Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:03:58.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 7 - Hippolytus and Egeria in the Woods of Aricia (Virgil, Aen. 7.761–82 and Ovid, Met. 15.479–551)

Where Greek Myth and Italic Myth Come Together

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2024

Monica R. Gale
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
Anna Chahoud
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
Get access

Summary

This chapter focuses on the episode of Hippolytus and Egeria in Ov. Met. 15.479–551, and particularly on the relation between the content of the two stories told (Hippolytus’ death and rebirth; Egeria’s metamorphosis) and the space in which they are told. The inner story, recounted by Hippolytus himself, involves the characters (Hippolytus, Theseus, Phaedra) in a well-known plot, with a tragic outcome and a Greek setting. The frame of the story is the Latian wood of Aricia, in which the rites in honour of Diana/Lucina, goddess of birth and fertility, take place: here we have no story of violence and death, but of rebirth (Hippolytus/ Virbius), devotion and fidelity (Numa and Egeria). The place rewrites the destinies of the characters involved: the space of Rome is the one in which Ovid celebrates not (only) the political power of Augustus, whose mother comes from Aricia, but more and most prominently the cultural power that Augustan poetry has to give life to a new mythology of regeneration and transformation of old forms (Hippolytus) into new ones (Virbius).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Augustan Space
The Poetics of Geography, Topography and Monumentality
, pp. 114 - 125
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

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

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×