136 D. E. HILL
seu Thracum uertere domos, seu tecta Mycenes
impia Cadmeumue larem.
(4.53–7)In Shackleton Bailey’s translation:
With his stern waters he is reputed to wash the Stygian Eumenides.
They are wont, ’tis said, to sink their faces therein and the horned
snakes that pant from draughts of Phlegethon whether they have
wrecked Thracian dwellings or Mycene’s impious roofs or the house of
Cadmus.”Jupiter’s intention is presumably that the following three problems
mala gaudia matrum “mothers’ evil joys” and erroresque feros
nemorum “wild wanderings in the glades” and et reticenda deorum
crimina (1.229–31 “gods’ crimes that should not be spoken of”)
should relate to et totiens excitam a sedibus imis Eumenidum bel-
lasse aciem. But, quite apart from the rhetorical weakness of such an
interpretation (the striking tricolon, mala gaudia ... deorum crimina
sits ill in apposition to bellasse aciem), there remains the difficulty of
deciding to whom these three instances apply. mala gaudia matrum,
according to Lactantius Placidus, refers either to Agaue’s killing of
her son, Pentheus, or to Jocasta’s marrying her son, Oedipus. In fa-
vour of Agaue, Heuvel cites Ovid’s telling of the story at Met. 3.710–
28 and he may well be right to do so in light of our ever growing be-
lief that Jupiter had recently been reading the Metamorphoses. Heuvel
also cites Lucan: Erinys ... qualis Agauen inpulit (1.572–5 “a Fury
like the one that drove Agaue”), but there the Fury is encouraging the
sin, not punishing it. According to Lactantius Placidus, erroresque
feros nemorum refers to Athamas and Learchus. This story too is to be
found in the Metamorphoses (4.496–538); but it seems wholly inap-
propriate as an example of Jupiter’s need to punish humans. For one
thing, according to Ovid, Athamas was driven mad by Tisiphone on
the direct instruction of Juno. As usual, Juno’s complaint had been
that Jupiter had been unfaithful, this time with Semele, and had fa-
thered a son, Bacchus. Since, through Juno’s trickery, Semele was
now dead, her sister, Ino, had taken on the role of foster mother to
Bacchus. As a result, she had incurred the wrath of Juno, who had sent
Tisiphone to drive her husband, Athamas, mad and to provoke him
into killing their son, Learchus (an uneasy reminder that Oedipus had
just told Tisiphone to punish his sons). Since the whole chain of
events was caused directly by Jupiter’s lust and Juno’s jealousy, it is a