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6 - Rape, Repetition, and Romance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2009

P. J. Heslin
P. J. Heslin
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

“This is my favorite,” he said. He held the object toward me. I took it in my hand. It was a little bronze statue, helmeted, clothed to the foot in carved robe with the upper incised chiton or peplum. One hand was extended as if holding a staff or rod. “She is perfect,” he said, “only she has lost her spear.” I did not say anything.

H.D., Tribute to Freud

A statue of Pallas Athena guards the shore of Scyros in the Achilleid (Tritonia custos ι litoris, 1.696f), and Ulysses and Diomedes venerate the image upon landing on the island (1.697f). It is a lucky omen: the presence of Ulysses' patroness adumbrates success for his mission. This is not the first time that we have seen this particular statue. It is to a shrine of Pallas on the beach, presumably this same one, that the procession of Deidamia and her sisters made its way on the occasion of Achilles' own arrival at the island (1.285f). The virgin goddess presides, not without irony, over the arousal of Achilles' interest at his first sight of Deidamia: Pallas, the virgin goddess who guards the kingdom's boundary, will prove an ineffectual guardian of her ministrant's virginity.

The cult activity of Deidamia and her sisters on that occasion is described by the poet in some detail:

Palladi litoreae celebrabat Scyros honorum forte diem, placidoque satae Lycomede sorores luce sacra patriis, quae rara licentia, muris exierant dare veris opes divaeque severas fronde ligare comas et spargere floribus hastam.

(1.285…9)

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Chapter
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The Transvestite Achilles
Gender and Genre in Statius' Achilleid
 , pp. 237 - 276
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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