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P. OXY. 2078, Vat.gr. 2228, and Vergil's Choaron

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Raymond J. Clark
Raymond J. Clark*
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland, rjclark@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
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Extract

I shall argue the likelihood that Vergil took Aeacus’ speech as his model for Charon's, as part of Aeneas’ newly created journey through Vergil's expanded topography of Hades.

The four Greek verses just quoted, addressed by Aeacus to Heracles, and Heracles’ reply in twelve, were first published separately by Rabe, and then inserted by Page as verses 16–19 and 20–31 between surviving frs. 1 and 2 of P.Oxy. 2078, to be ascribed in all likelihood to the lost Pirithous of Euripides, rather than to the slightly later Critias.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , May 2000, pp. 192 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 Translation by Knight, W. F. Jackson, Virgil: The Aeneid (Harmondsworth, 1956), 159.Google Scholar

2 Text and translation by Page, D. L., Select Papyri III (Cambridge, MA, 1962), 120–5, at 122–3.Google Scholar

3 H. Rabe, ‘Aus Rhetoren-Handschriften', RM 63 (1908), 127–51, esp. 144–5. Rabe in all published eleven more verses than A. Nauck, fr. 591 (containing five verses of Heracles’ reply) in TrGF (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 1889; repr. Hildesheim, 1964), 547.

4 Page considered parts of frs. 1 and 2 and all of frs. 3–5 of P.Oxy. 2078, ed. Hunt, A. S., The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 17 (London, 1927), 36–45 Google Scholar to be too incoherent for inclusion in his own edition (n. 2 above), from which he omits also frs. 592–600, ed. Nauck, TrGF 548–50.

5 Ancient testimonies on authorship collected by Nauck, TrGF 546–50 and 770 are assessed in favour of Euripides by Page (n. 2), 120–3.

6 The first known instance is depicted in a scene on one of the Peloponnesian shield-bands datable to c. 600 B.G, for which see e.g. Schefold, K., Myth and Legend in Early Greek Art (London, 1966), 69 Google Scholar, fig. 24; followed by Polygnotus in his famous mid-fifth-century wall-painting in the Cnidian Lesche at Delphi described by Paus. 10.29.9.

7 First recorded by the fifth-century epic poet Panyassis ap. Paus. 10.29.9.

8 Most of the variants can most easily be found in J. G. Frazer on Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.12 and Epit. 1.21 and in H. Herter, RE Suppl. 13 (1973), ‘Theseus’, 1176–7, 1203–5. Theseus’ rescue alone is mentioned in Eur.'s play Her. 619 and 1169–70.

9 W. E. H. Cockle's reading in ‘P.Oxy. xvii. 2078: Euripides (?) or Critias (?), Pirithous', CR 20 (1970), 136–7, which is palaeographically closer to his own transcription corrected from Hunt (n. 4), 40 (verse 33).

10 Called by Page (n. 2), 120 ‘a great innovation.’ So Diod. 4.26.1 and Hyg. Fab. 79.

11 On the Eleusinianization of Heracles in the sixth century, see H. Lloyd-Jones, ‘Heracles at Eleusis: P.Oxy. 2622 and P.S.I. 1391', Maia n.s. 19 (1967), 206–29 with refs. An Eleusinian alternative underlies Amphitryon's enquiry in Eur. Her. Fur. 610–13 as to whether Heracles obtained Cerberus by a fight or as a gift from Persephone; for representations of an initiated Heracles in new-style Cerberus scenes, see Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Three related Cerberi’, Antike Kunst 17 (1974), 30–5, and for scenes of this kind introduced on Athenian vases c 530 B.c, see J. Boardman, ‘Herakles, Peisistratos and Eleusis’, JHS 95 (1975), 1–12 with plates I–IV.

12 See J. G. Frazer on Apollod. Bibl. 3.11.2 with refs.

13 So Diod. 4.63.5. Also Pausanias 10.29.9 who says that Polygnotus’ mural (n. 6 above) depicted Theseus and Pirithous both still seated in Hades at the time of Odysseus’ visit, perhaps inferred from the doubtfully authentic verse, Horn. Od. 11.631.

14 That is, if Varro ap. Lactantius, Div. Instit. 1.6.9 correctly reports Naevius as mentioning the Cimmerian Sibyl in the Bellum Punicum (whose first two books cover the annals of Aeneas), from which P. Corssen, ‘Die Sibylle im sechsten Buch der Aeneis’, Sokrates 1 (1913), 12 infers the evocatio mentioned in the text. It is unlikely that such a nekyomanteion would have entailed an elaborate topography of Hades.

15 see Perret, J., Virgile: Connaissance des lettres (Paris, 1965), 115–16.Google Scholar

16 Norden, E., P. Vergilius Maw: Aeneis Buch VI3 (Leipzig and Berlin, 1926), 5 Google Scholar, n. 2 lists the places where he discusses similarities pertinent to Vergil. For want of credibility I have omitted Norden's similar claim regarding the bird-simile in Soph. O.T. 175ff. on grounds argued in my ‘Two Virgilian similes and the Ηρακλέους κατάβασις’, Phoenix 24 (1970), 248–9.

17 To support the possibility that it survived to Vergil's day, H. Lloyd-Jones (in a letter to me dated 16 March 1971) suggests analogy with the Aethiopis, which E. Fraenkel thinks Vergil may have read directly; ‘Vergil und die Aithiopis', Philologus 87 (1932), 242–8 = Kleine Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 2 (Roma, 1964), 173–9, and writes: ‘consider how many early epics are cited by Pausanias; did he know them all from summaries or citations?’

18 Norden (n. 16), 239 on Verg. Aen. 6.395–6.

19 Cited in n. 11 above; on the location of the similes within the Pindaric underworld, see further my article cited in n. 16 above.

20 As the cause of anger Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Reading’ Greek Death to the End of the Classical Period (Oxford, 1995), 308–9 accepts Servius’ explanation that Charon was punished by being put in fetters for a whole year for having ferried Heracles across the water in a catabasis by Orpheus drawn upon by Vergil—according to Norden (n. 16), 237, Charon must have complained to Orpheus himself about Heracles—and she further believes that this story of Charon's punishment also lies behind Charon's anger mentioned in Achaios, TrGF 1.20F11, which accordingly provides a terminus post quern for the (possibly sixth century B.C.) Orphic descent.

21 Together with whatever influence Vergil merged from the source mentioned in the previous note.

22 For support of my research I am very grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.