1. See, e.g., Clark’s (2005) analysis of Jerome’s recasting of traditional, satiric writing on marriage.

2. See the detailed analysis in Gerlaud (2003) 102–07.

3. The Hymnus episode takes up almost all of Book 15 (169–419). Aura’s offence towards Artemis is described more briefly (48.302–69), but is followed by the extensive scene of Artemis’ visit to Nemesis (370–469).

4. Tissoni (1998) 30 thinks the episode of Nicaea and Hymnus is ‘un gustoso divertissement letterario che sarebbe ingenuo prendere troppo sul serio’. Riemschneider (1957) 64 takes a similar view.

5. See Schmiel (1993) 470.

6. See Shorrock (2001) 142f. and 200–03. Cf. Harries (1994) and (2006) on the generic significance of Hymnus’ death: the bucolic genre, personified in Hymnus, is being superseded by the Dionysiac mode.

7. See Vian (1994).

8. See Lightfoot (1998) 304f.

9. On the discourse of virginity in early Christian texts see Averil Cameron (1991) 171–79. On pagan philosophers and virginity see Brown (1988) 178–89.

10. See Livrea (1987) for the attempt to identify Nonnus with a known bishop of Edessa, and Alan Cameron (2000) for the counter-arguments. Livrea has recently defended his original suggestion; see Livrea (2003).

11. See 48.834: (‘I never saw, I never heard that a virgin gives birth to a son’), and 859: (‘give your unaccustomed breast to your sons, virgin mother’).

12. See Keydell (1936)-915: ‘Danach wird man auch in 48.834 eine versteckte Polemik gegen das Christendum sehen diirfen.’ Schmiel (1993) 478, saw in this episode some ‘sadistic pleasure in the correction of a ’, but did not make any explicit connection with contemporary ideas. For more on the ‘psychology’ of the Dionysiaca see Newbold (1984, 1998).

13. Collart (1930) 9; he later admits though that Nonnus must have been aware of Christianity.

14. On this textile see Bowersock (1990) 52f., Willers (1992) and Eisner (1998) 100.

15. See Agosti (2003a) passim and the review by Whitby (2006a), esp. 554 and 560f. Whitby (2007a) 200f. favours the view that the two works were written contemporaneously.

16. See Bowersock (1990) 44f. On the religion of the Dionysiaca see also Liebeschuetz (2001) 232f. and Alan Cameron (2007) 36–38.

17. Some of the vocabulary used to describe the Dionysiac virgins also appears in the Paraphrase. The words φυγὀδεμvoς, (‘fleeing marriage’) and φιλoπάρθεvoς (‘loving virginity’) are used to describe both virgins in the Dionysiaca and the first Christian virgin, the mother of Christ, in the Paraphrase. See, e.g., Nonn. D. 48.760 and 820, and Par. 2.11 and 19.140L

18. Winkler (1974) 71 notes that this female aversion to sex results in a continuous concern about fertility, a fear that ‘there will be no more mating and childbirth’; according to Winkler, the numerous occasions of spontaneous generation form some kind of answer to the problem of procreation. These virgin births can also be another instance of the revisioning of traditional stories according to Christian patterns: see Bowersock (1990) ch. 2.

19. See Gerlaud’s Appendix III ‘De la virginite des Bacchantes’: Gerlaud (2005) 244–58.

20. The episode spreads over Books 33–35 of the Dionysiaca.

21. For some of the novelistic elements of this story see Gerlaud (2005) 19–21. On the similarities between ancient novel heroines and Christian virgins see Morales (2004) 204–06, and Goldhill (1995).

22. For depictions of Bacchants with serpents see LIMC s.v. ‘Mainades’ 8.1 (pp. 780–803) and 8.2 (pp. 524–30), esp. nos 27,62, 116.

23. See Gerlaud (2005) 255.

24. Some parts of the episode do not survive in the original text, but can be inferred from a later version of the same story; see Burrus (1987) 124f. with bibliography.

25. Braune (1935) 38–41 and D’Ippolito (1964) 93–101 maintain that Dionysus’ rape of Nicaea emulates Apollo’s failed attempt to rape Daphne in Ov. Met. 1,498ff. Schulze (1966) 373 believes that the tying up of Aura by Dionysus is modelled on Ov. Met. 11.221–65, where Peleus ties up Thetis.

26. Curran (1978) 231. He also makes a connection between these nymphs and contemporary Roman ideas about female chastity, saying that Ovid ironically presents these nymphs as if they were ‘the heroines of Roman legendary history, or the daughters of traditional, respectable Roman families, whose most precious possession was premarital virginity’.

27. See Richlin (1992) 162.

28. For male and female characters as creative and desiring subjects in Ovid see Rimell (2006).

29. Richlin (1992) 165f. gives the examples of Byblis, Myrrha, Circe and the Maenads, and examines in some detail the story of the female rapist, Salmacis, concluding that ‘when a female acts male, the result is the unmanning of all men’.

30. See the end of the story in 14.770f.: uimque parat: sed ui non est opus, inque figuralcapta del nympha est et mutua uulnera sensit (‘he was ready to use force, but no violence was needed; the nymph, captured by the beauty of the god, felt a matching wound’). Gentilcore (1995) 119, however, argues that even in these verses ‘the metaphor is one of seizing and wounding, not one of joyous love’. For the importance of this episode as closure see Littlefield (1965), Myers (1994), Johnson (1997) and Jones (2000–1).

31. See Lightfoot (1998) 299–302 for some similarities between Aura and Anatolian monsters that are often tied up and intoxicated before their defeat. Aura also resembles two of Nonnus’ own monsters: Typhoeus and Alpus. Like Alpus, she has a killing spree in the countryside (cf. 45.175–93 and 48.664–84), and, like Typhoeus, she wishes to see the virgin goddesses pregnant (cf. 2.305–13 and 48.799–807), and has her weapons hidden in a rock’s hole (1.515 and 48.626: ) before her ‘defeat’.

32. Aura is likened to a lioness during the labour scene (788), and again before devouring her son (918). Significantly, the lioness in whose cave she had abandoned her sons did not harm them, while a panther nursed them, having an ‘understanding mind’ , 913; contrast with Aura’s [‘mindless frenzy’] in 732).

33. Britton (1992) 77.

34. See, e.g., Krafft (1975) 108: ‘die Widernaturlichkeit ihrer Auflehnung gegen ihre weibliche Natur,’ and Lightfoot (1998) 293: ‘[their] virginity is forfeit because of their anomalous and antisocial wish to preserve it.’

35. See Gerlaud (2003) 53.

36. Gerlaud (2003) 56.

37. 15.205: . Cf. Long. 1.2.3 and 1.28.2, Charit. 1.1.3, and Heliod. 7.10.4, cited in full by Gerlaud (2003) 56.

38. Hunter (1999) 124 n.42 quotes this phrase from Nonnus, pointing out that ‘deep’ is ‘otherwise very rare as an adjective of ,’.

39. See Gerlaud (2003) 54.

40. Hymnus has even an effeminate appearance; see 15.210: (‘like a rosy Anchises’). This same adjective is used nine lines later to describe Nicaea’s face: (‘seeing the rosy circle of the maiden’s face’, 219).

41. By contrast, Chloe is enthralled when Daphnis plays music on his pipes. See Long. 1.13.4.

42. 15.308–10: .

43. See Hunter (1999) 63–68.

44. See, e.g., Philostr. Ep. 5, 23 and 57, quoted by Gerlaud (2003) 60 nn.4 and 5.

45. See Gerlaud (2003) 61 n.1 with bibliography.

46. See Harries (1994) 74f., and Gerlaud (2003) 224f.

47. Harries (1994) 75.

48. Long. 4.34.1: (‘It seemed that the Nymphs were asking Eros now at least to consent to the marriage; and he unstrung his little bow and laid by his quiver…’).

49. See D’Ippolito (1964) 89–91, Chuvin (1991) 149f. and Gerlaud (2003) 53. Gonnelli (2003) 178 argues that Hymnus might have appeared in Parthenius’ poetry or the ‘ of Pisander or even the Patria of Nicaea, but there is no evidence to support that. Hymnus does not show up on coins from Nicaea, whereas the myth of Dionysus’ rape of the nymph appears often in archaeological findings from the city; see Guinea Díaz (1992).

50. Memnon of Heracleia, 434 F 1.28.9 FGrHist.

51. 16.300f.: (‘You laughed as you saw the dead herdsman’s piteous blood; you groaned as you saw the even more piteous blood of your maidenhood’).

52. See Ov. Met. 1.488f. (Daphne); 589f. (Io); 690 (Syrinx).

53. The parallels are pointed out in Gerlaud (2003) 222f. nn.357–62.

54. Cf. Nonn. D. 15.357f.: (‘and if you were not born of the unmerciful sea or the mountains, shed a few tears for me’), and [Theoc] Id. 23.38: (‘stay, and weep a little’).

55. Cf. Nonn. D. 15.360–62: (‘and with your own hand scratch these words with mourning ruddle: “Here lies Hymnus the oxherd, whom the maiden Nicaia slew without letting him share her bed, and buried with due honour when dead’”) and [Theoc0] Id. 23.46–48: (‘and write too these words, which I scratch on your walls: “This man love slew; wayfarer, pass not by, but stop and say this: ‘He had a cruel friend””).

56. See Hunter (2002) 104.

57. See the anaphora at 48.816f.: (‘endure, please, after the bed to also have the pangs of childbirth, endure even to give your unaccustomed breast to babies’).

58. Cf. Vian (2003) 166 nn.341–50.

59. See Brooten (1996) 60, and 82–90 for the connection between female homoeroticism and bath scenes. Cf. Goldhill (2006) 156 on the ‘competitive display of virginal bodies’, and how it merges the world of Aphrodite with that of Artemis.

60. See EM s.v. Aiv8uuov (276, 36–43), quoted in full by Vian (2003) 27.

61. See Gerlaud (2003) 53.

62. Euthynicus and Rhodopis make a perfectly symmetrical couple: they are the most handsome boy and girl in the area (, 8.12.3), they are both hunters , and they both detest Aphrodite ( ).

63. Laplace (2007) 557 sees this story as the combination of two different kinds of metamorphosis, both attested most notably in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: in the first type, the transformation is the result of the rejection of a lover (e.g. Daphne in Met. 1); in the second, it is due to divine vengeance (e.g. Arachne).

64. See 48.350, 426 and 393f., where Nemesis asks Artemis: (‘Artemis, what godfighting son of Earth persecutes you? What Typhoeus has sprung up again from the ground?’)

65. is an adjective regularly used in the Dionysiaca to describe monsters or the (monstrous) Indians. See, e.g., 25.238 (= 45.174): , ‘he smashed Alpus, the god-fighting son of earth’), and the note above.

66. Cf. Vian (2003) 93.

67. See Lightfoot (1998) 295 n.7. Cf. Schmiel (1993) 474.

68. See Vian (2003) 167 nn.364f.

69. See 15.314, 16.225 and 247.

70. See Pohl (2004) 24–36.

71. See Dillon (1995) 29–31. In Q.S. Posthom. 1.403–46 the performance of the Amazon Pen-thesileia in battle inspires Antimachus’ daughter, Tisiphone, to deliver a speech on the equality of the sexes, in which she encourages the women of Troy to take part in the fighting.

72. Dillon (1995) discusses the evidence for Theodorus of Asine’s ‘That the virtue of man and woman is the same’.

73. See Clem. Strom. 4.8.61–63.

74. Pohl (2004) 34.

75. Two early studies of this theme are Delcourt (1958) and Meeks (1974).

76. On gender ambiguity in men see Kuefler (2001). Cf. Mathews (1993) 115–41 on the iconography of a feminine Christ.

77. Gospel of Thomas, logion 114. On this topic see Aspegren (1990), Cloke (1995) and Mac-Donald (1996).

78. Passio Perpetuae 10. Text and English translation are available in Musurillo (1972). See Heffernan (1988) 192–97 for the influence the Passio Perpetuae exerted on later Saints’ Lives.

79. For the precise nature of the athletics involved in this vision see Robert (1982).

80. Dronke(1984) 14.

81. See the overview in Salisbury (1997) 108f.

82. For the Passio Perpetuae as a narrative of empowerment see especially Perkins (1994).

83. Rossi (1984) 65.

84. On this group of hagiographies see Patlagean (1976), Salisbury (1991) 96–110, Cloke (1995) 193–98, and Constantinou (2005) 90–126.

85. See Constantinou (2005) 11 If.

86. On transvestite Saints resisting the authority of their fathers or husbands see Patlagean (1976) 611–15.

87. Cloke (1995) 196.

88. A virgin’s masculine appearance is elsewhere prescribed as a defence against the creation of sexual feelings. According to Basil of Ancyra, the virgins of Christ should adopt the ‘firm contours of a man (in walk, in tone of voice, in a general “unnatural” masculine brusqueness)’ in order to avoid seducing or being seduced by their fellow Christians: Brown (1988) 268.

89. See Gerlaud (2005) 253 n.3. He bases this connection on 48.298f. ( , ‘this is not the tree of a decent girl, but of a newly-wed bride; this dream is worthy of a harlot’), where Aura seems to put on the same level a newly married woman and a prostitute (μαχλάς). Vian adopts in his edition the conjecture of Koch, and replaces (‘newly-wed’) in 298 with (‘mis-married’), so as to make the two lines have a similar meaning, referring to a debauched nymph. The emendation, however, is unnecessary, considering Aura’s aversion to sexual relations.

90. On Encratism see Brown (1988) 92–101, Aspegren (1990) 115–31 and Gaca (2003) 221–46. Interestingly, there is some evidence to suggest that Encratites also prohibited the consumption of wine, which would perhaps have some significance for Aura’s wine-drinking and subsequent rape; see Slater (1999) 299 and 304.

91. Rouse (1940) 472 thought that this is ‘perhaps the most unseasonable mythological excursus even in Nonnus’.

92. Apart from Eos and Tithonus, we also hear about Selene and Endymion (667f.), Iasion and Demeter (677f.), and Eos and Cephalus (680f.).

93. On this process see Hunter (1999) 123 nn.40–51.

94. Cf. Vian (2003) 62f.

95. Indeed, her subsequent tecnophagy is, in terms of mythical precedent, masculine behaviour: Cronos devours his children; Thyestes and Tereus eat their sons, albeit unknowingly. 1 have not been able to find any instances of mothers eating their children except in historiography, where it seems to be a topos in siege narratives; see Thuc. 2.70.1, Polyb. 1.84.9–85.1, Joseph. BJ 6.193–219.

96. In the Dionysiaca the legitimate wife of Dionysus, Ariadne, appears as a ghost to her husband in 48.532–62, to give her own negative view of marriage. After complaining against him about the many affairs he has had, she points out how she has been betrayed by both her husbands, Theseus and Dionysus, and describes herself as ‘constrained’ or ‘forced’ into Eros ( , 557). See Brown (1988) 23 on Christian leaders condemning the ‘double standard’ of Roman marriages.

97. The text reproduced here is that of Amand and Moons (1953). An English translation of this homily is available in Wimbush’s (1990) collection.

98. See D. Hunter (1987, 1989) for how the ‘virginal ideal’ of earliest Christianity became a highly controversial issue, and Cooper (2007) 165–73 on literature defending marriage in 4th century Rome. Cf. Nathan (2000) on the endurance of traditional familial structures.

99. See Kuefler (2001) ch. 7 on the efforts of Western Fathers to limit the influence of Eastern Christian ideas.

100. Burrus (1987) 67–118 believes that some of the chastity stories may have been produced and circulated among women. Cf. Salisbury (1991) chs. 4–8. It is, however, impossible to get unmediated female voices on these matters. On how female celibacy may have worked ‘in practice’ see Cloke (1995) 61–81 and Clark (1993) 94–118.

101. The text is taken from Patrologia Graeca 28.1512.42–46. Wimbush (1990) includes a translation of this Life.

102. 48.816f., quoted n.57 above.

103. See Shorrock’s article in this volume for the unnatural births recounted in the poem’s prologue.

104. See Pinault (1992).

105. See Flemming (2000) 340f.

106. See De Virginitate 3.5. Theodoret describes his own mother being violently ill after giving birth to him, her first and only child. A holy man has to intervene to ‘wrest her from the hands of death’ (). See Vita 9.14.

107. Acta Sanctorum 12 May, De Sanctis Martyribus Nereo et Achilleo Eunuchis, Flauia Domitilla, Euphrosyna et Theodora, uirginibus Romanis 4: conceptum enim in utero pondus die noctuque portabit inuita: quo pondere efficitur aegra, tumens, pallida, uix suis pedibus incedere praeualens.

108. The idea that children will be either physically crippled or morally depraved also comes up in the (Encratism-influenced) Apocryphal Acts of Thomas; see Perkins (1995) 29.

109. See 48.791–93: .

110. Text and commentary in Clark (1984), who also makes some connections between this Life and the Hellenistic novels.

111. Compare Nonnus’ (‘Oh, wretched creature! she was close to childbirth and she wanted to be a virgin’, 48.849f.).

112. Passio Perpetuae 15.5.

113. stillantibus mammis (20.2).

114. saluam se peperisse gaudens ut ad bestias pugnaret (18.3).

115. et quomodo Deus uoluit, neque ille amplius mammas desiderauit neque mihi feruorem fecerunt ne sollicitudine infantis et dolore mammarum macerarer (6.8).

116. See Salisbury (1997) 91. ‘Not knowing’ or hating one’s blood relatives is a recurrent motif in apocryphal texts; see Meeks (1974) 196 and Uri (1997). This anti-familial ideology reaches its climax in medieval texts that praise mothers for abandoning their children or even consenting to their death, following the example of Virgin Mary; see Newman (1995) 80–107.

117. Panarion 1.282 Holl: (‘each one partakes with his finger of the butchered child’).

118. See Gilhus (1997) 246f.

119. See, e.g., Eur. Ion 269f.; Apollod. Bibl. 2.14.6: (‘Erichthonius, having been brought up by Athena herself in the sacred precinct’).

120. See, e.g., 45.299–303, 13.174–77, 27.322f., 29.339f. For a psychoanalytic interpretation of such passages see Newbold (2000) 11–24. Other instances of paradoxical nursing in the Dionysiaca include Hera breastfeeding an adult Dionysus to cure him from madness (35.319–35), and Eerie breastfeeding her father Tectaphus to keep him from dying of starvation in prison (26.110–38). See Deonna (1955) 5–50 for the Roman legend of the noble daughter Pero or Perus, who similarly saved her mother or father from starvation. Deonna also mentions the popularity of the legend in the Middle Ages (13 and 22f.), and includes an interesting gravure of the 15th cent., where S. Bernard of Clerevaulx drinks milk from Virgin Mary’s breast (fig. 10).

121. On these paradoxes see Corrington (1989) 406–13.

122. See Eisner (1998) 3 on the creative processes of late antique art.

123. I have been fortunate to receive helpful and insightful comments on this paper from the editors of this volume, Richard Hunter and Katerina Carvounis, and also from Helen Morales, Michael Williams and Robert Shorrock, to all of whom I express my gratitude.