Abstract

Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica 9, 338–352 deals with the most famous Λήμνιον κακόν of the ancient myths: the women of Lemnos, jealous of the relationships between their husbands and some Thracian slaves, killed all the male population of the island. Quintus’ story uses as an intertextual model Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica 1, 609–632, dealing with the same episode. The aim of this paper is not only to show the intertextual relationship between Quintus’ and Apollonius’ texts, but also to show how Quintus changes the innovative point of view of Apollonius in order to come back to the traditional “masculinist” point of view. In doing so Quintus inserts in his text some fundamental details of Apollonius’ version, but he ingeniously modifies their functions or meanings in order to remind the readers both of Apollonius’ version and of the changes he made to it.