Adrian Kelly

APOLLONIUS AND THE END OF THE AENEID

The death of Turnus is one of the Aeneid s most controversial and variously interpreted episodes – anything from the triumphant vindication of Aeneas and the Roman future, to the poets last, resounding plaint against Augustan totalitarianism, with all the more nuanced shades of opinion in between. Virgilian scholarship has recently become tired of the opposition between ‘optimist’ and ‘pessimist’ perspectives, but one piece of potentially important evidence has not found its way into the argument. As often, it is a matter of intertexts, and it begins, unsurprisingly, with the Iliad .

HELLENISTIC ARMING IN THE BATRACHOMYOMACHIA

Scholarship has long argued that the Batrachomyomachia ( BM ) is to be dated to the Hellenistic period or later, but the question of its literary affiliations in this context has only recently been addressed. Usually considered an example of παρωιδία, the poem is a unique example of that genre in several respects, including the extent to which it develops its own formularity rather than merely mirroring the Homeric exemplar with minimal change, and the fact that it was passed off as the work of Homer himself instead of being self-consciously distanced from the parodied author. It is therefore fitting that the BM is also unusual for ancient parody in dealing with the scholarly discourse surrounding its primary exemplar. This note offers, as an(other) example of this tendency, the BM s engagement with the Homeric arming scene, and its reception in Hellenistic poetry and scholarship.