Home is where the heart is: monsters at Iolchos

Jason and the Argonauts may be about to experience new trials and dangers on the first sea journey, but at the close of book one there are hints that in fact he might be leaving behind monsters at home. A female character with a small but significant role in the poem, Jason’s mother Alcimede, displays surprising behaviour as her son leaves, and goes on to show an affinity with the dark arts, displaying witchy and disturbing skills in necromancy. Although these talents do not classify Alcimede as a monster per se, they lead her and her husband Aeson into close contact with monsters as they enter the Underworld guided by Cretheus. Furthermore, we shall see that comparisons can be made with another individual with famous skills in the occult, who will soon be the other significant female in Jason’s life: Medea. Reading both Alcimede and Medea against the descriptions of witchy women from earlier

literature reinforces this conclusion, and reveals that Alcimede’s disturbing skills may foreshadow Medea’s troubling and potentially monstrous behaviour to come in future years.66

As Jason and his crew speed away from his homeland, his parents are left at the mercy of Pelias. Realising the danger Alcimede takes action by performing a sacrificial rite in order to raise Aeson’s father, Cretheus, from the dead (1.730-51). This scene, the only one to explicitly involve the Underworld in the poem, inverts the katabasis of Aeneas.67 An intriguing character, Alcimede is referred to as Thessalian at 1.737 and 780, and it is clear that she has witchy qualities.68 The epithet ‘Thessalian’ coupled with the necromantic rite she performs has invited direct comparisons between Alcimede and another witch, Lucan’s Erictho from Bellum

Civile book 6.69 Erictho can be seen as a composite of earlier witchy females such as

Circe, Tibullus’ witch, Propertius’ bawd/procuress, and Ovid’s Dipsas. As such, Alcimede may also be, and we should recognise that Alcimede is a forerunner for Medea in her association with these individuals.

The first link in the chain of witchy women is Circe. In Homer, she is described by a potential victim (who managed to escape her) as being able to enchant wild animals so they behave like pet dogs, and to change humans into swine in body only, leaving their minds intact and tortured (Od. 10 202-69). Circe is of course

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‘Alcimede functions in the epic as a venerable counterpart to Medea’s youthful maiden’ (McIntyre 2008, 139).

67 _{There may also be hints of Odysseus’ Underworld visit too, though the scenes in Odyssey 11 are not} strictly a katabasis in the sense of ‘descending’.

68 _{OLD s.v. 1b; cf. Lucan 6.565 and Theb. 3.140. See Zissos (2008, 381 and 384). ‘In calling} Alcimede Thessalis, Valerius underscores the allusion to Erictho established by his deployment of the locus horridus’ (McIntyre 2008, 97). Note that Medea calls Jason Thessale at 7.437; see Dickey (2002, 181). Hill (1973) argues that references to ‘the Thessalian Trick’ ‘always suggest[ed] the physical removal of the moon down from the sky and were never used to denote eclipse’.

69 _{Hershkowitz (1998b, 132) is ‘unclear whether Alcimede is just observing the rites which are being} performed by a cut-rate Erictho (1.735-8, 779-83) or if she herself is the Thessalis in charge’. Kleywegt (2005, 427-30) believes Alcimede to be the opposite of Erictho. See also Spaltenstein (2002, 274), Zissos (2008, 284-5) and McIntyre (2008, 93). See Ogden (2008, 45-56) on Erictho.

presented sometimes as Medea’s aunt and sometimes as her sister, and as such is an immediate bridge between the Odyssey and the Argonautica. Later, Tibullus describes a witch’s skills (Tib. 1.2.41-54) in terms of her being able to bring down stars from the skies (Tib. 1.2.45), turn back rivers (Tib. 1.2.46), perform necromantic rites (Tib. 1.2.47-8), and alter the weather (Tib. 1.2.51-2). He also mentions Medea by name: sola tenere malas Medeae dicitur herbas (‘it is said that she alone possesses Medea’s maleficent herbs’, Tib. 1.2.47-8).70

For his part, Ovid also draws upon the Odyssean description of Circe and her origins as he tells the story of the bawd Dipsas (Am. 1.8.5-16) and chooses not to mention Medea.71 Ovid describes Dipsas’ skills in detail, and begins by linking her directly to Circe by way of a mention of her island: illa magas artes Aeaeaque carmina nouit (‘she has come to know the magic arts and Aeaen songs’, Am. 1.8.5).72 Ovid extends his narrative and describes a number of disturbing and far-fetched skills which he claims Dipsas has: she can turn river back to their sources (Am. 1.8.6), affect both the clouds and the sun (Am. 1.8.9-10), make the stars drip with blood (Am. 1.8.11), and cause lunar eclipses (Am. 1.8.12). Interestingly, the description of Dipsas’ ‘feather-covered’ body (Am. 1.8.13-5) bears a strong resemblance to the description of Fama’s appearance at

Aeneid 4.178-85: there, she (for Fama is personified as a female) is a creature of

bird-like features, with an eye and a mouth under every feather – a monstrous

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Propertius, writing an attack on a bawd (Prop. 4.5.9-18), also considers his subject to be a witch, and also mentions Medea specifically in this regard (Prop. 4.5.41-4). See Heyworth (2007, 455.); Dido also pretends that she wishes Anna to build her a pyre to expunge all feelings for Aeneas from her heart, on the instructions of a ‘Massylian’ witch, who can do most of the things mentioned by Tibullus see also (Aen. 4.477-91).

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See Barsby (1973, 91-5) on the potential connections between the representations of witches and bawds in the poetry of Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid; see McKeown (1989, 199-201) on Am. 1.8 and Prop. 4.5 displaying ‘greater similarities in content and structure than do any two other Augustan elegies’, and McKeown (1989, 204-10) on these lines.

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appearance in itself.73 Dipsas therefore begins to resemble a monster during these episodes.74 Ovid also seems to play with this idea in his language, by writing

Suspicor, et fama est (Am. 1.8.15), a phrase which could point out that there is a

rumour, or identify Dipsas as a Rumour-type creature herself.75 A further point of note in this passage is Ovid’s concentration on Dipsas’ strange eyes, making a specific reference to her pupula duplex (Am. 1.8.15) and gemino lumen ab orbe uenit (Am. 1.8.16);76 a connection between eyes and monsters will be exploited by Valerius later on. Ovid ends his description of Dipsas by dedicating two lines of narrative to illustrate her necromantic skills (Am. 1.8.17-8), skills which Alcimede herself displays in the Argonautica.

Both Circe and Dipsas may be kept in mind when we turn to Lucan’s witch Erictho, a character which has been explicitly linked to Alcimede.77 She is one of the most prominent characters to feature in Lucan’s epic,78

and there are clear parallels between Erictho and Dipsas. Lucan delays the introduction of Erictho herself by first describing the witch’s homeland in terms of the hideous transgressions it spawns. He analyses the topography of Thessaly in detail (BC 6.333-412), making reference to the gigantomachy throughout. Interestingly, mention is also made of the Argonauts during this passage (BC 6.385). In a passage packed with ‘firsts’, Lucan explains that it was Thessaly in which war began (BC 6.395-405), and makes a further specific reference to the Argo by pointing out that it was from this geographical area that the first sea journey began (BC 6.400-1). Later, as we learn that Sextus Pompey will look

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McKeown (1989, 209) points out that anilis is used in the context of metamorphosis at Met. 3.277, 6.43, 14.96 and 14.766. See Laird (1999, 273-4) for Fama as analogous to the poet in the Aeneid. 74 _{McKeown (1989, 204) sees the powers attributed to Dipsas as ‘canonical’.}

75 _{See Hardie (2012, 390). Ovid writes about the home of Rumour at Met. 12.39-63; see Hardie (2012,} 150-68).

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McKeown (1989, 209) sees a link with the ‘evil eye’; Hardie (2012, 390 n. 27) discusses ‘thundering’ eyes.

77 _{See above.}

78 _{See Johnson (1987, 1-33 and index s.v. Erictho); Masters (1992, 179-215); Radicke (2004, index} s.v. Eritchto); Finiello (2005 an overview, with further bibliography); Ogden (2008, 45-56).

to a witch to discover his fate, Lucan makes a third reference to Argonautic themes, by referring to Medea gathering here the witchy herbs which she has not brought from Colchis (BC 6.441-2). Lucan then begins to expound on the qualities and skills of the Thessalian women, and the descriptions he gives bear considerable similarities to both Circe and Dipsas: once again, day and night is affected (BC 6.461-5); once again rivers run backward, or are straightened out (BC 6.473-6); here mountains sink, snows melt and the moon is driven back (BC 6.476-0). Like Circe, the witches of Thessaly can also alter the behaviour of animals (BC 6.487-91). Only after the scene has been set in this way does Lucan introduce Erictho (BC 6.507-830). She reanimates the corpse of a dead soldier to give a cryptic reading of the future to Sextus Pompey, and the process she goes through to achieve this end is narrated in excruciating detail. The qualities seen in both Thessaly as a landscape and in Erictho herself are both seen in Ovid’s description of Dipsas, with the necromantic episode taking up the rest of the book in which the episode is contained.

Turning back to the Argonautica, Alcimede is not seen as a woman who can affect the moon or the landscape; however she is obviously well-versed in the dark arts of necromancy. These skills reveal her to be a character familiar with the transgressive. The necromancy scene is brief, but powerful in that Valerius begins by describing how Alcimede goes about the ritual: Tartareo tum sacra Ioui Stygiisque ferebat | manibus Alcimede, tanto super anxia nato | siquid ab excitis melius

praenosceret umbris (‘Then Alcimede was carrying in her hands offerings to

Tartarean Jove and the Stygians, in great fear for her mighty son, if shades raised up might give her better foreknowledge’, 1.730-2). Aeson, bending to her will, joins in the act (1.733-4), and a trough containing blood and other offerings is described (1.735-6), before Alcimede cries out to Cretheus to rise again: saeuoque uocat

grandaeua tumultu | Thessalis exanimes atauos magnaeque nepotem | Pleiones (‘with a savage cry the aged Thessalian calls out her departed ancestors and the grandson of great Pleion’, 1.736-8). The volume of Alcimede’s voice reflects her reaction when Jason leaves: uox tamen Alcimedes planctus supereminet omnis, | femineis tantum illa furens ululatibus opstat, | obruit Idaeam quantum tuba Martia

buxum (‘the voice of Alcimede towers over all the other lamentations; her madness

withstands such cries of the women, as the Martial trumpet overwhelms the Idaean pipe.’ 1.317-9).79

At no stage is it hinted that Alcimede is unclear or unsure of what she is doing, or that this is the first time she has completed this ritual; indeed, not only does Cretheus’ ghost very quickly appear before them, but we also learn that preparations for such mysterious and disturbing procedures were carried out in advance: hunc sibi praecipuum gentis de more nefandae | Thessalis in seros Ditis

seruauerat usus (‘The witch, in the particular custom of her evil kind, had saved [the

beast] for use at last in this dire ritual’, 1.779-80).

In completing this process, Alcimede displays some of the same necromantic skills briefly ascribed to Dipsas in Amores 1.8, and shares distinct similarities to Erictho, with the latter’s dark expertise being narrated in detail. Intriguingly, despite Alcimede’s familiarity with the occult and obvious past preparations, there is nothing to imply that Jason is familiar with Alcimede’s necromantic skill. Jason, naturally close to his mother (at 1.348-9 he holds her up as she weeps at the thought of him leaving), perhaps cannot see anything untoward in such behaviour.

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Hercules’ voice is also louder than nature (4.20-1); Pan’s voice is uox omnes super una tubas (3.51) as he stirs up the Doliones to fight the Argonauts in error. See Hershkowitz (1998b, 131 plus bibliography) on the similarities between Evander (Aen. 8.560-84) and Alcimede here. Hypsipyle also shows masculine qualities, having already been given a voice in another work which challenges norms of gender, by Ovid in Heroides 6. Hypsipyle is unmarried, yet takes on the role of leader after the extermination of the men, as an exemplum of heroic behaviour (See Hershkowitz 1998b, 136).She is a masculine character with very feminine wiles, and the outcome for Jason should teach him that he would have done well to stay with her. Medea will also begin to display masculine qualities as she begins to assert herself in the Argonautica, and in Euripides’ Medea. See Felton (2012, 105) and Lowe (forthcoming) on the female nature of monsters.

Cretheus ultimately advises Alcimede and Aeson to commit suicide (1.741- 51), and after Aeson’s initial deliberations on fighting the battle himself (1.752-61),80

Alcimede eventually convinces him to join her in doing so (1.762-6).81 Alcimede’s status as mother and witch may be further underscored as we get the opportunity to read her against the language of monsters, as they are surprisingly introduced when Cretheus accompanies Aeson and Alcimede into the Underworld. Cretheus shows them quot limine monstra (‘How many monsters [stand] at the threshold’ 1.849), lying in wait for Pelias.82 The suggestion that monsters live at the very doorway to the Underworld might be usefully brought to mind when Medea, another witchy woman who will marry Jason, hides in Peuce’s cave as the Colchians approach ergo

infausto sese occulit antro, (therefore she hid in the luckless cave, 8.315).

Interestingly, infausto is a word not only meaning luckless, but also found in Underworld contexts (OLD s. v. 1b).

Therefore book 1 ends with, and book 8 involves, Underworld motifs; both are connected to monsters, and both employ the idea of the locus horridus.83 The foregoing analysis shows that these episodes, and the characters of Medea and Alcimede, are closely tied together. As Medea cowers in book 8, she has not yet killed her brother, as other versions recount. She is hiding in the cave, the usual home of monsters, in which she has just been married to a man she helped kill several monsters, using a variety of witchy spells and potions; a location which was the scene of a sexual attack; a cave now being described using an adjective which is

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Hershkowitz (1998b, 128-36). For example, Felton (2012, 104) points out that necromantic activity was considered monstrous by the Romans.

81 _{See McGuire (1990, 24); Feeney (1991, 336-7); Taylor (1994, 233-5); McGuire (1997, 192);} Hershkowitz (1998b, 136); Manuwald (2000, 331-2); Zissos (2003, 672-3); McIntyre (2008, 94-5). 82 _{Monsters, which Pelias cannot utilise in life, will be waiting for him in death. See Hershkowitz} (1998b, 135-6) who argues that the monsters are a counterpoint for Aeson and Alcimede, who will be rewarded in their afterlife. For Zissos (2008 ad loc.) this phrase owes something to Aen. 6.565-76. 83 _{McIntyre (2008, 92-102). See also Hershkowitz (1998b, 133-4), who argues that Aeson and} Alcimede’s death scene can be compared to the death of Lucan’s Pompey (especially at BC 8.632-5), specifically in that both wish their deaths to appear a certain way to others.

often used in relation to the Underworld. In book 1, Jason’s mother, a Thessalian witch, performs necromancy to bring Cretheus back from the dead; he advises Alcimede and Aeson to commit suicide, and they journey together to the safety of the Underworld,84 where he shows them the monsters which live at the threshold. The ideas of frightening, transgressive landscapes and witchy women therefore come together here, and Valerius reminds us of the monsters we might see at the doorway to the Underworld when he has Cretheus ask quot limine monstra? at 1.849. Medea seems to be lurking in a place connected to the limits of the Underworld just as she hides from the Colchians in book 8. Alcimede’s status as a witch is also intriguing, for it implies that in Medea, Jason has found another liminal, transgressive creature, capable of witchcraft; indeed, someone similar to his own mother. As we shall see, however, Jason does not understand monsters in the same way as Medea does, despite his own mother displaying similarly mysterious and disturbing qualities of a witch.

There are two final links to be made between Medea and Alcimede. As we have seen, Valerius builds a picture of Alcimede the witch through surprisingly few lines. We are able to intertextually compare her to the descriptions of earlier witches to complete the gaps. She resembles the Odyssean account of Medea’s sister/aunt Circe; she also resembles Dipsas, who is herself compared to Circe; and finally, in her necromantic skill, she is reminiscent of Erictho. We have seen that both the necromancy episode in book 1 and Medea’s attempts to hide from the Colchians have surprising links, but connections between Alcimede and Jason’s paramour may be further strengthened by analysing their witchy behaviour. Juno is searching for a human ally to assist Jason win the Fleece during the civil war at Colchis. She

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surveys the battlefield and spies Medea, and the list of Medea’s qualities is striking, made all the more so since the words are Juno’s:

illius ad fretus sparsosque per auia sucos sidera fixa pauent et aui stupet orbita Solis. mutat agros fluuiumque uias, suus alligat illi cuncta sopor, recolit fessos aetate parentes datque alias sine leges colus. hanc maxima Circe terrificis mirata modis, hanc aduena Phrixus quamuis Atracio lunam spumare ueneno

sciret et Haemoniis agitari cantibus umbras.

(‘With confidence, she scatters the scattered potions through the air, the fixed stars are struck with fear and the Sun her grandfather is stupefied in his orbit. She changes the fields and the routes of the rivers, she binds everything in its own slumber, she rejuvenates the aged parents to youth and without laws gives them other threads; at this Circe, greatest in methods of terror, at this the stranger Phrixus wondered, even though she knew the moon foamed with Atracian poison, and that Haemonian spells stirred the shadows’, 6.441-8).85

85 _{See Wijsman (2000, ad loc.) and Spaltenstein (2005, ad loc.) for other comparisons of witchy} behaviour; see Ogden (2008, 27-37) on Medea the witch in myth more generally.

There are a number of interesting points of note in this passage from the

Argonautica. Firstly, Juno makes mention of celestial bodies being affected by

Medea’s power; she can also turn back rivers to their source. Once again a reference to vision is made, as the narrator explains that Medea’s grandfather the Sun became stupefied86 at the extent of her skills in the dark arts. In a powerful intertextual moment, rather than simply being compared to Circe, here we learn that the older woman looks at Medea in wonder at her power. Finally, Medea herself makes a striking statement during a moment of doubt in her role: ‘si tibi Thessalicis,87 nunc et

tua forte uenenis | mater et, heu sique est, posset succurrere coniunx!’ (‘‘if only your

mother, or perhaps your wife (if – alas! – you have one) were now able to help with Thessalian poisons’’, 7.198-9). Medea has somehow made the connection between Jason’s mother, whom she has not met and can never meet, and a potential wife, as being kindred spirits in the ways of witchiness. As we know, she is the potential spouse, who will marry Jason in a suitably transgressive setting, and she will help him using spells.

Here the links between Medea and Alcimede are made patently clear, in that those witches which have been connected to Alcimede can also be connected to Medea. Jason’s lack of understanding of the danger he faces when dealing with