Valerius Flaccus, Virgil and the Poetics of Ekphrasis

chapter 5 Valerius Flaccus, Virgil and the Poetics of Ekphrasis

Mark Heerink

Introduction: Ekphrasis as Mise en Abyme

When ancient scholars wrote about ekphrasis (‘description’), they meant ‘a speech that brings the subject matter vividly before the eyes’.1 This chapter concerns ekphrasis in the more limited, modern use of the term as a literary description of an object or a work of art.2 Even more specifically, it will deal with descriptions of works of art in ancient epic, a genre of which ekphrasis constitutes a standard feature ever since Homer’s famous description of Achilles’ shield in Iliad 18.3 This kind of ekphrasis can fulfil several purposes in the narrative in which it features: ‘it has been variously treated as mirror of the text, mirror in the text, a mode of specular inversion, a further voice that disrupts or extends the message of the narrative, a prefiguration for that narrative (whether false or true) in its suggestions’.4 Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica features two major descriptions of works of art—the pictures on the Argo’s keel in Book 1 (130–48) and the engravings on the doors of the temple of Sol in Book 5 (415–54)—which have been studied extensively for their proleptic potential, i.e. as ‘a prefiguration for the narrative’. Thus, for example, scholars have argued that the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, depicted on one side of the Argo (130–9), prefigures the marriage between Jason and Medea in Book 8 of the epic,5 and that the Centauromachy depicted

1 Webb (2009) 1, 14. For ekphrasis in this ancient sense, and in particular the treatment of the phenomenon in the ancient rhetorical treatises called Progymnasmata, see apart from Webb’s book e.g. Bartsch (1989) 7–10; Becker (1995) 24–31. 2 For the modern definition of ekphrasis (and its problems), see e.g. Webb (1999); Elsner (2002); Bartsch and Elsner (2007) i. 3 The classic survey of ekphrasis in ancient epic is Friedländer (1912) 1–23. 4 Bartsch and Elsner (2007) i. 5 E.g. Köstlin (1889) 652–3; Adamietz (1976) 11; Newman (1986) 223; von Albrecht (1997) 935; Fuhrer (1998) 17; Baier (2004) 19; Galli (2007) 112; Zissos (2008) 153; Harrison (2013) 218–19. Schmitzer ((1999) 148–9), however, finds Thetis as a prefiguration of Medea problematic. Galli ((2007) 112) also sees the premature death of the son of Peleus and Thetis, Achilles (mentioned in 133), as an external prolepsis to Medea’s killing of her children. Harrison ((2013) 218) adds the suggestion that ‘Thetis and the Nereids look symbolically to the coming marine voyage’.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi ��.��63/9789004278653_��6 valerius flaccus, virgil and the poetics of ekphrasis 73 on the other side (140–8) foreshadows the war in Colchis in Book 6 between King Aeetes and the Argonauts on the one side and his brother Perses on the other.6 Similarly, the scenes on the doors of the temple of Sol have been interpreted as foreshadowing events to come, even beyond the boundaries of Valerius’ text. The most obvious example is the last scene (442–54), showing the events in Corinth we know from Greek and Roman tragedy, such as Medea’s killing of her own children.7 In this chapter, I will study these two major ekphraseis of Valerius as instances of mise en abyme, i.e. as ‘mirrors in the text’, self-reflexive passages commenting on the epic itself.8 As a description of a work of art, an ekphrasis is a priori very susceptible of interpretation as a mise en abyme,9 and therefore this is a potentially fruitful approach. Moreover, this kind of interpretation jus- tifies using the term ekphrasis in its modern, limited sense in the first place, for, as Jaś Elsner has recently emphasised, ‘self-referential potential’ is ‘what works of art distinctively offer within ecphrasis—and why there is a strong case . . . for isolating the ecphrasis of art as a sub-genre in its own right’.10 But how do Valerius’ two ekphraseis reflect on the entire epic? And in what sense can these two quite different passages be said to have a message in common? I will focus on the common factor between the two descriptions: the Virgilian intertext of Aeneid 1. Since the nineteenth century, the enormous influence of Virgil’s epic on the Argonautica has been viewed in a negative light for a long time. Wilamowitz’ harsh characterisation of Valerius as a slavish

6 E.g. Baier (2001) 27–35; Harrison (2013) 218. See also Zissos (2008) 161 for the Centauromachy as foreshadowing the disruption of the wedding of Jason and Medea in Book 8, and Newman (1986) 224 and Parkes (in this volume) for the connection of the episode with the battle between the Argonauts and the Doliones in Book 3. 7 Cf. Harrison (2013) 223 on the ‘tragic’ feeling of horror (455) experienced by the Argonauts. For more on prolepseis (and analepseis) in this ekphrasis, see e.g. Adamietz (1976) 12; Hershkowitz (1998b) 23; Manuwald (1998) 312–15; Schmitzer (1999) 153–6; Barchiesi (2001a) 137; Harrison (2013) 222–3; and, most extensively, Wedeniwski (2006) 167–78. Lüthje (1971) 222–3 sees the ekphrasis, with its shift from positive to negative, as reflecting the entire Argonautica (but see Manuwald (1998) 312 n. 13), while Harrison (2013) 223 sees lines 433–41 as a mise en abyme of the epic’s plot (see also below). 8 The standard theoretical discussion of mise en abyme is Dällenbach (1989), who defines it as (p. 8) ‘any aspect enclosed within a work that shows a similarity with the work that contains it’. Dällenbach does not, however, deal with ekphrasis. On ekphrasis and mise en abyme, see e.g. Becker (1995) 4–5; Elsner (2002) 3–9. 9 Cf. Elsner (2002) 3. 10 Elsner (2013). Cf. Elsner (2002) 2.