Callimachus’ Aetia and Aeneas’ Sicily

Abstract

which strictly speaking is superfluous to the description of the time of year. As scholars have often noted, the Georgics is strongly marked by recurrent clusters of language and imagery. 13 A reference to Hydra would look back to Virgil's disquisition on snakes in G. 3 (414-39; cf. esp. pestis acerba boum, 419), and his marked interest in serpentine constellations in G. 1 (cf. lucidus Anguis 205, maximus hic flexu sinuoso elabitur Anguis/ circum perque duas in morem fluminis Arctos 244-5). And turning forward to the epyllion in the second half of the fourth Georgic, we discover this crucial scene, where again a nymph fleeing on foot through a riverine landscape plunges into the underworld after an unhappy encounter with a watersnake: illa quidem, dum te fugeret per flumina praeceps, immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella servantem ripas alta non vidit in herba. Compare: bis gravidos cogunt fetus, duo tempora messis: Taygete simul os terris ostendit honestum Pleas et Oceani spretos pede reppulit amnis, aut eadem sidus fugiens ubi Pestis aquosae tristior hibernas caelo descendit in undas. The pestis/Hydra hypothesis must stand or fall on the technical merits outlined above; but if it is correct, then we may assert that the vignette of Taygete and Hydra is a stellar foreshadowing of the tragic incident that sets the events of the epyllion in motion.

Hospitality Narratives in Virgil and Callimachus: The Ideology of Reception

“…20 Harder (2012a) and(2012b). For case-studies of reception of the Aetia in the Aeneid see, e.g., Tissol (1992); Geymonat (1993); Wills (1998); Konstan (2000); Nappa (2004); Cairns (2005); Nelis (2005); Acosta-Hughes (2008); Reed (2008); Fratantuono and McOsker (2010). O'Hara (2001) treats mostly of other Callimachean texts, but includes some references to the Aetia.…”