Recent years have witnessed a marked increase in scholarly interest in Valerius Flaccus’s
Argonautica
. Numerous analyses, discussions and commentaries on the poetical art of this “difficult” epic have appeared. This volume provides a philological commentary on the first book of the
. Special attention is paid to the sources upon which Valerius drew, and a comparison made with earlier literary tradition (in particular with the first book of Vergil’s
Aeneid
, but also with Seneca’s tragedies). In addition, the language, style and compositional techniques which were peculiar to epic during the Flavian period are studied.