Abstract

This article makes the case for the importance of epigram, in terms of both form and content, for Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica. In the battle scenes of Books 3 and 6, in particular, recurrent allusions to epigrammatic themes unveil Valerius' poetics of epigram that evoke the dead for poetic purposes. As part of this, the apostrophe te quoque serves as an epitaphic gesture that marks the Argonautica, with its recurrent civil war imagery, as an epitaph on the golden age. In addition, Valerius employs these epitaphic markers as an organising device, a narrative "glue" that makes the Iliadic and the Odyssean parts of his narrative hang together.