L’antiduello, ovvero della morte di Priamo

In the vast bloodshed of the Ilioupersis, the king of Troy Priam – an old man, burdened with sufferances – faces death by the hands of Neoptolemus, Achilles’ young son. Far from the mercy shown by his father towards Priam in Iliad 24, Neoptolemus is eager to slaughter the king on the very altar of Zeus Herkeios, forsaking the protection granted to a suppliant and violating the heroic behavioural ethos. The three accounts of Priam’s death here discussed – Vergil’s Aeneid 2, Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica 13, Triphiodorus’ Halosis Iliou – rather than focusing on the thematic structure of a hikesia-scene, elaborate on the motifs of a paradoxical and perverted monomachia.