Abstract

This article examines the intertextuality of three passages in the Aeneid: 6.460, 4.441-49, and 4.90-128. In each, Virgil's language alludes to both a Hellenistic poet and Sappho. The Sapphic allusions appear where Virgil diverges from the thematic content of his Hellenistic sources. After analyzing the meaning of each intertext, I conclude that this technique of using Hellenistic intermediaries in "window allusions" to Sappho could be due to the ubiquitous appropriation of Sappho by Hellenistic poets, a Virgilian poetic program which privileges archaic over Hellenistic sources, or a systematic use of Sappho as a mediator and modifier of Hellenistic poetry.