Hypermestra’s Querela : Coopting the Danaids in Horace Ode 3.11 and in Augustan Rome

Abstract

This paper considers questions raised by two historically coincident treatments of the Danaids: one in the narrative sequence central to Horace’s Odes 3.11, another the deployment of Danaus’ fifty daughters as intercolumnar ornaments surrounding the Palatine Temple of Apollo and represented by the three archaizing female herm-figures in nero antico now displayed in the Palatine Antiquarium. Although not, as popularly believed, shown actively murdering their husbands, their grimly regimented appearance adumbrates punishment as water-bearers. Yet Horace’s Hypermestra, left complaining of her own punishment for “pious impietas ,” fares little better. Uneasy co-optation links paternal authority with political propaganda.