1) THE FIRST SHIP (TO LAND): INC. FR. 63 BLÄNSDORF, CATULLUS 64 AND VIRGIL, AEN. 10.290–307

To begin with Virgil, the partial line that Hollis quotes at Aen. 10.296 ( sulcum que sibi premat ipsa carina ) mirrors our fragment ( sulcum premit alta carina ) precisely in word choice, order and position in the line and in metrical rhythm, so the existence of an allusive relationship is clear. But the larger context surrounding Virgil's line, which Hollis does not consider, reveals a more complex allusive gesture on Virgil's part. At this point in the poem, Aeneas is returning to the Trojan encampment, bringing new allies down the Tiber from Pallanteum and neighbouring cities. The majority of the fleet approaches cautiously, with the soldiers slowly trying to gain the riverbank by gangplank, pinnace or simply wading. Tarchon, leader of the Etruscans, however, urges his men to ram their ships right onto shore (10.290–302):

Tarchon's decision to beach his ship by force finds a probable model in Thucydides’ account of Brasidas (4.11–12), a Spartan captain who recklessly drove his boat ashore against the Athenians at Pylos, but the motivational speech Virgil has him deliver alludes significantly to Apollonius’ Argon. 4.225–7, which Hollis has identified as the Greek passage that corresponds to our fragment.Footnote ⁶ In this scene, the Argonauts have only just launched their ship and escaped the river Phasis before Aeetes learns the Golden Fleece is missing:

Virgil's findite (295) matches Apollonius’ ἔταμνε (225), and his phrase ualidis incumbite remis (294) reproduces Apollonius’ κρατεροῖσιν ἐπειγομένη ἐρέτῃσι (226) nearly word-for-word and in identical order and position at line end; what is more, the compound verb incumbere nearly calques on ἐπείγειν.Footnote ⁷ In both passages the ships also rush from a river, Tarchon's from the Tiber onto the shore and Jason's from the Phasis into the Black Sea. But Virgil meaningfully modifies his Greek model, as we see when we compare it with another allusive source in the background, Catull. 64.1–15:Footnote ⁸

Virgil's passage is shot through with allusions to Catullus’ epyllion: Virgil's uada (291) picks up Catullus’ uada salsa (6); Virgil's lecta manus (294) points to Catullus’ lecti iuuenes (4); Virgil's ualidis … remis evokes the idea of strength conveyed by Catullus’ robora (4) and mirrors the strenuous activity in his uerrentes abiegnis … palmis (7) and tortaque remigio (13); Virgil's inimicam findite rostris | hanc terram (295–6) parallels Catullus’ rostro uentosum proscidit aequor (12) and the sense of violence against the natural world that runs throughout Catullus’ poem (for example, imbuit Amphitriten, 11).Footnote ⁹

Virgil's incorporation of Catullus’ epyllion into Tarchon's landing represents more than mere stylistic virtuosity. It also acts as a ‘window reference’ by which Virgil creatively reworks Apollonius. Notably, Virgil reverses the direction in which the ships are moving, with Tarchon going from river to land rather than from river to open ocean, as Jason does. More significantly, he also inverts the direction from which danger threatens the ship: Jason and the Argonauts are trying to escape confrontation with the Colchians, but Tarchon drives his men into battle with the Italians as quickly as possible. For Apollonius, the Argo's departure from the river Phasis represents an attempt to minimize violence and to leave behind the scene of transgressive crime. But whereas Apollonius’ Argo flees from Aeetes ‘with the current of the great river as it moves downward’ (μεγάλου ποταμοῖο καταβλώσκοντι ῥεέθρῳ, 4.227), Catullus’ Argo, though likewise launching into the ocean, is progressing towards Aeetes and the river Phasis (Phasidos ad fluctus et fines Aeeteos, 3) and thus towards the theft of the Golden Fleece and violent trespass against Colchis (auratam optantes Colchis auertere pellem, 5). The lines’ parallel structures highlight the sense of inversion: Apollonius and Catullus begin their phrases with the rivers in the genitive (μεγάλου ποταμοῖο; Phasidos) and end by mentioning the current (ῥεέθρῳ; fluctus), but Catullus replaces Apollonius’ verbal prefix denoting motion away (καταβλώσκοντι) with a preposition denoting motion towards (ad) in the same intermediary position between the river and its current.

At the same time, and in contrast to Apollonius’ epic, where the Argo is not the first ship and its voyage represents an heroic version of an everyday activity, the Argo's launch in Catullus 64 marks the moment when sailing is first invented. This notion becomes standard in the Roman tradition after Catullus, who first identifies the Argo as a symbol of transgression and decline.Footnote ¹⁰ The opening of Catullus 64 stresses the Argo's violation of natural and divine limits, equating its launch with an act of rape that stains the sea (imbuit Amphitriten, 11) and ends the Golden Age.Footnote ¹¹ Virgil's allusions to Catullus 64 here colour his Greek model with this idea, turning Apollonius’ launch of the Argo to escape hostility into the landing of Tarchon's ship for the express purpose of initiating violence.Footnote ¹² Tarchon's orders to ‘plough this unfriendly land with your prows and let the keel itself imprint its furrow’ (inimicam findite rostris | hanc terram, sulcumque sibi premat ipsa carina, 10.295–6) convey a sense of transgression against Italy, itself the site of a localized Golden Age once upon a time under Saturn and again under Latinus, tainting Aeneas’ return with dark undertones that are characteristic of Catullus’ defiling Argo.Footnote ¹³

Virgil's sulcumque sibi premat (10.296) also adds the idea that this event is momentous, as it mirrors the metaphorical terminology that Catullus uses throughout the opening of poem 64 to signify the primacy of the Argo. Indeed, this quality is the reason Isidore quotes our fragment in the first place: ‘it combines the use of the land with water, because ploughing and cutting a furrow pertain to the land, not to the sea’ (miscuit usum terrae aquis, cum arare et sulcum premere ad terram pertineat, non ad mare, 1.37.3). Catullus pointedly avoids words that properly describe sailing and shipbuilding throughout poem 64's beginning, borrowing terminology from other fields of human activity: nasse (2), uerrentes … palmis (7), uolitantem … currum (9), pinea … texta (10), imbuit (11), rostro … proscidit (12), monstrum (15) and aequor (7, 12), the last of which meant ‘plain’ originally before acquiring its nautical sense later.Footnote ¹⁴ Catullus’ metaphorical terms play a significant role within the narrative of the poem: as the first ship (prima, 11), the Argo predates the advent of nautical words, so metaphorical equivalents are needed to stand in for a vocabulary of sailing that has yet to come into being.Footnote ¹⁵

Varro likewise seems to have employed this metaphorical technique in his Argonautae to emphasize that the Argo was the first ship, as I have recently argued.Footnote ¹⁶ Varro, fr. 2 Blänsdorf draws on the same class of chariot-racing metaphors as Catullus’ currum (64.9), referring to the helmsman of the Argo as auriga ‘charioteer’:

This line corresponds to Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.400–1:

Although reasonable equivalents for each of Varro's words can be found in Apollonius’ line, his metaphorical auriga is almost unparalleled in extant Latin literature, appearing for the first time here and only once more, at Ov. Tr. 1.4.16, which itself alludes to Varro's line.Footnote ¹⁷ Moreover, each word in Varro's line, except for the proper name Tiphys, has an equivalent in Catull. 64.9–10 that is closer than its ostensible source in Apollonius: the main verbs in each are perfect forms of fecere; carinae stands at the same prominent position at the end of a line in both; and Varro's celeris corresponds to Catullus’ leui … uolitantem flamine and to his emphasis on the swiftness of the Argo throughout the passage. Varro's celeris also hints at an etymology for the ship's name from ἀργός ‘swift’, which Richard Thomas demonstrates stands in the background of Catullus’ lines here as well.Footnote ¹⁸ These multiple points of contact suggest that Varro in fr. 2 Blänsdorf is alluding to the opening of Catullus 64, specifically to Catullus’ metaphorical currus, through his unusual usage of auriga. Varro thus takes Apollonius’ Argo and allusively colours it with Catullus’ darker, more transgressive version of the same ship.

As Hollis shows, inc. fr. 63 Blänsdorf, which he and I argue is from Varro's Argonautae, also has reasonable equivalents in its apparent Greek source at Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.225–6:

Apollonius’ πόντον ἔταμνε (225) can be seen to stand behind pontum … arat and sulcum premit and νηῦς (226) can be represented metonymically and synecdochically by pinus and carina, both of which are particularly apt for the Argo, as Hollis’ argument quoted above shows.Footnote ¹⁹ But our fragment finds closer parallels in the opening of Catullus 64, especially in its use of metaphors borrowed from terrestrial activity: pinus is used in precisely the same way as at Catull. 64.1, functioning as subject of the main verb; the phrases pontum … arat and sulcum premit parallel proscidit aequor at Catull. 64.12, with all three denoting the act of ploughing and lending the action a sense of violent transgression; finally, as at Catull. 64.10 and Varro, fr. 2 Blänsdorf, carina stands prominently at line end, and the rhythm of our fragment's alta carina is identical to that of Catullus’ texta carinae. Our fragment's author is reading Apollonius’ poem through a Catullan lens, reworking his primary source for a new Roman context. Varro probably followed Catullus’ lead in making his Argo the first ship in contravention of what Apollonius himself had written, creating an allusively complex adaptation of the Greek epic.Footnote ²⁰ Our fragment thus shows the same methods and relationship to Apollonius’ and Catullus’ texts as the other fragments and testimonia of Varro's Argonautae.

Returning to Virgil, we can see that Tarchon's speech likewise reads Apollonius through a Catullan ‘window reference’, and not only that, but it also introduces our fragment as an additional ‘window’ that views Apollonius and Catullus 64 together. Inc. fr. 63 Blänsdorf uses Catullus 64 to modify Apollonius in precisely the same way as Varro does in fr. 2 Blänsdorf, and Virgil in turn uses Catullus together with our fragment to rework Apollonius. In this complex allusive process, Virgil imports the darker tones of the Argonautic myth from the Roman tradition to his Aeneid: what in Apollonius’ poem had been the Argonauts’ attempt to launch their ship to escape further bloodshed, when viewed through Catullus’ and Varro's versions of the Argo's journey, becomes Tarchon's attempt to hasten the conflict between the Trojans and the Italians and to violate Latium's sovereign soil with his ship.

Virgil reinforces these allusions to the Argo's transgressive sailing in Catullus and Varro throughout this passage by elaborating the imagery of sexual violence and violation in Tarchon's attack.Footnote ²¹ Before he starts his speech, Virgil explains Tarchon's motivation for his choice to ram the beach: he sees a spot ‘where the shoals do not heave and the wave does not rumble back as it breaks’ (qua uada non spirant nec fracta remurmurat unda, 10.291). This description suggests purity and peace, and anthropomorphizes the landscape: the Italian coast is virginal (nec fracta) and breathes evenly in a soundless repose (non spirant nec … remurmurat).Footnote ²² Tarchon's order to ‘plough this unfriendly land with your prows and let the keel itself imprint its furrow’ stands out as all the more shocking when we observe the vulnerability of Italy's posture, which heightens the sense that he is about to commit an act of metaphorical rape. The close of his speech makes the eroticized violence clearer. Tarchon tells his men that they may ‘break their ship’ (frangere … puppim, 297) ‘once the earth has been taken’ (arrepta tellure semel, 298). Latin terms for ‘to break’, as in nec fracta at line 291, can be used to describe the penetration of women, but they also denote men's ejaculation, while rapere and its compounds regularly represent acts of sexual aggression or outright rape.Footnote ²³ As we will see next, this passage previews Tarchon's shipwreck, where Virgil develops the sexualized imagery of the Etruscan's landing even more fully.

The Argo's primacy in Catullus and in Varro is particularly significant here, because, in the Roman tradition that they initiated, the Argo as first ship is linked with destructive audacia. Catullus signals this connection from the start at 64.6 ( ausi sunt uada salsa cita decurrere puppi), and no doubt it appeared prominently in Varro's Argonautae, if its frequency and thematic centrality in his successors is any indication.Footnote ²⁴ No one else in Aeneas’ fleet dares to run their ships onto land, so Tarchon displays egregious boldness.Footnote ²⁵ As a result of his recklessness, his ship alone shatters against the shore (10.302–7):

Rarely does audacia in epic go unchallenged, and the terra inimica Tarchon intends to penetrate fights back, giving this scene and the war in Italy an ominous feeling.Footnote ²⁶ Here too Virgil deploys sexually charged metaphor that connects Tarchon's ship with Catullus’ and Varro's transgressive Argo. The shore resists by turning its ‘back’ (dorso, 303), but Tarchon's ship has already begun the act, moving back and forth (anceps) and taking its time as it works at the tide (sustentata diu fluctusque fatigat, 304) until the moment of release (soluitur) when the ship finally discharges its men into the waves (uiros mediis exponit in undis, 305).Footnote ²⁷ Ovid certainly picked up the eroticism of this passage, to which he alludes in his vivid depiction of edging and sexual climax at the end of the second book of his Ars Amatoria.Footnote ²⁸

Despite the land's resistance and the inauspicious start to the war in Italy, Tarchon seems none the worse for wear: Virgil abandons him immediately after the shipwreck, but he reappears at 11.182–202 with Aeneas to gather and burn their dead. Once the fighting begins anew, we find him in much the same mood as we do before the landing: at 11.725–58 Tarchon rebukes his men for fleeing Camilla and, burning with rage, rips the Latin warrior Venulus from off his horse and embraces him as he attempts to pierce him with his own spear point (dereptumque ab equo dextra complectitur hostem | et gremium ante suum multa ui concitus aufert, 743–4). As Kevin Muse observes, ‘Tarchon in effect turns war into sex’ by embracing Venulus, and this description of his actions in terms of sexual aggression renews the imagery of erotic violence we saw earlier in his landing, directing it this time against an Italian rather than against Italy itself.Footnote ²⁹ The allusive spectre of Catullus’ and Varro's transgressive Argo, whose violation of Amphitrite-as-ocean brought the Golden Age to an end, points to an equally dismal fate for the second, Latin, Golden Age. Virgil also suggests that the chain of violence will carry on, since Tarchon's shipwreck and his assault on Venulus presage a foundational moment of rape in Rome's history that can be traced back to him. Muse points out that Tarchon is the eponymous founder of Tarquinia and ancestor of the Tarquinii, including most significantly Tarquinius Superbus, the final king of Rome whose son Sextus raped Lucretia and thereby brought down the monarchy.Footnote ³⁰ The boldness of Catullus’ and Varro's Argo thus echoes through Tarchon to his descendants, who will inherit his audacia and impious contaminatio of sex and war.

2) MONSTERS IN THE WATER: INC. FR. 63 BLÄNSDORF AT VERG. AEN. 5.158 AND 10.197

The other two passages in which Virgil alludes to inc. fr. 63 Blänsdorf demonstrate many of the same thematic and allusive elements that we have seen in the Tarchon passage, and I think that all three represent a sustained engagement with Varro's Argonautae that highlights key moments in the Aeneid where sailing and audacia are intertwined with catastrophic results. Indeed, each successive allusion gradually contributes to this sense that culminates in Tarchon's wreck. It is no coincidence that Virgil describes only two shipwrecks in the Aeneid and, more significantly, that he alludes to our fragment directly before each shipwreck occurs. In Book 5, in the ship-race portion of Anchises’ funeral games, Sergestus and his ship Centaurus (Centaur) run neck-and-neck with Mnestheus’ Pristis (Sea-Serpent), as they ‘furrow the salty shoals with their long keel’ (5.154–8):

The final line here alludes both to our fragment, using two of the same semantic elements in the same order and metrical rhythm ( sulcum premit alta carina ), and to Catull. 64.6 (ausi sunt uada salsa cita decurrere puppi).Footnote ³¹ This double allusion links the ships to the Argo, importing the archetypical boat's audacity (ausi sunt, Catull. 64.6) and foreshadowing the shipwreck about to happen as a result of Sergestus’ audacia (5.202–6):

Sergestus, furens animi and thus heedless of the danger that his decision poses, drives his ship against the rocks: audacia, like alcohol, mixes poorly with boating. Not coincidentally, Sergestus’ state of mind parallels that of Tarchon in his bloodlust for Venulus, where the latter is described as turbidus (11.742) and igneus (11.746). Note also that Virgil portrays the seascape with the same adjective (iniquus, 5.203) that he uses of the Italian shore, as it resists Tarchon's sexualized assault (iniquo, 10.303).Footnote ³² Muse observes that the same flaw of arrogant overreach mars Sergestus and Tarchon alike and leads them to their naval catastrophes; neither, however, will pay any penalty for their audacity, Tarchon surviving unscathed to fight in Book 11 and Sergestus coming in to shore to receive a consolation prize at 5.281–5. But, as with Tarchon and his descendants the Tarquins, so too will Sergestus’ recklessness eventually find its destructive zenith in his family, the gens Sergia, and specifically Lucius Sergius Catilina, whose failed conspiracy in 63 b.c.e. (the same year, Muse notes, in which Octavian was born) marks the end of the Republic as surely as the overthrow of the Tarquins marks the end of the Monarchy.Footnote ³³ As with Tarchon's landing, Virgil subtly taints Sergestus’ shipwreck with allusions to Catullus’ and Varro's Argo, highlighting the danger posed by letting boldness lead into waters that should never have been entered.

The second allusion to our fragment appears in the catalogue of Etruscan leaders in Book 10, not long before Aeneas and company sail down the Tiber toward the Trojan encampment and Tarchon wrecks his ship. Virgil slows in the midst of listing the leaders of the Etruscans to focus on Cupavo, a Ligurian prince, in a curious mythological digression (10.185–97):

Virgil closes his discussion of Cupavo's boat with a pointed allusion to our fragment and to its appearance earlier in the boat race, where it is phrased in almost identical terms (longa sulcant uada salsa carina, 5.158). It is significant that Cupavo's and Sergestus’ ships share not only the same allusion but also the same name, Centaurus: centaurs conjure up notions of intemperance, disruption, violence and sexual transgression, traits also associated with Sergestus’ descendant Catiline.Footnote ³⁴ This name also enhances the idea of the ships as hybrid monstra that resist classification and blur the lines between natural divisions.Footnote ³⁵ Both vessels represent threats to the landscape of Italy, and Virgil depicts the ship's namesake figurehead in ominous terms, as ‘it towers over the water and from high menaces a huge rock at the waves’ (10.195–6).Footnote ³⁶ The Centaur’s saxum immane promises to violate the sea just as the Argo did, representing a variation on the symbolic mixing of elements that we see in the other two allusions to our fragment: Sergestus and Tarchon jump the boundary from sea and earth, while Cupavo's Centaur threatens to hurl earth into the sea. Besides offering a colourful display of Hellenistic learning, Virgil's aetiological digression reinforces the theme of violated natural boundaries evoked by his allusions to Catullus and Varro: he ties the launch of the Centaur via its captain Cupavo and his father Cycnus to the destructive joyride that Phaethon took in his father Helios’ chariot.Footnote ³⁷ Just as with Tarchon and Sextus Tarquinius or with Sergestus and Catiline, Virgil seems to suggest with this link between Phaethon and Cupavo that transgression begets transgression and that audacia and its aftermath recur like a familial pollution permeating Rome's early history.

Of the ships listed in the catalogue of Etruscans, only two are represented with monstrous figureheads, Cupavo's Centaur and the Triton of Aulestes, which Virgil describes fewer than ten lines after he alludes to our fragment and in terms that are remarkably similar: both are portrayed as disturbingly large ( immanis Triton, 10.209; ingentem … immane , 10.195–6) and menacing the sea beneath them ( caerula concha | exterrens freta , 10.209–10; instat aquae saxumque undis immane minatur , 10.196).Footnote ³⁸ What is more, in the launch of the Triton Virgil alludes to the opening lines of Catullus 64, just as in Tarchon's landing, and its depiction of seafaring as something strange and dangerous (10.207–12):

Virgil's synecdochical arbore in place of ‘oars’ (207) mirrors Catullus’ pinus (1), robora (4) and abiegnis … palmis (7). Indeed, his whole phrase centenaque arbore fluctum uerberat (207) evokes Catullus’ line caerula uerrentes abiegnis aequora palmis (7), his verb uerberat also hinting at the violence of Catullus’ imbuit (11) and proscidit (12).Footnote ³⁹ The figurehead is portrayed ‘swimming’ (nanti, 210), mimicking Catullus’ pine (nasse per undas, 2). Virgil employs terminology similar to Catullus’ to describe the water: compare Virgil's fluctum (207) and Catullus’ fluctus (3); uada (208 and 6); caerula … freta (209–10) and caerula … aequora (7); the spraying of the ocean as the oars twist it and turn it white in spumant uada marmore uerso (208) and tortaque remigio spumis incanuit unda (13).Footnote ⁴⁰ Virgil's phrase marmore uerso (208) also recalls the agricultural metaphor in Catullus’ proscidit aequor (12), as well as in our fragment and in the three Virgilian allusions to it that we have examined, since the verb uertere also regularly denotes ploughing.Footnote ⁴¹

The passages on Tarchon's landing and on the Triton’s launch have much in common, which is perhaps not surprising since they share Catullus 64 as a major allusive source. But there is one point of contact between them that is particularly remarkable and pertinent to the motif of transgressive sailing we have been tracing so far. As we saw above, Virgil eroticizes Tarchon's attack, contrasting the initially restful pose of the virgin shore with its struggle against the ship's sexual assault. Before Tarchon's metaphorical rape, ‘the shoals do not heave and the wave does not rumble back as it breaks’ (uada non spirant nec fracta remurmurat unda, 10.291). When Virgil describes the Triton, by contrast, the ship has already begun its penetration of the waters, so ‘the shoals froth as the marble surface is turned’ (spumant uada marmore uerso, 10.208) and ‘the frothy wave rumbles under his [sc. Triton's] half-beast chest’ (spumea semifero sub pectore murmurat unda, 10.212). The metaphorical description of the waters as marmor ‘marble’ no doubt suggests etymological play with mare, but it also recalls the purity and whiteness of the femineus pallor.Footnote ⁴² Though less developed than in the Tarchon passage, Virgil's anthropomorphization of the water here is no less disturbing: the sea is already being violated by a monster, sputtering and moaning under the Triton’s assault, which recalls the Argo's contamination of Amphitrite-as-ocean at the same time as it foreshadows Tarchon's disquieting violence against Italy.Footnote ⁴³

The picture of Aulestes’ Triton draws on a description of the deity himself in Apollonius’ poem when the sea-god emerges to help the Argo out of his eponymous lake (4.1610–16):Footnote ⁴⁴

But Virgil introduces some key differences between his Triton and Apollonius’ Triton. Whereas the real Triton displays a torso ‘like the Blessed Ones in its wondrous form’, the figurehead's ‘front exposes a human up to its hairy flank’ (laterum tenus hispida … frons hominem praefert, 10.210–11) and a ‘half-beast chest’ (semifero … pectore, 10.212). Apollonius also devotes more than half the passage to sketching vividly Triton's monstrous lower half, while Virgil shows greater interest in the upper segment, heightening its savagery by focussing on the figurehead's hairy and bestial chest and glossing quickly over what would seem more noteworthy, that its ‘belly ends in a sea-monster’ (in pristim desinit aluus, 10.211). Still, despite his physical monstrosity, Apollonius’ Triton never seems threatening to the Argonauts, whose ‘hearts were cheered at the fact that one of the Blessed Ones appeared before them favourably’ (τοῖσι δ᾽ ἰάνθη | θυμός, ὃ δὴ μακάρων τις ἐναίσιμος ἀντεβόλησεν, 4.1591–2). By contrast, Virgil's Triton is terrifying (exterrens, 10.210) in the savagery of his anthropomorphic components, which are hairy (hispida, 10.210) and half-wild (semifero, 10.212). It is significant that the human portion of the figurehead is represented as bestial, contrary to what we might expect: sea-serpents properly belong in the sea, but in the Golden-Age view of natural boundaries people do not. Humans away from land are like fish out of water and by leaving their native terra firma, they give up a key aspect of humanitas to become something necessarily inhuman.

The figurehead is the opposite not only of Apollonius’ sea deity but also of the nymphs who emerge when Catullus’ Argo first pierces the water, to which Virgil's passage here can also be seen to allude (64.14–18):

Virgil's laterum tenus (10.210) recollects Apollonius’ ἔστ᾽ ἐπὶ νηδύν (4.1611), but, given the mass of allusions to the opening of poem 64 throughout this passage, we can also see Catullus’ nutricum tenus (18) in the background. Several additional details reinforce the allusion: Virgil's focus on the water's turbulence (marmore uerso, 10.208; spumea … unda, 10.212) finds a parallel in the swirling whitewater surrounding the nymphs (candenti e gurgite, 64.14; e gurgite cano, 64.18); both direct the audience's gaze to the figures’ bare chests (hispida, 10.210; sub pectore, 10.212; nudato corpore, 64.17); both use the rare poetic construction of tenus with body parts in the genitive plural, each placing the preposition directly after its object (laterum tenus, 10.210; nutricum tenus 64.18); and both Virgil and Catullus draw attention to the wild nature of the creatures (semifero, 10.212; feri … uultus, 64.14).Footnote ⁴⁵ But Virgil's scene presents an inversion of Catullus' scene, and his Triton thus represents a perversion of Catullus’ nymphs. The Nereids, who from the perspective of the poem's human audience are monstrously strange, emerge to marvel at the monstrum (64.15) of the Argo as it enters their world and effectively banishes them from it, since they never again appear in waters where humans can now tread (64.16–17).Footnote ⁴⁶ Virgil's Triton, however, is not rising from the sea, but rather looms above it as an embodiment of the ship-as-monster. The wonder of Catullus’ living sea-nymphs has been replaced with the terror (exterrens, 10.210) of Virgil's ersatz deity, an artefact created by humans to symbolize their audacious domination of the sea and its inhabitants.

The thematic and intertextual parallels among all three passages in which Virgil alludes to our fragment should make clear that its repeated appearance is not the result of coincidence or commonplace generic vocabulary. Readers attentive to Virgil's allusion before Sergestus’ wreck of his Centaur will develop an uneasy feeling when they see it again applied to a menacing ship with the same name in the fleet sailing to war. This sense of foreboding crests when the allusion appears for the third time immediately before Tarchon instigates the only other shipwreck in the poem, concluding the final voyage by boat in the Aeneid with a scene of sexualized violence and transgressive audacia. Whatever our view of the eventual outcome of Aeneas’ mission, there can be little doubt that Virgil's allusions to Catullus’ and Varro's poems in these passages signal darker moments in the voyage and foreshadow not only the savagery of the war in Italy but also their continuing after-effects in future violations against Italy. In the process, these allusions unify three distinct moments in the epic, binding key sailing events in the Trojans’ ocean travels to the Argo and its monstrous first voyage.