Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:32:22.884Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ovid Met. 9.1–97: through the Eyes of Achelous*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2009

DAVIDE A. SECCI
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Book nine of Ovid's Metamorphoses begins with Achelous telling Theseus and his companions the reason behind the lack of one of his horns. It turns out that the river god has lost it during a fight against Hercules, while they were both wooing Oeneus' daughter, Deianira. The other suitors, realizing that they would not stand a chance against such rivals as Hercules and Achelous, left the contest. While the whole competition seems initially to have depended on the ability to convince Oeneus through self-praise, Hercules' intolerance of the river god's sophisms causes the verbal duel to become a hand-to-hand fight. This fight results in Achelous' defeat and loss of both Deianira and his horn.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 34 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

* I wish to thank Stephen Harrison, Matthew Leigh, Gregory Hutchinson, Georgios Kazantzidis and the anonymous reader for Greece & Rome for their valuable comments and suggestions. All the translations are my own, unless otherwise stated.