Abstract

‘The tale of the Argonauts was among the most popular myths in Greek and Roman literature of all periods.’ There was, however, not inconsiderable variation in certain aspects of the narrative: in the inclusion or exclusion of entire episodes; in (un)expected divergences from more authoritative versions of the story; and in the details of minutiae. In the Argonautic choral odes of Seneca'sMedea(301–79 and 579–669), and in Valerius Flaccus’ incomplete epic, there is a conspicuous, learned engagement with much of the earlier tradition that hints at versions of the myth which are divergent from those that the two poets privilege in their respective narratives. Such moments serve to assert the playwright's and the epicist's status asdocti poetae, and to engage the learned reader in a (re)negotiation of the tradition; at times, an awareness of a literary past seems to be given to particular characters too so as to heighten the reader's experience of the narrative—by a sort of prolepsis—as it unfolds.