The image of Alcestis in Early Imperial Latin Culture. Story of an εἴδωλον

Abstract

The paper's main aim is to investigate the value and the meanings of the Euripides' Alcestis within the Roman culture of the I century AD, when its memory appears in the latin tradition - according to the available documentation - after a long period of silence. Adopting a contextual perspective, the focus of the analysis will consider some paintings with the myth of Alcestis, chosen from the Vesuvian repertory: in particular, some details, which the author has considered noteworthy, will be read in light of some interesting passages of the Euripides' Alcestis, with the aim of understanding, if possible, their debt to the ancient tragedy and, most of all, to a renewed social and cultural climate.