Fiamme e sogni: Euripide e l’Ilioupersis di Lucr. 1.471-477 nel disegno tragico di Eneide II e IV, Parte II

Through the analysis of the allusions to Ennius and Euripides in the Trojan exemplum of Lucr. 1.471-477 this essay shows the importance of tragedy, and its metaphors, for the poetry of the De rerum natura. The analysis reveals, however, that Lucretius’ Ilioupersis also plays a fundamental role as mediation for the (somehow underrated) presence of Euripides’ ‘Trojan trilogy’ in the Aeneid. Virgil’s recurrent use of Euripides’ tragic imagery, read through the lexis of Lucretius’ didactic poem, draws a sort of allusive counterpoint that allows a new interpretation – a coherent and ‘dramatic’ one – both of the symbolic correspondences between different sections of the poem and of the very relationship between narrative and images in the Aeneid.