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Two Notes on Euripides

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. T. Eden
P. T. Eden
Affiliation:
Forest Hill, Oxford
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Extract

Students of the Orestes are fortunate to have two excellent commentaries at their disposal, by C. W. Willink (Oxford, 1986) and M. L. West (Warminster, 1987). Neither will help them to understand this line, which is ‘the only allusion to Ganymede's horsemanship’ (Willink ad loc), because ‘no story of riding by Ganymede is known’ (West ad loc). But we are repeatedly reminded that the scene with the Phrygian (1369ff.) has far fewer affinities with tragedy than with comedy, and εύριπιδαριστοφαíζεται Comedy provides the clue, specifically at Ar. Vesp. 50If. and Lys. 676ff. The reference is to the variety of equestrianism for which Ganymede is far from unknown (he was too young to have established an association with any other kind). For Innoavvr) here describes a σχῆμα ἐρωτικóν and the line means Ganymedes concubinus, Iovis supini inguini insidens et equitans, sc. inter causas fuit malorum propter Iunonis invidiam Troianis immissorum.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , December 1988 , pp. 560 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

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References

1 All quoted by Macrobius as models imitated by Virgil: for references see Morel's edition. Macrobius, however, apparently did not notice that fr. 4, the simile of the hunting dog chasing a stag which lies behind Ecl. 8. 88, is also imitated in the Aeneid: to fr. 4.3 ‘saevit in absentem’ cf. Aen. 9. 63 (Turnus as a wolf) ‘saevit in absentis’, and see Clausen, W., Virgil's Aeneid and the Tradition of Hellenistic Poetry (California, 1987), p. 162 n. 18Google Scholar.

2 Rostagni, A., ‘II De Morte di L. Vario Rufo’, RFIC 37 (1959), 380–1Google Scholar; Hollis, A. S., ‘L. Varius Rufus De Morte (Frr. 1–4 Morel)’, CQ 27 (1977), 188–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Art. cit. 188.