Pâris, Hélène et les autres : quelques considérations sur les personnages du Romul. 8 de Dracontius

Abstract

Living in the fifth century CE, the poet Dracontius challenges the Homeric tradition by choosing to tell one more time the story of the Rape of Helen (Romul. 8). In his reworking of a well-known myth, Dracontius shapes his characters by employing epic mannerisms, such as similes, ekphraseis, narratorial interventions, and epithets, all of which play a part in establishing the typology of each character and giving them narrative coherence. On the one hand, the poem surveys some old questions concerning these literary characters (the legitimacy of Paris in a heroic world, the possible guilt of Helen, Hecuba or Priam, Hector’s function, the role of Cassandra and Helenus), while on the other hand the myth becomes a pretext allowing the poet to reflect on the human condition, especially in relation to the problem of personal responsibility, the force of fate, the inevitability of crime, the performative power of speech and its excesses.