Charles Bernstein

KIN CONFLICTS AND STASIS: CIVIL WAR ON PEUCE IN VALERIUS FLACCUS’ARGONAUTICA

“…5 Furthermore, the epic abounds with episodes of intrafamilial and internecine conflict in which the bonds, kinship and similarities between the two sides are stressed, 6 such as the battle of the winds which threatens Boreas' own sons (1.605) following the Argo's launch (1.574-692), 7 the Lemnian women's massacre of their menfolk (2.107-310), 8 the Argonauts' accidental assault upon their former hosts on Cyzicus (2.627, 3.1-461), 9 and the mutual slaughter of the earth-born men (7.638). 10 One episode which has been excluded from studies of civil war within the Argonautica thus far is the conflict on the island of Peuce following Jason and Medea's theft of the fleece and flight from Colchis (8.217-467). 11 The events on Peuce-Jason and Medea's wedding, the Colchian attack and the emerging tensions in Jason and Medea's relationship-are far more often examined with an eye to either issues of epic closure and the relationship between Book 8 of Valerius' Argonautica and Book 4 of Apollonius Rhodius' Hellenistic epic, 12 or Valerius' engagement with other versions of the Medea story through the alarming omens which accompany her marriage to Jason here (8.247-51).…”