

Hecate. In Camilla's case, Diana is only the earthly huntress.1 In the respec tive depictions of these women, the Aeneid becomes a poem of conflict on three levels: on the mortal level, a conflict between the image of Eastern

womanhood embodied in Dido and the image of native Italian woman hood embodied in Camilla, on the urban level, a conflict between old Troy and the native Italians who will be the founders of new Rome,2 on the divine level, a conflict between Venus-Cybele (Phrygian, Eastern deities) and Diana, worshipped in the grove at Aricia and the quintessential native Italian deity, the Diana of Hippolytus-Virbius and Camilla. Venus was re

sponsible for Dido's irrational love for Aeneas, and her decision to dress like Diana brilliantly underscores her attitude towards the whole charade Dido has been living: since Sychaeus' death, Dido has lived like Diana in sexual abstinence, but she is most definitely not Diana-like in reality.

The comparison of Aeneas to Apollo is also highly significant. For the au dience of Virgil's day, any mention of Apollo in tandem with Aeneas would have resonated with the extreme importance of Apollo to the Augustan religious program. And, just as we remember Dido in her purple and gold

1 Diana Nemorensis, the name by which she was honored at her temple at Nemi (near Aricia).

2 The Aeneid opens and closes with two speeches given by Jupiter to important women

in his life. The first speech, to Venus, reveals the truth, but only part of it; Aeneas will

indeed be safe and be the father of a great nation, Rome, but, as we do not learn until the stunning revelations in Book 12 in Jupiter's speech to Juno, Rome will not be a Trojan

Rome but an Italian Rome (the Italy of Camilla).

DIANA IN THE AENEID 41

when Camilla comes to fight, so we remember Aeneas/Apollo when Ar

runs/Apollo dispatches her. Arruns, with a name deliberately similar to Ae neas', in a sense stands in as a proxy for Aeneas (who, in the epic tradition, should have been the one to slay the Penthesilea of the Aeneid). Arruns does this under Apollo's direct intervention. Since Camilla is to Turnus what Pal las is to Aeneas, and since Book 11 opens and closes with the two young, dead heroes, it would have been suitable for Virgil to have had both Turnus and Aeneas kill the other's beloved proxy fighter. The emotional pathos of their final single combat would have been all the more intense. It remains to be explored why Virgil does not have Aeneas meet Camilla.

One explanation is the poet's wish to avoid the dedecus of having Aeneas kill a woman, even a great fighter like Camilla. This explanation is weak, in that for Virgil anything Achilles did is in some way suitable for Aeneas to do. Since Achilles killed Penthesilea, so Aeneas could kill Camilla. Another

explanation could be Virgil's wish to have Turnus appear as guiltier than Aeneas for their final meeting; the blood of Pallas is on Turnus, but Aeneas was nowhere near Camilla's death (indeed, one of Turnus' own men may have slain her). A deeper explanation is found in Virgil's startling decision to give both Camilla and Turnus the same death-line, the line he uses to end the poem. The reader of the end of Book 12 recalls Camilla at the mo

ment of greatest emotional power in the poem, its final line. Putting aside issues of completion and final revision, the repetition of Camilla's death line must be seen as an example of deliberate, purposeful repetition. We are reminded, however subtly, that just as Camilla's death was wrought by divine intervention, not so much by human action, so Turnus7 death is the result of the enemy Turnus himself correctly identified to Aeneas: Jupiter,

whose decisions in the Aeneid are always identical to Fate's (12, 894-895): ille caput quassans: "non me tua fervia terrent

dicta, ferox: di me terrent et Iuppiter hostis".

The "indignant" shades of both Camilla and Turnus are precisely indignant

because they know in their final moments that it is the inexorable will of Fate that they are victims of their killers (11, 831; 12, 952):

vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.

Arruns will not meet Turnus, and neither does Aeneas meet Camilla; the two great antagonists are not anywhere near the fatal rendezvous between

Arruns and Camilla. Having Aeneas involved in Camilla's death would have

greatly diminished the appropriateness of having Apollo intervened; Ar runs can appeal to Apollo, but surely Aeneas should not have to appeal to

anyone to kill a girl (and Virgil wants to emphasize that Camilla dies by divine intervention). Finally, there are plot considerations. Virgil's brilliant

42 LEE M. FRATANTUONO

masterstroke in Book n was the battle plans of the ambush and cavalry feint. It works well to underscore the point of how Turnus' plan would have worked, and Aeneas worsted in battle, had not the gods intervened. Turnus' ambush plan could even have succeeded after Camilla's death: it is her death that so deeply affects Turnus that he gives up the ambush and lets Aeneas safely come through to set up his camp before the Latin capital.

When we finish the Camilla narrative, there is a further reminiscence of Book i and Venus' mockery of Diana. With Virgil's narrative of Camilla, new

meaning is added to his mention in Book i of "Thracian Harpalyce". Harpalyce (the "Snatcher She-wolf") does not appear earlier than Virgil. Servius Danielis says she was killed while making a raid for food (after the death of her father, who, like Metabus, had been exiled by his own peo ple).

* Presuming that Virgil's readers knew something about Thracian Har

palyce, the connection to Camilla, also the wild daughter of an exiled fa ther would now be remembered. Camilla and Harpalyce were both raised

among wild animals.2 In the final analysis, the revelations of Jupiter in Book 12 that the new city

of Rome will be Italian, not Trojan, reveal the ultimate victory of Diana (and Juno, for that matter) over Venus in the Aeneid (12, 834-837):

sermonem Ausonii patrium moresque tenebunt,

utque est nomen erit; commixti corpore tan turn

subsident Teucri. morem ritusque sacrorum

adiciam faciamque omnis uno ore Latinos.

These line are an extraordinary close to the divine conflict of the poem. They represent a victory for Italy over Troy. One wonders if Aeneas and his people would be pleased to overhear this conversation; one wonders

1 R. G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus, Oxford 1971, ad 1, 317 wisely asks if Callimachus could have been the source for the stories of Harpalyce and/or Camilla. 2

There is also a connection between Camilla/Harpalyce and Arruns, Camilla's killer.

Virgil's Arruns is a native of the region around Mount Soracte. He was one of the fire-walk

ing priests of Apollo who worshipped on that mountain. Servius notes that wolves were said to snatch the exta the priests of Apollo carried through the fire on Soracte; if chased back to their dens the wolves killed their pursuers by a fatal exhalation (halitum pestiferum) from their cave. In order to slay the wolves, the Apollonian priests had to become wolves themselves (de qua responsum est, posse earn sedan, si lupos imitarentur, id est rapto viverent). From this fact the priests of Apollo were called Hirpini, from the Sabine word for wolf. It is unclear exactly what the priests of Apollo had to do to imitate wolves; probably they

had to dress in wolf-skins and live in the wild ex rapto, before attempting to enter the dens and

slay the offending animals. In all of this lore there is a tantalizing air of lycanthropy, of Camilla (and Harpalyce) as werewolves, an appropriate role for devotees of the Mistress of Animals. Both women are thus viewed as pestes who must be eradicated by religious rites. For more on the fire-walking Arruns see W H. Fitzgerald, 'Firewalking on Soracte:

A Vergilian Note on Horace Carmen 1.9', Vergilius 1985, 59-60.

DIANA IN THE AENEID 43

even more what Venus would think (significantly, she is not made aware of it). This conclusion to the Aeneid leads to the understanding of Camilla and the other native Italians as solemn figures, protomartyrs of Italy who

by their blood have watered the seed, as it were, of the future country, he roes and heroines offered as exempla to future generations (Dante, Inferno i, 106-108):

Di quella umile Italia fia salute Per cui mori la vergine Cammilla, Eurialo e Turno e Niso di ferute.

Fordham University

Sophia Papaioannou

THE POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING AND THE EXCITEMENT OF HAIR LOSS

IN OVID, AMORES 1, 141

Amores 1,14, a poem on the disastrous effects on women's hair due to excessive application of artificial cosmetics, has been a puzzling piece for Ovidian critics,2 and, not surprisingly, it has received

minimal attention prior to the publication of McKeown's commentary in

1989.3 In his introduction to the commentary, McKeown elaborates on the

way in which Ovid incorporates motifs and stylistic tropes from different

types of epigrams, in particular those of the derogatory and the "gloating over fulfillment" categories. He also remarks on the possibility of thematic

inspiration ("elaborate attention to one's personal appearance") from wide ly popular treatments in the traditions of Hellenistic and Roman philoso

phy, and the intention of producing a mockery on a moralizing diatribe in style well honed as to demonstrate superior rhetorical training.4 More

recently, however, Barbara W Boyd has detected an intriguing and sophis ticated subtext beyond the poet's reprimand of Corinna for the damage she caused to her hair.5

Boyd focuses on Ovid's employment of an extended simile, or rather a series of particularized similes, to flesh out a eulogy of Corinna's lost hair.

Immediately after the first couplet, where the disaster is emphatically an

1 The text of the Amores quoted throughout is taken from J. C. McKeown, Ovid: Amores i. Text and Prolegomena, Leeds 1987. 2

"Amores 1, 14 is perhaps the most peculiar poem in the whole of Roman love elegy" :

this telling phrase comes from a most recent study on elegiac poetry, Sharon James', Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy, Berkeley 2003,

p. 167. 3

J. C. McKeown, Ovid: Amores 11. A Commentary on Book One, Leeds 1989, pp. 364-386. One other early notable study on the particular poem has been a 1972 brief article by Scivoletto,

identifying certain phrases or verses as motifs, and tracing their origin to the Hellenistic

epigram: N. Scivoletto, 'Motivi epigrammatici in un'elegia ovidiana (Am. 1.14)', in Studi classici in onore di Q. Cataudella in, Catania 1972, pp. 355-361.

4 Cf. McKeown, op. cit. (1989), pp. 364-365, for a summary of his approach. 5 Barbara W. Boyd, Ovid's Literary Loves: Influence and Innovation in the Amores, Ann Arbor 1997; Amores 1, 14 occupies the focus of discussion on pp. 117-121, which primarily explore the narrative and literary function of the three similes nexus, and the transition from the

one to the next. The paragraph immediately following largely summarizes Boyd's argu ments.

46 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

nounced in a pointed I-told-you-so manner, Ovid introduces two visuali

zations, first, of the texture of the hair, whose softness is likened to that of the Chinese silk but also to a spider's web, and, second, of the color, an

amalgam of black and brown, comparable to a mixture of the two seen on the cedar tree of mount Ida when its bark has been stripped off. It is less the absurdity tied to the graphic representation via a simile of an object that no longer exists, and more the display of exquisite erudition behind the selection of the particular thematic content of these similes that Ovid

means to communicate to his readers. More specifically, the employment of the Chinese silk points to the only other literary reference to Chinese silk in Latin poetry, a passage in Vergil's G. 2, 120-121. Vergil's inspiration

most likely should be sought in Aristotle, HA 5,19, 551b, the only surviving account on the perceived origin of silk imports to Rome. In turn, Vergil's text inspires Ovid's genius of originality. Then, the reference to the thread

(filum) next to the Chinese vela evokes a well-known literary commonplace, the likening of the poet to the artist, w