The Argonauts

This chapter considers the representation of Heracles in the Argonautic narratives of Apollonius Rhodius and Theocritus, Idyll 13. Particular attention is paid to the importance to the subsequent tradition of the divine Heracles of Odyssey 11 and to how the model of Heracles became important for ruler cult and Ptolemaic ideology. The chapter considers Heracles’ relations with Hylas, both of them being lost to the Argonautic expedition on the outward voyage, and to Heracles’ difference from the other Argonauts; whereas the expedition is presented as a model of Greek solidarity and homonoia, Heracles is both a civilizer and benefactor of mankind and a difficult, solitary hero who does not easily embody communal values.

CRAFTING CHAOS: INTELLIGENT DESIGN IN OVID, METAMORPHOSES BOOK 1 AND PLATO'S TIMAEUS

Many attempts have been made to define the precise philosophical outlook of Ovid's account of cosmogony from the beginning of the Metamorphoses, while numerous different and interconnected influences have been identified including Homer, Hesiod, Empedocles, Apollonius Rhodius, Lucretius and Virgil. This has led some scholars to conclude that Ovid's cosmogony is simply eclectic, a magpie collection of various poetic and philosophical snippets haphazardly jumbled together, and with no significant philosophical dimension whatsoever. A more constructive approach could see Ovid's synthesis of many of the major cosmogonic works in the Graeco-Roman tradition as an attempt to match textually his all-encompassing history of the universe that purports to stretch from the first beginnings of the world up to the present day (Met. 1.3−4). Furthermore, if the beginning of the Metamorphoses is designed to be both cosmologically and intertextually all-encompassing, it is surprising that the influence of arguably the major philosophical work on cosmogony from the ancient world, Plato's Timaeus, remains to be evaluated.

Hellenistic literature

In the Histories, the fourth-century historian Ephorus engages with one of the central aetia of the past: the story of how Apollo founded the oracle in Delphi (F 31b). Ephorus shifts the emphasis from the continuity of archaic time to the more dynamic time of the history of men on earth. In his discussion of the Spartan constitution and its origin (F 149), Ephorus uses aetia to give a nuanced picture of the interplay of continuity and change in human affairs. Callimachus, in the story of Acontius and Cydippe in his Aetia, juxtaposes the reference to the continuity of Acontius’ line with the eventful history of Acontius’ island of Chios, thus raising the question how stable the aetion can actually be. Rather than the aetiological formula, the beauty of the young couple, made immortal in Callimachus’ poetry, guarantees the story’s eternity. In Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, aetia are prominent in creating an intense moment of the sacred presence of the god, in which the present moment of the performance is just as much involved as the historical past of the city of Cyrene and the mythical past of Apollo’s deeds on earth. The aetia employed in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica function as hinges between the earlier foundational deeds of the Olympian gods and the new earth-bound time-frame of the Argonauts, which is carefully measured out in terms of the days and nights the Argonauts spend at sea or on land. Overall, however, the aetia of the Argonautica emphasize continuity and eliminate further change, creating a present that is remarkably stable, while being anchored in several layers of the past

Untimely Epic

Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica is a voyage across time as well as space. The Argonauts encounter monsters, nymphs, shepherds, and kings who represent earlier stages of the cosmos or human society; they are given glimpses into the future, and themselves effect changes in the world through which they travel. Readers undergo a still more complex form of temporal transport, enabled not just to imagine themselves into the deep past, but to examine the layers of poetic and intellectual history from which Apollonius crafts his poem. Taking its lead from ancient critical preoccupations with poetry’s ethical significance, this book argues that the Argonautica produces an understanding of time and temporal experience which ramifies variously in readers’ lives. When describing the people and creatures who occupied the past, Apollonius extends readers’ capacity for empathetic response to the worlds inhabited by others. In the ecphrasis of Jason’s cloak and the account of Jason’s conversations with Medea, readers are invited to scrutinize the relationship between exempla and temporal change, while climactic episodes such as Jason’s battle with the Earthborn and the taking of the Golden Fleece explore links between perceptions and their temporal situation. Running through the poem, and through the readings that comprise this book, is an attention to the intellectual potential of the ‘untimely’, objects, experience, and language which do not belong straightforwardly to a particular time. Treatment of such phenomena is crucial to the poem’s aspiration to inform and expand readers’ understanding of themselves as subjects in and of history.

Ἀργὼ πᾶσι μέλουσα, παρ᾽ Αἰήταο πλέουσα – greckie źródła literackie do poznania mitu o Medei i wyprawie Argonautów po złote runo od VIII w. p.n.e. do III w. p.n.e.

The myth of Medea and the Argonauts’ voyage to the faraway Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece belongs to the earliest legends of ancient Greece. The narrative elements of the tale would change over time. For almost thirteen centuries, from Homer to the late-antique poem Argonautica Orphica, which yet again retold the heroes’ expedition to Colchis, the legend of the Colchian sorceress and the fifty brave men fascinated ancient poets, historians and tragedians. Hence the paper focuses on the Greek literary sources which conveyed the tale. A detailed discussion of the works aims to highlight the diversity and multiplicity of the myth’s versions as well as outlines the evolution of the legend, whose most celebrated and recognized literary variant is found in Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius.