Valerius Flaccus Research Articles

Some Critical Observations on Valerius Flaccus' ArgonavticaI

This is the first of two articles attempting a literary assessment of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica. It will examine the poem from the beginning to 3. 474, and its successor will cover from 4. 58 to the end. Thus, there will be no overlap with matter already printed in my article, ‘The Hylas Episode in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica’ (C.Q. N.S. xiii [1963], 260–7), and instances of the poet's application in other sections of the same literary principles as in the Hylas story may now be dealt with summarily. The episodes are treated in order of importance rather than of occurrence, with the emphasis at present on broad outlines rather than linguistic or metrical minutiae. Even within these limitations, this assessment does not aim at exhaustiveness. Where a section of the Argonautica is unremarkable and throws little light on Valerius' poetic method, pro re pauca loquar.

The Hylas Episode in Valerius' Argonavtica

Valerius Flacgus has few readers and still fewer admirers, even among classical specialists. Most of us, if we want to refresh our memories of Hylas, will turn to Theocritus' thirteenth Idyll or perhaps to Propertius' statuesque version (1. 20). Apollonius Rhodius is read mainly in his third book, so that his Hylas story at the end of the first is ignored, and Valerius Flaccus is hardly read at all. In the year 1894 W. C. Summers in A Study of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus called for a fair reappraisal of the much-neglected poet. The works of the few scholars who have since attempted a literary assessment lie, for the most part, obscurely stored in the stacks of those Teutonic universities that awarded them a Ph.D.

Agmina Furiarum

Agmina of the Furiae are twice mentioned in the Aeneid, viz., IV 469 Eumenidum veluti demens videt agmina Pentheus and VI 571–572: torvosque sinistra / intentans (sc, Tisiphone) anguis vocat agmina saeva sororum. The use of agmen in this context is surprising, because Virgil, and the Augustan poets in general, retain the classical conception of three Furiae; Virgil mentions Tisiphone, Allecto and Megaera, and Ovid speaks about poenarum … deae triplices (Metam. VIII 481). It is only in the Silver Age — the first instances are to be found in Seneca's tragedies and in Valerius Flaccus — that a greater number of Furiae comes to be mentioned; originally this is an evident imitation of the two passages under discussion (cf. e.g. Sen. Med. 960–961: cui cruentas agmen injernum jaces / intentat with Aen. VI 572) but gradually it becomes clear that a greater number of goddesses of punishment and revenge is meant.

Muses on Pindos

Pindos, the mountain range between Thessaly and Epeiros, is not without renown. It appears first in Pindar (Pythian ix. 15), where in its ‘storied dells’ Kreousa gave birth to Hypseus by the love of the river-god Peneios. It, or more likely the town of the same name in Doris, was known to Pindar (Pythian i. 66) as the home of the Dorians, and it appears in Aeschylus and Sophokles—in the former (Supp. 257) as the north-western boundary of Pelasgos' realm, in the latter (Fr. 249) as the source of the Acheloos. Kallimachos, Theokritos, and Orpheus refer to it, and in Latin it is at least as old as Virgil. We find it in Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Lucan, Silius, and Valerius Flaccus,3 and in the course of antiquity it acquired a reputation as a lofty, wooded mountain which persists in Claudian and through the Dark Ages. Once more it is the setting for an amour of Apollo; Paion's mother, Liagore, receives leech-craft as the price of her favours (Faerie Queene, iii. 4. 41); and the same Spenser praised the whiteness of its snow (Prothalamian, 40). Wordsworth, as he wondered at the torrent at the Devil's Bridge, asked:‘Hath not Pindus fed thee, where the band Of Patriots scoop their freedom out, with hand Desperate as thine?’and it was about the Pindos range that, in 1940, another band of patriots repelled the Italian invasion of their country and won the first Allied victory of World War II.

Below the Horizon

When an observer on land watches a receding ship, the hull is the first part to sink below the horizon, and the masthead is last (conversely, when a ship is approaching, the masthead is first to rise over the horizon). The fact was familiar to Roman poets. Ovid insists on it at length in the Metamorphoses (xi. 466–71), in the story of Alcyone and Ceÿx. Valerius Flaccus puts it very neatly in the Argonautica (i. 494–7), where the women gaze at the departing sails till the sea overtops the mast, donec iam celsior arbore pontus immensusque ratem spectantibus abstulit aer.

Cynthia and the Moon

Previous articleNext article No AccessCynthia and the MoonEdward N. O'NeilEdward N. O'Neil Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 53, Number 1Jan., 1958 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/364210 Views: 9Total views on this site Copyright 1958 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Milton and Valerius Flaccus

Journal Article Milton and Valerius Flaccus Get access C. W. Brodribb C. W. Brodribb Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 175, Issue 23, 3 December 1938, Page 399, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/175.23.399a Published: 03 December 1938

The Date of Composition of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Date of Composition of the Argonautica of Valerius FlaccusRobert J. GettyRobert J. Getty Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 31, Number 1Jan., 1936 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/361893 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Loeb Valerius Flaccus - Valerius Flaccus, with an English translation by J. H. Mozley, Lecturer in Classics in the University of London. Pp. xxi+458. (Loeb Classical Library.) London: Heinemann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), 1934. Cloth, 10s. (leather, 12s. 6d.).

The Loeb Valerius Flaccus - Valerius Flaccus, with an English translation by J. H. Mozley, Lecturer in Classics in the University of London. Pp. xxi+458. (Loeb Classical Library.) London: Heinemann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), 1934. Cloth, 10s. (leather, 12s. 6d.). - Volume 49 Issue 2

TheArgonautica of Valerius Flaccus.

The Flavian writers of epic verse took their business seriously enough and seldom permitted themselves anything that might pass for an allusion to contemporary events: so much so that only an ingenuity that runs a risk of being perverse can wrest from them much more than what they have themselves chosen to say in their dedications or invocations. Where the man survived to complete and edit his work, such a dedication, the last thing to be written, more or less bears on its face the date of publication. The proem of the Thebaïs of Statius and the ‘Flavian Panegyric,’ which Silius Italicus inserted in the third book of his Punica thus reveal, to within a year, when the whole of the one and a portion of the other were given to the world, viz. in 91–2 and in 92–3 respectively. With an unfinished work the case is different; indeed, the very presence of that panegyric might sufficeto prove that though Silius had reached the end, in a fashion, when he finished his seventeenth book, he did not truly complete his poem or himself publish it as a whole. In order to determine at what date he got as far with his poem as he ever did, some other source of information is therefore desirable. Similarly with the Argonautica. Valerius Flaccus does not appear to have composed any more than the eight books that have come down to us, nor is he known to have published any part of them save, if at all, by recitation. It is for this reason that the proem, with its invocation of Vespasian, to all appearance as still living, has always been taken to be, not a later insertion, but an integral part of the first book, and thus a clear indication of the date at which Valerius began his task.

The Argonautica of Gaius Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus, Book I, Translated into English Prose, with Introduction and Notes

The Argonautica of Gaius Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus, Book I, Translated into English Prose, with Introduction and Notes

Summers on the Argonautiga - A Study of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, by Walter C. Summers, B.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co.London: G. Bell & Sons.) 2s. 6d.

Summers on the Argonautiga - A Study of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, by Walter C. Summers, B.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell &amp; Co.London: G. Bell &amp; Sons.) 2<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.