The myth of the Argonauts was among the most popular subjects in ancient literature and the visual arts from the archaic period onwards. Writing in the Flavian era, Valerius stands late in a long and rich tradition. His reworking of the myth is an ambitious undertaking that exploits a wide spectrum of Argonautic and non-Argonautic sources - not only epic, but tragedy and lyric; not only poetry, but prose (Hershkowitz 1998b: 38-66 provides a helpful overview). This complex literary genealogy notwithstanding, it is widely recognized that Valerius’ principal artistic debts are to Apollonius and Virgil, that he grafts on to the narrative body of the former the poetic language and thematic concerns of the latter. It will be useful to elaborate upon, as well as explore the limits of, this popular critical formulation.
Apollonius Rhodius
In shaping the overall plot of his epic, Valerius conforms closely to Apollonius’ Argonau-tica (see Chapter 25, by Nelis). The basic story line includes much of the familiar Apollonian material, and generally adheres to the order of events in the Hellenistic epic. From Apollonius Valerius takes the gathering of heroes, the Hylas subplot (by which Hercules is lost to the expedition), the stopover on Lemnos (complete with a flashback to the massacre of Lemnian males), the hospitality and inadvertent death of Cyzicus, Pollux’s boxing match with Amycus, Phineus and the Harpies, the perilous passage through the Clashing Rocks, Jason’s trials in Colchis (yoking bronze bulls, slaying earth-born men), Juno’s plot to have Medea fall in love with Jason (achieved with the help of Venus), Medea’s magical assistance of Jason both in the trials and the acquisition of the fleece, her desperate flight to Greece with the Argonauts, the pursuit of a Colchian fleet led by her brother Absyrtus, and the hasty marriage of Jason and Medea en route. At the same time, Valerius adds a number of new episodes. In Book 1, for example, nothing after the catalog (350-483) is derived from Apollonius. The storm at sea (1.574-658) is perhaps a somewhat predictable post-Virgilian supplement to the Apollonian narrative, but the necromancy (730-51, indebted to Lucan’s Erichtho episode) and the suicide of Jason’s parents (771-850, discussed below) represent more significant departures from the Hellenistic poem, in which neither parent comes to any harm. In later books the rescue of Hesione from a sea-monster (2.431-539, perhaps inspired by Diod. Sic. 4.42), the deliverance of Prometheus by Hercules (4.58-81, 5.154-76), and above all the Colchian civil war (6.1-760) do not occur in Apollonius. Conversely, a number of Apollonian episodes are omitted, including the battle with the Giants (Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.942-1011), the attack of the Stymphalian birds (2.1030-92) and the encounter with the sons of Phrixus (2.1093-1230). It also seems likely that Valerius had in mind to omit much of Apollonius’ account of the return voyage.
While his debt to Apollonius is clearly substantial, Valerius operates principally on a schematic level: his treatment of the episodes themselves is invariably innovative. The Greek Argonautica is often brilliant in its treatment of individual scenes, but is generally considered to suffer from ‘‘episodicity’’: it does not provide particularly strong thematic or structural links between the different parts of the narrative. The Hellenistic poem unfolds according to a guiding aesthetic that privileges miniaturization, fragmentation, digression, and episodic juxtaposition. Valerius, by contrast, consistently strives to create strong causal, thematic, and symbolic connections between different episodes (Venini 1971: 606).
The reshaping of Apollonius’ narrative to create intricately interrelated episodes is perhaps most compellingly seen in Valerius’ handling of Prometheus, the Titan enduring repetitive torture by Jupiter for his technological assistance to humankind. The Hellenistic
Argonautica includes an account of the Argonauts passing by the site of the Titan’s captivity (Ap. Rhod. Arg. 2.1246-50) and witnessing a round of his grim torture by Jupiter’s liver-pecking bird, but this is a stand-alone episode that has no vital connection to the enclosing narrative. Apollonius’ account of Prometheus is cyclical in its implications, with no hint of remission: the suffering Titan is merely a part of the scenery viewed by the Argonauts en route to Colchis. In the Roman epic, by contrast, Prometheus is freed from his bondage and torture, and the scene of deliverance is the climactic event of the outward voyage. The episode serves as the culmination of a elaborate narrative sequence that starts in the first book of the poem with Juno’s diatribe against her hated stepson Hercules (1.113-19). After being separated from his comrades through that goddess’s machinations, Hercules is ordered by Jupiter to liberate Prometheus (4.58-81). Somewhat later in the narrative, the mighty ex-Argonaut arrives, simultaneously with but separately fTom the ‘‘Argo’’ itself, at the Caucasus, site of the Titan’s captivity, and sets about ripping away his adamantine fetters (5.154-76).
Valerius’ inclusion of Prometheus’ deliverance within the framework of the Argonautic legend is a bold innovation, unattested elsewhere in ancient literature. Although less than fifty lines are devoted to the liberation scene, it is of immense thematic importance. Prometheus was for the ancients both the source and symbol of human technology, and hence a figure of obvious significance in an epic on the inception of navigation. Moreover, his deliverance is the last and most important aristeia of Hercules, the greatest of the Argonauts. In structural terms, a crucial aspect of the Prometheus narrative is its division into two parts (4.58-81, 5.154-76). This is significant because the two sections enclose a series of episodes - the boxing match between Pollux and Amycus (4.99-343), the inset tale of lo (4.344-421), the encounter with the prophet Phineus (4.422-646), and the traversal of the Clashing Rocks (4.637-710) - all of which resonate with the Promethean frame, contributing to the issues of civilizing progress and theodicy that the Titan inevitably evokes. The result is an intricately crafted narrative sequence that illustrates Valerius’ ability to adapt the mythological and literary tradition to produce complex thematic movements unexampled in Apollonius.
In transforming the Apollonian episode, Valerius establishes various points of contact with the sympathetic treatment of the Titan in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. In this respect, the most telling enclosure of the Promethean framing narrative is the tale of Io, an Argive princess who suffers the jealous wrath of Juno because of Jupiter’s amorous attention. This is the only enclosed passage without an exemplar in Apollonius; it creates a suggestive structural correspondence with the Prometheus Bound, of which the extended Io episode (561-886) is the most important section. The mythologically arbitrary but thematically powerful connection of Io to the plight of Prometheus was almost certainly an Aeschylean invention. Valerius’ Io narrative not only provides a structural mirroring of the Prometheus Bound, but also replays the Aeschylean investigation of theodicy in a nascent Jovian cosmos. Unlike the tragedy, however, stress is placed on the suffering heroine’s final ascension to godhead from the outset (Arg. 4.346), and there is a marked improvement in the presentation of Jupiter, who emerges as a more sublime and equitable figure.
Another enclosed episode that reflects directly upon the ‘‘Promethean’’ frame is that of the blind prophet Phineus, whom the Argonauts deliver from the tormenting Harpies (4.422-636). Although largely based on the corresponding episode in Apollonius, it deviates from its model in one important respect by symbolically casting Phineus as a second Prometheus figure (Mehmel 1934: 30). Like Prometheus, Phineus has been punished by Jupiter for trying to improve mortal existence: for attempting to ‘‘shed light’’ on the future through prophecy. The attribution of the seer’s actions to compassion for humankind (4.479-81) elaborates the motif of the suffering culture hero, signaling his status as a symbolic double of Prometheus. In addition, Valerius deftly exploits the similar plight of the two figures, both of whom Jupiter afflicts with winged tormentors: Prometheus’ liver-devouring vulture is matched by the Harpies, who descend from the air to disrupt Phineus’ meals by stealing and polluting his food. The assimilation of Phineus to Prometheus allows the poet indirectly to mitigate the notorious belligerence that traditionally marked the relationship between the Titan and Jupiter. Jovian compassion is matched by Phineus’ contrition, thereby introducing a strong note of reconciliation into the Promethean equation. All of this, of course, is far removed from Apollonius’ account, attesting to Valerius’ impressive ability radically to transform the narrative material of his Hellenistic predecessor.
Virgil
If Apollonius is the primary source on the level of plot, Valerius makes Virgil his principal model on the linguistic, conceptual, and thematic levels. In general terms the Roman Argonautica eschews the ‘‘epic objectivity’’ often said to be characteristic of the Homeric poems, opting instead for a more Virgilian exploration of the subjective experiences of his characters - their feelings, emotions, and moral judgments. The Flavian epic manifests a heightened interest in private thoughts and the workings of the human psyche under stressful or perilous circumstances. It tends to focus as much on the psychological impact of narrative action as on the action itself (Mehmel 1934: 22), and its persistent striving for pathos goes somewhat beyond the Aeneid.
The language of the Argonautica is classicizing, elevated - and for the most part noticeably Virgilian. Valerius inherited from his Augustan predecessor an epic diction that was fully elaborated on the technical level, and to a large extent resolved into quasiformulaic phrases that could be appropriated as the need arose (Nordera 1969: 1). It is with Flavian epic, and Valerius in particular, that the tendency of Latin epic to reproduce Virgilian language and modes of expression first emerges (Summers 1894: 24; Nordera 1969: 6-7). In addition, Valerius shuns rhetorical exuberance and an uninhibited “aesthetic of the gruesome’’, two notorious hallmarks of ‘‘Silver’’ Latin literature. But while these aspects attest to something like a Virgilian ‘‘generic ethos,’’ this is by no means the whole story. As scholars have long recognized, the Argonautica exhibits a number of decidedly un-Virgilian features, such as pervasive irony, brevity of expression, referential obscurity, and a certain artificiality of conceit. It takes more than a glance, for example, to grasp that ‘‘Alcides has long since enclosed his brow in the gaping jaws of Cleone’’ (‘‘Cleonaeo iam tempora clausus hiatu/Alcides,’’ Arg. 1.34-5) means that Hercules has slain the Nemean lion (i. e. by virtue of the fact that he is wearing its hide). Such touches have led some critics to characterize Valerius as a ‘‘mannerist’’ or ‘‘baroque’’ poet reacting - like Lucan and Statius - to the classicism of Virgilian epic (Nordera 1969: 84-6; Burck 1971: 5-23). It follows fTom the above that Valerius’ poetic style is considerably more difficult than Virgil’s. Unlike the Aeneid, which privileges immediacy and clarity, the Argonautica often lapses into an aesthetically distanced and ‘‘anti-popular’’ style, full of deliberate obscurities and formal refinements that impose a daunting hermeneutic burden on the reader.
Valerius’ debt to Virgil is nowhere more clearly seen than in the tendency to opt for large-scale episodic mirroring of the Aeneid. One of the earliest examples of such imitation is found in the storm scene at Arg. 1.574-658. While drawing inspiration from Diod. Sic. 4.43, and perhaps owing something to Hom. Od. 5.282-450, Valerius’ sea storm is primarily modeled on Virg. Aen. 1.50-156, with which it maintains an overt and sustained parallelism. A more complex and suggestive practice is the large-scale mirroring of a model passage in a substantially different narrative domain. This intertextual stratagem first occurs in the account of the Argonauts’ departure in Book 1, which systematically ‘‘replays’’ Virgh’s treatment of Aeneas’ leave-taking of Dido in the second half of Aeneid 4. Jason’s words at Arg. 1.198, non sponte feror, have long been recognized as an echo of Aeneas’ Italiam non sponte sequor (Aen. 4.361). The statement invokes the context of the model passage and initiates a sustained intertextual engagement with the narrative in Aeneid 4. The imitation continues with a dream visitation (1.302-8) in which the tutelary spirit of the Argo urges immediate departure, clearly modeled on Aen. 4.553-83. Shortly afterwards, Jason’s parents decide, like Dido, to commit suicide (albeit for very different reasons). They perform a necromancy and then, just prior to taking his own life, Aeson utters a curse against Pelias (Arg. 1.788-815), corresponding structurally to Dido’s prophetic curse against Aeneas at Aen. 4.607-29. These parallels are strengthened by careful reworking of the language and formulations of the Virgilian model (Arg. 1.795-810 contains numerous reminiscences of Aen. 4.607-17). Finally, it is worth noting that both textual sequences conclude with a suicide at the end of a book, and that the opening passage of the subsequent book describes the hero sailing off in blissful ignorance.
The precise effects of such large-scale engagements vary from case to case, but they are rarely mere formal recapitulations devoid of thematic or figural force. In the present instance, the echo of Virgil’s Dido episode has broader significance as the early connotation of a tragic destiny that will become increasingly prominent in the second half of the epic. In Valerius’ final books, the union of Jason and Medea will be narrated through dense allusion to Virgilian models of sexual and marital negativity, Aeneas and Dido in particular (Hardie 1993: 91). On the intertextual level, Jason thus follows a trajectory that replays the tragedy of Dido not as an isolated misstep in an otherwise exemplary heroic career, but rather as an all-encompassing paradigm that adumbrates an irrevocably grim destiny.
As profound as Valerius’ debt to Apollonius and Virgil undoubtedly is, it has sometimes been overemphasized in modern criticism, often at the expense of other aspects of Valerius’ intertextual program. Additional influences, especially Homeric (Fua 1988; Zissos 2002), but also of poets such as Pindar, Catullus, Ovid, Seneca, and Lucan, and historians such as Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, are more significant than is generally recognized. Indeed, the Argonautica is insistently hypertextual in nature: dense, multilevel allusivity is a defining and constitutive feature of the poem. In contemplating almost any passage in the poem, the reader’s awareness of Valerius’ reception and reworking of a wide spectrum of earlier literature is a crucial determinant of the aesthetic effect. The Argonautica is also shot through with self-consciousness, demonstrating a particular predilection for referring to its own belated status that owes more to Ovidian epic technique than to either Apollonius or Virgil. Valerius repeatedly draws attention to his own status as a poetic ‘‘recycler,’’ or to his mediating role as a selector of variants within the tradition (Malamud and McGuire 1993; Zissos 1999). Such metaliterary strategies depend upon a rich and diverse intertextual program.
World History
