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Sophia Papaioannou
Redesigning Achilles
≥

Untersuchungen zur
antiken Literatur undGeschichte
Herausgegeben von
Gustav-Adolf Lehmann, Heinz-Günther Nesselrath
und Otto Zwierlein
Band 89
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Redesigning Achilles
‘Recycling’ the Epic Cycle
in the ‘Little Iliad’
(Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1−13.622)
by
Sophia Papaioannou
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines
of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.
ISSN 1862-1112
ISBN 978-3-11-020048-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Copyright 2007 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 10785 Berlin, Germany.
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher.
Printed in Germany
Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin.
Printing and binding: Hubert & Co GmbH & Co KG, Göttingen.

Preface

The book is the first critical study on the structure and the themes of Ovid’s
retelling of the Trojan Saga in Metamorphoses 12.1-13.622, and it explores the
motives and the objectives behind the selected narrative moments from the
Epic Cycle that found their way into the Ovidian version of the Trojan war.
Specifically, I claim that the key to the selection and arrangement of the par-
ticular narrative material in the compact recollection of the Trojan War in
Met. 12.1-13.622 is poetics: the Ovidian Trojan experience is meant to read as
a conflux of assorted focalizations on Achilles, wherein Achilles’ hero model
is reconstructed, and the process is reported through the eyes of other epic
characters, who represent different standpoints or ‘readings’ depending on
their particular involvement in the Trojan plot and their peculiar perspective
on the Trojan adventure. Thus, the characterization of Achilles proves a
work-in-progress, never definite and never complete, for it is never meant to
be so, because the composition principles of the epic genre are never final but
always evolving. Through the narrative outcome, an intelligent anti-epic narra-
tion, Ovid introduces the theoretical principles of innovation that mark his
transformed epic.
I assumed research for the present volume simultaneously with the composi-
tion of my earlier book, on Ovid’s reception of Vergil’s Aeneid in Met. 13.623-
14.582, but the actual writing of the manuscript began three summers ago.
The composition process lasted nearly two years, and in the course of my
labor I have accumulated many personal debts. I have greatly benefited from
the advice and incisive criticism of Philip Hardie, Helen Lovatt, Alden Smith,
Richard Tarrant and Chrysanthi Tsitsiou-Chelidoni. Ulrich Schmitzer com-
mented judiciously on an earlier version of chapter four, part of which was
originally published as an article in Gymnasium 2002. I presented segments of
my work, while still in progress, at various workshops and conferences, in-
cluding the 2006 Symposium Cumanum at Cuma in Italy and the 2006 Con-
ference on Orality and Literacy in Auckland, NZ, and I should thank the col-
leagues in the audiences for their constructive and prompt criticism. I am es-
pecially grateful to Heinz-Günther Nesselrath and Otto Zwierlein, the refe-
rees of the Untersuchungen der antiken Literatur und Geschichte Series, for reading
my arguments with their customary diligence, and offering an amplitude of
corrections, supplements and comments, that indubitably strengthened and

VI Preface
improved the flow of my arguments. I could hardly hope for more meticulous
editors. The University of Cyprus generously funded two long summer re-
search visits at Cambridge, MA (summer of 2005) and Austin, TX (summer
of 2006), and to advantage of their library resources and various other re-
search facilities. I am grateful to Richard Thomas and Michael Gagarin, the
chairs of the Classics Department, respectively, at Harvard University and the
University of Texas at Austin during my visits there, for facilitating my re-
search in every possible way; and no less, my most courteous host at Austin,
my former teacher at UT, Ingrid Edlund-Berry. At home, I was fortunate to
have at my disposal the great collection of the Blegen Library of the American
School of Classical Studies at Athens and the unfailing assistance of the staff
of the University of Cyprus Central Library. Christopher Schabel, Associate
Professor of Medieval History at the University of Cyprus, once again found
the time to proofread my manuscript despite the formidable load of his own
work and his various other pressing obligations.

The last, editorial phase of the book materialized in the early fall of 2007, at
the difficult time of transition that followed immediately after my move from
Cyprus to Athens to undertake a new position at the University of Athens,
Department of Philology. And it would be a serious omission on my part to
pass over without expressing my gratitude to my colleague at the University
of Athens, Eleni Karamalengou, Director of the Classical Philology Division
of the Department of Philology, who so generously allowed me to virtually
take possession of her office, computer and printer, during those last, crucial
weeks of laborious and intense editing and polishing up the manuscript for
publication, and compiling the indexes. Were it not for her discretion, as
much as for the courtesy of Ms Argyro Frantzi, the Classics Librarian, who
allowed me to print the final version of the CRC on her own printer, this
book would not have been finished within the deadline originally set for its
publication. Finally, on the part of the publisher it is my delight to extend my
profound appreciation to Sabine Vogt for her instant addressing all my inquir-
ies. Needless to note, responsibility for all arguments and opinions advanced,
as well as all errors remaining in the book, are wholly mine.

Athens, October 2007 S.P.

Table of Contents

Preface ........................................................................................................................ V

Table of Contents .................................................................................................. VII

Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... XI

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1

Chapter One
Designing Epic Beginnings
1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad’ and the Iliad through Calchas (Met. 12.7-38) .............. 25
1.1 Funeral Beginnings: Aesacus’ Cenotaph ........................................... 25
1.2 Marvelous Beginnings: The Snake Prodigy ...................................... 31
1.3 Maiden Beginnings: The Sacrifice of Iphigeneia ............................. 37
2. The Fama of Epic Tradition .............................................................................. 44

Chapter Two
Epic Self-Affirmation and Epic Self-Consioucsness:
Introducing Achilles (Met. 12.64-145)
1 Protesilaus, the Proto-Achilles ........................................................................... 49
2. Cycnus, the alter Achilles .................................................................................... 50
2.1. Cycnum aut Hectora ................................................................................. 50
2.2 Do You Know Thy (Epic) Self? ......................................................... 59
2.3 The Anger of Achilles .......................................................................... 67
2.4 The Hero’s Gender ............................................................................... 72
3. Achilles’ ‘Victory’ ................................................................................................. 79
4. The Swan Poetics ................................................................................................ 83

Chapter Three
Epic Memory and Epic (De)Composition: Deconstructing Achilles
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 87
2. Epic Singing and Epic Tales .............................................................................. 88
3. Epic Poetics: The Master of Epic Memory .................................................... 93
4. Epic Labor: Fighting the Freaks ....................................................................... 98
4.1 The Homeric Subtext ........................................................................... 98

V
III
4.2 Epic Gender and Epic Performance ............................................... 102
4.3 The Architecture of the Epic Spectacle .......................................... 108
5. The Spectacular Politics of Immortality ........................................................ 116

Chapter Four
Facets of Elimination: Killing Achilles
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 125
2. Challenging Nestor: Tlepolemus Protesting ................................................. 126
3. The Fate of Periclymenus ................................................................................ 135
4. The Death of Achilles ....................................................................................... 138

Chapter Five
The ‘Judgment of the Arms’: Re-Constructing Achilles
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 153
2. The Poetics of Argument ................................................................................. 154
3. The Price of the Prize ....................................................................................... 155
4. ‘Writing Up’ the Contest .................................................................................. 159
5. Staging the Mênis, the Arms and the Men ..................................................... 164
6. Scripting the Mêtis and the Arms as the Man ................................................ 169
7. The Iliad vs. the ‘little Iliad’ .............................................................................. 171
8. Polemic En-listing ............................................................................................. 187
9. Daedalean Poetics ............................................................................................. 197
10. The Logic(al) Fashioning of the Epic Hero ................................................ 200
11. Epigrams, Epitaphs, and Epigraphs: Sealing the Closure ........................ 202

Chapter Six
Fe/Male Sacrifice: Performing the Poetics of Genre- and Gender-Crossing in
the ‘Fall of Troy’ (Met. 13.399-575)
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 207
2. The Falls of Troy ............................................................................................... 209
2.1 The Fall of Troy and the Iliad ........................................................... 209
2.2 The ‘Fall’ of Polydorus
...................................................................... 214
3. The ‘Fall of Troy’ and Hecuba ........................................................................ 222
4. The Anger of Hecuba ....................................................................................... 225
5. Staging Polyxena ................................................................................................ 228
6. Fe/Male Virtus and Sacrifice ........................................................................... 236
7. The Poetics of Lamentation ............................................................................ 244

Chapter Seven
Memnon’s Fate and Fame: Impersonating Achilles
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 253
2. Memnon and/as Achilles ................................................................................. 254

I
X
3. The Power of Aurora ........................................................................................ 257
4. Memnon’s ‘Hectorean’ Side ............................................................................. 259
5. Avian Allusion and Illusion ............................................................................. 262
5.1 Allusion: The Birds of Meleager ....................................................... 262
5.2 Illusory Sêmata
..................................................................................... 273
5.3 Sema-ntic Nomina ................................................................................. 279

Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 285

Indexes ..................................................................................................................... 293

Abbreviations

The Latin text throughout is quoted from R. Tarrant’s OCT edition, P. Ovidi
Nasonis Metamorphoses (Oxford 2004), noting any divergences; other texts ac-
cording to standard editions (normally either the OCT or the Teubner series).
Unless indicated otherwise, the translations of the Metamorphoses are quoted
from F.J. Miller (ed. and trans.), Ovid IV, Metamorphoses IX-XV, 2
nd edition,
revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA and London 1984), with a few
changes. The translation of the Iliad is quoted from R. Fagles, Homer: The Iliad.
With Introduction and Notes by Bernard Knox (London 1990). In translating
passages from the Aeneid and the Odyssey I have basically consulted, respec-
tively, H.R. Fairclough’s translation of Vergil and A.T. Murray’s, translation of
the Odyssey, both in the Loeb series, with occasional changes. Abbreviated
names of ancient authors and works follow Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-
English Lexicon, Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary, and the Oxford Classical Dic-
tionary, except where expanded for clarity. Abbreviations of journal titles fol-
low those used by L’ Année Philologique. Works of modern scholarship repeat-
edly referred to are noted in the text in abbreviated form (by the author’s
name and date of publication, as they are listed in the bibliography at the end
of the book). The following abbreviations are used throughout for book-
length works:

Bernabé A. Bernabé (ed.), Poetae epic Graeci: Testimonia et frag-
menta. Volume 1 (Leipzig
21996 [1987]).
Bömer 1969 F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosen. Kommentar
1. Buch I-III (Heidelberg 1969).
Bömer 1977 F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosen. Kommentar
4. Buch VIII-IX (Heidelberg 1977).
Bömer 1980 F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosen. Kommentar
5. Buch X-XI (Heidelberg 1980).
Bömer 1982 F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosen. Kommentar
6. Buch XII-XIII (Heidelberg 1982).
Chantraine P. Chantraine, Dictionaire étymologique de la langue grec-
que, 4 vols. (Paris 1968-1980).
EpGF M. Davies (ed.), Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Göt-
tingen 1988).

Abbreviations XII
Frisk H. Frisk, Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2 vols
(Heidelberg
21973).
H-E M. Haupt, O. Korn, H.J. Ehwald (edd.), P. Ovidius
Naso, Metamorphosen, vol. 1 (Books 1-7), vol. 2 (Books
8-15), revised by M. von Albrecht (Dublin and Zu-
rich 1966).
LIMC H.C. Ackermann and J.R. Gisler, Lexicon Icono-
graphicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zürich 1981-1997).
LS C.T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford
1879).
LSJ H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, revised by H. Stuart
Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon. 9
th ed. (Oxford 1940).
M-W R. Merkelback and M.L. West (edd.), Fragmenta He-
siodea (Oxford 1967/1999).
OLD P.G.W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford 1968-
1982).
Page D.L. Page (ed.), Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford 1962).
Radt S. Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 3 (Aes-
chylus) (Göttingen 1985).
RE A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, et al., Real-Encyclopädie der clas-
sischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart 1894-1978).
Roscher W.H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und
römischen Mythologie, 7 vols. (Leipzig 1884-1937).
ThLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Leipzig 1900- ).
West, Iambi M.L. West (ed.), Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum
cantati, vol. 1 (Oxford 1978).
West M.L. West (ed.), Greek Epic Fragments. Loeb (Cam-
bridge MA 2003).

Citations to Bömer’s Kommentar follow the following pattern:
Bömer 1982, 370-373 ad 13.632-704, refers to pages 370-373 of the 1982 vol-
ume (volume 7, which covers books 13-15 and was published in 1982), and
more specifically to the section that covers lines 632-704 of Metamorphoses 13.
Bömer 1980, 370-373, refers generally to pages 370-373 of the 1980 volume.

Introduction

men praise more the song which is newer
Od. 16.351-352

Ovid’s readers have adopted the phrase ‘little Iliad’ to refer to the precis of the
Trojan Saga recounted in Metamorphoses 12.1-13.622. With the story of the
Trojan expedition and its aftermath, Ovid signals a turn towards a more struc-
turally disciplined, thematically coherent and chronologically linear narrative,
which covers the last four books of the epic.
1 The ‘little Aeneid’ (Met. 13.623-
14.608) following next is in many respects the logical sequel to the Trojan
affair: it covers simultaneously the fates of the Trojan survivors, the legend of
Aeneas along with the foundation of Rome, and the transference of epic and
narrative action from the East and the sphere of the Greeks to the Roman
West. The last book-and-a-half of the poem is devoted to the legends of
Rome, and culminates in a celebratory forecast of Augustus’ and Ovid’s apo-
theoses.
The organic integration of an abbreviated Trojan story inside the flow of
the Ovidian carmen perpetuum does not necessarily regulate the narrative syn-

1 Ellsworth 1980, 23: “At this point there is a major break in Ovid’s narrative, since he turns
from the chiefly ‘mythological’ period to ‘historical’ time s”. Scholars who consider the
opening of Book 12 the beginning of a new section include H. Fraenkel, Ovid: A Poet Be-
tween Two Worlds (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1945), 101; Otis 1970, 83-86, 278-305, 315-316.
For R. Coleman, ‘Structure and Intention in the Metamorphoses’, CQ 21 (1971), 472, n. 1,
“the ‘historical’ section actually begins at 11.194 with Laomedon’s founding of Troy”;
Kenney (1986, 439) and Tissol (2002, 315) side with Coleman’s categorization. For W.S.
Anderson, Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Books 6-10 (Norman, OK 1972) 13-14, the ‘historical’ pe-
riod begins at 11.748-749 with the story of Aesacus. W. Ludwig, Struktur und Einheit in den
Metamorphosen Ovids (Berlin 1965), 60-65, suggests that we distinguish between the narrative
in Book 11 (11.194-795), a separate ‘mythical’ prelude that introduces the characters and
the history of Troy prior to the war, and the Trojan War proper, which begins along with
Book 12. Wheeler 2000 is the most recent advocate of this view, contra Croisille (1985, 58),
who considers Ludwig’s separation rather tenuous. Contemporary appraisals of the Meta-
morphoses structure generally support the regulated recurrence of certain thematic motifs
and structural patterns as a principal narrative technique, guaranteeing the smooth progres-
sion of the plot in an epic that lacks a well-defined unifying theme or a protagonist hero.

Introduction 2
thesis of the ‘little Iliad’.
2 The story line in Met. 12.1-13.622 observes tenets
largely independent from the structural function of the same cluster of Trojan
stories when these are taken en bloc. The aspiration to identify the constraints
behind Ovid’s idiosyncratic reproduction of the Iliad saga and to rationalize
the various objectives served by this unorthodox synthesis has partly inspired
the undertaking of this study. The imperative for an in-depth exploration of
the ‘little Iliad’ texture, in order to address certain questions on Ovid’s self-
awareness of his place within literary tradition, and especially his relationship
with Homeric poetry, makes the undertaking of the present work a desidera-
tum in the area of Ovidian criticism.
Met. 12.1-13.622 has not been among those sections of the epic much fa-
vored by scholarship, and prior to the 1990s it had hardly received in-depth
attention: Dippel’s dissertation is still the only exclusive publication on this
intriguing intertextual experiment.
3 Well worth consideration is a second,
nearly contemporary, but unpublished, and thus little known, dissertation, by
M. Musgrove, which offers a first comprehensive narratological study of the
structural organization of the cluster ‘little Iliad’-‘little Aeneid’.
4 Two brief arti-
cles by Ellsworth and Croisille, both of which are heavily indebted to Otis’
discussion of the episode more than a decade earlier
5, represent the only
other known efforts towards appreciating the ‘little Iliad’ as a narrative unit in
its own right. All these critics were concerned with establishing links between
Ovid and the Iliad in terms of actual episodes and verbal echoes, and with
justifying Ovid’s structural choices in his odd recollection of the Iliad in terms
of experimentation with myth, and representation of history through myth.
6
Generally speaking, Homer’s presence throughout the whole Metamorphoses,
although often quite obvious, has been virtually ignored.
7 Michael von

2 Von Albrecht’s comment on the overall structure of the Ovidian carmen perpetuum could
apply also to its particular thematic subdivisions: “Der Aufbau der ‘Metamorphosen’ ist im
großen und ganzen relativ klar, im einzelnen schwer zu analysieren” (M. von Albrecht,
‘Ovids Metamorphoses’, in: E. Burck (ed.), Das Römische Epos [Darmstadt 1979], 143).
3 Dippel 1990; the book reproduces closely the text of the author’s 1988 dissertation, pre-
sented at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen.
4 M.W. Musgrove, Narrative Experimentation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 12-14 (Doctoral
Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1991).
5 Ellsworth 1980 and Croisille 1985; Otis 1970, 278-305.
6 Dippel 1990, 16: “Mittels dieser vorbereitenden, einbettenden Verbindungslinien erreicht
Ovid ein Ineinandergleiten der Welt des Mythos in den quasi-historischen Raum des tro-
janischen Krieges. Dies legt die Vermutung nahe, daß Ovid den trojanischen Krieg mythis-
ieren will, da der Mythos als lingua franca ihm erst die Freiheit gibt, sich gängigen Darstel-
lungs- und Interpretationsmustern zu entziehen, sie zu modifi zieren und Neues zu gestal-
ten”.
7 Baldo 1995, focusing on Vergilian influences on Ovid, devotes the entire second chapter
(pp. 112-141) to Homer in the Metamorphoses, but the Homeric passages discussed are the

Introduction 3
Albrecht’s assertion already thirty-five years ago that the study of Ovid’s re-
ception of Homer in depth and in its own right has been sorely neglected has
hardly lost any of its validity.
8
It has often been remarked that the Ovidian retelling of the Iliad circum-
vents the great Homeric epic, which supposedly it seeks to reproduce. Liter-
ally speaking, Ovid’s ‘Iliad’ is best described as a ‘non-Iliad’, since the plot of
this story includes episodes that thematically belong to the legend of the Tro-
jan War but chronologically precede or follow the events narrated in the 24
books of the Homeric epic.
9 Criticism agrees that Ovid’s primary source for
the construction of the chronological framework of his Trojan narrative was
the broader Epic Cycle, and especially the Cypria and the Aethiopis, both the
poems themselves and their posterior literary receptions in Greece and Rome.
As a matter of fact, the narrative strategy adopted in the composition of the
‘little Iliad’ points to the Cyclic rather than the Homeric poems. Ovid’s ac-
count of the Trojan War covers a much greater expanse of narrative time
compared to the Homeric model, a characteristic also distinguishing the Cy-
clic epics, according to Aristotle (Poetics 8; 23).
10
The logic of plot articulation has been a challenge to trace as well. For
Ellsworth, Ovid’s choices should be attributed to a desire for original variatio,
a need “to tell the story of the Trojan War, and yet not repeat the contents of
these works [i.e. the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid]”.
11 The ultimate success
of this variatio experiment relied on “allusion to well known episodes, expan-

ones already incorporated in Vergil’s Aeneid (most notably the Cyclops episode). Baldo
takes it for granted that as a rule Ovid reads Homer through Vergil.
8 M. von Albrecht, Quellen- und Interpretationsprobleme in Ovids Metamorphosen (Hildesheim/New
York 1971) XII. On specific Homeric passages adapted in Ovid, the observations in Lafaye
(1904/1971), esp. pp. 115-140, are still useful.
9 See, for example, Solodow 1988, 32: “Though Books Twelve and Thirteen concern chiefly
the Trojan War, Homer’s poem is more evidently absent than present”. Solodow considers
this a “recognized feature of Alexandrian literature”, which would make Ovid here appear
as “the fulfiller of neoteric tendencies”.
10 On the conflicting narrative strategies that pit the Cyclic and the Homeric epics at opposite
corners, see now J.S. Burgess, ‘Performance and the Epic Cycle’, CJ 100 (2004), 1-22.
11 Ellsworth 1980, 24, following Galinsky 1975, 4-5, 219-222, and passim, who first explored
extensively Ovid’s narrative strategy of treating older material in new and different ways
(referre idem aliter). Ovid’s narrative imitatio cum variatione has been lionized in most pre-
modern assessments of the Metamorphoses, called, among other things, “the poem’s premier
principle of arrangement” (H. Herter, ‘Ovids Kunstprinzip in den Metamorphosen’, AJP 69
[1948], 347), its “ordering principle” (Due 1974, 133; E.J. Kenney, ‘Ovid’, in: E.J. Kenney
and W. Clausen (edd.), The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, II [Cambridge 1982], 432),
the “hallmark” of Ovid’s poetic style (G.M.H. Murphy, Metamorphoses XI. Edited with an
Introduction and Commentary [London 1972], 6), and the “character of the poem” (Ga-
linsky 1975, 106; also 1990, 25).

Introduction 4
sion of short scenes, and similarity of theme and structure”.
12 Nonetheless,
what exposes the limitations of all these approaches is their inability to iden-
tify specific motives for Ovid’s predilection for particular episodes as op-
posed to others, especially given the variety of suspending action moments
that the Epic Cycle and the Trojan legend throughout its broader literary re-
ception across time presented. The puzzling case of a seemingly erratic narra-
tion accentuates complications surfacing from the fact that as a rule the Ovid-
ian composition is subject to dynamics that are rarely mastered by a cursory
or prejudiced reader. So far, critics have failed to understand the narrative
structure of the ‘little Iliad’. Misguided perhaps by the fact that Metamorphoses
12 opens to a series of familiar themes, they sought to discern behind the
clusters reproducing the Iliad and the Aeneid patterns of symmetry, regularity,
or consistency. Without specifically declaring it, essentially they initiated a
partition, in terms of narrative strategy, between the first eleven, the ‘mytho-
logical’ books, and the concluding four, the more disciplined ‘historical’
ones.
13 This initiative, however, is unauthorized: it is experimentation with
fluidity and unpredictability that forges a peculiar unity among the various
episodes of the ‘little Iliad’.
14 My study focuses anew on the sophisticated ra-
tionale behind the manipulation of a narrative of flux.
It is fortunate that in the last decade Ovid has become a favorite of liter-
ary scholars, and the flood of truly intelligent scholarship, emulating in diver-
sity, depth, and orientation the creativity of the poet’s genius, has certainly
benefited Met. 12.1-13.622. A number of readings, centering on individual
episodes of the ‘Iliad’ recollection, have been illuminating, especially in dis-
cussing the various expressions of allusive and crosstextual appropriation.
Musgrove’s reading of the opening of the ‘little Iliad’ (12.11-23) illustrates the

12 Ellsworth 1980, 28.
13 For example, W. Marg, Gnomon 21 (1949), 44-57 (review of H. Fränkel, Ovid), 55-56; Ga-
linsky 1975, 217-218, implying that the ‘little Iliad’ is the weakest spot in the last four books
of the epic; and Due 1974, 139-140; contra Ellsworth 1980, 28.
14 Galinsky’s statement (1975, 62) is telling: “there is no rigid formal scheme in the Metamor-
phoses. Everything is in flux and the ever-changing structure of the poem… reflects meta-
morphosis and, metaphorically speaking, is metamorphosis”; Barchiesi 1997, 181-182,
likewise sees in Ovid’s text a conscious effort to resist strict schematization. Still, even
though single all-encompassing schemes such as those suggested in the 1960s by Ludwig
and Otis have been abandoned nowadays, the effort to argue for the epic’s orderly ar-
rangement on the basis of book design has not lost its attraction. Thus, E. Rieks, ‘Zum
Aufbau von Ovids Metamorphosen’, WJA 6 (1980), 85-103, and A. Bartenbach, Motiv- und
Erzählstruktur in Ovids Metamorphosen (Frankfurt am Main 1990), promote a structural ar-
rangement sustained by thematic parallels in books 5, 10 and 15; N. Holzberg, ‘Ter quinque
volumina as carmen perpetuum’, MD 40 (1998), 77-98, traces parallel themes within the internal
section of each pentad; also Fowler 1989, 95-97; prior to Fowler, Crabbe 1981, 2274-2327,
argued for a centripetal arrangement around book 8.

Introduction 5
confluence of the Vergilian and Homeric intertexts behind the omen of the
snake at Aulis, which she takes to be programmatic for Ovid’s composition
strategy in his rewriting of the great epics.
15 In a frequently cited article on the
poetics of Fama in Metamorphoses 12.37-63, Zumwalt has made ingenious ob-
servations on Fama as an allegory for the Ovidian narrator of the ‘little Iliad’,
but also as a reflection of the ongoing shape-shifting that runs through the
entire Ovidian text.
16 A recent article by Möller is the first independent study
on the duel between Achilles and Cycnus, and it approaches the character of
Achilles as if the latter were an active composer of textual narrative.
17 The
Centauromachy account has generated considerable interest lately: between
1998 and 2004 three separate studies addressed from different perspectives
this particularly long episode. Musgrove, first, discusses Nestor’s status as
narrator of the Centauromachy and as an extension of Fama in terms of ma-
nipulating the formulation of epic poetics.
18 My own contribution focuses on
the Cyllarus and Hylonome love story, a tale embedded in the Centauro-
machy, and it advances further several of Musgrove’s thoughts on Ovid’s in-
tention to proffer a well-defined theory about his poetics. Among other
things, I center on Ovid’s embrace of Nestor’s persona in order to undercut
the culture of masculinity as primary characteristic of an epic hero but also of
a Roman male. Nestor’s logorrhoeic recollection of gory combats patently
mocks the stereotype of epic virtus.
19 Finally, DeBrohun’s lengthy article uses
the Cyllarus and Hylonome interlude as reference point to discuss hybridity in
Ovid’s epic poetics. DeBrohun defines hybridity as the interaction of concep-
tual opposites (e.g. civilization vs. wilderness, male vs. female), which natu-
rally expands to embrace the omnipresent clash of contrasting genres that is
the conceptual backbone of Ovid’s poetic corpus – especially his epic ideol-
ogy as fleshed out in the Metamorphoses.
20

15 Musgrove 1997, 267-283; Musgrove believes that in reviving the omen of the snake Ovid
has in mind the fall of Troy, and the devouring of Laocoon and his sons by Neptune’s
snakes in Aeneid 2. In her reading, the Homeric intertext recalled to highlight the Vergilian
allusions (“to activate the [Vergilian] intertext”) introduces a competition between Homer
and Vergil, which emphasizes Ovid’s deep familiarity with both the Vergilian and the Ho-
meric narratives. An alternative reading, also based on convergence of multiple intertexts,
is presented in Baldo 1995, 115-120.
16 Zumwalt 1977.
17 Möller 2003. Her arguments often run counter to the objective of my discussion, but there
is much to be valued in her methodology, and her close reading of the episode allows
stimulating points to surface.
18 Musgrove 1998.
19 Papaioannou 2000 (on Cyllarus and Hylonome) and 2002 (on Nestor); arguments devel-
oped in the latter of these pieces are revisited in this study.
20 DeBrohun 2004.

Introduction 6
The second half of Ovid’s Trojan War has benefited from Hopkinson’s
recent commentary on Metamorphoses 13. Hopkinson’s overview of the ‘Judg-
ment of the Arms’, Hecuba’s fate and the Memnonides, is replete with sug-
gestive comments, several of which I will develop further in this study.
21 The
exchange of speeches between Ajax and Ulixes has been the episode of the
‘little Iliad’ most favored by critics, but the pole of attraction has been rheto-
ric, not poetics. Even well into the 1990s the agon between the two heroes
over the armor of Achilles primarily represented a lighter in tone, but sophis-
ticated in style, model controversia adaptating a theme greatly favored by an-
cient dramatists and orators, and popular among educators in oratory in an-
cient Rome.
22 The ‘Judgment’ episode has become, too, the object of an ex-
clusive commentary, by Huyck, which provides a wealth of information, es-
pecially on the earlier tradition behind the contest and on the influence of
rhetoric on its structure.
23 The entwined fates of the Trojan survivors
(Hecuba-Polydorus-Polyxena) are webbed so intricately that the meticulous
pattern of their narration can be appreciated only through the guidance of
equally penetrating studies. One such recent reading, by Paschalis, introduces
semantics as an interpretive tool, and proves the potentially dominant role
that etymology can play in the narrative construction of a text that is mainly
set to celebrate intertextuality.
24 The present study is indebted to all the above
approaches, as it endeavors to integrate and further their insights inside a
more comprehensive theoretical reading of the ‘little Iliad’ cluster.
A better understanding of the mindset that forged Ovid’s distinctive read-
ing of the Iliad is contingent on the poet’s fervent desire to proclaim himself a
deserving heir to the Homeric epics
25, and so, more broadly, to gain recogni-
tion as a particularly creative recipient of the overall Trojan War literary tradi-
tion, epic and beyond. The best way for him to do this, naturally, would be
through engaging in direct dialogue with prominent segments of the great
epic archetype. The composition of this dialogue should show not only the
successor’s deep familiarity with the principal themes and structural forces of

21 Hopkinson 2000; the introduction to the commentary (pp. 9-29) is indispensable for ad-
justing the lens of literary criticism over these episodes.
22 Bibliographical summary in Dippel 1990, 71-75.
23 Huyck 1991; also worth mentioning is Gross’ brief and selective treatment of the element
of parody in the characterization of Ajax and Ulixes (Gross 2000); Zumwalt 1977, 218, had
suggested in passing that Ulixes’ victory over Ajax in this allegoric conflict between brain
vs. brawn should be seen as a victory of Fama, the epic/poetic voice, which may alter facts
and manipulate the truth to win.
24 Paschalis 2003.
25 For an illuminating general introduction to epic succession in Latin poetry, see G.B. Conte,
Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario (Turin 1985) [= G.B. Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation (Ithaca
1986), transl. C.P. Segal, excepting the last chapter on Lucan].

Introduction 7
the Iliad, but also his ability to take advantage of their poetic transformation
across time and genres, and then cast them into a new and distinctly personal
shape which he would use as the foundation to support a new ‘Iliad’. In one
sentence, a truly successful ‘little Iliad’ must and would be an analytical appre-
ciation of the Iliad and its reception, but in dissimulation.
My suggestion to consider a direct line of intellectual exchange between
Ovid and Homer stems from the confidence that Ovid’s reception of archaic
epic is a direct and personal intellectual process, critical of, and often resistant
to, the compelling influence of Vergil’s reading, and consciously challenging
initiatives to introduce Vergil as the exclusive direct successor of Homer.
26
The ‘little Iliad’ should be greeted as a major literary accomplishment, because
its composition proves that Ovid could converse directly with the Iliad and
the archaic epic tradition and its reception, outside the shadow of the Aeneid.
Vergilian intertexts are taken into consideration, but Vergil’s presence is not
so much enforced as freely chosen. Ovid eagerly acknowledges Vergil’s in-
struction in the field of Homeric appropriation and adaptation, but he all the
same makes clear that the Aeneid has been an instructing guide rather than a
compositional bedrock sine quo non .
27 As the structure of the mini-‘Iliad’ is
mapped out in detail in the following chapters, the discussion will occasion-
ally identify Ovid’s creative readings of the Aeneid, which as a rule relish any
opportunity to compensate in originality for the influence the poet received in
inspiration. A close look at selected units in Met. 12.1-13.622 that are visibly
indebted to the Aeneid will illustrate both the actual process of rewriting Ver-
gilian narrative moments and, more broadly, selective structural mechanisms
embraced for the successful accomplishment of this rewriting. The analysis of
Ovid’s literary initiatives to forge his independence from Vergil’s influence
will affirm the merit of the ‘little Iliad’ as a daring experiment in literary analy-
sis. In fact, the creative reception of archaic Greek epic materialized in the
narrative of Met. 12.1-13.622 allows the reader to explore recollection tech-
niques that are at work in full development later in the ‘little Aeneid’, where
model emulation, infused with originality, matures into creation.
28 The inter-

26 Hardie 1993 introduces briefly the leading aspects of succession in Latin epic. In Hardie’s
study Vergil emerges as the premier heir to the Homeric epic tradition, and the Aeneid as
the uncontested Latin redefinition of Homer. Hardie proposes that neither Ovid nor the
epic poets of the following generation contested Vergil’s preeminence, but rather strove
for acknowledgment as heirs to the Aeneid spirit.
27 Ovid is always aware of his own place in literary history, especially when epic heritage is
concerned, and in his writings he regularly positions himself opposite his literary originals;
cf. R. Tarrant, ‘Ovid and Ancient Literary History’, in: P. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge Com-
panion to Ovid (Cambridge 2002), 13-33.
28 A cerebral process described in Hinds 1998, 106: “rather than construct himself as a reader
of the Aeneid, Ovid is constructing Virgil as a hesitant precursor of the Metamorphoses”. An

Introduction 8
action between the two great poets is designed to appear as a matter of au-
thorial choice on Ovid’s part rather than a fiat, and the conspicuousness in his
pronouncing the Vergilian influence aims precisely at defining this liberal rela-
tionship with the Vergilian text more clearly and persuasively. This experi-
mentation with the Greek and Roman epic tradition in combination intro-
duces poetology as the core constituent behind the particular formation of
the ‘little Iliad’ texture.
Interlaced with literary evolution regardless of genre, metapoetics is es-
sential to the definition of epic emulation.
29 Ovid’s engagement in textual
exchange with Homer naturally projects this antagonistic relationship in poe-
tological terms. Besides, the poetry of Homer is, in its totality, a statement on
literary self-consciousness, the perfect example of a heroic narrative against
which every literary undertaking classified as an epic is henceforth to be
measured.
30 Ovid’s occasional borrowings from the actual text of the Iliad,
such as the Aulis omen, or the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs
that frames Nestor’s narrative, convince scholars that had our poet wished to
sound more ‘Homeric’ he was certainly able to do so.
31 Also, the two Trojan
narratives are related in their structural methodology more closely than an
untrained reader may realize. To mention just one example, a detail noted by
nearly every reader of the ‘little Iliad’ has to do with the peculiar timeframe of
the ‘epic’, which is set at a time either prior or posterior to the dramatic time
of the Iliad. Ovid, in other words, is not being original but actually follows
Homer’s own compositional choices. The 24 books of the Iliad relate events
that took place within a two-month-long period during the tenth year of the
Trojan War.

entire (the third) chapter in Hinds 1998 advances a sensible theory on the Latin poets’ pat-
tern of personal quasi-confessions and their place within literary history and genre evolu-
tion.
29 Hinds 1998, esp. 99-100 (discussing the centrality of ambiguity and allusiveness in Ovid’s
metapoetics): “[The Ovidian text] [t]reat[s] poetic tendentiousness… as… constitutive of
allusive writing and of the alluding poet’s emplotment of his work in literary tradition”.
30 On classical and Hellenistic theory about epic, with the Iliad perceived as identical to the
broader definition of epic, see S. Koster, Antike Epostheorien (Wiesbaden 1970). Nagy 1990,
52-115, points out the panhellenic dissemination of archaic epic, and notes that the popu-
larity of Homer was concomitant with the active participation of local bards in the compo-
sition of these epics already in the 8
th century. Havelock 1963, 61-83, emphasizes the cen-
tral place of Homeric poetry, especially the Iliad, in the upbringing of Greek males. Keith
2000, 8-35, discusses how the masculine epic worldview and the interpretive (social and
ideological) conventions of Greek epic are appropriated by Roman poetry and education to
serve an even more male-valorizing social structure.
31 For example, Ellsworth 1980, 28: “Ovid, pretending to ignore the Iliad and to tell the story
of the entire war, actually produces his own Iliad although [sic] allusion to well known epi-
sodes, expansions of short scenes, and similarity of theme and structure”.

Introduction 9
Still, the Ovidian epic narrative strategy stands apart, because it advocates
the understanding of ‘epic’ exclusively as a genre. In every episode of the re-
cast Iliad the dialogue centers on poetics, unlike the Homeric epics and, to a
considerable extent, Vergil, too, for whom an epic narrative is meant to be on
top a celebration of ethics.
32 The Metamorphoses does not simply eschew ethics
completely, but often makes morality the target of unrelenting attack, which
our poet enjoys greatly. In the ‘little Iliad’, the deconstruction of epic ethics
becomes a leitmotif, and its constant presence influences the formulation of
Ovid’s leading structural percept behind the narrative development of Met.
12.1-13.622. This percept identifies with a core issue of ancient epic composi-
tion in general: the character of the epic protagonist, which in archaic epic is
idealized in the Homeric Achilles.
This book asserts that the ultimate key to understanding the narrative
choices and objectives behind the narrative of Met. 12.1-13.622 is to focus on
Achilles and to observe his evolution from episode to episode through a suc-
cession of different portrayals. This prominence of Achilles is remarkable but
has not been properly addressed by modern readers.
33 Ovid was fully capable
of producing an ‘Iliad’ with Achilles confined to anonymity or to the margins
of narrative action; his treatment of Aeneas, the Roman ‘Achilles’, in the ‘little
Aeneid’ immediately following, attests to this. The omnipresence of Achilles in
the Ovidian text lifts to prominence the axial issue of Homeric succession. It
sounds simple, even self-evident, that an aspiring heir to the Homeric poetics
would broadcast his credentials in composing a text, even in miniature form,
centered on an Achilles-like figure. Vergil’s Aeneas is a most celebrated para-
digm of such an Achilles-character emulation, and the issue of the ‘alter Achil-
les’ is a paramount theme of Vergil’s epic world. Vergil’s Trojan War culmi-
nates in the decapitation of King Priam by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, fol-
lowing a verbal exchange about whether the son is or is not entitled to his
fathers’ unique epic heritage. The storyline of the entire second half of the
Aeneid identifies with the quest to determine who would be the successor of

32 Along these lines the protagonist epic hero (or heroes) becomes the embodiment of this
ethical universe, and his characterization the rationalized application of an abstract ideol-
ogy; see S. Scully, ‘The Polis in Homer: a Definition and Interpretation’, Ramus 10 (1981),
1-34, especially the later section that focuses on Hector as a tool of the city; also M.
Detienne, Les Maîtres de Vérité dans la Grèce Archaïque (Paris 1967), 9-24; and Havelock 1963,
97-114.
33 Musgrove (1991, 31-33) alone distinctly identifies Achilles and his wrath as the two themes
that feature in all individual stories of the ‘little Iliad’, but her approach, besides being too
brief (a mere three pages), is preoccupied with the forging of a rational sequence for the
unorthodox chronology of the cluster. The consistent presence of an Achilles in rage cre-
ates an ‘orderly’, and thus acceptable, concatenation of narrative units that do not follow a
sequential chronology.

Introduction 10
Achilles. The epic concludes with a rehearsal of the battle between Achilles
and Hector. Overall, the fashioning of Aeneas’ character, which evokes but
does not copy that of Achilles’ own, reflects Vergil’s aspirations to project the
authenticity of his epic vein through creative mastery of Homer’s artistry.
Achilles in Ovid is cast likewise in a multifaceted role governed by poetics.
More than that, the hero’s characterization becomes a leitmotif in Ovid,
emerging as the organizing theme of the unit’s plot.
This realization generates a series of questions. First, one needs to look at
the individual episodes that piece together the ‘little Iliad’, assess Achilles’
presence in each one of them, and uncover the motives that prompted Ovid
to select these particular episodes from the Epic Cycle and, to the extent this
is possible, from the multi-generic, Greek as well as Roman, reception of the
various Epic Cycle moments thereafter. I shall argue that the assortment was
planned with Achilles’ characterization in mind. Even though the Ovidian
recollection of the Iliad circumvents the content of the Homeric poem, it res-
urrects the same generating forces that fueled the narrative action in Homer,
namely the character and the anger of Achilles.
34 Achilles’ portrayal in the
‘little Iliad’ is neither pretty nor flattering, but it has its precedent in Great
Homer. Ovid simply embraces a practice that the Iliad narrator first initiated.
Critics have noted that as a rule several of the same moments and situa-
tions of the Trojan War are related in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and often
a story’s full picture depends on knowledge carried in both texts. Yet, never
do the two Homeric poems directly acknowledge each other. Achilles’ treat-
ment in the Odyssey is a very good example of this Homeric practice, and of
great pertinence to our discussion on the manipulation of the hero in Ovid’s
version of a rival ‘Iliad’, since it constitutes, so to speak, a very early, if not
nearly contemporaneous, critical reception of the Achilles epic character in
the epic tradition, and likely even in the corpus of the same authorial genius.
The Iliad is the epic of Achilles,
35 but in the Odyssey the best of the Achaeans

34 Ovid’s peculiar structure of the Trojan story has inspired several attempts to rationalize the
mechanics of its narrative unity. For Otis (1970, 278ff.), for example, the cluster consists of
an ‘epic’ section (the Achilles-Cycnus combat, Caeneus’ story and the Centauromachy) and
a ‘tragic’ section (Hecuba and the death of Polyxena), and between the two stands the
‘Judgment of the Arms’. Otis’ analysis, the one most widely accepted, is seriously limited. It
does not take into account several smaller units, such as the death of Achilles and the story
of Periclymenus just preceding it, or the marvel of the Memnonides, which nonetheless
contribute significantly to the thematic coherence of the cluster. On Otis’ limitations, see
Croisille 1985, 59.
35 Cf. the Scholia AbT on Il. 1.1:???????? ??. ?? ???????? ? ??4 ???????? ????????????
?? ????????? ? ???????? ????????? ?6 ??μ?????.For a summary of the various
scholarly attempts to answer this question, see Latacz 1995. Latacz believes that the Iliad
should be read above all as a story of the ‘anger of Achilles’, despite the fact that Achilles is

Introduction 11
appears only twice in person. These two appearances occur in the two Un-
derworld scenes, the Nekyias of Books 11 and 24, and on each occasion
Achilles persistently refuses to reminisce on specific moments of his past in
the Iliad.
36 In a way, the Odyssey records an interesting conflict between this
new pessimistic self-reflection of Achilles’ ghost and the image of the Iliadic
Achilles, which again shows up briefly in the Odyssey, in the dramatized shap-
shot of the Trojan War poeticized by Demodocus. In the first of three songs
that the bard of the Phaeacians performs in honor of Ulixes/anonymous
guest (Od. 9.75-82), he tells of a quarrel between Agamemnon and Ulixes,
which recasts inside the new world order of the Odyssey the conflict between
Achilles and Agamemnon.
37
Few would disagree that Homer’s Iliad bears a rather unconventional title,
since the dramatic time during which its action is set covers only a few days of
the entire Trojan campaign, precisely the time between the outbreak and the
mitigation of Achilles’ anger. The narration of the Trojan story in the Meta-
morphoses, however, does not trace the course of Achilles’ mênis, but instead
explores the various ways in which mênis directs and colors the hero’s con-
duct. Achilles’ anger, a catalyst for the development of the plot in the Iliad, is
received in the ‘little Iliad’ as a distinct character trait. Thus, Ovid’s compact
Trojan story reads as a conflux of assorted focalizations on Achilles, in which
Achilles’ world and the hero’s role in it are reconstructed, and the process is
reported through the eyes of other epic characters. Each of these characters
allegorically represents a different point of view or ‘reading’, depending on
the viewer’s personal experiences, his or her involvement in the Trojan plot,
and his or her perspective on the Trojan adventure. In the language of meta-
poetics, Ovid’s Achilles stands for the text of the Iliad, while the characters
through whose eyes the hero comes to life, ‘Nestor’, ‘Ajax’, or ‘Ulixes’, signify

not physically present in more than half of the epic, while the narrative thematics in the
poem largely identifies with Achilles’ ongoing resistance against a system of epic values that
he, as model hero, is expected to exemplify.
36 Both passages feature in sections of highly contested authorship; cf. discussion and bibliog-
raphy in Edwards, 1985, 9-10. In the earlier Nekyia, Achilles rejects the hero ideology, re-
gretting that he once chose kleos over longevity, and, instead of focusing on himself, he av-
idly inquires about the welfare of his father and son. In Odyssey 24, he does not spare his
praises for Penelope’s exemplary fidelity.
37 The intricate design of Demodocus’ first song, including its dramatization of the polarized
epic worldviews represented in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and embodied, respectively, by
Achilles and Ulixes, is optimally presented in Nagy 1979, 15-68. The conflict between the
different ideologies of the two Homeric epics is a leading theme in the Armorum Iudicium,
where Ovid seems genuinely concerned with the meaning of epic heroism and the defini-
tion of epic poetry.

Introduction 12
disparate but all the same persuasive interpretations of the hero by post-
Homeric ‘readers’, namely, the aspiring Homeric successors.
38
Ovid’s deconstruction of the world-famous Achilles of the Iliad draws on
the less famous traditions about the hero, as these are preserved in various
literary sources. A survey of these traditions is obviously not within the scope
of this study,
39 but a brief summary is illuminating, to acquaint the reader
with the possibilities and the challenges alike facing the aspiring student of
Ovid’s undertaking. Already in the Iliad, the portrait of the hero
40 is based on
the confluence of many previously independent and not always congruent
mythological traditions and themes, and it is marked by extremes and contra-
dictions directed by a deep concern for his fama or epic reputation. Achilles’
most distinguished characteristic is his unparalleled physical ability, his irre-

38 Wheeler 1999, 189, expresses a similar view in discussing homodiegesis and heterodiegesis
in Ovid. Commenting on the narrative in Books 12 and 14, Wheeler points out the con-
spicuous absence of the Ovidian narrator’s voice, compared to the earlier sections of the
poem, and justifies it as a logical outcome of the subject matter: “[r]ather than repeat in his
own voice the events surrounding the Trojan War… Ovid reconfigures the epic cycle from
the point of view of characters in the story-world”. In this book I argue precisely that the
complex construction (deconstruction and reconstruction) of Achilles is the outcome of a
similar reconfiguration from the individual standpoints of various characters in the peculiar
story-world of the ‘little Iliad’.
39 The literary sources on Achilles are listed in M. Roussel, Biographie légendaire d’Achille (Am-
sterdam 1991); those most important are also listed in A. Kossatz-Deissmann, ‘Achilleus’,
LIMC 1.1 (1981), 37-200; a brief overview of the hero’s literary biography, with up-to-date
bibliography, has been recorded more recently in J. Scherf, ‘Achilleus’, DNP 1 (1996), 76-
81. The best comprehensive appreciation of Achilles’ literary career is King 1987. King
outlines the “archetypal” Achilles, the Homeric hero, in the first section of her book (pp.
1-49), and then devotes two chapters to the literary response to this archetype in archaic
and classical Greece – Epic Cycle, tragedy, Plato – (pp. 50-109), and in Rome and the
Western tradition (pp. 110-170); her last chapter is also important, for it surveys the tradi-
tion behind the portrayal of the Lover Achilles (pp. 171-217). Latacz 1995, concisely out-
lines those ‘representative’ character traits of the Homeric hero passed down in the literary
tradition. My brief overview of the Homeric Achilles is based on these two monographs.
D. Shive, Naming Achilles (Oxford 1987), is particularly good with the history behind the
original construction of the Homeric hero. On the deconstruction of Achilles in Greek
tragedy, see now Michelakis 2002. Sistakou 2004, is valuable on the critical reception of the
Epic Cycle – more precisely, the Trojan legend – in Hellenistic and later Greek poetry; the
Hellenistic Achilles (esp. pp. 215-236 and passim) follows after his Euripidean counterpart.
Even though Sistakou’s study does not extend to the poetics of Achilles’ Hellenistic meta-
morphosis, her readings of Achilles’ presence in Callimachus and other poets strongly sup-
ports the use, by the Hellenistic poets, of the image of the Homeric hero as allegory for the
composition of consciously counter-Homeric epic.
40 The definition of the ‘epic hero’, who is essentially the Homeric hero, is recently discussed
in J. Haubold, Homer’s People: Epic Poetry and Social Formation (Cambridge 2000), 3-10, with
full bibliography.

Introduction 13
sistible prowess on the public space of the battlefield. When the hero is pre-
sent in battle the Greek army is always victorious. On the contrary, the
Greeks suffer heavy defeat when Achilles is mastered by mênis, his second
leading characteristic, which drives the hero to the opposite direction, to se-
clusion, and away from the openness of the battle.
The extreme emotions that dominate Achilles’ conduct are a perfect
match for his extreme physical strength, and they result from a rigid and
monolithic process of reasoning that stems from an obsession with kleos, the
acknowledgment of his deeds as klea, ‘deeds of glory’. This acknowledgment
would offer solace to the hero, who is destined to die young,
41 because the
record of his accomplishments, by becoming klea, will survive into eternity in
the performances of the epic poets. As long as the hero is alive, the official
recognition of his klea is substantiated through the attribution of ‘honor’, timê ,
which follows the awarding of a material reward, a geras, ‘prize’. In Achilles’
case, famously, his geras, the slave Briseis, is taken away to replace the geras of
Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army and warrior hierarchically
superior to all heroes, including Achilles, a geras, which the king had to give
back. This gesture Achilles interprets as dishonoring and as a threat to the
recognition of his epic-hero status – the acknowledgment of his deeds, in
honor and reward of which the geras was awarded, as klea. These emotions of
insecurity and anxiety about the control of his epic memory beyond his death
are leading directives behind Ovid’s redesigning of the Achilles portrait.
Achilles’ mênis emerges in its most extreme expression in the course of
the events following the death of his beloved companion Patroclus in the
later part of the Iliad. Again, as in the case of Briseis, Achilles experiences
mênis, which is likewise related to the affirmation of his kleos and his postmor-
tem epic memory. Patroclus is for Achilles, at various times, a surrogate father
(Il. 24.511-512, where he and Peleus are mourned interchangeably), brother
(11.786-789), and son (16.7-10), but he is foremost a substitute of the hero’s
own self. In Patroclus, Achilles sees a reflection of his own life, and, by anal-
ogy, in Patroclus’ death, he sees the rehearsal of his own death. Ironically, this
is what actually happens, since Patroclus at the time of his death is not merely
dressed up in Achilles’ armor pretending to be Achilles, but he truly believes
that he can be a substitute Achilles, and so he disregards the admonition to
withdraw from the battle early. As the death of Patroclus forecasts the death
of Achilles, the latter subconsciously sees in the extraction of the proper re-
venge not only the fulfillment of his duty to his dead friend, but also the ret-

41 All the passages in the Iliad about Achilles’ mortality and premature death are collected in
Edwards 1991, 158 ad Il. 18.95-96; the recurrence of the theme explains the hero’s obses-
sion with establishing the desired version of his posthumous fama already before his death.

Introduction 14
ribution for his own impending death. In his bloodthirsty spree against the
Trojans at the banks of Skamander, in his killing of the suppliant Lycaon
(21.34ff.), and in the mutilation of Hector’s body in Iliad 22 and 24, Achilles
takes in advance revenge for his own death. Even before his death he is anx-
ious to ensure that his kleos will receive its due posthumous acknowledgment.
With respect to content, Ovid’s narration circumvents the story of the
Homeric poem, since the chronology of its plot coincides with incidents that
occurred either before or after the time covered in the Iliad. This odd story-
line allows a group of additional stories about Achilles to influence the Ro-
man ‘metamorphosis’ of the hero’s Homeric conduct. These non-Homeric
stories include Achilles’ duels with the Trojan warrior Cycnus and the Ethio-
pian King Memnon, Achilles’ death before the Scaean Gates, the ‘Judgment’
over Achilles’ arms, and the hero’s apparition as a ghost to detain the Greek
fleet at Thrace and to demand the sacrifice of Priam’s daughter Polyxena.
These episodes were originally narrated in the Cypria, the Ilias Parva, the Iliu-
persis, the Aethiopis, and the Nostoi, all epics like the Iliad, and all parts of the
Epic Cycle
42; and like several episodes in the Iliad or the Odyssey, they had
inspired several later compositions of various genres. In Ovid’s treatment of
all these incidents Achilles is the fierce warrior we know from the Iliad, but in
the Roman text his obsession with kleos is entwined with a high and constant
anxiety to prove his martial prowess, which often revolves around the polarity
of gender. Even further, on several occasions the narratives of these epics
portray a distinctly non-Homeric Achilles, at times an Achilles best defined as
the warrior of love rather than the lover of war. It is, further, surprising that
so little attention has been paid to the regular inclusion of transformation
stories in the non-Homeric poems of the Epic Cycle. Recent discussion of the
differences between Homer and the other epic poets of his era in their choice
of material has indeed observed the suppression of metamorphosis in the
Homeric poems, especially in the Iliad as one conspicuous example of the
general neglect for themes that border the magical and the fantastic.
43

42 Even though in their original form the Cyclic poems might have been conceived independ-
ently from the Homeric poems and the story narrated in them; this view has recently been
argued by J.S. Burgess, ‘The non-Homeric Cypria’, TAPA 126 (1996), 77-99. Focusing spe-
cifically on the Cypria, Burgess puts forth the interesting speculation that the original ver-
sion of the poem, far from serving as an introduction to the Iliad and its storyline, pre-
sented a comprehensive overview of the Trojan War, which adeptly integrated various local
traditions into a widely known account of the first great panhellenic expedition.
43 Cf. J. Griffin, “The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer”, JHS 97 (1977) 39-53; the
suppression of the preternatural, including transformations, by Homer is discussed on pp.
40-42. Griffin identifies specific metamorphoses in the poems of the Cycle, including the
daughters of Anius, whose magic touch could produce wine and oil, and who later were

Introduction 15
The metamorphosis of Achilles in the Epic Cycle launches a process of
deconstruction that deepens and accelerates as the same epic stories are retold
as fabulae of texts that belong to different literary genres, and reflect different
political and cultural ideologies. Ovid’s critical consideration of the dynamics
of Homeric epic is indebted to Achilles’ new image in Greek (and likely also
in Roman) drama. Nearly 75 dramas were composed on or about Achilles in
the fifth and fourth centuries in Athens, deriving sometimes from the Iliad
but mostly from the broader mythological tradition. In most of these dramas,
Achilles rarely belongs among the leading characters, and his marginalization,
which usually highlights a drastic character anasynthesis, has empowered nar-
ratives firmly set to antagonize the ideology of the Iliad. Granted that the bulk
of classical and post-classical Attic drama, and certainly the near-totality of
Roman, is for now irretrievable, of the three tragedians known through com-
plete works, Euripides is the one who deconstructs and utterly demytholo-
gizes the Homeric ideal of the epic Achilles, and in whose plays, significantly,
gender is pivotal and often a leading factor towards the interpretation of the
play. The sophistication that distinguishes Ovid’s rewriting of the epic pro-
tagonist through the eyes of the female survivors in Metamorphoses 13 is best
studied through the lens of the Euripidean reading of the Trojan tradition.
Most crucial is the impossibility to lauch a systematic study of the archaic
epic reception in the centuries that followed the end of the Classical Era. In-
deed, if it is regrettable that so little has survived on the whole from the Cy-
clic tradition, since so much of the ‘little Iliad’ plot draws on it, surely, it is
outright depressing, for our better understanding of Ovid’s embrace of ar-
chaic epic literature, that our knowledge of the Hellenistic receptions of the
Epic Cycle rests on such slight foundations. The loss of these conceivable
Hellenistic formations of grand epic may be as catalytic for mastering the
dense Ovidian poetics, as seminal is the extensive disappearance of the Greek
models for Ovid’s narration in general,
44, and especially the poetic collections

turned into doves (and who also feature in Ovid, in the opening of the ‘little Aeneid’, at Met.
13.623ff.), and Cygnus, the warrior-turned-into-swan, in the Cypria.
44 Hutchinson’s most recent ZPE study of the newly published P.Oxy. 4711, a substantial
fragment of a catalogue of metamorphoses in elegiac verse, may help shed new light on the
deeper mechanics of Ovid’s source reception methodology. The text on the papyrus, most
likely from Parthenius, and hence, a well-known piece that Ovid had studied closely, re-
cords stories of transformations that also appear in the Metamorphoses: the stories of Adonis,
Asterie, and Narcissus. Hutchinson’s comparative analysis of the Greek and Latin texts
shows a stark differentiation in each poet’s writing ideology: Parthenius opts for a very
concise, dense, and discontinuous narrative style in obvious contrast with Ovid’s eloquent
narrations. Hutchinson believes that Parthenius poeticizes some specific literary text now
lost, suggesting that these myths had undergone an even earlier literary treatment. The im-
portance of texts like this, though, “can easily be obscured for modern critics by more ac-

Introduction 16
of metamorphosis, which emerged for the first time in these times, notably
the works of Nicander and Boios.
45 With respect to the Achilles-portrait re-
ception, the Hellenistic tradition is disappointingly poor. Still, the anti-hero
ideology that marks the extant epic texts from this era (conspicuously the
Argonautica) and gave birth to the epyllion heroes, such as the Hekale Theseus,
and the marginal-hero culture of this sub-genre, indicates a general literary
policy of deconstruction and challenge against established and venerable tra-
dition, and especially, lofty literature.
Mindful of the interpretive caveat that the lack of evidence regarding
Ovid’s possible Hellenistic predecessors in mock-epic reception entails, it is
fair to postulate that the thematically dense union that results from the con-
vergence of the individual narrative parts of the ‘little Iliad’ is the product of a
logically structured composition observing its own literary dynamics. The
ubiquity of Achilles, usually conspicuous yet at times imperceptible to a cur-
sory reader, and Ovid’s effort to maintain throughout a competitive edge
against Homer in terms of complex poetics, including a regular display of
literary allusivity, are the two backbones of the narrative structure in Met.
12.1-13.622. Their fundamentality, first, in guaranteeing both the soundness
and the ingenuity of Ovid’s reading of the Iliad, and, subsequently, in working
towards its positive reception by a demanding audience, is crucially aided by a
plot architecture that observes a remarkable regularity. This regularity in nar-
rative design is maintained through adherence to a set of recurrent thematic
patterns and rules, conceived in order to uphold and justify the peculiar or-
dering in the composition of the Ovidian ‘Iliad’.
Overall, the ‘little Iliad’ consists of eight units. A brief precis of the plot is
imperative to envision more clearly the structural and thematic parameters

cessible intertexts”, and so an Ovidian reader should always be alert about the interpretive
perils of selective Quellenforschung; see details in G.O. Hutchinson, ‘The Metamorphosis
of Metamorphosis: P. Oxy. 4711 and Ovid’, ZPE 155 (2006), 71-84.
45 Nicander and Boios are the two Hellenistic poets of metamorphosis compositions which,
one may argue safely thanks to Antoninus Liberalis’ testimony, have influenced both the
content of the Metamorphoses and Ovid’s methodology about the reception and manipula-
tion of metamorphosis myths; regrettably, from the original poetry of either Nicander or
Boios only scant fragments have survived: our most substantial text (Nicander fr. 62 GS) is
barely four lines long, and it is almost impossible to confirm its provenance from the Het-
eroioumena. On the basis of Antoninus’ narrative, both Hellenistic poets conferred major
and frequent changes to the plot of various myths compared to earlier versions of the same
tales, but they also differ from Ovid’s later treatments, and this most likely means that the
Roman poet embraced the importance of transformation in poetic expression more
broadly, no less in the sphere of thematics than in structure; on Hellenistic metamorphosis
literature, mainly Nicander and Boios, behind Ovid’s epic, see Forbes Irving 1990, 19-37.

Introduction 17
that directed Ovid’s choices in putting together Met. 12.1-13.622.
46 The story
takes off with the mustering of the Greek army at Aulis, where the Greeks
witness the omen of the snake and the nestlings and the sacrifice of Iphige-
neia. As soon as the Greek fleet sets sail for Troy, the narrative focus moves
skywards to describe the domain of Fama, an awesome personification and a
most prominent allegory of poetics. The battlefield action at Troy is summa-
rized in a narrative that relates the single combat between Achilles and Cy-
cnus, ending with the latter’s transformation into the homonymous bird. The
triumph of Achilles initiates the fourth unit, the banquet scene where Nestor
takes the opportunity to reminisce about the good old days of his youth and
specifically recall the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths in the long-
est individual speech in Ovid’s entire Metamorphoses. Following Nestor’s ac-
count, the action moves rapidly forward to the actual death of Achilles. Book
12 closes with the gathering of the Greek chiefs to determine who most de-
serves to inherit the arms of Achilles. Book 13 opens with the two contest-
ants, Ajax and Ulixes, presenting their cases in opposing speeches, each claim-
ing to be the one most qualified for the great award of Achilles’ armor. Ulixes
wins and Ajax, overwhelmed by rage and madness, commits suicide. A sec-
ond instance of rapid plot progression comes after Ajax’s death. During this
time-sweep, Troy falls, its men are killed, and the women are reduced to cap-
tivity. The next episode relates the destinies of Trojan princess Polyxena and
her mother Hecuba. Polyxena is sacrificed over the tomb of Achilles at the
request of the dead Greek hero’s ghost. Under these circumstances Hecuba is
called to become the avenger of both her daughter and her son, Polydorus,
before she is metamorphosed into a bitch. The concluding episode of the
‘little Iliad’, the eighth in total, records a rather extraordinary scene, the trans-
formation of the birds called Memnonides from the ashes of the dead Ethio-
pian warrior Memnon, a Trojan ally who was killed in battle by Achilles.
The element of transformation naturally holds a consistent presence. In
Ovid’s epic, transformation becomes the main linking theme not least be-
cause a text subject to metamorphosis welcomes, if not alludes to the out-
come of, a competition
47 against earlier tradition, and in the case at hand,
against the Homeric epic tradition. In fact, as already noted, the presence of

46 Dippel 1990, 18-22, offers an annotated summary of the cluster, and he concludes his work
with a five-page appendix (pp. 147-151) which is practically a verse-by-verse recording of
the ‘little Iliad’ content.
47 Metamorphosis is generally considered an allusive reference to the literary technique of
intertextuality and literary emulation. Hardie 1992 observes that even the Aeneid, the model
Roman traditional epic, abounds in metamorphoses (p. 62: “it [metamorphosis] is a more
common thing in the poem as a whole than is usually allowed”), and this predilection is
largely dictated by the metapoetical potential of a metamorphosis.

Introduction 18
transformation incidents recurrently in the various epic narratives that draw
on the Epic Cycle beyond the Iliad, plausibly substantiate their allure as the-
matic models for Ovid. Nonetheless, the centrality of metamorphosis as a
poetological signifier is at odds with the actual textual space and prominence
devoted to transformation narratives inside Met. 12.1-13.622. The ‘little Iliad’
unit, which occupies a total of 1250 lines over two contiguous books, records
in all eight physical transformations, five of which are recorded in Metamor-
phoses 12, and three in Metamorphoses 13. All of them seem of secondary, ‘pe-
ripheral’ importance in nearly every episode, while for most even the justifica-
tion for their presence appears enforced. Ovid presents his audience with an
interesting challenge when he invites them to explore the deeper function that
these odd accounts perform.
Performance is inherent in ancient epic, as the oral nature of the genre is
transposed upon the characters-heroes, who in their words and deeds, them-
selves mini-genres, substantiate the ‘epic’ definition of the genre.
48 Dramati-
zation is an essential feature in a narrative whose structure relies on a dia-
logue with the model of all epics. Ovid’s homage to the dramatic ‘lives’ of his
heroes in his rewriting of the Trojan legend is conspicuous. Several episodes
in the ‘little Iliad’ have become more than once the topic of dramatic produc-
tion. It is impossible to read the sacrifice of Iphigeneia at the opening of
Metamorphoses 12, or the death of Polyxena later in the ‘Survivors’ episode,
without recalling Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis and Hecuba. The ‘Judgment of
the Arms’, which extends over nearly a third of the ‘little Iliad’, and the ensu-
ing fate of Hecuba also enjoyed great popularity with the Roman dramatists
and the Roman rhetoricians and educators.
49 The recourse to the mechanics
of dramatic performance is furthermore in accord with the multiplicity of
narrative voices that invariably disturb and blur the speech of the omniscient
narrator Ovid. Most drama, and in particular Greek tragedy, is a nexus of an
elaborately performing multitude of voices, each with its own claim to judi-

48 On ancient epic as performance, see Martin 1989, esp. chapters 3 and 4.
49 Bömer 1982, 196: “der Streit zwischen Odysseus and Aias um die Waffen des Achilleus ein
eigenes umfangreiches Kapitel griechischer und römischer Literatur-Geschichte (füllt)”.
Our sources and surviving fragments offer evidence of at least two productions under the
title Armorum Iudicium by Pacuvius and Accius. On the Roman tragedy background of the
‘little Iliad’, see G. D’Anna, ‘La tragedia latina arcaica nelle “M etamorfosi” ’, in Atti Conv.
Int. Ovidiano. Sulmona, maggio 1958 (Rome 1959), 266ff.; also Bömer 1982, 197. On trag-
edy in the Metamorphoses, see Lafaye 1904/1971, 141-166; Currie 1981, 2701-2742; I. Gil-
denhard and A. Zissos, ‘“Somatic Economies”: Tragic Bodies and Poetic Design in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses’, in: Hardie-Barchiesi-Hinds 1999, 162-181; A. Keith, ‘Sources and Genres in
Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1-5’, in: Boyd 2002, 258-268 (focusing especially on the ‘Thebaid’); on
the rhetorical background of the Armorum Iudicium, see, for example, Dippel 1990, 72 n. 7.

Introduction 19
ciousness, truth and authority.
50 As the absence of an external narrator and
his superior knowledge renders all dramatic speech equally credible and suspi-
cious, the outcome is a blending, or rather a coexistence, of what would oth-
erwise be separate points of views. In the particular case of a mock-epic nar-
rative, these correspond to variant genres, specifically lyric (the interlude of
Cyllarus and Hylonome) and elegiac (the mourning of Hecuba), but they also
identify with speech that belongs to various other spheres of expression, in-
cluding oracles (the snake and the birds), prayer (Polyxena), lament (Hecuba
or Aurora) and contesting oratory (Ajax and Odysseus). Finally, the genre of
drama relies on an ongoing play with illusions of presence and affirmation of
identity, on a plurality of perspectives that produces ambiguity about the
scope of narrative action. The reader of the ‘little Iliad’, accordingly, like the
spectator of a Greek tragedy, is faced not only with a variety of voices but
also with many contesting points of view and types of speech. Each time a
new unit of the ‘little Iliad’ is introduced, the audience faces anew the chal-
lenge of deciphering the enactment of a text that is subject to its own peculiar
generic constraints, while the variant narrative voices in it compete for the
readers’ attention. In this respect, Ovid’s investment in a recast that relies on
a combination of perspectives introduced in dramatic coloring is not unre-
lated to his reluctance to compete against the consistency of Homer’s omnis-
cient narrator’s voice. Fragmentation is the forerunner of variation.
Greek tragedy was the most conspicuous terrain of polarization, the acted
expression of early Greek thought, translated in organized civic behavior,
which more often than not relied on binary oppositions. At the center, each
tragic performance situates a dilemma or a clash of opposing beliefs, pivotal
among which is the dichotomy of gender, the constant conflict between the
male and the female. Male and female belong among the leading pairs of op-
posites already in Pythagorean thought. In Pythagoras’ table of opposites
male is related to, or is inclusive of, limit, odd, one, resting, straight, light,
good and square, while female is synonymous with lack of limit, even, plural,
curved, darkness, bad and oblong (Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.5.986a). To this
conflict of genders Greek tragedy has attached several other conflicting pairs,
such as culture vs. nature, city vs. wilderness, public vs. private, or decision-

50 Wheeler 1999, 186, calls this form of multivocal narrative “mimetic”, pointing to Aris-
totle’s appreciation of the Homeric narrative style, which allots minimal space to the om-
niscient first-person narrator and “dramatizes” the dialogues of the characters, the epic he-
roes. Wheeler notes (p. 164) that Ovid’s epic narration represents one such ‘mimetic’ narra-
tive: “By speaking less and less in his own voice, Ovid ironically fulfills Aristotle’s prescrip-
tion that the epic poet should be a mimêtês (Poetics 1460a 7-11). However, instead of acting
out a drama, the primary narrator’s impersonations lead to the dramatization of storytelling
itself”.

Introduction 20
making vs. obedience. The spirit of Greek tragic drama, however, capitalizes
on the obfuscation, the blurring of the lines separating the two gender catego-
ries, and everything these stand for.
51
Any attack against some well-defined gender categorization poses a threat
for the male and for the orderly civic system of patriarchy. And if the world
of tragedy raises and articulates for the first time an awareness of the female
as a threatening force for the male cosmos and the male definition of order,
the world of epic idealizes precisely this male definition of order.
52 Ovid’s
Achilles perceives his combat against Cycnus in terms of a manliness chal-
lenge, in an agonizing effort to uphold the traditional definition of epic as the
extolling of klea andron (‘glorious deeds of men’).
53 My discussion of the
Achilles vs. Cycnus encounter will illustrate that in Ovid’s epic universe the
deeds of Achilles are neither glorious nor manly, and they should rather be
downplayed than extolled. This affront against epic masculinity characterizes
most units in Met. 12.1-13.622, although in some it occupies a much more
central place than in others. To be more precise, the inclusion of the story of
woman/man Caeneus(-is) and its immediate narrative context, the parable of
the Centauromachy, reduce Achilles’ boastfulness on his masculinity to self-
delusion, and take advantage of an amusing story about transgenderism to
theorize the deconstruction of heroism. Likewise, the debate between Ajax
and Ulixes dramatizes the polarization between biê and mêtis, which on a dif-
ferent level translates as the conflict between masculine (biê, physical strength)
and feminine (mêtis, craftiness often linked to female nature). Polyxena, finally,
delivers her dying speech in phraseology that evokes the sermon of the dying
Hector in Iliad 22, and surprisingly, also of the Homeric Achilles.
Ovid’s admirable erudition represents another valuable structural incor-
poration mechanism, and even determines the methodology of the ‘little Iliad’
plot articulation.
54 With few exceptions, the transformations in Met. 12.1-

51 On the confluence of gender roles and gender symbolism as a core theme of most classical
tragedies, see, for example, H.P. Foley, ‘The Conception of Women in Athenian Drama’,
in: H.P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York/London 1981), 127-168;
also F. Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Civilization (Chicago
1996), which includes a chapter on the gender polarization in Euripides’ Hecuba (‘Euripides’
Hekabe and the Somatics of Dionysiac Drama’, pp. 172-218; first published in Ramus 20
[1991], 53-94).
52 Succinctly expressed at the opening lines of Keith 2000, 1: “From Homer to Claudian,
classical Greek and Latin epic poetry was composed by men, consumed largely by men,
and centrally concerned with men”. Keith’s study is a highly recommended introduction to
the perception of masculine and feminine identity in Latin epic.
53 Cf. Il. 9.189, 524; Od. 8.73.
54 Cf. Barchiesi 2002, 187: “It must be significant that Ovid writes in the wake of the tradi-
tions not just of Alexandrian poetry but also of the exegesis of Alexandrian poetry”.

Introduction 21
13.622 either are unattested in prior literature, such as the metamorphosis of
the Memnonides, or are known only from some obscure earlier reference, like
the inscription bearing the name of Ajax on the petals of the hyacinth. This
results in the forging of a chain of elusive transformations which runs
through the ‘little Iliad’, proclaims acumen to be a presupposition for access-
ing each ring/narrative unit beyond the surface, and functions as a connec-
tive, a facilitator of storyline progression. Most importantly, the chain of these
erudite metamorphoses touches upon a subtle but critical issue of the ‘little
Iliad’ structure, namely the definition and containment of the epic fama. As
most of these changes revolve around elusive memorials and funerals, the
tantamount issue of anticipating postmortem survival becomes a signature
theme that extends beyond the boundaries of Ovid’s epitome of the Trojan
War and generates reflection about the uncertainty that hovers over the
memory of the poet’s poetry in general.
Deriving, then, its content inspiration from the broader Epic Cycle but its
epic ideology and narrative mechanisms from the Iliad, Ovid’s mini-‘Iliad’ is as
distanced from the Homeric prototype as it is tied to it. This fusion of Epic
Cycle material with Homeric thematics and methodology generates a system-
atic reconstruction of the archetypal hero character. The ‘little Iliad’, like the
Homeric original, is an epic on and about Achilles vis-à-vis the Ovidian Achil-
les, and even though half-way into the story the hero physically drops out of
the epic action, through various substitutes he maintains a ubiquitous, domi-
nant presence to the end of the cluster. Ovid builds his ‘epic’ structure on a
leading Homeric plot-advancement mechanism, that is, Achilles’ eager subjec-
tion to models of behavior proposed to him by others; characters who, poeti-
cally speaking, try to usurp Homer’s part in designing the development course
of the Iliadic narrative.
55 Ovid’s Achilles reminds us of the epic poet who
adheres to the traditional ideology of the genre, but whose effort to impose
the epic hero portrait that he considers ideal is constantly stymied. Instead,
various rivaling narrators/epic poets in the ‘little Iliad’, themselves also trans-
plants from Homer in their majority, reduce the great hero into a text, a com-
bination of character traits, which they manipulate in order to compose what
they advocate as ideal hero models. The narrative outcome produces an intel-
ligent anti-epic narration, which at times is tinted with mockery and eschews
predictability in its focus on inconsistency, expressed in different manifesta-
tions of the transformation theme. Through this narration, the poet of the

55 Rabel 1997 advances that argument that the leading narrative strategy in the Iliad comprises
a consistent effort by different characters to direct Achilles’ conduct through various hero
models that are presented to him as paradigms.

Introduction 22
Metamorphoses introduces his readers to the theoretical principles of innovation
that mark a transformed, or rather transformable, epic.

Chapter one tackles the various issues attached to the Aulis episode and
the character of the mysterious Aesacus. Ovid’s decision to begin with the
combination of an omen (the birds and snake) and a prophecy (the necessity
to sacrifice Iphigeneia) invites the reader to ponder on these two traditional
epic motifs as poetological techniques, and also as generators of plot progres-
sion. Additional major issues in this chapter include the role of the seer Cal-
chas as interpreter of these omens and forerunner for Nestor. The chapter
includes extensive discussion on the definition of ‘metamorphosis’ as this is
expressed in the cases of Aesacus and Iphigeneia, and concludes with a dis-
cussion on the thematics behind the personified Fama (Met. 12.39-63). Chap-
ter two reviews the battle between Achilles and Cycnus (Met. 12.64-145). The
setting of this battle, modeled on the single combat between Achilles and
Hector in the Iliad, questions the traditional definition of the epic hero and
focuses anew on masculinity as much as it justifies the notion of ‘mock-epic’
as the most appropriate term for the generic character of the ‘little Iliad’. In
this chapter we witness the first effort on Achilles’ part to put up a literary
‘fight’, against the manipulation of his literary biography. Nestor’s episode,
the object of the third chapter, is the lengthiest and the most complex in the
cluster (Met. 12.146-579): it technically occupies the narrative time of the Tro-
jan War proper. In this episode Ovid in the persona of Nestor revisits the
narrative dynamics that determine the progression of the plot in Homer’s
Iliad. Ovid’s Nestor takes advantage of Achilles’ susceptibility to external in-
fluences, and he reinterprets the character of the hero to conform to the play-
ful spirit of a metamorphosed epic. The death of Periclymenus, treated in the
first part of chapter four, allows Ovid to expand his ruminations on poetic
memory by discussing the mechanics of oral poetry. The remainder of the
chapter considers the circumstances surrounding Achilles’ death and finesses
a series of issues visited previously by Nestor, which are related to the ability
and possibility of regulating the fashioning of epic tradition (Met. 12.580-619).
Achilles’ fama, surviving his death and spreading all over the world, reaches
backwards to the monstrous Fama at the opening of Metamorphoses 12, in a
comparison that is both paradoxical and ironic, and instructive for the fluidity
that underscores the orally-based dissemination of literature.
The fifth chapter is devoted to the oratorical debate between Ajax and
Ulixes over the possession of Achilles’ armor and, on a second level, over the
issue of succession (Met. 12.620-13.398): each hero claims to be the one suited
the most to perform Achilles’ role as the epic protagonist par excellence. This
chapter advances further poetological issues, such as the malleability of epic
memory, and comments on the fluidity associated with epic composition,

Introduction 23
especially of the Homeric (oral) type. In the sixth chapter, which discusses the
account of the fall of Troy and the fates of the ‘Survivors’ (Met. 13.399-575),
the Ovidian narrator revisits the systematic deconstruction of the portrayal of
Achilles undertaken by Euripides. In the staging of Polyxena’s sacrifice, Ovid
assesses the problematic, contradictory, and overall questionably heroic por-
trayal of the Euripidean Achilles, as this is articulated in the Hecuba and the
Iphigeneia at Aulis through a subtle gender inversion. In Hecuba’s mourning, in
the same chapter, the poet composes a detailed ritual lament on the principles
of the Homeric models. Taking advantage of the performance factor that
underscores this genre, Ovid attacks the gender poetics of the lament, and
more specifically its function as a kleos-bestowing form of literary praise. The
coda to the ‘little Iliad’, the Memnon episode, treated in the seventh and final
chapter of my study, is intimately tied to Achilles in more than one way. Next
to the epic tradition, recorded in the Aethiopis, that placed Memnon and
Achilles against each other on the battlefield, Aurora’s plea to Jupiter as re-
lated in the Metamorphoses is modeled on Thetis’ plea to Zeus in Iliad 1, and
fittingly opens the field for intriguing closural poetological speculations.

Chapter One

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings

1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad ’ and the Iliad through Calchas (Met. 12.7-38)

1.1 Funeral Beginnings: Aesacus’ Cenotaph

The opening episode of Ovid’s Trojan story begins ab ovo
56, with the rape of
Helen and the subsequent gathering of the Greeks at Aulis. The text of Meta-
morphoses 12, however, does not introduce these events until at least five lines
into the narrative; the four opening verses refer to the presumed death of
riam’s son Aesacus: P

Nescius adsumptis Priamus pater Aesacon alis
vivere lugebat; tumulo quoque nomen habenti
inferias dederat cum fratribus Hector inanes.
defuit officio Paridis praesentia tristi,
[postmodo qui rapta longum cum coniuge bellum
attulit in patriam]
(Met. 12.1-6)

His father, Priam, not knowing that Aesacus had acquired wings and was alive, was
mourning him. And to a tomb that bore that man’s name Hector with his brothers
had offered meaningless sacrifices honoring the dead. Paris was not present at the sad
ceremony [the man who a little later brought a long-lasting war upon his country
along with a stolen wife].

Aesacus’ full story, told just before the opening of Book 12 (11.749-795),
is not part of any tradition of, or about, the Trojan legend prior to Ovid. De-
spite the Ovidian narrator’s claim that he did hear the story in two different
versions, from two (not just one) interlocutors, and on account of this discor-
dance is uncertain whom to believe as the true source (Met. 11.749-751 aliquis
senior… laudat… proximus, aut idem, si fors tulit… dixit, ‘some old man spoke in
praise… Then one nearby, or perhaps the same speaker… said’), the Aesacus
account, at least as it is recorded in the Metamorphoses, is quite likely an Ovid-

56While both the Iliad and the Odyssey (and also the Aeneid) open in mediis rebus, in the ‘little
Iliad’ (and later the ‘little Aeneid’) Ovid follows the events in chronological order.

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings 26
ian invention. Ovid’s alleged attribution of the narrative to earlier authority is
a brilliant expression of Alexandrianism, a challenge to his readers’ erudi-
tion.
57 Aesacus sought to end his life by drowning when his beloved Hes-
peria, in her effort to run away from his pursuit carelessly stepped on a snake
and died of its poisonous bite. The gods pitied the miserable lover and trans-
formed him into a bird, a mergus. His family, however, unaware of this out-
come, took Aesacus’ disappearance for death and mourned for him. This Ae-
sacus prelude of Metamorphoses 12 has generally been considered a misplaced
unit, which disturbs the structural coherence of the given narrative
58, and is
justified only as a linking device between Books 11 and 12.
59 Today we
should know better: the seemingly awkward proem to the cluster that summa-
rizes not merely the Trojan War but the entire Trojan Epic Cycle, is an in-
triguing experiment in structural tendentiousness. Lines 1-4 in particular are
dense with allusions, and they are so designed in order to anticipate the core
themes in several other episodes along the course of the ‘little Iliad’. My de-
tailed analysis below will show that Ovid introduced his compact ‘Iliad’ with
an equally terse and sophisticated unit, which could be read in retrospect as a
miniature representation of the whole cluster.
Central themes in the four-line prelude are, a prince’s tomb that is actu-
ally a cenotaph, a bird transformation unattested in earlier tradition, the
mourning of the parent, and the offering of inferiae by the prince’s brothers.
The exact same themes are central in the concluding episode of the ‘little Iliad’
as well. There, a heroic prince is lost, Memnon (13.579 Memnonis amissi, ‘of the
lost Memnon’), who is mourned by a parent, his mother Aurora (13.584; 586
parens… crine soluto; lacrimis, ‘the mother… with streaming hair; tears’). He is
buried and receives inferiae (615 inferiae … cadunt, ‘[the ashes] fall down as fu-
neral offerings’), though not by his brothers but by a group of ‘sisters’ (13.603
sorores). These originated from the flames that rose from the hero’s pyre amd
miraculously were transformed into birds, the Memnonides – another bird

57 Tissol 2002, 318, calls this invented literary tradition a “send-up of learned claims to poetic
authority”.
58 Bömer 1982, 12 ad 12.4-6, citing, among others, J. Latacz, ‘Ovids Metamorphosen als Spiel
mit der Tradition’, Würzb. Jahrb. 5 (1979), 149: “diese Überleitung ist ja so grotesk beiläufig,
daß ihr Sinn nur sein kann, die ganze Trojasage und speziell ihre epische Darstellung durch
Homer in dasselbe Reich mythologischer Phantasie einzureihen wie alles zuvor Erzählte”.
59 For Otis 1970, 168, the Aesacus story infuses the Trojan legend with amatory themes to
effect a smart transition from Book 11, which is dominated by stories of deep love, both
happy and unhappy (Ceyx and Alcyone, Peleus’ erotic pursuits and Aesacus’ affair), to
Book 12; similarly, Tissol 2002, 318. Otis, further, understands the prominence of the
erotic element in the accounts preceding Troy as a mode of “compensation” on Ovid’s
part for the excision of the love element from the Trojan account and the confinement of
Helen to the outermost edges of the story’s margins.

1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad’ and the Iliad through Calchas 27
transformation story and, moreover, a story that is considered an Ovidian
invention, too.
60 Additional similarities are present: the aition behind the type
of new bird mergus (‘diver’) that takes Aesacus’ place captures the ‘suicidal’
habit of this bird, which ‘dives deep down below water and toils endlessly to
find a way to death’ (11.791f. profundum / pronus abit letique viam sine fine retemp-
tat). Regularity and custom merge in the Memnonides’ annual habit of renew-
ing their deathly fight in Memnon’s honor (13.618f. cum sol duodena peregit /
signa, parentali moriturae more rebellant, ‘when the sun has gone through all twelve
of his signs, they renew their deadly, customary fight in their father’s honor’).
Finally, the cenotaph theme, a climax of the Metamorphoses and the symbol
for the immortality of the poet’s genius through his work, at once introduces
and closes the ‘little Iliad’. Here, structure meshes with poetics. Capitalizing
on the power of the ring composition scheme, Ovid offers a sample of gifted
authorship and predicts the everlasting fame of his poetry. Early in the story
(11.758-760) Aesacus is introduced as Hector’s brother:

frater fuit Hectoris iste;
qui nisi sensisset prima nova fata iuventa,
forsitan inferiu
s non Hectore nomen haberet

Hector’s brother that man was: had he not met his strange fate in early manhood,
perhaps he would have a name no less renowned than Hector’s.

These lines are echoed at Met. 12.2-3 tumulo quoque nomen habenti
/ in-
ferias dederat cum fratribus Hector inanes (‘and to a tomb that bore that man’s
name Hector with his brothers had offered meaningless [lit. ‘empty’], sacri- fices honoring the dead’). The ‘immortal’ poetics of the cenotaph reflects the artistry of the entire cluster: nearly every episode in the ‘little Iliad’ involves a
cenotaph or a metaphoric expression of a cenotaph. As these cenotaphic moments, subjects of close study in this book, are usually situated at the end of each episode, they unite the various tales of the Ovidian Trojan Cycle into a coherent composition. Furthermore, the common sphragis that closes each
of them compartmentalizes the larger synthesis into its individual elements or episodes, which thus ‘sealed’ qualify as separate, independently standing little epics.
Even more sophisticated in articulation is the nexus of themes that le-
gitimizes the placement of the Aesacus tale as the prologue to the ‘little Iliad’.
A prologic piece is always marked as such, and at the same time it is a herald, and an epitome, of key ideas and issues in the main narrative body. There exists a second literary account on the fate of Aesacus, which supports a pos-
sible etymology of Aesacus’ name from the Homeric aisa. This literary source,

60 The Memnon episode (Met. 13.576-622) is examined in detail in the last chapter of my
study.

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings 28
which postdates Ovid and is identified with Apollodorus, an author of the
late 1
st c. AD, holds (3.12.5 = 3.147) that Aesacus, still the son of Priam, was
additionally a dream interpreter, that is, someone gifted with the ability to tell
the future, to access ‘destiny’. Apollodorus, further, notes that Aesacus was
actually the one who interpreted the fated dream of Hecuba, when the queen,
pregnant with Paris, dreamt that she was giving birth to a burning torch, the
fire of which spread through the whole city of Troy. Aesacus explained this as
meaning that the son to be born was destined one day to become the cause of
the city’s ruin, and he went on to recommend that the child be exposed to die
following his birth. Apollodorus’ Aesacus, then, has knowledge not merely of
aisa, through his divination gift, but of Troy’s aisa, which he in vain tried to
alter.
61
It is not possible to know whether Ovid was aware of the Aesacus ver-
sion recorded later in Apollodorus, but it is tempting to believe so, for two
reasons. Foremost, right at the exordium of the ‘little Iliad’ this alternative
account situates a vates – in anticipation of Calchas, the literal one, and
Nestor, the literary one, both of whom feature prominently in subsequent
sections of the cluster. Then, it dates the beginning of Troy’s fall as early as
the birth of Paris and the ominous dream of Hecuba. In doing so, it proposes
the birth of Paris as the actual beginning of the woes for Troy, and it intro-
duces the notions of beginning and end in tight embrace already at the outset
of the Trojan legend. Aesacus’ elusive literary existence, lastly, introduces as
programmatic the themes of shape-shifting and illusion, all but anticipating
their recurrence throughout the ‘little Iliad’.
From a different perspective, the opening of the ‘little Iliad’ alludes to the
close of the Homeric epic, with Priam mourning over the tomb of another
son, Hector, whom Ovid mentions by name, and the offering of funeral hon-
ors along with a great pyre that burns for several days. Conversely, the asso-
ciation between Hector’s pyre and the fall of Troy by fire – which already
looms ahead and is prefigured in the mourning of the Trojan women for the
dead leader – is detectable in the Ovidian passage, too. The contrasted images
of the mourning Trojans led by Priam and Hector over a would-be-Hector
son of Priam, on the one hand, and Paris, who is bringing home Helen and

61 The scant information on Aesacus is recorded in Knaack, ‘Aisakos’, RE I.1, 1047-1048.
Knaack names Apollodorus as the only other source on Aesacus; Apollodorus does not
follow Ovid in every detail, and given the encyclopedic nature of his work it is likely that
he borrows from some alternative version of the legend. For example, the Apollodorean
Aesacus was married to Asterope, the daughter of the river-god Cebren; Asterope died
early, and Aesacus was changed into a bird while lamenting her death. The beloved con-
sort’s loss features also in Ovid’s Aesacus, but the other details have been altered.

1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad’ and the Iliad through Calchas 29
the war, on the other, draws the beginning and the end of the Trojan War
into very close sequence.
Two additional subtleties substantiate the narrator’s intention to project,
however implicitly, Aesacus as a substitute Hector. One is the genealogical
king-list that follows the introduction of Aesacus’ name to the Ovidian narra-
tive.

et si descendere ad ipsum
ordine perpetuo quaeris, sunt huius origo
Ilus et Assaracus raptusque Iovi Ganymedes
Laomedonve senex Priamusque novissima Troiae
tempora sortitus. frater fuit Hectoris iste
(Met. 11.754-758)

And if you wish to follow his ancestry down to him in continuous succession, his
forefathers were Ilus, Assaracus, Ganymede, seized by Jupiter, and Priam, allotted
roy’s last days. That man was Hector’s brother. T

This list celebrates Aesacus’ noble pedigree and Aesacus himself as the
hopeful successor to this pedigree. Suggestively, Hector appears on the last
line right next to Aesacus (iste). The convergence, or rather, exchange of epic
personalities is declared through the specification of the fraternal relationship
that tied Hector to Aesacus and, no less, by the emphasis on the closeness
between the two brothers. This closeness is captured by the clausula that is
formed by the proximal arrangement of their names (Hectoris iste). The other
allusion projecting Aesacus as alter Hector is tied to the reference to the ceno-
taph at 12.1. As the Ovidian audience was very well aware, Hector’s memory
had likewise been honored with a cenotaph, built, as Vergil had reported a
ew years earlier, by the hero’s wife Andromache at Buthrotum: f
sollemnis cum forte dapes et tristia dona
ante urbem in luco falsi Simoentis ad undam
libabat cineri Andromache manisque vocabat
Hectoreum ad tumulum, viridi quem caespite inanem
et geminas, causam lacrimis, sacraverat aras.
(Aen. 3.301-305)

It so happened that Andromache was offering ritual feast and sad gifts in libation to
the ashes of the dead, in a grove before the city by the waters of the fake Simoeis, and
was calling the ghost to the tomb of Hector, an empty tomb of green turf and the
twin altars that she had consecrated, a cause for tears.
Vergil’s Buthrotum, which in addition to Hector’s cenotaph, hosts a re-
built replica of Troy, transcribes the nostalgic desire of the Trojan War survi-
vors not merely to recreate the past, but to find a way so that this construc-
tion will resist the change that comes with time. Hector’s cenotaph, marked

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings 30
by critics as a reflection of the Underworld, should appear as metaphor for
this utopic new ‘Troy’.
62 By embracing the same idea of regression to an
idealized utopia memorialized in an image of death, Priam and his sons at the
opening of Ovid’s Trojan narrative willingly turn blind eyes to reality. Yet, by
refusing to face the truth that is captured in the idea of (Aesacus’) change, the
Trojans essentially condemn the idea of historicity and the future survival of
their city. Already before the Greeks had set foot on the shores of Ilium,
Ovid’s Troy is a city of the past. The image of Aesacus’ cenotaph marks both
the beginning and the end of the Trojan story for Priam’s capital.
The above two readings of the cenotaph imagery are characteristic of the
unassuming but artful fashion in which the narrator frames the story of Troy,
and prefigures, by way of an exemplar, the intricacy in composition and the
openness in interpretation that distinguishes the text of the ‘little Iliad’. Addi-
tional engaging readings of this intriguing scene are possible. The cenotaph
representation of the Underworld elicits the imagery of fama, which, likewise,
is often likened to an insubstantial nether world, “the emptiness out of which
comes the fullness of textual presence”.
63 Truly, the Underworld, with its
throngs of dead heroes and heroines, is an athenaeum of myths and legends,
the place where every epic hero ultimately arrives to stay, along with every
tradition honoring his past life. It is not different from a mirror of the House
of Fama – to be introduced shortly into the ‘little Iliad’ –, since both offer
alike a haven for the epic poet, and especially the Alexandrian-minded epic
poet, like Ovid, who may find there all sources and versions of earlier epic
traditions.
64
Finally, it is impossible to read of Aesacus’ cenotaph without flashing
forward to the end of the Metamorphoses, and the fate that Ovid advertises for
himself. Ovid’s tomb is bound to be a cenotaph, since the essence of the
poet, his genius, captured in the texture of his poetry and more specifically in
the Metamorphoses, will not perish with the mortal texture of his body. Turning

62 D. Quint, Epic and Empire: Politics and Genre from Virgil to Milton (Princeton 1993), 58-60,
likens Buthrotum to the Underworld; like Hades, Andromache’s toy-Troy is occupied by
replicas and ghosts of original structures, but is devoid of life. This stagnation is monu-
mentalized in the image of Hector’s cenotaph, which bears the likeness of the original but
is empty and hence a fraud, an illusion of reality; Hardie 2002, 87-88, expands Quint’s ar-
gument on Buthrotum to the general imagery of the cenotaph, including the cenotaph of
Aesacus.
63 Hardie 2002, 89.
64 On the epic Underworld as allusion to the total and complete epic tradition, see G. Most,
‘Il Poeta nell’Ade: catabasi epica e teoria dell’epos tra Omero e Virgilo’, SIFC 10 (1992),
1014-1026; Hardie 1993, 60-65, explores the self-consciousness of the Latin epic poets, es-
pecially those after Vergil, on the poetics of the katabasis episode, which was a standard
theme in most ancient epics.

1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad’ and the Iliad through Calchas 31
the tables on the Aesacus cenotaph thematics, Book 12 concludes with an
actual tomb, of Achilles, which contains a body whose fama has reached be-
yond the boundaries of the grave monument. As a pair, the two thematically
united monuments envisage Ovid’s monumentalizing of his own poetry in the
sphragis of his epic.
65 In particular Met. 15.875-876, parte tamen meliore mei super
alta perennis / astra ferar, nomenque erit indelebile nostrum (‘yet with my better part I
shall be eternally borne above the lofty stars, and my name shall be imperish-
able’), calls to mind the imperishable name that provides an identity for the
tomb of Aesacus, whose body has literally fled upwards.
To sum up, Aesacus’ monument, the first in a long series of memorials,
epitomizes the symbolism of the Ovidian epic cenotaph more broadly: its
deceptive concreteness highlights metaphorically the fluidity as the key char-
acteristic of epic tradition, and projects Ovid’s Metamorphoses as the outcome
of a particularly successful application of this principle. Priam, who tries to
hold down and immortalize in an imperishable, yet firmly prescribed, form
the memory, the essence of his son Aesacus, may well embody traditional epic
poetry, the kind of epic that Ovid’s Metamorphoses is not.

1.2 Marvelous Beginnings: The Snake Prodigy

The absence of Paris from Aesacus’ funeral marks the transition to the ‘Iliad’
proper, for at that same time the hero is occupied with seizing and carrying
his spouse-to-be off to Troy. The intersection of the beginning and the end of
the Trojan War, accomplished through the adjacent positioning of the Ae-
sacus cenotaph and Paris’ rape, becomes a recurrent theme in the ‘little Iliad’.
In the episode immediately following, for example, the Greek army has just
gathered at Aulis to begin their expedition, when they witness an omen, the
snake that eats nine birds, which predicts the fall of Troy. The implicit coniuge
to refer to Helen, who is never mentioned by name, perhaps reflects Ovid’s
tactful appraisal of Helen’s insignificant contribution in determining the real

65 Hardie 2002, 96: “[I]f we think of the Metamorphoses as Ovid’s funerary monument, the
poem is a cenotaph, since the poet is not dead but eternally alive, like the unfortunate Ae-
sacus at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth books. But the poem is
at the same time the most replete tomb imaginable, for, to borrow the words used of the
posthumous fame of Achilles at 12.617 at vivit totum quae gloria compleat orbem, it contains the
poet’s ‘glory that fills the whole world’”; cf. also pp. 84-91, where Hardie talks about the
cenotaph theme as another image for the text, and even speculates on the possible origin
of the motif in the genre of the Hellenistic epigram.

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings 32
causes or the course of the war,
66 and the terrifying narration of the omen
prefigures the mercilesness and cruelty each epic victory entails. The same
urge to assess one’s own power at all cost already directed the Homeric he-
roes’ arguments (in Iliad 1) over losing and gaining the ownership of a
woman.
67
Compactness and allusivity underlie the synthesis of the Aulis narrative
texture. The Homeric past is revisited through the recollection of two
prophecies arranged to appear in successive order. Prophecy belongs among
the fundamental tropes of literary allusion. A dynamic narratological mecha-
nism, a prophecy dominates an epic narrative: it stresses the importance of
fate, itself often a code term for literary tradition, and it generates plot devel-
opment, because it determines and regulates the incorporation of earlier nar-
ratives/intertexts.
68 Prophecy and epic poetry are interlocking. A formidable
plague sent by Apollo opens the Iliad, and its interpretation by a prophet, Cal-
chas, sets the plot of the epic in motion. A different omen of divine origin
(birds and snake), accompanied by a different manifestation of the narra-
tological modality of prophecy (Iphigeneia), also signals the opening of the
‘little Iliad’, but the Ovidian account is considerably more nuanced.
The narrative of the prodigium of the snake and the nestlings (12.11-23), is
brief but powerful – powerful enough, at least, to have had already impressed
Cicero, who included a close Latin translation of it in his Div. 2.63-64.
69
Baldo, in appreciating Cicero’s translation of the Homeric omen, argues that
it is not the Vergilian snake narratives but Cicero’s translation that Ovid re-

66 Beyond Met. 12.5-6, Helen is never again mentioned in connection with the course or the
conclusion of the Trojan War and, as an individual, she is virtually absent from Ovid’s ‘Il-
iad’. She is simply part of a rebuke to Paris, once, who is labeled ‘the cowardly raptor of a
Greek wife’ (12.609 timido Graiae raptore maritae); and she is mentioned in passing a little
later in Ulixes’ recollection of his ambassadorial mission to Troy prior to the outbreak of
the hostilities, (13.200 praedamque Helenamque reposco, ‘I ask the return of the booty and
Helen’).
67 The need to assert one’s own power inside an epic environment precisely by means of
manipulating a given myth highlights the plot-fashioning in several epically-colored sec-
tions throughout the Metamorphoses; see G. Rosati, ‘Mito e potere nell’ epica di Ovidio’, MD
46 (2001), 39-61; pp. 55-59, in particular, focus on Fama and Nestor, whose re-writing of
stories centered on power also directs the affirmation of power for those featured in these
stories.
68 In the words of Barchiesi 2001, 133, “[b]eing in itself a separable and to a certain degree
preformed utterance, prophecy too serves well to create an interface not only between dif-
ferent time periods inside and outside the narrative, but also between different texts”. Bar-
chiesi subsequently (pp. 134-135) discusses how Apollo directs the course of the Aeneid, by
heralding a strategy of model adaptation that Vergil would follow in his ‘reading’ of the
Homeric models.
69 M. Timpanaro, Marco Tullio Cicerone, Della divinazione (Milan 1988) ad loc, with bibliography.

1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad’ and the Iliad through Calchas 33
calls as a second intertext. Baldo calls this interesting incorporation of
Cicero’s reading of the Homeric model “un lusus emulativo duplice”, and con-
siders Cicero’s experiment to be “una sorta di selezione preventiva, un filtro
letterario indispensabile per l’inserimento di temi omerici nella sua biblioteca”.
For Baldo, Cicero’s translation was of great value to Ovid – even though
Ovid himself follows the Homeric text
more faithfully than Cicero does –
because it disengages the particular text from its Homeric, metadiegetic and
aetiological-metamorphic context, and thus makes it easier for the Augustan
poet to use it as “un motivo incipiario”.
70 Baldo’s discussion justifies the out-
standing placement of the episode and suggests that multiple readings of the
same textual models result in autonomous narratives, not unlike the ‘little
Iliad’, that are openly antagonistic towards their archetypes.
In her thoughtful study on the Aulis unit, Musgrove stresses the centrality
of embracing multiple perspectives to explore the Ovidian narrative, as she
traces the complexity of meaning and the interpretive value of complemen-
tary readings that result from the interweaving of the Homeric and the Vergil-
ian intertexts.
71 In her examination of the Homeric subtext, Musgrove notes
the closeness of Ovid’s account of the omen (12.11-17) to the Homeric
model (Il. 2.305-317), echoed in several verbal parallels.
72 Musgrove stresses
the power of the intense emotions generated among the spectators of the
prodigy, but also draws attention to additional intertexts, from Vergil’s Aeneid,
which are even more emotionally electrifying. The backbone of these, more
or less identifiable, intertexts
73 form the serial snake, or snake-likened, attacks
all through Aeneid 2 – including the attack of Pyrrhus/dragon against
Priam/Troy, which tragically signals the fall of Troy. Musgrove’s analysis,
however, considers the Aulis account in its own right, not as the opening of a

70 See the full argument in Baldo 1995, 115-120; the quoted text comes from p. 116; Forbes
Irving 1990, 139-148, also discusses the theme of petrification as an omen, but in more
general terms.
71 Musgrove 1997.
72 Musgrove 1997, 268-271.
73 Musgrove (1997, 167 n.1), follows Ben-Porat’s (Z. Ben-Porat, ‘The Poetics of Literary
Allusion,’ PTL: A Journal of Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 1 [1976], 117-127) in
adopting the terms “obvious” and “less obvious” for the intertexts alluded in Ovid’s narra-
tive. I prefer Genette’s (G. Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, transl. C.
Newmann and C. Doubinsky [Lincoln, NE 1997]) typological distinction between “pri-
mary” and “secondary hypotexts”, that implies hierarchical ordering among the intertexts
in terms of greater or lesser significance; also, I use the terms ‘intertext’ and ‘hypotext’ in-
terchangeably, distinguishing, when necessary, between primary and secondary. Richard
Thomas’ “window reference” also refers to the textual phenomenon of clear allusion
through an intermediary to a more distant common source; cf. Thomas 1986, 171-198, and
ibid. ‘Catullus and the Polemics of Poetic Reference (64.1-18)’, AJP 103 (1982), 144-164.
Musgrove considers Thomas’ “window reference” “a variation” of Ben-Porat’s theory.

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings 34
larger unit, and, like Baldo, she surveys the poetics in Calchas’ act. My study,
on the other hand, considers the same episode as a sequel to the Aesacus
story: a programmatic carrier of similar or complemetary thematic and struc-
tural parameters, crucial for directing the shape of the plot of the whole clus-
ter.
The Aulis episode runs as follows: soon after the gathering of the Greek
army at Aulis (Met. 12.6-7) and during a sacrifice presided over by Calchas, a
snake makes its appearance and swiftly climbs a tree and eats a nest full of
eight young sparrows and their mother (12.8-17). Everybody is dumbfounded
except Calchas, who rejoices in the omen, which he explains as a divine sign
for Greek victory at Troy after nine years of fighting (12.18-21). As soon as
Calchas has finished speaking, the snake turns into stone (12.22-23). Hardly is
the interpretation of the omen completed when the setting abruptly changes,
and the audience, still at Aulis, is now confronted with a second memorable
spectacle, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (12.24-34). Once again, divine will in the
form of an order for the maiden’s sacrifice is communicated through the seer
Calchas, who is, further, in charge of executing the grim act; once again, a
god-sent miracle occurs, when a hind takes the maiden’s place on the altar.
The Aulis account and the ensuing description of Fama’s domain (12.39-
63) summarize Ovid’s methodology of re-reading the Homeric epic, his the-
ory about revisiting epic composition in Vergil’s aftermath. In the pages im-
mediately following, I maintain that the seer Calchas tacitly negotiates the
rules of epic discourse as he focuses anew on his presence in the Iliad. Later in
the chapter, I look at Fama as an allegory for the poetics of literary antago-
nism, and specifically, as a metaphor for Ovid’s meditations on traditional
epic deconstruction.
The omen of the snake at Aulis, a core tale in the plot of the Cypria ac-
cording to Proclus
74, chronologically belongs beyond the timeline of the ac-
tion in the Iliad, which covers only a few days of the tenth year of the war.
The Homeric narrator, in other words, flashes backwards to dramatic time
prior to the Iliad, and reports it through the mouth of Ulixes who witnessed
the deed. Early in Iliad 2, Agamemnon, advised by a false dream to put the
loyalty and fighting spirit of the Greek army to test, pretends to grant his men
permission to give up fighting and return to Greece. The Greek army, weary
by the prolongation of the war, turns around to leave, and at that crucial mo-
ment Ulixes reminds them of an omen that they had witnessed at Aulis nine
years earlier (Il. 2.299-329), when during a sacrifice a snake climbed the tree
near the altar and ate a nest full of eight little sparrows and their mother. Cal-
chas explained at the time that the nine birds signified nine years of fighting

74 Davies 1989, 44; Bömer 1982, 14.

1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad’ and the Iliad through Calchas 35
for the Greeks at Troy before the eventual fall of the city in the tenth year.
Ovid transforms this metadiegetic narrative into a narrative of the first de-
gree, and so he draws attention to the original text, which is echoed very
closely in its Latin ‘translation’
75:

obstipuere omnes, at veri providus augur

Thestorides ‘vincemus’, ait; ‘gaudete, Pelasgi!
Troia cadet, sed erit nostri mora longa laboris’
atque novem volucres in belli digerit annos.
(Met. 12.18-21)

All stood dumbfounded, but Thestor’s son, the augur, who foresaw the true
meaning (sc. of this portent or/and of portents), said: ‘we shall conquer, Greeks,
rejoice! Troy will fall, but our endeavor will last long’, and he interpreted the nine
birds as nine years of war.

A closer look at the language of the Latin text, however, makes plain that
Calchas’ image at Met. 12.18-21 is deeply indebted to a second intertext, again
from the Iliad, the first of the two appearances of the seer in the poem, in
1.68ff.:

???? ?’ !? ???:? ???’ ??’ ?????· ????? ?’ ??????
~????? ˜´ÂÃ¾À®³¶Á, ?????????? ?’ ???????
,
? P?? ?? ?’ ????? ?? ?’ ????μ??? ??? ?’ ?????,
??4 ?????’ ??????’ ?????? ????? ????
?? ??. μ?????????, ??? ?? ???? ?????? ???????.
???? ????????? ????????? ??4 μ????????·
(Il. 1.68-73)

Thus he spoke, and sat down again. And among them stood up Calchas, Thestor’s
son, by far the best of bird interpreters, who knew the things that were, the things to
come and the things past, who guided into the land of Ilion the ships of the Achaeans
through his prophetic skill, which Phoebus Apollo gave him. With favorable intention
he spoke and addressed them.

This passage essentially introduces Calchas to the Iliad and its world. A
professional seer, Calchas is of undisputed credibility (
?????????? ?’
???????
): the god who procured the charisma of divination for him is none
other than Apollo himself. The formal tone of his presentation is highlighted
principally by the employment of his patronymic, Thestorides, next to his
name: this is the only occasion in the Homeric corpus when the seer is ad-
dressed by his patronymic. Inevitably, this distinctive mode of introduction of
Ovid’s Calchas, casts the Greek prophet in the light of his earliest epic ap-

75 Musgrove 1997, 269, upon comparing the two sections (Met. 12.13-18 ~ Il. 2.308-316),
notes that “when Ovid introduces the birds, every element of his sentence can be paral-
leled in Homer’s lines”; also, Hill 1999, 203: “Ovid marks his entry into a Homeric section
by following, unusually closely, his Homeric model”.

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings 36
pearance. The exclusiveness of the crosstextual relationship is underscored by
the absence of the seer’s actual name in Ovid, an omission implicitly demand-
ing the audience’s familiarity with the particular Homeric source. Second, the
Ovidian Calchas is specifically an augur, a ‘diviner by bird-flight’
76, which
translates literally the Greek
??????????. Third, Ovid’s Calchas is veri providus,
‘he who foresees the truth’. This phrase corresponds to Il. 1.70, but it is not a
translation of this cardinal verse that encapsulates the completeness in scope
of Calchas’ vision across time.
77 Ovid, though perfectly capable of providing
an exact translation of this important Homeric line, prefers instead to follow a
more challenging path and render Il. 1.70 in words that at once reproduce the
verse and interpret it from Ovid’s own perspective.
According to Dickson, Il. 1.70, like Calchas’ patronymic, is unique in the
Homeric poems, but it does echo closely the language portraying the Muses
in Il. 2.485
μ??? ?.? ???? ????, ??????? ??, ???? ?? ????? (‘for you are god-
desses, you are present, and you know all things’), and it occurs verbatim in
Hesiod’s description of the epic poet himself (Theog. 31-32; 38).
78 Equally
poetically colored is the other appearance of the seer, in Il. 2.298ff., which
recalls the Aulis omen.
79 The 30 lines of this episode do not expedite the pro-
gression of the plot more that a single summarizing phrase would. Rather, the
anecdotal style of the narrative with the graphic description of the snake
omen and the report of Calchas’ address in direct discourse, amplified by
Ulixes’ opening remark that the memory of the event is as vivid as if it had
happened yesterday, dramatizes the past before the audience. In so doing, the
Homeric narrator highlights not only Calchas’ divination skills, but also his
status as an influential instructor, whose divinatory advice forecasts the con-
cluding scene of the Trojan narrative, and so generates epic action, both in
the Trojan War in general and in the Iliad plot.
As a prophet, Calchas is both a performer and a metaliterary agent. He is
able of reading signs that nobody else can, and he has foreknowledge, which
enables him to revisit the past by knowing how it will turn out in the future.
Still, it is at his discretion to reveal the past and the future as he actually

76 Ovid employs the term augur five times in the Metamorphoses; two of these attributions are
reserved for Teiresias (3.347 and 3.511).
77 Providus followed by a genitive is frequently translated as ‘circumspect’, ‘prudent’, removed
from any temporal specifications; cf. OLD s.v. providus 2.
78 Dickson 1992, 330-331; Kirk 1985, 60.
79 For an analysis of Calchas’ second speech as a binary dilemma between the correct and an
incorrect possible solution, see Dickson 1992, 332. In addition to his speech on the cause
and the cure of the plague in Iliad 1, and his interpretation of the Aulis omen, as reported
through Ulixes, in Iliad 2, Calchas is ‘seen’ one third time in the Iliad, at 13.43-65, when Po-
seidon disguises himself as Calchas and urges the two Ajaxes to hold their ground before
Hector’s attack against the Greek ships.

1. Calchas in the ‘Iliad’ and the Iliad through Calchas 37
‘reads’ them, or to ‘perform’ a different, distorted version of the actual read-
ing. Calchas, through his divination skill, has access to the fata, the events to
be acted out, which he can subsequently communicate to a wider audience
that is directly affected by them. Were it not for Calchas, the Greeks would
have never left Aulis for Troy and the Iliad would have never been written.
Being an exclusive connoisseur of deciphering divine messages, Calchas
controls the content of these messages, which he can reveal or suppress,
completely or partially. In the language of poetics, then, Calchas is as much in
control of the Iliad narrative as is the epic narrator, and from this perspective
the seer could become, in this particular case, an alternative persona for the
Ovidian narrator. The prophet’s complex identity has found a successful de-
scription in Dickson’s words: “Like all seers, Kalkhas recounts prior events
only in order to lay bare their abstract causal nexus and to project their future
narrative contingencies, all the better to ‘clarify the framework within which
[decision] operates’. The poet’s mirroring of his own control over the tale in
the figure of the prophet as an embedded narrator thus paradoxically draws at-
tention to how disengaged and extratextual this position truly is”.
80

1.3 Maiden Beginnings: The Sacrifice of Iphigeneia

Calchas also officiates in the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which in the Metamor-
phoses is reported after the omen of the snake (Met. 12.24-38). The story cen-
ters on Calchas’ revelation that Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigeneia should be
sacrificed in order to pacify Artemis, who, angry at Agamemnon for having
killed her sacred hind, withheld all winds. As a result, the Greek fleet was kept
anchored at Aulis unable to cross over to Troy. The story is not related in the
liad: I

Permanet Aoniis Nereus violentus in undis
bellaque non transfert; et sunt qui parcere Troiae
Neptunum credant, quia moenia fecerat urbi.
at non Thestorides; nec enim nescitve tacetve
sanguine virgineo placandam virginis iram
esse deae. postquam pietatem publica causa

80 Dickson 1995, 64; the italics are Dickson’s own, while the quotation in it is Peradotto’s; the
passage is the conclusion to a more extensive discussion (pp. 50-64) on Calchas as an alle-
gory for the Homeric narrator, and on the ties of both to the Muses as authorities of poetic
inspiration. For the narrative function of prophecy in the Homeric poems, Dickson draws
on Peradotto (J. Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in the Odyssey
[Princeton 1990]; and ibid. ‘Prophecy Degree Zero: Tiresias and the End of the Odyssey’,
Oralità: Cultura, Letteratura, Discorso [Urbino 1986], 429-455).

Designing ‘Epic’ Beginnings 38
rexque patrem vicit castumque datura cruorem
flentibus ante aram stetit Iphigenia ministris,
victa dea est nubemque oculis obiecit et inter
officium turbamque sacri vocesque precantum
supposita fertur mutasse Mycenida cerva.
(Met. 12.24-34)

But Nereus continued stormy in the Aonian waters, and refused to transport the war.
And there were some who held that Neptune was sparing Troy because he had built
its walls. But not so Thestor’s son; for, he was neither ignorant of the truth nor did he
withhold it, that the wrath of the virgin goddess with a virgin’s blood must be ap-
peased. After the public cause overwhelmed affection and the king the father, and just
as Iphigenia stood there before the altar in the middle of mourning servants, ready to
shed her innocent blood, the goddess was moved to pity and spread a cloud before
their eyes, and there, while the sacred rites went on, amidst the confusion of the sacri-
fice and the cries of the suppliants, she is said to have substituted a hind for the
maiden of Mycenae.

The echoes of Calchas’ portrayal in this passage (12.27-29) to the seer’s
presence in Iliad 1.68-73 are clear. For the second time in less than ten lines
the seer is addressed with his Homeric patronymic. The litotis, nec nescitve, toys
with the seer’s comprehensive omniscience captured in Il. 1.70, and the next
verb, tacetve, reflects back on Homeric Calchas’ determination to speak the
truth about the plague in Il. 1.76 (
????.? ??:? ???? ), if Achilles promises to
protect him. Finally, the circumstances of the maiden sacrifice are similar to
the debate over another maiden’s fate, Chryseis, in Iliad 1. The snake omen in
its original manifestation at Aulis brought about surprise and sensation, but
overall the impression is self-contained and momentous, for it does not im-
minently affect the course of the Trojan War. It is only in its recollection, in
Iliad 2, that it becomes a psychological catalyst against the Greek army’s faint-
ness of heart. Likewise, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia is the required resolution to
a problem (violent winds prohibiting sailing) that affects the course of the
Trojan War and needs to be removed. The Iphigeneia affair mirrors the Chry-
seis impasse. In Iliad 1, a situation beyond human comprehension (a plague)
has stalled the epic action; the tracing of the causes and the potential solution
requires special knowledge. Under these considerations Calchas’ argument for
restoring Chryseis to her father and his revelation of the necessity of Iphige-
neia’s sacrifice are the resolutions required for the epic plot to move forward.
On both occasions, the stalling of the Greek army (and the storyline) is
the outcome of divine anger, dutifully noted in the Greek and the Latin texts
alike: Met. 12.28-29 virginis iram… deae (‘the wrath of the virgin goddess’); cf.
Il. 1.75
μ????????? μ???? ????????? (‘[…] to explain the wrath of
Apollo’). On both occasions, the same man, King Agamemnon, is responsible
for the standstill, and Calchas’ intervention to engineer the appeasement of
divine anger only results in a renewal of this anger, as Agamemnon initially

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Tyttö oli muuttunut. Hän oli kuin keskiaikainen prinsessa, jossa
olivat ruumillistuneet sen aikakauden voima ja intohimot, hengittäen
kostoa, sammumatonta vihaa ja sisäisen kiihtymyksen synnyttämää
intoa. Jos hänen kauneutensa oli ollutkin ihmeellinen hänen
avuttomuutensa ja muihin turvautumisensa hetkinä, oli se
kumminkin nyt, kun hän katsoi rinteelle kalpein kasvoin ja vihasta
leimuavin silmin, aivan ylimaailmallinen.
Gale hengitti syvään. Tunne, joka oli ennustanut takaa-ajon,
taistelun ja veren vuodattamisen tulevan tapahtumaan täällä
synkässä erämaassa, palasi nyt kymmenen kertaa voimakkaampana
takaisin. Hän näki suonien pullistuvan Thornen kasvoissa ja
hampaiden pistävän esiin kuin murisevalla sudella. Paimenet, jotka
olivat usein panneet henkensä alttiiksi ja uhmanneet kuolemaa,
olivat nyt niin kalpeat, ettei mikään pelko olisi voinut muuttaa heidän
kasvojaan sellaisiksi. Yaquikin kohotti vihdoin kätensä, ei nyrkkiin
puristettuna eikä yhdistetyin sormin, vaan jännitettynä levälleen kuin
kotkan jalka, ja hän heristi sitä omituisin hitain liikkein, jotka olivat
uhkaavat ja peloittavat.
Nainen pani tässä liikkeelle miesten syvimmät tunteet. Ja
voimakkaampi heidän haluansa tappaa ja suojella oli tuo hurja viha,
joka samalla oli rakkautta, tuo entisen orjan pohjaton intohimo.
Tuntiessaan koko olentonsa jäykistyvän ja jännittyvän ihmetteli Gale
sitä, ja kun hän läksi jälleen seuraamaan tovereitaan, muisteli hän
vielä sitä. Beldingin ennustama taistelu oli pian tapahtuva. Millainen
ottelu siitä tulisikaan! Rojas ratsasti kevyin kuormin ja nopeasti,
tullen lähemmäksi ja lähemmäksi. Hän oli ostanut miehensä kullalla,
suurilla lupauksilla ja ehkä tarjoamalla heille sellaisen ylimyksen
ruumiin ja hengen, jota heidänlaisensa ihmiset suuresti vihasivat. Ja
lopuksi oli tämä villi asumaton ympäristö, tämä särmäisen laavan ja

myrkyllisten choyain valloittama erämaa, tämä yksinäinen, jylhä ja
peloittava maailma, tämä punainen näyttämö synkin ja sopivimmin
väritetty paikka miesten väliselle suurenmoiselle kamppailulle.
Yaqui ei katsonut enää taakseen eikä Mercedeskään. Mutta toiset
katsoivat, ja koitti hetki, jolloin Gale näki takaa-ajajien liikkuvan
jonon paljain silmin.
Ylempänä oleva tasainen laita osoitti, mistä ylätasanko alkaa.
Pienissä laavassa olevissa kuopissa alkoi näkyä hiekkaa. Ratsujoukko
uurasti eteen- ja ylöspäin vieläkin hyvin hitaasti. Vihdoin saapui
yaqui rinteen laelle. Hän nojasi kädellään Blanco diabloon ja
molemmat näkyivät selvästi taivasta vasten. Paikka oli kuin luotu
yaquin tähystyspaikaksi. Ja hänen suuri hevosensa, jonka valkoisuus
loisti auringonpaisteessa, oli kohottanut päänsä villisti ja ylpeästi
pystyyn harjan ja hännän liehuessa tuulessa. Ryhmä muodosti
unhottumattoman kuvan. Toiset kiipesivät vielä ylöspäin ja vihdoin
talutti Galekin Blanco solin viimeisen penkereen huipulle. Kaikki
kääntyivät nyt katsomaan taakseen punaiselle rinteelle.
Mutta varjot olivat jo alkaneet laskeutua sen ylle eivätkä he enää
nähneet tuota liikkuvaa jonoa.
Yaqui hyppäsi satulaan ja ohjasi Diablon pois. Muut seurasivat.
Gale näki, että ylätasankokin oli vain laavan muodostamien matalain,
särmäisten ympyräin, harjujen, kukkulain, syvänteitten ja pyörteitten
peittämä autio kenttä. Laava oli siellä tummemmanpunaista kuin
rinteellä ja kovempaa kuin pii. Muutamin paikoin peittivät hieno
hiekka ja kuona rosoisen pinnan. Omituisen näköiset kaktukset
kilpailivat kaikkialle levinneen choyan kanssa
elämismahdollisuuksista. Yaqui löysi kumminkin sellaisen polun, että
hevoset voivat kulkea sitä nopeasti.

Tätä verraten helppoa etenemistä ei kestänyt kumminkaan
tuntiakaan. Sitten opasti yaqui heidät tulivuoren aukkoja täynnä
olevaan seutuun. Maan pinta näytti pullistuneen ja sitten haljenneen
suuriksi ja pieniksi aukoiksi, joista toiset olivat matalia ja toiset syviä,
mutta kaikki punaisia kuin tuli. Yaqui kiersi hyvin lähelle kuiluja, jotka
ammottivat tien vieressä kohtisuorin seinin, mutta hän näytti
kumminkin koettavan aina kulkea niiden sivu niin kaukaa kuin
mahdollista.
Ylätasanko rupesi nyt viettämään melkoisesti länttä kohti. Gale
kiinnitti huomionsa etelää kohti jatkuvan laavameren pyöreihin
maininkeihin ja väreilyyn ja tämän vulkaanisen seudun keskellä
oleviin keilanmuotoisiin huippuihin. Läntisen rinteen kuoppainen
pinta rajoitti näköalan, kunnes pakolaiset äkkiä sukelsivat esiin
muutamasta rosoisesta halkeamasta paikalle, jossa heidän eteensä
avautui suurenmoinen ja kauhistuttava maisema.
He olivat nyt saapuneet ylätasangon läntisen rinteen korkeimmalle
kohdalle. Rinne oli niin monta penikulmaa pitkä, että ainoastaan
hyvin korkealta voitiin sen viettävyys huomata. Yaqui hevosineen
seisoi erään penikulmia leveän tulivuoren aukon reunalla, aukon,
joka oli tuhat jalkaa syvä ja jonka punaiset seinät olivat tuon
huurteen- ja hopeanvärisen choyan peittämät. Äärettömän leveät
laavavirrat vyöryivät rinnettä alas hävitäkseen lopulta aaltoileviin
hiekkatöyryihin, jotka rajoittivat näköjään loppumatonta sinistä
merta, Kalifornian lahtea. Sen takaa näkyi himmeitä, korkeita vuoria,
joiden yläpuolella kellui veripunainen laskeutuva aurinko. Se kultasi
koko tämän hedelmättömän aution seudun tuhoaennustavalla
valollaan.

Galesta ja ehkä muistakin tuntui silloin hyvin omituiselta katsella,
miten heidän oppaansa talutti Diablon sileälle ja kuluneelle, tuon
kauhistuttavan aukon laitaa pitkin kulkevalle tielle. Dick katsoi
tuonne punaiseen ammottavaan pataan, joka oli kuin helvetti.
Vastakkaisen seinän mustahkot kalliot olivat sinisen savumaisen
udun peitossa. Täällä oli yaqui kuin kotonaan. Hän liikkui ja oli sen
näköinen kuin hän vihdoinkin olisi saapunut syntymäseuduilleen.
Gale näki hänen pysähtyvän ja katsovan tuon ammottavan tyhjyyden
yli lahtea kohti.
Hän aavisti, että jossakin tämän helvetinkuilun laidalla yaqui
asettuu viimeiseen vastarintaan, ja katsahdettuaan vain kerran
intiaanin omituisiin tutkimattomiin silmiin oli hän jo näkevinään heitä
takaa-ajavan Rojaksen tuomion täytäntöönpanon.

XII.
HELVETINKUILU.
Tie kulki muutaman, aukon laidassa olevan äärettömän suuren
kuilun reunaa ja sitten alemmaksi ja alemmaksi punaseinäiseen
siniutuiseen sokkeloon.
Kierrettyään erään terävän kulmauksen hämmästyi Gale äkkiä
huomatessaan, että halkeama vietti ja leveni laaksoksi. Se oli niin
viheriä, suloinen ja kaunis tämän jylhän punaisen ympäristön
keskellä, että Gale tuskin uskoi silmiään. Blanco sol hirnui iloisesti
vainutessaan vettä. Sitten Gale huomasi suuren reiän, jonkunlaisen
syvänteen tuossa kimaltelevassa laavassa, tumman, kylmän ja
varjoisan lähteen. Oli selvää, että sadeaikana vesi virtasi laaksoon.
Hieno, punertava hiekka peitti maanpinnan, josta tunkeutui runsaasti
esiin pitkää viheriää ruohoa. Laaksossa kasvoi mesquite-pensaita ja
palo verdejä, joiden lukumäärä lisäytyi vähitellen niin, että ne
muodostivat näköalaa peittäviä tiheikköjä.
"Tämä on varmasti enemmän kuin odotinkaan!" huudahti Ladd.
"Mikä verraton lymypaikka! Voimme piiloutua tänne pitkiksi ajoiksi.

Pojat, näin vuoristolampaita, noita oikeita vuoristojen suursarvia.
Mitä ajattelette tästä kaikesta?"
"Luullakseni olemme saapuneet yaquin metsästysmaille", vastasi
Lash. "Tuo kulkemamme tie on varmaankin satoja vuosia vanha. Se
on syöpynyt syvälle raudankovaan laavaan ja kulunut sileäksi."
"Niin, minun on myönnettävä, että Belding oli oikeassa intiaaniin
nähden. Ja voin aavistaa, että Rojaksen päivät loppuvat jossakin
tuon helvetinkuilun liepeillä."
Leiriydyttiin muutamalle tasaiselle paikalle. Yaqui juotti hevoset ja
ajoi ne sitten laaksoon laitumelle. Aterian valmistuttua istuuduttiin
syömään väsyneinä ja vakavina. Epäilyksien aiheuttama jännitys
yhtyi pitkän matkan väsyttäviin seurauksiin. Mercedes oli tyyni,
mutta hänen tummat silmänsä liekehtivät kalpeissa kasvoissa. Yaqui
tarkasteli häntä ja muut katsoivat häneen lausumattomin ylpeyden
tuntein. Äkkiä kiersi Thorne huopapeitteen hänen ympärilleen ja hän
näytti nukkuvan heti. Hämärä synkkeni ja nuotio alkoi palaa
kirkkaammin. Kylmä tuuli liehutteli Mercedeksen tummaa tukkaa
peittäen suortuvilla hänen otsansa.
Yaquin tarkoituksista ja suunnitelmista ei saatu paljon selville,
mutta hänen käyttäytymisensä tyynnytti Thornenkin. Tämä nojautui
kokoamaansa risukimppuun katsoen synkästi nuotioon ja sitten
jonkun ajan kuluttua liikkumattomaan vaimoonsa.
Paimenet ja Thorne keskustelivat kumminkin hiljaa. He olivat aivan
varmat, ettei Rojas miehineen ehdi tälle lähteelle ennenkuin
huomenna keskipäivällä. Ja jo paljon ennen heidän tuloaan luulivat
paimenet saavansa puolustussuunnitelmansa valmiiksi. Miten tämä
puolustus tulisi tapahtumaan ja missä, olivat asioita, joita paimenet

punnitsivat vakavasti. Ladd otaksui yaquin vievän heidät johonkin
valloittamattomaan paikkaan, josta samalla tulee muodostumaan
heidän takaa-ajajiensa kuolinportaat. He ajattelivat kaikkia
mahdollisuuksia, ja vaikka he olivatkin väsyneet, jatkoivat he vain
keskusteluaan.
"Minua hämmästyttää, että Rojas läksi ajamaan meitä takaa",
sanoi Thorne kiihkeän intohimon vääristämin, laihtunein kasvoin.
"Hän on seurannut meitä tänne kauheaan erämaahan huolimatta
siitä, että hän voi menettää miehensä, hevosensa ja ehkä
henkensäkin. Hän on vain rosvo eikä hän tule tänne saadakseen
kultaa. Jos hän aikoo päästä täältä, saa hän ponnistella äärettömästi
ja kärsiä suuria puutteita. Ja kaikki tuo tapahtuu vain avuttoman
pienen naisen — ja vain naisen vuoksi. Jumalani, en voi ymmärtää
sitä."
"Varmasti — vain naisen vuoksi", vastasi Ladd nyökäyttäen
vakavasti päätään.
Seurasi pitkä vaitiolo, jonka kestäessä miehet katsoivat vain
tuleen. Jokainen aavisti ehkä hämärästi Rojaksen rakkauden tahi
vihan äärettömän voiman, tahi näkivät he kuin vilahdukselta
ihmisten intohimojen pohjattoman syvyyden. Lepattavat liekit
valaisivat ainoastaan tyyniä, kovia ja vakavia kasvoja —
"Nukkukaa!" sanoi yaqui.
Thorne kietoutui huopapeitteeseensä ja paneutui pitkäkseen aivan
Mercedeksen viereen.
Muutkin laskeutuivat vihdoin levolle ojentaen jalkansa tuleen päin,
mutta uni pakeni Galen silmistä. Hänen silmänsä olivat väsyneet,

mutta ne eivät pysyneet kiinni, hänen ruumiinsa kaipasi lepoa, mutta
hän ei sittenkään voinut maata hiljaa. Yö oli pimeä ja synkkä, ja
tämän laavan ympäröimä laakso oli täynnä vaaroja. Pimeä,
samettimainen taivas, johon valkoiset tulenliekit kuvastuivat, näytti
olevan aivan lähellä. Kaikkialla vallitsi kuolemanhiljaisuus. Mikään ei
liikkunut, mikään Galen ruumista lukuunottamatta ei näyttänyt
elävän. Yaqui istui kuin laavasta veistetty kuvapatsas. Toiset
nukkuivat liikkumattomina suullaan. Mahtoivatko he jo seuraavana
yönä nukkua samassa asennossa milloinkaan heräämättä? Gale
tunsi, miten hänen lihaksensa supistuivat ja vapisivat. Vaikka hän
olikin tottunut erämaahan ja sen aiheuttamiin tunnelmiin, tuntui
hänestä kumminkin tänä yönä, että sen laavan ja salaperäisyyksien
paino musersi hänet alleen.
Hetken kuluttua nousi hän istumaan ja katseli tuleen. Nellin
suloiset kasvot vilahtelivat kuin haamu vaaleasta savusta —
hehkuivat, punastuivat ja hymyilivät hänelle kekäleiden seasta.
Muitakin kasvoja näkyi sieltä — sisaren, ja sitten äidin. Gale
tukahdutti nuo hellät muistot. Tämä autio erämaa peloittavine
hiljaisuuksineen ja synkkine helvetin lupauksineen huomiseksi ei ollut
mikään sopiva paikka luonteen heikontamiseksi rakkaiden ja kodin
ajattelemisella. Mutta sen kiduttava näennäinen mahdottomuus oli,
että tämä juuri oli sellainen paikka ja sellainen yö, jossa ja jolloin
tuollaiset ajatukset kiusaavat ihmistä.
Silloin tällöin nousi hän kävelemäänkin mesquite-pensaitten
välisille varjoisille käytäville. Kun hän palasi, tuli yaqui häntä vastaan.
Gale ei hämmästynyt ollenkaan, sillä hän oli tottunut intiaanin
omituiseen huolenpitoon. Mutta nyt, ehkä senvuoksi, että hän itse oli
niin syvissä ajatuksissa rakkauden ja surun painaessa hänen
mieltään ja syvien ja polttavien aavistusten ennustaessa kamalaa

taistelua, halusi hän kumminkin lähemmin tarkastella yaquia. Mutta
se oli tietysti hyödytöntä. Intiaani oli yhtä tutkimaton, hiljainen ja
omituinen kuin ennenkin. Mutta nopeasti ja voimatta sitä selittää
tunsi Gale yaquin inhimillisen myötätunnon. Se oli kaukaista, kuten
kaikki muukin tuossa intiaanissa, mutta hän tunsi sen kumminkin.
Villi käveli hiljaa hänen rinnallaan, katsomatta ja koskematta häneen
ja sanomatta sanaakaan. Hänen ajatuksensa olivat niin
tutkimattomat kuin ei hänenlaisillaan ihmisillä olisi ollut järkeä
ollenkaan. Kumminkin tunsi Gale hänen tunteittensa voimakkuuden
ja muisti samalla intiaanin viimeiset elinvaiheet. Hänen kotinsa oli
hävitetty, hänen kansansa oli viety orjuuteen vieraalle maalle, hänen
vaimonsa ja lapsensa oli erotettu hänestä ja tapettu. Mitä oli yaqui
odottanut elämältä? Mitä oli ollut hänen sydämessään silloin? Mitä
hän nyt ajatteli? Gale ei voinut vastata näihin kysymyksiin. Mutta
hänen ja yaquin väliset eroavaisuudet, jollaisia hän hämärästi oli
tuntenut olevan sivistyneen ihmisen ja villin välillä, haihtuvat hänen
mielestään ikuisiksi ajoiksi. Yaqui otaksui kai olevansa jonkunlaisessa
velassa Galelle ja kun otettiin huomioon yaquin ankarat ja jalot
kunniakäsitteet, aikoi hän sen nyt maksaa. Intiaanin läsnäolo ei
tuonut kumminkaan nyt näitä ajatuksia Galen mieleen. Muistaen
erämaan omituisen ja selvittämättömän vaikutuksen otaksui Gale,
että villi ja valkoinen mies olivat tehneet liiton, joka ei ollut
vähemmän veljellinen senvuoksi, ettei sitä voitu selittää.
Aamu alkoi jo melkein sarastaa, ennenkuin Gale sai unta. Sitten
valkeni päivä, mutta aurinko oli vielä piilossa ylätasangon laidan
takana. Hevoset tulivat laaksosta ja hirnuivat vettä. Nopean
aamiaisen jälkeen piiloitettiin kuormat laavassa oleviin kuoppiin.
Satulat jätettiin samoihin paikkoihin, jonne ne oli irroitettaessa
laskettu, ja hevoset saivat mennä laitumelle mihin ne vain halusivat.
Vesisäiliöt täytettiin, ruokaa sullottiin laukkuihin ja huopapeitteet

käärittiin. Sitten läksi yaqui kapuamaan jyrkkää laavarinnettä ja muut
seurasivat häntä.
Hänen seuraamansa suunta johti kuilun oikealle, juuri sen tien
vastakkaiselle puolelle, jota he olivat laskeutuneet laaksoon. Rinne
oli jyrkkä, ja koska miehillä oli kuormat selässä, edistyi heidän
matkansa hitaasti. Mercedes oli nostettava jyrkemmille penkereille ja
halkeamien yli. He sivuuttivat paikkoja, joissa kuilun reunat eivät
olleet kuin muutamia metrejä toisistaan. Vihdoin etäytyivät ne
erilleen ja punainen utuinen aukko ammotti heidän vierellään. Yaqui
poikkesi tieltä ja alkoi kavuta alemmaksi laavan rosoisia ja kuoppaisia
ulkonemia pitkin, jotka muodostivat kuilun reunan. Joskus riippui hän
aivan jyrkänteitten yllä. Muut voivat seurata häntä mitä suurimmin
vaikeuksin. Heidän kulkiessaan kapeilla jalanlevyisillä penkereillä oli
Mercedestä tuettava. Choyat olivat sielläkin estämässä kulkua.
Vihdoin pysähtyi intiaani eräälle kapealle tasaiselle laavapenkereelle
ja hänen toverinsa saivat olla äärettömän varovaiset ja huolelliset
päästäkseen samalle paikalle.
Tämän penkereen takalaidassa, choyien välissä, oli jonkunlainen
matala syvennys, jonka pohjalla oli multaa. Ladd sanoi sitä
pakopaikaksi, jota vuoristolampaat olivat käyttäneet monta vuotta.
Yaqui levitti huopapeitteet lattialle, vei vesisäiliöt ja eväslaukun sinne
ja pyysi sitten nöyrin viittauksin, jotka kumminkin olivat käskevät,
Mercedestä menemään sinne. Muutamat seuraavat liikkeet ja sanat
selittivät hänen suunnitelmansa. Mercedes oli piilotettava tähän
luoksepääsemättömään paikkaan. Miesten oli kierrettävä
vastakkaiselle penkereelle ja suljettava lähteelle johtava tie.
Gale kiinnitti huomionsa tämän kotkanpesän muotoon. Niin
villinnäköisessä ja rosoisessa paikassa ei hän ollut vielä ikinä ennen

ollut. Ainoastaan vuoristolammas olisi voinut kiipeillä ylemmillä
rinteillä ja vieressä olevalla liukkaalla laavajyrkänteellä. Alempana oli
kokonainen kimalteleva choya-vyöhyke, joka reunustaessaan
näköjään pohjatonta kuilua oli kuin huurteessa auringonpaisteessa.
Ladd valitsi pyssyjen joukosta keveimmän ojentaen sen
Mercedekselle.
"Varmasti on hyvä varustautua kaiken varalta", sanoi hän suoraan.
"On mahdollista, ettette tätä ikinä tarvitse mutta jos teidän on —"
Hän lopetti siihen, mutta hänen keskeytyksensä oli
merkityksellinen. Mercedes vastasi hänelle pelottomin ja
lannistumattomin katsein. Thorne oli miesten joukossa ainoa
hermostunut. Hänen jäähyväisensä vaimolleen olivat liikuttavat ja
nopeat. Sitten hän ja paimenet läksivät varovaisesti seuraamaan
yaquia.
He kiipesivät harjanteen korkeudelle ja seurasivat sitten kuilun
reunaa. Kun he tulivat halkeaman laidalle ja saapuivat sen
kapeimmalle kohdalle, voitiin yaquin käytöksestä huomata, että hän
aikoi hypätä sen yli. Ladd ei sallinut intiaanin kumminkaan täyttää
aikomustaan. Sitten he jatkoivat matkaansa kuilun reunaa, kunnes
he saapuivat paikalle, jossa monta laavasiltaa vei sen yli. Kuilu oli
toisin paikoin hyvin syvä ja toisin paikoin taas tukkeutunut. Aukolla ei
ollut nähtävästi suoraa suuta alempana olevaan laaksoon. Sen pohja
oli kumminkin selvästi paljon alempana kuin lähde.
Sitten kuin oli päästy kuilun yli, löydettiin tie heti. Se poikkesi
kauemmaksi reunasta. Yaqui viittasi kädellään oikealle, jossa
tulivuoren aukon rosoisessa rinteessä oli luolia, halkeamia ja kuoppia
piilopaikoiksi ainakin sadalle miehelle. Yaqui riensi tietä pitkin eräälle

korkeammalle paikalle ja pian näkyikin hänen liikkumaton tumma
vartalonsa taivasta vasten. Paimenet ja Thorne valitsivat muutaman
syvän kuopan, josta johti useita kylliksi syviä uria kaikille suunnille.
Laddin mielestä oli paikka yhtä hyvä kuin joku toinenkin, ehkä ei niin
hyvin piilotettu, mutta vapaampi tuosta peloittavasta choyasta.
Miehet laskivat pyssynsä ja pistoolinsa maahan ja irroitettuaan
raskaat patruunavyönsäkin istuutuivat he odottamaan.
Heidän valitsemansa paikka oli aivan jyrkänteen reunalla ja ehkä
noin viidensadan metrin päässä vastakkaisesta reunasta, joka näytti
nyt olevan paljon heidän alapuolellaan. Kimaltelevat punaiset kalliot
olivat petollisen ja vaarallisen näköiset. Jyrkänteen pinnassa oli
tuhansia penkereitä ja kuoppia, toisena hetkenä näytti se
kohtisuoralta ja toisena taasen loivalta rinteeltä. Thorne näytti heille
paikan, jossa hän luuli Mercedeksen olevan piilossa, Ladd valitsi
toisen kohdan ja Lash lopulta kolmannen. Gale etsi näkemäänsä
choya-penkerettä, joka oli sijainnut Mercedeksen piilopaikan
alapuolella, ja kun hän oli löytänyt sen, vastustivat monet hänen
väitettään. Silloin tarttui Gale kaukoputkeensa todistaakseen
olevansa oikeassa. Kun hän oli asettanut sen sopivaksi välimatkalle,
erottautuivat choyat, penkere ja lammasten turvapaikka selvästi
rosoisen rinteen pinnasta. Heidän kaikkien mielestä oli yaqui
piilottanut Mercedeksen niin hyvin, että ainoastaan korppikotkan
terävät silmät voivat hänet huomata.
Jim Lash ryömi erääseen varjoiseen paikkaan, ruveten tyynesti
odottamaan. Ladd oli levoton, kärsimätön ja valpas. Hän nousi aina
vähän ajan kuluttua tarkastamaan pitkää rinnettä ja oikealla olevaa
harjannetta, jolla yaqui seisoi liikkumatonna. Thorne muuttui
vaiteliaaksi hitaan synkän raivon kiehuessa hänen mielessään. Gale
ei ollut tyyni eikä vapaakaan hivuttavasta epäluulosta sekä

kiihtyvästä vihasta. Mutta hän koetti olla ajattelematta tuota
ratkaisematonta taistelua niin paljon kuin suinkin.
Hänestä tuntui äkkiä kuin hän ei olisi vielä käsittänytkään tämän
erämaan hämmästyttävää luontoa. Tuolla oli tuo äärettömän pitkä
punainen rinne, jonka alimmaiset harjut vihdoin muuttuivat
valkoisiksi, sinistä merta vasten näkyviksi hiekkatöyryiksi. Kylmä
säteilevä vaaleus, valkoinen aurinko, taivaan tummansininen väri ja
kaikkialla hänen ympärillään leviävän rajattoman lakeuden
aiheuttamat tunteet ilmoittivat, että hän oli jotensakin korkealla.
Etelässä sulautui tuo punainen autius yksinkertaisesti etäisyyteen.
Aukkoja täynnä olevat tasangot kohosivat korkein tummin penkerein
jylhiä vallitsevia huippuja kohti. Kun Gale käänsi katseensa noiden
kenttien ja huippujen suurenmoisuudesta, näytti alempana oleva
kuilu mitättömältä kuopalta. Mutta kuta kauemmin hän katsoi, sitä
leveämmäksi, syvemmäksi ja rosoisemmaksi se muuttui. Ei, hän ei
voinut ymmärtää tämän seudun suuruussuhteita eikä etäisyyksiä.
Siellä oli liian paljon katseltavaa. Mutta tapa, jolla luonto oli
muodostanut tämän hämmästyttävän laavamaailman, järkytti hänen
mieltään.
Sillä aikaa kuluivat tunnit. Kun aurinko nousi korkeammalle, hävisi
tuo kirkas teräksenharmaa väri, sininen utu sakeni ja laavan
kimalteleva pinta muuttui hitaasti punaisemmaksi. Ladd hämmästyi
huomatessaan, ettei yaquia enää selvästi näkynytkään. Jim Lash
ryömi esille varjoisesta kuopastaan ja kiinnitti patruunavyön
uumilleen. Hänen pienet harmaat silmänsä tarkastelivat laavarinteen
ylhäältä alas asti, pysähtyivät epäillen erääseen kohtaan ja alkoivat
sitten jälleen tutkia ylätasangon itäistä autiota puoliskoa.

"Kylläpä näköni onkin muuttunut huonoksi", sanoi hän. "Ehkä se
on tuon kirotun pensaikon kimaltelevan laavan syy. Kumminkin, mitä
ovat nuo ryömivät pisteet tuolla?"
"Nyt huomaan minäkin ne", vastasi Ladd. "Ne ovat
vuoristolampaita."
"Älä ollenkaan arvaile, Laddy. Dick, ojennahan kaukoputkesi
tuonne rinteelle päin."
Gale pani kaukoputkensa kuntoon ja alkoi etsiä laavarinteeltä,
ensin aivan läheltä ja sitten kauempaa. Pian vakautui putki yhteen
kohti.
"Näen kuusi ruskeata pientä eläintä, jotka ovat kuin lampaita.
Mutta en osaa erottaa vuoristolammasta antiloopista."
"Varmasti ovat ne suursarvia", sanoi Ladd.
"Sinun on katsottava tuonne itään päin tuon pitkän harjanteen
juurelle, jos haluat saada selville, mitä minä näen", lisäsi Jim.
Kaukoputki nousi ja kiersi, heilui hetkisen, mutta asettui sitten
paikoilleen kuin kallio. Syntyi painostava vaitiolo.
"Neljätoista hevosta — pari kuormitettua, muutamia ratsastajien
kanssa ja muutamia ilman", sanoi Gale hitaasti.
Yaqui ilmestyi kaukaa tielle ja lähestyi nopeasti. Äkkiä hän
huomasi miehet, pysähtyi, heilutti käsivarttaan ja viittasi. Sitten hän
katosi kuin laava olisi niellyt hänet.

"Tuo kaukoputki on hyvä olemassa", sanoi Jim nopeasti. "Näen
aivan punaista, ilmoitan sen teille… Vaikka silmäni ovatkin huonot,
olivat ne kumminkin oikeassa. Rojas on poikennut tieltä miehineen."
"Jim, ethän voine tarkoittaa että he ovat alkaneet kiivetä tuota
kauheata rinnettä?" kysyi Ladd.
"Varmasti! He ovat sekä tulossa tänne että menossa alaspäin."
"Ehkä Rojas on tullut hulluksi, mutta alkaa näyttää siltä kuin —"
"Laddy, saat ampua minut, ellei tuo meksikolaisjoukko ole nyt
hävinnyt näkyvistä! Koko sakki katosi kuin maan alle tuon puolen
penikulman päässä olevan kummun juurella."
"Varmasti ovat ne jonkun harjanteen takana tahi sitten ovat ne
painuneet johonkin uraan", vastasi Ladd. "Ne tulevat kyllä jälleen
näkyviin hetken kuluttua. Olkaa varuillanne, pojat, sillä luullakseni
Rojas hajoittaa miehensä laajalle."
Minuutit kuluivat, mutta ei mitään nähty liikkuvan tuolla punaisella
rinteellä. Jokainen mies ryömi edulliselle paikalle rapautuneen
laavarinteen reunalle. He kurkistelivat varovaisesti pienistä
halkeamista tahi jonkun kielekkeen takaa, ja heidän piilopaikkansa
pienuus ei päästänyt heitä etääntymään kauaksi toisistaan. Laddin
mumina muuttui karjahtelemiseksi ja sitten samanlaiseksi
hiljaisuudeksi kuin oli ominaista hänen tovereilleen. Silloin tällöin
katsoivat muut kysyvästi Galeen. Mutta ei kaukoputkellakaan voitu
sen enempi kuin paljailla silmilläkään huomata pienintäkään liikuntaa
laavamäellä. Epäluulojen hitaasti enentyessä kului pitkä tunti.

"Varmasti on kaikki muuttumaisillaan yhtä omituiseksi kuin yaqui",
sanoi vihdoin Ladd.
Intiaanin omituinen kasvojen ilme, hiljainen toiminta ja synkkä
luonne ei ollut todellakaan voinut olla vaikuttamatta miehiin. Sitten
tämä eriskummainen, autio ja synkkä seutu lisäsi vielä tuota
mystillisyyden tunnetta. Ja kun nyt vielä Rojaksen miesten
katoaminen, pitkä hiljainen odotus ja näkymättömien vihollisten
ryömimisen ja yhä lähemmäksi kiertämisen aiheuttama varmuus
lisäsivät tilanteeseen viimeisen tunnin, niin se ei tuntunut ollenkaan
todelliselta.
"Alan epäillä, että nuo meksikolaiset suunnittelevat jotakin
konnankoukkua", sanoi Jim. "Tahi ehkä emme ole ymmärtäneet
Rojasta oikein… Kun nyt vain jotakin pian tapahtuisi!"
Kun Lash, joka oli tyyni ja ärsyttävän välinpitämätön vaaran
hetkellä, alkoi hermostua, oli se salaa esiytyvän epätodellisuuden
merkillisin vaikutus.
"Pojat, katsokaa tarkasti tuonne vasemmalle, suunnilleen
kolmensadan metrin päähän!" huudahti Lash äkkiä. "Tuonne choyien
taakse, laaksossa oleviin uriin. Ensin luulin sitä lampaaksi, mutta
siellä onkin yaqui! Hän ryömii nopeasti kuin sisilisko. Ettekö huomaa
häntä?"
Kului hetkinen, ennenkuin Jimin toverit saivat selville yaquin
olinpaikan. Matalana kuin käärme kiemurteli hän eteenpäin
uskomattoman nopeasti. Hänen etenemisensä oli senkinvuoksi
huomattava, että hän näytti kulkevan noiden pelättyjen choyain
alitse. Joskus hän pysähtyi, nosti päätään ja katsoi. Hän oli suorassa
viivassa erääseen suureen laavaympyrään, joka oli korkeammalla

kuin muut rinteen kohdat. Se oli noin neljänsadan metrin päässä
miesten piilopaikasta.
"Varmasti koettaa hän päästä tuolle korkealle paikalle", sanoi
Ladd. "Nyt hidastuttaa hän kulkuaan ja nyt hän pysähtyi kokonaan
muutamien choyien taakse. No, nyt hän nousee — ei, hän
polvistuu… No, mitä hittoa tämä on?"
"Laddy, katsohan tuon laavaharjanteen sivulle!" huusi Jim tiukasti.
"Luullakseni on nyt tulossa jotakin. Katsokaa! Tuolla kiipeää Rojas
miehineen. Älkää luulkokaan näkevänne hevosia… Dick, katso
kaukoputkellasi ja ilmoita meille, mitä siellä on tekeillä. Minä pidän
silmällä yaquia ja sanon sitten teille, mitä hänellä on mielessä."
Gale näki Rojaksen ja tämän miehet niin selvästi kuin ne olisivat
olleet aivan hänen vieressään käden ulottuvilla. He olivat tulossa
jalkaisin särmäistä rinnettä ylös ja olivat raskaasti aseistettuja. Gale
ei nähnyt ainoastaan kannuksia, lakkeja, takkeja ja huiveja, vaan
miesten tummat kasvot, mustat takkuiset hiukset ja risaiset likaiset
paidatkin, jotka kerran olivat olleet valkoiset.
"He ovat melkein perillä jo", ilmoitti Gale. "Kas niin! Nyt
pysähtyivät he laelle. Näen Rojaksen. Hän on hurjistuneen näköinen.
Hitto vieköön, pojat, siellä on muudan intiaanikin!… Luullakseni
papago. Ah, hänhän on Beldingin vanha palvelija… Intiaani viittaa
tännepäin, sitten tuonne alas. Hän näyttää Rojakselle tien suunnan."
"Pojat, yaqui on pyssynkantomatkan päässä tuosta joukosta",
sanoi Jim nopeasti. "Hän kohottaa pyssyänsä hitaasti. — Jumalani,
miten hidas hän on!… Hän tähtää johonkin heistä, mutta en osaa
sanoa, keneenkä. Mutta luultavasti aikoo hän ampua Rojaksen."

"Yaqui osaa ampua. Hän ampuu varmasti Rojaksen", lisäsi Gale
julmasti.
"Niin — Rojaksen!" huusi Thorne kiihkeästi.
"Eikö mitä!" sanoi Ladd ivallisesti. "Herrat, saatte lyödä vetoa, että
yaqui ampuu papagon. Tuo petturi tuntee nämä vuoristolampaiden
olinpaikat. Hän puhuu juuri Rojakselle —"
Kuului kumea paukahdus.
"Laddy oli oikeassa!" huusi Gale. "Papagoon osui — hänen
käsivartensa vaipui. — Kas noin, nyt hän kaatui!"
Kuului useampia laukauksia. Yaqui seisoi suorana ja ampui
nopeasti hämmästyneihin meksikolaisiin, mutta mikäli Gale huomasi,
ei ainoakaan muista luodeista sattunut. Rojas ja hänen miehensä
katosivat laavapengermän taakse. Sitten peräytyi yaqui varovaisesti
asemastaan koettamattakaan juosta tahi piiloutua. Ilmeisesti piti hän
tarkasti silmällä, näkyikö meksikolaisia urissa ja choyain juurilla.
Äkkiä hän kääntyi ja tuli suoraan toveriensa asemaa kohti, mutta
poikkesi sitten syrjään saavuttuaan noin sadan askeleen päähän siitä
ja katosi erääseen halkeamaan. Hänen tarkoituksensa oli nähtävästi
viekoitella meksikolaiset pyssynkantomatkalle.
"Kuulehan, Jim, sinun toivosi toteutui, sillä jotakin tapahtui", sanoi
Ladd. "Enkä voi muuta sanoa kuin: Jumalalle kiitos, että meillä on
yaqui mukanamme! Tuo papago olisi aiheuttanut meille ikävyyksiä.
Epäilen, että hän ennätti jo nytkin puhua Rojakselle tarpeeksi
saadaksemme haistaa verta."

"Hänellä oli tilaisuus ampua Rojas!" huusi laihakasvoinen kiihtynyt
Thorne. "Mutta hän ei käyttänyt sitä hyväkseen!"
Ainoastaan Ladd näytti voivan vastata tähän Thornen
merkitykselliseen huomautukseen.
"Kuulkaahan, kun sanon", virkkoi hän kaikuvin äänin. "Tiedämme
kaikki, miltä teistä tuntuu. Ja jos minulla olisi ollut tuo tilaisuus
ampua, niin olisinkohan ampunut papagon? En suinkaan, vaan
Rojaksen. Niin olisi jokainen valkoinen mies tehnyt. Mutta yaqui oli
oikeassa eikä kukaan muu kuin intiaani olisi voinut menetellä niin.
Saatte olla varmat, että tuon papagon henkiinjääminen olisi ollut
meille enemmänkin kuin vaarallista. Hän olisi nimittäin johtanut
roistot suoraan Mercedeksen piilopaikkaan ja sitten olisi meidän ollut
pakko poistua suojastamme karkoittaaksemme heidät sieltä… Kun
ajattelette, miten äärettömästi yaqui vihaa meksikolaisia ja kun
näette hänen malttavan mielensä ampumatta ainoatakaan — niin, en
oikein osaa sanoa, mitä tarkoitan, mutta minä nostan kumminkin
hattuani intiaanille."
"Aivan niin ja nyt on taistelu alkanut", vastasi Lash. Nyt oli tuo
hänen luonteelleen niin luonnoton hermostunut kärsimättömyys
hävinnyt niin kokonaan kuin ei sitä milloinkaan olisi ollutkaan. Hän
hymyili tyynesti ja hänen äänensä kuulosti melkein huolettomalta.
Taputellessaan winchesterinsä perää jäntevällä ruskealla kädellään
puheli hän, kohdistamatta sanojaan kenellekään erityisesti: "Yaqui
on aloittanut taistelun. Pitäkää silmällä vastustajianne, pojat, ja
valmistautukaa tanssimaan."
Toinen odotus alkoi, ja päättäen auringon suorempaan
kohdistuvista säteistä ja choyain pienien varjojen kutistumisesta
otaksui Gale, että he saivat odottaa kauan. Mutta aika kului

kumminkin nopeasti. He makasivat laavassa olevan puoliympyrän
muotoisen kuopan reunojen suojassa. Laita oli koloinen ja rosoinen
ja kokonaan choyain peittämä. Se vietti alaspäin ja leveni aukkoon
päin avautuvaksi laajaksi näköalaksi. Gale oli kaikkein korkeimmalla,
kauimpana oikealla ja oli senvuoksi parhaiten suojattu mahdollisesti
harjanteen korkeimmilta, noin kolmensadan metrin päässä olevilta
kohdilta suunnatulta tulelta. Jim oli seuraava, ja hänkin oli hyvin
piilossa muutamassa halkeamassa. Thornen ja Laddin valitsemat
paikat olivat suojattomimmat. He pitivät kumminkin tarkasti silmällä
kaikkea piilopaikkansa koloisen laidan takaa.
Aurinko sivuutti puolipäiväpiirin ja alkoi laskeutua länteen
muuttuen yhä kuumemmaksi. Miehet odottivat odottamasta
päästyäänkin eikä Gale huomannut Thornessakaan minkäänlaista
kärsimättömyyttä. Painostavaan ilmaan tuntui yhtyneen
tukahduttavaa, kuumuudesta, uhasta, väreistä ja hiljaisuudesta
muodostunutta jotakin. Laavasta heijastuva valkoinen valokin tuntui
muuttuvan punaiseksi ja äänettömyydessä oli todellisuutta. Galesta
tuntui se joskus aivan sietämättömältä, mutta hän ei kumminkaan
koettanutkaan sitä rikkoa.
Äkkiä katkaisi tämän kuolemanhiljaisuuden kimakka, kaikuva ja
aivan läheisyydestä kuuluva paukahdus. Se oli luodikon eikä karbiinin
aiheuttama. Sitä seurasi hämmästyttävän pian huuto, joka koski
ilkeästi Galen korviin, sillä se oli niin ohut, kimakka ja aivan erilainen
kuin hänen muut ennen kuulemansa huudot. Se oli inhimillinen,
tahdoton kuolinkiljaisu.
"Yaqui siellä vain tervehti toista roistoa", sanoi Jim lyhyesti.
Karbiinit alkoivat paukkua. Pamaukset olivat nopeita ja hiljaisia
kuin kiukkuinen sähinä, joka ei kaiu. Gale kurkisti piilopaikkansa

laidalta. Laavan rosoisella pinnalla leijaili vaaleita himmeästi näkyviä
pilviä, jollaisia savuton ruuti synnyttää. Sitten huomasi Gale pyöreitä
pilkkuja, jotka näyttivät tummilta punaista taustaa vasten, ja niiden
edustalta vilahteli silloin tällöin pieniä tulikieliä. Laddin .405 alkoi
jyristä kauniin, voimakkain äänin. Thornekin ampui, hieman liian
nopeaan, ajatteli Gale. Sitten pisti Jim winchesterinsä reunan yli
erään choyan alitse ja laukausten välissä kuuli Gale hänen laulavan:
"Pyöritä neitoa, pyöritä vain!… Kaikki miehet ovat vielä jäljellä!…
Pyörittäkää toverianne eteen- ja taaksepäin!… Kieputa neitoa,
kieputa vain!" Gale ryhtyi myöskin taisteluun olematta ollenkaan
varma osaisiko hän ainoaankaan noista kumartelevista olennoista,
joihin hän tähtäsi, mutta tullen kumminkin sitä varmemmaksi
itsestään kuta enemmän taistelu vapautti jotakin pingoitettua ja
ahdistavaa hänen rinnastaan.
Heidän asemansa yli alkoi pian viheltää teräsluoteja. Ne, jotka
sattuivat laavaan, kimposivat aukkoon, mutta ne, jotka tunkeutuivat
choyain läpi, synnyttivät silkin repimistä muistuttavan äänen.
Kaktuksien piikit pistelivät Galen kasvoihin, ja hän pelkäsi noita
lentäviä okaita enemmän kuin luoteja.
"Pitäkää puolianne, pojat!" huusi Ladd kumartuessaan alemmaksi
ladatakseen jälleen pyssynsä. "Säästäkää patruunianne.
Meksikolaiset aikovat kiertää meidät. Muutamat pyrkivät tuonne
yaquin alapuolelle ja muutamat taasen tuonee korkealle harjanteelle.
Jos he vain pääsevät sinne, tulee meille tässä kuumat oltavat. Tämä
paikka on niin pieni, ettemme voi kaikki tänne piiloutua."
Ladd kohottautui katsoakseen reunan yli. Paukahdukset kuuluivat
nyt sieltä täältä, selvästi kumminkin heidän alapuoleltaan.
Huomatessaan sen, tuli Ladd rohkeammaksi ja nousi ylemmäksi.

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Redesigning Achilles Recycling The Epic Cycle In The Little Iliad Ovid Metamorphoses 12113622 Sophia Papaioannou

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Redesigning Achilles Recycling The Epic Cycle In The Little Iliad Ovid Metamorphoses 12113622 Sophia Papaioannou

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