Pater Vulkan: Martial als Vergil-Interpret in Epigramm 5,7

Abstract

Abstract The paper presented here treats a hitherto unnoticed intertextual allusion in Mart. 5,7,7 to Verg. Aen. 8,394. Both lines contain two jokes at the expense of the smith-god Vulcan, by recalling the affairs of his wife Venus. First, the epic/epigrammatic speaker points to the well-known passage in Hom. Od. 8,266–363 in which Demodocus recounts the unpleasant – and for the other gods highly amusing – situation when Hephaestus caught his wife Aphrodite and her lover Ares in adultery with the help of invisible fetters. The second ironic jab is presented by the epithet pater for Vulcan, who was – with his wife – childless; this term is often used of other male divinities, but not of Vulcan. The parallels to other authors, above all Homer and Ovid, have been widely discussed in research, but the intertextual play with Vergil has so far not been given the attention it deserves. The remarks offered here aim to show that Vergil intentionally constructed Aen. 8,394 to be comic. Martial correctly understood the comedy, picked it up and adopted it in his Epigram 5,7, thereby giving a parodic note to the panegyric of Domitian in the first half of the poem.