‘Luc. DMar. 14: Perseo e Andromeda tra iconografia e teatro (con un’appendice su DMar. 12)’

This paper analyses Lucian’s DMar. 14, on Perseus and Andromeda, under a double perspective: intertextual and intervisual. On the one hand, it clarifies Lucian’s debts towards Euripides’ Andromeda – apparently, its main literary model. On the other hand, also through comparison with a passage from De domo (22-23), it shows how Lucian, in constructing his (as usually ironic and critical) version of the story, appeals to the visual memory of his audience almost in the same way in which he urges their literary memory, according to a technique often exploited by the rhetor. The analysis is concluded by some remarks on DMar. 12, the ‘prequel’ of this dialogue (it concerns Danae, abandoned at sea by her father with infant Perseus), in order to show that it is analogously influenced by the theatrical tradition and that it also has strong visual connotations.