Valerius Flaccus Research Articles

Mémoire de Valérius Flaccus dans l’Achilléide de Stace

The influence of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus on the Achilleid of Statius has received little attention from the scholars. A close examination of Statius’ second epic reveals however a deep impregnation by the work of his Flavian predecessor, on many levels : from an occasional reminiscence brought by a contextual similitude to a deliberate allusive strategy. I have tried to classify and study the different types of Valerian reminiscences in the Achilleid from the point of view of its intellectual genesis : incident memory, derived memory, combined memory, diffuse memory, and allusive memory. This inquiry throws light both on Statius’ poetical technique and on Valerius’ literary posterity

"Spes lusa" (Val.Fl.3.555). Hilas como anti-Julo

This paper is aimed at studying the way in which Valerius Flaccus begins the Hylas episode by alluding strongly to the Aeneid in order to show at last the non-Virgilian results of his own poetics.

“Vergilian” wolves in the Panegyric on Avitus by Sidonius Apollinaris (Carm. 7. 361–368)

The article analyzes a simile of the Panegyric on the emperor Avitus by the Late Antique poet Sidonius Apollinaris (430–486 CE). The Vandals who sacked Rome in 455 become terrible wolves. Sidonius has to exaggerate the drama of the event experienced by Rome in order to exalt the salvific role played by the emperor Avitus. Sidonius echoes a lot of Vergil’s pastoral landscapes and other epic similes or phrases by Statius, Silius, Valerius Flaccus, Lucan. This simile is a good example of the poetry of Sidonius and of the literary conceptions of the Late Antique Literature.

Epic and Empire in Vespasianic Rome: A New Reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica by Tim Stover

Epic and Empire in Vespasianic Rome: A New Reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica by Tim Stover

Banqueting Gods in Valerius Flaccus Arg. 5.690-5

AbstractThis work offers a new comment and interpretation of Valerius FlaccusArg.5.690-5, a passage where the poet describes a banquet of the gods on Olympus with music and dancing. Two elements of the scene have been put under consideration: the Greek and Latin sources for the traditional scene of the dance of the gods (especially in the context of Olympic councils), examined in such a way as to argue that the scene described is unusual within the extant Latin epic tradition; and the traditional content of Apollo’s song, the Gigantomachy. By mentioning the Gigantomachy theme in other parts of the poem, Valerius links this passage with the poem’s overarching theme of the imposition of order according to a divine plan.

Why is Jason Climbing the Dragon? A Hidden Catasterism in Valerius Flaccus’Argonautica8

AbstractThis paper explains a controversial key passage in the episode of the capture of the Fleece in Valerius Flaccus (8.109-20). Through a complex network of allusions, involving an astronomical context, the poet exploits the analogies between the myth of the Golden Fleece and the myth of the Golden Apples of the Hesperides to establish a connection between the last actions of Jason in Colchis and the last labor of Hercules. The connection highlights the difference between the two characters and their destinies: Hercules will reach glory in the sky, while Jason will fall deeper into human tragedy. This feature also provides a concluding function to the poem, drawing together the beginnings and endings of Hercules’ and Jason’s labores with the beginning and ending of Valerius’ epic.

Further Programmatic Implications of Valerius Flaccus' Description of the Construction of the Argo (1.121-9)

As is known, the description of Argo's construction in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica (1.121-9) plays a significant auto-referential role in advertising the aesthetic principles operative in his epic project as well as his doctrina. In this article I argue that the shape and the structure of the ship also allow the poet to suggest the generic enrichment of his work. Thus, while in this passage Valerius Flaccus implies his adherence to his epic predecessors, at the same time he also hints at his flirtation with a variety of themes and genres, love poetry included, which are harmoniously incorporated in the central epic body of the poem. In this way, the poet both protects his work from many of the accusations of the epic frequently found in ancient literary criticism and projects a poetic programme in which the martial and the amatory theme interact and cooperate, facilitating each other and leading to a sophisticated epic poem.

Verg. Aen. 7. 649. A Critical Note

The authors discuss a widely ignored variant in Aen. 7.649, on the basis of a new Homeric model, an imitation of Valerius Flaccus and Virgilian usus, and accordingly defend the reading hunc in this line.

Introduction: Medea in Greece and Rome

Few mythic narratives of the ancient world are more famous than the story of the Colchian princess/sorceress who betrayed her father and family for love of a foreign adventurer and who, when abandoned for another woman, killed in revenge both her rival and her children. Many critics have observed the complexities and contradictions of the Medea figure—naive princess, knowing witch, faithless and devoted daughter, frightened exile, marginalised alien, displaced traitor to family and state, helper-maiden, abandoned wife, vengeful lover, caring and filicidal mother, loving and fratricidal sister, oriental ‘other’, barbarian saviour of Greece, rejuvenator of the bodies of animals and men, killer of kings and princesses, destroyer and restorer of kingdoms, poisonous stepmother, paradigm of beauty and horror, demi-goddess, subhuman monster, priestess of Hecate and granddaughter of the sun, bride of dead Achilles and ancestor of the Medes, rider of a serpent-drawn chariot in the sky—complexities reflected in her story's fragmented and fragmenting history. That history has been much examined, but, though there are distinguished recent exceptions, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the specifically ‘Roman’ Medea—the Medea of the Republican tragedians, of Cicero, Varro Atacinus, Ovid, the younger Seneca, Valerius Flaccus, Hosidius Geta and Dracontius, and, beyond the literary field, the Medea of Roman painting and Roman sculpture. Hence the present volume of Ramus, which aims to draw attention to the complex and fascinating use and abuse of this transcultural heroine in the Roman intellectual and visual world. The present introduction briefly outlines Medea's Greek history before examining in detail her journey through Republican Rome. It concludes with a survey of her imperial configurations and a preliminary framing of the studies which follow.

A ‘Greek’ Acrostic in Valerius Flaccus (3.430-4)

A ‘Greek’ Acrostic in Valerius Flaccus (3.430-4)

The King's Daughter: Medea in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica

Medea's awakening love for Jason is the great theme of the third book of Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. At the opening of that book—that is to say, at the very centre of the four-book epic—the Hellenistic poet signals a programmatic redirection, invoking the Muse Erato to inspire his tale of Jason's winning of the golden fleece, aided by the love of the Colchian princess (Мηδείηϛ ὑπ' ἔϱωτι, Ap. Rhod. 3.3). This is the first mention of Medea in the poem. Writing a few centuries later, the Flavian poet Valerius Flaccus for the most part adheres closely to Apollonius' narrative outline. As we shall see, however, he manifests comparatively little interest in the love story between Jason and Medea, and takes a different approach to the problem of integrating Medea into the plot. Though, as with the earlier epic, she will not appear as a dramatis persona until the second half of the epic, she is mentioned at the very outset of the narrative (1.61-63), and a number of times thereafter in the early books. Thus by the time the Argonauts reach Colchis and Medea enters the narrative proper, she has already been presented to the reader in a number of ‘previews’.

Q. Horatii Flacci: Carmina Liber IV (review)

Reviewed by: Q. Horatii Flacci: Carmina Liber IV Richard F. Thomas Paolo Fedeli and Irma Ciccarelli. Q. Horatii Flacci: Carmina Liber IV. Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 2008. Pp. 706. €48.00. ISBN 978-88-00-20802-4. The often-noted paucity of commentaries on the fourth book of Horace’s Odes is already a thing of the past. Fedeli and Ciccarelli’s 2008 commentary has been followed by my own “green and yellow” with CUP (2011), withP. D. Hills’ detailed OUP commentary currently in progress. Monographic studies of the fourth book—Michael Putnam’s Artifices of Eternity: Horace’s fourth book of Odes (Ithaca 1986) and Timothy Johnson’s Symposion of Praise: Horace returns to lyric in Odes IV (Madison 2004)—along with articles by Barchiesi, Breed, Clay, Hunter, Lowrie, and numerous others have brought Odes 4 out of the shadow cast by the brilliant and astonishing first three books that Horace had put out a decade before. All of this recent work in one way or another sees through the traditional fallacies surrounding Odes 4: Horace did not, in writing, gathering, and publishing these poems, put together disparate and second-rate poems he had lying around; nor did he put together a weary encomium for the princeps. Rather he published a complex, often contradictory book of poems, and that is how we should read them. A useful introduction by Fedeli covers the following: I. Horace from C. 1–3 to C. 4, pondering the abandonment of, then return to, lyric, rightly sensing the commissioning and composition of the Carmen saeculare as having played a role; II. the chronology and genesis of C. 4, starting as all discussions do with Suetonius’ explanation of the book as fleshing out the commissioned celebration of the exploits of Drusus and Tiberius (4.4, 14), a highly improbable proposition; III. a lengthy reflection on possible structural designs for the book; IV. the debt to Pindar and Callimachus, which is seen as theoretically consistent, whereas some readers will, for instance in 4.2, see more of a tension at work; V. Horace on Augustus and politics, a huge subject, and one that most complicates and informs a reading of C. 4; this leads to VI, the question of Horace’s servility in his last book of lyric. Is it propaganda or not? There will never be a single answer to this question, but the evidence and varying arguments are well set out here with skepticism of extremes, either Syme’s belief in outright collaboration, Fraenkel’s excessive optimism on Horace’s being the voice of the people in 4.2, or Lyne’s detection of resistance—the position to which my only commentary will come closest. In the body of the work, each Latin poem is followed by complete bibliographical references, a summary or paraphrase of the poem in question, an introduction, and a detailed commentary. There is a great deal of useful material embedded in the commentary itself, which, however, will not be to everyone’s taste. It takes the form of what seem like discrete essays of two, three, or four, sometimes as many as eight or nine, dense pages per sentence of Horace, treating textual, philological, literary, and other matters in the course of the essay. There are consequently no lemmata running through the commentary to serve as a guide for readers primarily concerned with progressing through the text. This style of commentary seems best suited to an approach that is almost separate from the text to which the reader might have recourse. Nor is the style mandated by the series; Barchiesi’s Heroides 1–3, Casali’s Heroides 9, Galassi’s Ex Ponto 2, and Perutelli’s Valerius Flaccus Arg. 2, to name just the few I consulted, all have Latin word lemmata throughout. In spite of that, this impressive work yields up a store of information and helpful commentary of Horace’s last book of Odes. The volume is quite affordable, but I should also say that one page—the very one arguing against the Virgilian identity of the Vergilius of 4.12 (a [End Page 142] position with which my own commentary will differ)—fell out when I opened...

Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Book 1; ed. with tr. and comm. by A.Z.

Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Book 1; ed. with tr. and comm. by A.Z.

Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica Book 1. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary by Andrew Zissos.

Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica Book 1. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary by Andrew Zissos. Oxford: Oxford UP 2008. LXX, 450 S., 100 £.

Los derechos senatoriales del "flamen Dialis"

This paper deals with the historical problem of C. Valerius Flaccus's inauguration as flamen Dialis in 209 B. C. and his subsequent demand for the right to be admitted into the Senate (Liv., XXVII, 8, 4-10). The quarrel which decided in favour of the flamen and the question regarding the foundations and extent of the senatorial rights linked to flamonium diale will be analyzed in detail.

Jason at Colchis: Technology and Human Progress in Valerius Flaccus

For the Argonauts of Valerius Flaccus the Black Sea and its surrounding lands are an alien world. As Argo leaves the Mediterranean behind and enters the Propontis, we are told that the Minyans begin to gain ‘a view into another world’ (alium prospectus in orbem, 2.628). So too when the ship makes its way through the Bosporus, on the point of entering the Black Sea, we are told that the Greeks ‘see all things new’ (noua cuncta uident, 4.424). Clearly this voyage is presented by Valerius as a major event in world history.One question which must confront any reader of Valerius’ poem is whether the effects of this voyage should be viewed negatively or positively. Indeed the poem itself poses that question at the outset, through its inclusion of two versions of Argo's destiny: the negative prophecy of Mopsus (1.211-26) and the more reassuring prediction of Idmon (1.234-38). In this paper I propose to consider aspects of this problem through an examination not of Valerius' treatment of the voyage itself, but of its consequences as they are presented in the second half of the poem.

Correction ou corruption? La critique du texte de Valerius Flaccus

AbstractThe author tries to show through close examination of four characteristic passages of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica (5.614, 6.709, 7.55-6, 7.162-3) that strained exegesis or quotation of dubious parallels, to be met with in Valerian studies, may be wrong solutions of problems better dealt with if one admits textual corruption.

Las secuelas del <i>Fortunati ambo</i> (Verg., <i>Aen</i>. IX 446-449): epopeya e imperio

In the well known apostrophe fortunati ambo ( Aen . IX 446-449), Virgil ties literary durableness, which is a traditional aim of epic poetry, to the permanence of Roman empire. Nevertheless, this Virgilian analogy is put into question not only by Lucan, who overtly refutes it, but also by the epigones who, like Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus and Statius, look for their own way following in the great predecessor’s footsteps.

Epic from Epigram: The Poetics of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica

This article makes the case for the importance of epigram, in terms of both form and content, for Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica . In the battle scenes of Books 3 and 6, in particular, recurrent allusions to epigrammatic themes unveil Valerius' poetics of epigram that evoke the dead for poetic purposes. As part of this, the apostrophe te quoque serves as an epitaphic gesture that marks the Argonautica , with its recurrent civil war imagery, as an epitaph on the golden age. In addition, Valerius employs these epitaphic markers as an organising device, a narrative "glue" that makes the Iliadic and the Odyssean parts of his narrative hang together.

Apollonius, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius: Argonautic Elements in Thebaid 3.499–647

I argue that Statius appropriated material from the epics of Apollonius and Valerius Flaccus for his depiction of the vatic activity of Melampus and Amphiaraus and the latter's subsequent confrontation with Capaneus in Thebaid 3. I suggest that Statius modeled the confrontation between Capaneus and Amphiaraus on the neikos that erupts between Idas and Idmon in Apollonius' Argonautica . For the consecutive prophecies of Melampus and Amphiaraus, Statius drew inspiration from the dueling prophecies of Mopsus and Idmon in Valerius' poem. In particular, Statius' allusive gestures function to distinguish his epic project from that of his Flavian predecessor.