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Document Details :

Title: Achaemenides and the Idea of Early Latin Epic
Author(s): BIGGS, Thomas
Journal: Latomus
Volume: 78    Issue: 2   Date: 2019   
Pages: 301-313
DOI: 10.2143/LAT.78.2.3287053

Abstract :
This article reads Vergil’s Achaemenides as a metapoetic figure. It argues that significant aspects of his characterization in the Aeneid depend upon late Republican and Augustan views of early Latin poetry. Achaemenides is a Greek who was left behind by Odysseus, but he is much more than a link to the Homeric past. He is transformed by his sojourn in the siluae of the Cyclopes, and his new appearance is defined by Roman literary critical terminology applied elsewhere to the Saturnian age and Saturnian poetics.

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