Beyond Impotence Some unexplored Ovidian dynamics in Petronius’s sketch of the Croton episode (Satyrica 126. 1–140. 12)
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Theodore Antoniadis
Abstract: Petronius’s debt to Ovid’s amatory works is frequently acknowledged when discussion comes to the so-called “Croton episode”, where Encolpius’s love affair with an aristocratic woman, named Circe, ends rather unsuccessfully with the protagonist’s famous double sexual failure (Sat. 126.12–128.4 and 131.8–132.5). Although most scholars connect this event with the well-known impotence theme, especially as treated by Ovid in Am. 3.7, the purpose of this paper is to move beyond the impotentia, tracing some other, unexplored, elegiac allusions and illusions in the whole narrative. Thus, it will become apparent that it is Petronius’s use of erotic motifs as well as the depiction of (stock-) characters and roleplaying that is further indebted to Ovidian discourse and poetics.
© De Gruyter 2013
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- Coordinated sequences of analogous topics in the Delian and Pythian segments of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
- Od. 3, 392 and Theoc. 7, 147: a case of interpretatio Homerica
- Typhon and Eumelus’ Titanomachy
- Oracles and etymologies or when Aeschylus goes to extremes
- Divine names in the Derveni papyrus and Mesopotamian hermeneutics
- Victory, Mythology and the Poetics of Intercultural Praise in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices
- Aristotle, Eratosthenes and the beginnings of Alexandrian scholarship on the Archaia
- Levels of authorial presence in Anonymus Londiniensis (P.Brit. Libr. inv. 137)
- Beyond Impotence Some unexplored Ovidian dynamics in Petronius’s sketch of the Croton episode (Satyrica 126. 1–140. 12)
- List of Contributors
- Statement
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Coordinated sequences of analogous topics in the Delian and Pythian segments of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
- Od. 3, 392 and Theoc. 7, 147: a case of interpretatio Homerica
- Typhon and Eumelus’ Titanomachy
- Oracles and etymologies or when Aeschylus goes to extremes
- Divine names in the Derveni papyrus and Mesopotamian hermeneutics
- Victory, Mythology and the Poetics of Intercultural Praise in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices
- Aristotle, Eratosthenes and the beginnings of Alexandrian scholarship on the Archaia
- Levels of authorial presence in Anonymus Londiniensis (P.Brit. Libr. inv. 137)
- Beyond Impotence Some unexplored Ovidian dynamics in Petronius’s sketch of the Croton episode (Satyrica 126. 1–140. 12)
- List of Contributors
- Statement
