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Vergil and the Death of Pentheus in Ovid, Metamorphoses 3

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Published/Copyright: June 6, 2017
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Abstract

In a pivotal article in 1990, P. Hardie illustrated that the Theban narrative of Ovid Metamorphoses 3 and 4 was the first anti-Aeneid. He did not include discussion of the death of Pentheus at the end of Book 3. In this article I show that the depiction of the Theban king’s death is bound up with key Vergilian intertexts which have a profound impact both on reading the pathos of the scene, but more importantly, on Ovid’s reconstruction of the end of the Aeneid and the death of Turnus. A seemingly clichéd simile comparing Pentheus’ sparagmos with the falling of leaves from a tree evokes the famous passage from the underworld in Aeneid 6 in which the souls of those who died prematurely are described. More importantly, in relation to Ovid’s narrative of the Theban ktisis, careful allusions to the final lines of the Aeneid in Pentheus’ death-scene act as a critical commentary on the Aeneid and the actions of Aeneas.

Acknowledgements

I presented my ideas on Pentheus in Edinburgh, Marburg and Regensburg and I would like to acknowledge the respective audiences for their questions. Particular thanks for their insightful remarks are owed to Steven Green, Gavin Kelly, Yvan Nadeau, Donncha O’Rourke, Aaron Pelttari and Catherine Ware, who read an early version of this article, and to the journal’s anonymous reviewers.

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Published Online: 2017-6-6
Published in Print: 2017-5-30

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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