Ovidio e le Declamationes Minores: su alcuni motivi declamatori nell’armorum iudicium (Met. 13, 1-398)

The article proposes a comparison between the armorum iudicium in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Declamationes Minores attributed to Quintilian: in the opposing speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, many declamatory motifs typical of school rhetoric can be identified (e.g. the praemium of the vir fortis, the dispute over a hereditas, the comparatio between professions and individual merits). Reshaping the epic episode in the form of a controversia, Ovid draws extensively on common declamatory themata that were familiar to him since attending declamation schools as a young student.