Cretan Women: Pasiphae, Ariadne, and Phaedra in Latin Poetry (review)

This book, which is a most helpful survey of the significant treatments of the Cretan women of its title in Latin poetry, will be of interest to scholars of intertextuality and Latin poetry in general, as well as handy reference material for the authors and subjects it treats (not only the title's trio, but, to a lesser extent, Minos, Daedalus, and Theseus). The writing is admirably clear throughout. It is not overly technical, but may be too detailed for the general reader. I find Armstrong's work, on the whole, to be eminently plausible; she follows an increasing trend among Latinists and particularly Ovidians of sifting through intertextual variants and seeing family resemblances between stories. Among the highlights of the book is Armstrong's discussion of the deployment of poetic memory and the use that is made of women's stories by themselves and their authors (and key other mythic figures, like Dido, Scylla, and Iphis, who envision themselves or are envisioned by their authors as Cretan women); her treatment is among the clearest summaries of these questions to be found in studies of Latin poetry.

Armstrong situates her discussion by arguing that Crete serves as a doublet for Rome, that its own dual position as seat of justice and den of iniquity struck a chord for the Romans (at least for Roman poets of the late Republic and early Empire; one of the questions the book raised for me was why the Cretan woman ceases filling this role and what might have replaced her). The first part of the book treats thematic issues: the aforementioned allusive heroine and poet, who use both texts and family legends to create their stories; the expanding provenance of Cretan bestiality from literal to metaphorical, with the no less interesting issues of where poetic sympathies lie and how the beasts of the Cretan women are sometimes more attractive characters than their men; and the question of how much the women can genuinely be blamed for their behavior and how much of it is due to their manipulation and (cyclical) abandonment by the men in their lives (this final chapter has much to offer on the labyrinth and wooden bull as metonyms for the deceptions of poetry, and offers the suggestion that deception itself need not be viewed as wholly negative).

The second section treats the key texts in more detail: Eclogue 6, Catullus 64, Heroides 4 and 10, Ars 1 (twice), Fasti 3, and Seneca's Phaedra. The structure of the book seemed to me here to undo some of its good work, insofar as this second section offers numerous helpful insights on individual lines and themes, but its particularity works to undermine some of the generalizations of the first section; perhaps the order might have been reversed. In these chapters, the Cretan women are taken out of their immediate context and brought into play with other versions of themselves. Armstrong is not, however, inattentive to context; see, e.g., 256 on connections between Ariadne and Lavinia in Fasti 3. I learned the most in this part from the discussions of Ariadne (no small accomplishment in such a well-tilled field) and the differing Ovidian versions of Cretan women (ditto).

Armstrong uses the labyrinth as her structuring metaphor. While this is certainly appropriate, and her chosen methodologies will not raise any eyebrows, such eclecticism leaves the reader unsure what conclusions are to be drawn from her material. There is indeed much paradox and contradiction (3) in the stories she treats, but the Cretan habit of falsehood need not be paralyzing: I would have liked a more conclusive conclusion. That said, I cannot imagine what such a conclusion would look like unless it were banal, and this book is anything but that. All in all, this is a stimulating read, one which makes many plausible connections and inspires the reader to look for more.