Firmior Herculea mundus cervice pependit. Searching for the Ideal Form of Government in Claudian’s Epic De Raptu Proserpinae

This article focuses on Jupiter’s reign and on searching for the ideal form of government in Claudian’s mythological epic De Raptu Proserpinae. It suggests an interpretation of Jupiter’s reign which is based on the meaning of the two prefaces of the epic. The characters of the two prefaces, the first sailor in the first preface, and Hercules and Orpheus in the second one, are considered to be models of behaviour which are examined and problematized in the story of the epic. While the narrator does not evaluate Jupiter’s reign explicitly, he presents it as a functional combination of Herculean and Orphean motifs and of the motif of the first sailor’s audacity. Thus De Raptu Proserpinae offers its reader the opportunity to think about what the ideal form of government should be like.

1. Cameron, Al., 1970. Claudian. Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

2. Coombe, C., 2014. 'A Hero in our Midst. Stilicho as a Literary Construct in the Poetry of Claudian'. In: L. van Hoof, P. van Nuffelen (eds.), Literature and Society in the Fourth Century AD. Performing paideia, constructing the present, presenting the self. Leiden / Boston: Brill, 157–179. CrossRef

3. Duc, Th., 1994. Le De raptu Proserpinae de Claudien. Réflexions sur une actualisation de la mythologie [= Publications Universitaires Européennes. Série XV. Vol. 67]. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.

4. Dupraz, E., 2003. 'Sur la différence des sexes dans le De raptu Proserpinae de Claudien'. Revue des études anciennes 105, 251–266.

5. Dutsch, D., 1991. 'Is Claudian's "De Raptu Proserpinae" a Non-Political Poem?'. Eos 79, 217–222.

6. Eliade, M., 1978. A History of Religious Ideas. Volume 1. From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Transl. from the French by W. R. Trask. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (paperback edition 1981).

7. Felgentreu, F., 1999. Claudians "Praefationes". Bedingungen, Beschreibungen und Wirkungen einer poetischen Kleinform [= Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 130]. Stuttgart / Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. CrossRef

8. van Gennep, A., 1960. The Rites of Passage. Transl. from the French by M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

9. Girardot, N. J., 1993. 'Chaos'. In: M. Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 3. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 213–218.

10. Gruzelier, C. E., 1988. 'Temporal and Timeless in Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae'. Greece & Rome. Second Series 35, 56–72.

11. Gruzelier, C., 1993. Claudian. De raptu Proserpinae. Ed. with transl., introd. and comm. by C. Gruzelier. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

12. Guipponi-Gineste, M.-F., 2010. Claudien. Poète de monde à la cour d'Occident [Collections de l'Université de Strasbourg. Études d'achéologie et d'histoire ancienne]. Paris: de Boccard.

13. Hall, J. B., 1985. Claudii Claudiani carmina [Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana]. Edidit J. B. Hall. Leipzig: Teubner.

14. Hardie, A., 2007. 'Juno, Hercules, and the Muses at Rome'. The American Journal of Philology 128, 551–592. CrossRef

15. Hardie, Ph., 1986. Virgil's Aeneid. Cosmos and Imperium. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

16. Hardie, Ph., 1993. The Epic Successors of Virgil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

17. Chlup, R., 2005. 'Struktura a antistruktura: Rituál v pojetí Victora Turnera' [Structure and Antistructure. Victor Turner's Theory of Ritual]. Religio: Revue pro religionistiku 13, 3–28 and 179–197.

18. Chlup, R., 2007. 'Illud tempus v řeckém rituálu' [Illud Tempus in Greek Ritual]. Religio: Revue pro religionistiku 15, 185–210.

19. Chlup, R., 2009. 'Strukturální antropologie včera a dnes. Sto let Clauda Lévi-Strausse' [Structural Anthropology Past and Present. One Hundred Years of Claude Lévi-Strauss]. Religio: Revue pro religionistiku 17, 3–35 and 155–184.

20. Chlup, R., 2011a. 'Illud Tempus in Greek Myth and Ritual'. In: M. Gligor, S. Sabbarwal (eds.), Patterns in Philosophy and Sociology of Religions. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 91–126.

21. Chlup, R., 2011b. 'Logika symbolů. Funkcionalistický symbolismus Edmunda Leache' [The Logic of Symbols. The Functionalist Structuralism of Edmund Leach]. Religio: Revue pro religionistiku 19, 51–83.

22. Johnston, P. A., 1980. Virgil's Agricultural Golden Age. A Study of the Georgics. Leiden: Brill.

23. Kellner, Th., 1997. Die Göttergestalten in Claudians De raptu Proserpinae. Polarität und Koinzidenz als anthropozentrische Dialektik mythologisch formulierter Weltvergewisserung [= Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 106]. Stuttgart / Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. CrossRef

24. Kerényi, K., 2013. Die Mythologie der Griechen. Götter, Menschen und Heroen. Teil I. Die Götter- und Menschheitsgeschichten. Teil II. Die Heroengeschichten. 2. Auflage. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

25. Keudel, U., 1970. Poetische Vorläufer und Vorbilder in Claudians De consulatu Stilichonis. Immitationskommentar. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. CrossRef

26. Leppin, H., 1998. 'Florentinus 1'. In: H. Cancik, H. Schneider (eds.), Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike. Band 4. Stuttgart / Weimar: Metzler, 564.

27. Onorato, M., 2006. 'Dissimilis sui. La metamorfosi di Plutone e Cerere nel "De raptu Proserpinae" di Claudiano'. Bollettino di studi latini 36, 516–538.

28. Pelttari, A., 2014. The Space that Remains. Reading Latin Poetry in Late Antiquity. Ithaca / London: Cornell University Press.

29. Perkell, Ch., 1989. The Poet's Truth. A Study of the Poet in Vergil's Georgics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Accessible also from: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft88700889 [8 March 2017].

30. Platnauer, M. (transl.), 1922. Claudian with an English Translation. I–II [The Loeb Classical Library]. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University (3rd printing 1963).

31. Schmitz, Ch., 2004. 'Das Orpheus-Thema in Claudians De raptu Proserpinae'. In: W.-W. Ehlers, F. Felgentreu, S. M. Wheeler (eds.), Aetas Claudianea. Eine Tagung an der Freien Universität Berlin vom 28. bis 30. Juni 2002. München / Leipzig: K. G. Saur, 38–56.

32. Segal, Ch. (comm.), 2001. Euripides, Bakkhai. Transl. by R. Gibbons. With introd. and notes by Ch. Segal [The Greek Tragedy in New Translations]. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press.

33. Turner, V. W., 1969. The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-structure [Symbol, Myth, and Ritual Series]. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press (7th printing 1991).

34. Vítek, T., Starý, J., 2010. 'Zrcadlení chaosu. Úvodní studie' [The Mirroring of Chaos. An Introductory Study]. In: T. Vítek, J. Starý, D. Antalík (eds.), Řád a chaos v archaických kulturách [Order and Chaos in Archaic Cultures] [= Svět archaických kultur 6]. Praha: Hermann & synové, 11–45.

35. Ware, C., 2004. 'Claudian. The Epic Poet in the Prefaces'. In: M. Gale (ed.), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry. [Swansea, Wales]: The Classical Press of Wales, 181–201.

36. Ware, C., 2012. Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef

37. Wheeler, S. M., 1995. 'The Underworld Opening of Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae'. Transactions of the American Philological Association 125, 113–134. CrossRef