The Fires of Campania

This chapter discusses how Valerius Flaccus in his Argonautica extends Pindar’s location of Typhon beneath the Bay of Naples (Pyth. 1.15–28) to associate mythology’s most notorious theomach with the Phlegraean Fields (V. Fl. 6.169–70) and, by conjunction with Ischia’s volcano Inarime, possibly even with Mount Vesuvius itself. In Flavian literature gigantomachy becomes symbolic of civil conflict and empire. Although Valerius’ epic narrative is played out far from Italy, the menace of Campania’s incarcerated giant reappears through digression, intertext, imagery, and genealogy, to the point that the adventures of Jason’s Argonauts seem Romanized through these recurrent reminders of civil war.