A Fatal Mistake? Absolving Deianira

The fictional writer of Heroides 9, Deianira, prominently features in Sophocles’s Trachiniae, which is acknowledged to be a crucial model for the Ovidian epistle; yet, besides the Trachiniae, there must have been several accounts of the episodes of Hercules’s saga involving Deianira that are now either fragmentary or not extant.¹ According to the myth, after waiting many years for the return of Hercules, Deianira finds out that he has fallen in love with Iole, the daughter of King Eurytus. As Hercules carries Iole with him to his hometown, in order to regain his love Deianira smears some drops of the centaur Nessus’s blood on a robe (or, more specifically, Hercules’s famous lion-skin shirt), which she then gives to her husband. The potion, however, is a poison that brings death to Hercules. In terms of the relationship with its model, the Ovidian epistle departs in many instances from the Trachiniae,² but the most significant, and most relevant to this chapter, is Sophocles’s brief mention of Hercules’s stay in Lydia (see Trach. 248–257, 356–358), which becomes an elaborate and highly ironic account of Hercules’s servitium (“servitude”) to Omphale in Heroides 9 (55–118). Along with his affair with Omphale, Hercules’s arrival in Trachis and his liaison with Iole are the aspects of Sophocles’s drama that are the most relevant to Heroides 9, and are crucial to understanding Deianira’s relationship with her son, Hyllus (see Trach. 64–93, 734–820, 1136–1142, 1151–1156).

As for Hercules’s arrival, the Trachiniae has been defined as a “nostos play” (Greek nostos meaning “return”), since the return of the hero plays a central and substantial role within the plot.³ Distinct from the nostoi of other heroes, however, Hercules’s nostos does not imply the end of the hero’s troubles. Moreover, while the canonical nostos of the Greek hero is usually linked to a happy reunion (a sort of remarriage) with the partner (see Ulysses and Penelope), Hercules’s nostos implies a departure from the normal configuration of a family, insofar as he brings along his paramour and captive, Iole.⁴ In Heroides 9, this circumstance is underlined by Deianira, who fears that Hercules will replace her with Iole (131–132). Indeed, the Ovidian heroine seems more concerned with the loss of her position as Herculis uxor (27) than with Hercules’s infidelity and affairs, which, rather paradoxically, she describes as though they were her own conquests and victories (47–54).⁵

Compared to Heroides 9, the references to Hercules’s servitude to Omphale and cross-dressing are much more concise in the Trachiniae (248–257; 356–358): that may be due to the comic aspects of this episode, which has been said to be more suitable to comedy (rather than tragedy), wherein Hercules’s excessive greed and sex drive are emphasized.⁶ Both the representation of Hercules within the comic genre and his caricatural portrayal in Propertius 4.9 may have been a model for the lengthy description of Hercules’s servitude to Omphale that features in Heroides 9.⁷ Within the Ovidian epistle, the actual servitude overlaps with the elegiac servitium amoris, which also leads to a fluctuation of well-established gender roles, that is, the canonical reversal of roles between the poet and the puella. In Heroides 9, this canonical component is reinforced by the actual cross-dressing of the hero and by his performance of female tasks. The cross-dressing and reversal not only represent a reference to, and establish a link with, the comic genre and the works of previous elegists; they also imply a more substantial delegitimation of Hercules as a dominant male hero.⁸

Concerning Iole, in the Trachiniae Deianira initially seems to show a degree of pity and an empathetic attitude to her as one of Hercules’s prisoners (see Trach. 293–313, 320–321).⁹ After she discovers that Iole is Hercules’s paramour (Trach. 375–379) and represents a threat to her own legitimate union with him (Trach. 536–551), instead of reacting violently, Deianira conceives a more subtle strategy to regain Hercules’s love, namely, using Nessus’s blood to anoint Hercules’s robe (552–587). In Heroides 9, by contrast, Iole is described as a sort of triumphant hero (119–130); at the same time, she is exposed, almost put on display, by Deianira’s description.¹⁰ Accordingly, Iole is not only depicted as powerful but also embodies the scopophilic object par excellence: a(n attractive) female body that is made to be viewed by men.¹¹ In this particular case, the role of the active observer is played not just by Hercules and the unspecified people looking at his triumphant procession, but also by Deianira, who exposes and objectifies Iole through her writing. Deianira’s treatment of Omphale’s and Iole’s narrative shows that her main concern is not simply that they may replace her as Hercules’s wife; she is in fact afraid that they might gain a more dominant and central role in the delegitimation of Hercules that she pursues within her letter.¹²

This delegitimation is accomplished through the manipulation of her motherhood and relationship with her son, Hyllus. At Trachiniae 64–93, Hyllus shows devotion to his mother and obeys her request to look for, and help, his father.¹³ Hyllus’s respectful attitude toward Deianira changes radically, however, as soon as he discovers that she is responsible for Hercules’s poisoning. After reporting the episode (a task that is usually performed by the messenger within Greek drama), Hyllus curses his mother (Trach. 807–812, 815–820) and remarks that she has just killed “the best man” (ἄριστον ἄνδρα, 811) in the world; thereafter, Deianira silently leaves the stage.¹⁴ Although Hyllus’s reaction is very aggressive, it is not, for instance, comparable to the revenge of Orestes, who eventually kills his mother, Clytemnestra.¹⁵ After realizing that Deianira acted with the best intentions and made a mistake due to hamartia, Hyllus even tries to justify the actions of his mother to Hercules (1136–1156).¹⁶

While in Sophocles’s drama, Hyllus plays a rather active role, in Heroides 9 he is mentioned only twice by Deianira (44, 168): at line 44, Deianira points out that Hyllus is not there (“nec puer Hyllus adest,” 44); at 168, she closes the epistle by saying farewell to her son (“et puer Hylle, vale”). By echoing Deianira’s final farewell before she commits suicide at the end of Sophocles’s drama, this farewell suggests that Deianira is induced to kill herself not only by her own sense of guilt, but ultimately by Hyllus’s accusations (see Trach. 899–946). In Heroides 9, Deianira does not mention Hyllus as the main reason for killing herself, but seemingly makes her decision because she feels responsible for the death of Hercules (145–168). Hercules’s death is introduced into Deianira’s epistle quite abruptly: with a sudden change of scenario, Deianira is told that her robe is killing Hercules.

There is no specific reference to how such news reached Deianira, but a vaguer and rather undetermined mention of a nuntia … fama (literally, “an announcing rumor”; 143–144).¹⁷ This vagueness creates a sort of gap, a narrative vacuum, within the Ovidian epistle: Who brought the terrible news of Hercules’s suffering to Deianira?

Knowledgeable readers may infer the answer to this question from Sophocles’s drama, where it is Hyllus who reports Hercules’s agony to his mother (Trach. 749–806).¹⁸ The vagueness of the expression nuntia … fama (143–144) creates a “new window,” in Alessandro Barchiesi’s words,¹⁹ that can be opened onto the potential developments of the narrative, which are never fulfilled within the letter but implied by the allusivity of the heroine’s writing. This open window gives the opportunity to Hyllus, who is almost obliterated within the elegiac epistle, to (re)enter Deianira’s narrative. The suspicion, or suggestion, that Hyllus is the bearer of the nuntia … fama, alongside the sudden change of scenario, contributes to the creation of further ambiguity. The arrival of the nuntia … fama implies a certain theatricality, insofar as the letter is cast in a way that evokes the entrance of the news-bearer (whoever they are), as though they have irrupted on a theatrical stage—instead of interrupting a poetic or epistolary composition.²⁰ This external intrusion is also suggested by the relatively unusual patterns that characterize the epistle from 143–144 onward (e.g., the repeated refrain at 146, 152, 158, and 164), which have led some scholars to dispute its authenticity.²¹ The narrative vacuum, the change of scenario that recalls the theatrical stage, as well as the shift in the writing patterns, need not be read as a reason to doubt the letter’s authenticity, but can be seen as the result of (Ovid’s) narratological as well as stylistic and literary techniques.

In other words, one can imagine that the last part of Heroides 9 is artistically constructed as though Deianira’s writing were suddenly interrupted by the arrival of her son bringing the news of Hercules’s death. If we assume that this occurrence causes her to stop writing at line 143 and then restart to finish her letter,²² then lines 144–168 would be the section of the epistle that Deianira writes after she has spoken with her son. This last section somehow shows the footprints of such an abrupt interruption of, and intrusion into, Deianira’s narrative. The metrical anomalies noted by D. W. T. C. Vessey throughout the epistle, such as the four cases of hiatus (87, 131, 133, 141) or the unusually high number of caesurae after the fourth trochee, may thus be due not to its inauthenticity but to the rhetorical and artistic arrangement of the epistle itself.²³ These inconsistencies in the poetic diction reflect Deianira’s emotional response to Hyllus’s news, which makes her writing more irregular and discontinuous, as though she has lost control over it.²⁴ By marking a moment of transition in Deianira’s literary past, this stylistic variety represents a test for the knowledgeable reader, who is invited to seek the reasons for the changes in meter in the Sophoclean intertext.

The variation in poetic style is not the only consequence of Deianira’s reaction to the shocking news. Accepting the plausibility of Hyllus as the bearer of bad news to Deianira implies certain repercussions for the context of the entire epistle. Hyllus’s literal irruption into Deianira’s writing affects the epistle on not only a stylistic level but also a structural one. After being interrupted by her son during her writing process, the heroine may have reshaped her letter as though Hyllus were another potential addressee. This implication is particularly suggestive because Hyllus is the last person that Deianira mentions and bids farewell to in the very last line of her epistle (168).²⁵ The possibility of multiple, or implied, addressees is not peregrine to the Heroides, as scholars have correctly argued that Canace’s letter (Her. 11, which will be discussed in chapter 4) may imply her father, Aeolus, as a second addressee, as is suggested by, among other things, the fact that the epistle’s last word is pater, “father.”²⁶ Likewise, Deianira’s reference to her son at the end of her letter may suggest that Hyllus is a hinted addressee of Heroides 9. The final part of Deianira’s letter thus becomes an apology for her ill-fated actions. Although this assumption implies that Hyllus is not conceived as an addressee while Deianira writes the first part of her letter (i.e., the section preceding the arrival of the nuntia fama), Hyllus is supposed to read the entire letter once he has found it. According to this hypothesis, both knowledgeable readers and Deianira herself (as an educated author) must have been aware that the heroine’s derisive portrayal of Hercules and her foretold suicide are designed to be received, and read, by her son. By committing suicide, the heroine thus seeks to atone for her mistake and restore her memory, particularly in front of her son—and the external readers of her epistle.²⁷ The mention of Hyllus at the end of Deianira’s letter, as well as his role as an implied, probable, or potential reader, affects our interpretation of Heroides 9. The heroine’s aim is not simply to restore her own reputation with her son, but also to be legitimated by him as the dominant family member.

Furthermore, the possibility that Deianira’s letter would have been read by Hyllus shows us how the (Ovidian) epistle is not only rhetorically constructed but also fills the gaps of the previous tradition. Hyllus’s speech in favor of his mother at Trachiniae 1136–1156 suggests that Heroides 9 may have been imagined as the reason why Hyllus changes his attitude toward Deianira and defends her in front of Hercules at the end of Sophocles’s tragedy. The hypothesis that Hyllus is the implied addressee of Deianira’s letter makes us appreciate how Heroides 9 enters into a highly complex dialogue with its main source, Sophocles, rationalizing the tragic version of Deianira’s narrative (where the reason for Hyllus’s change of mind is not clearly stated), while maintaining its ambiguity and offering a wide range of narrative developments.²⁸ Imagining that (Ovid’s) Deianira addresses her letter to her son (alongside Hercules) compels us to rethink and reinterpret Heroides 9 as a highly rhetorical and artistic piece: through her writing, the heroine accomplishes a gender role reversal, downplays Hercules’s status, and gains a powerful position within her family (and her own narrative).

Rewriting Hercules’s Fama: The Fall of a Hero

The beginning of Deianira’s letter encapsulates the rhetorical strategies and coexistence of opposing features that characterize her discourse throughout the epistle, leading her to question her traditional role as a mother.²⁹ The epic inflections of the first hexameter, where Deianira appears to be celebrating another victory by Hercules (“gratulor Oechaliam titulis accedere nostris,” I am glad that Oechalia has been added to our honors; 1),³⁰ stand in contrast to a reference to Hercules’s servitium amoris in the pentameter, “victorem victae succubuisse queror” (But I complain that the victor has yielded to the defeated; 2). By recalling the elegiac frame of Propertius 3.11.16 (“vicit victorem candida forma virum,” Pure beauty defeated the victorious man), which contains a reference to Penthesilea and Achilles, the figura etymologica (victorem victae) enhances the reversal between Hercules as the true victor in war and Iole as the defeated, the man and the woman, as well as recontextualizing—along with the verb queror—Hercules’s victories within an elegiac frame.³¹ Although Hercules’s erotic defeat in Heroides 9 is a consequence of his servitude to, and passion for, Omphale and Iole, who is said to “have placed her yoke” on him (inposuisse iugum, 6), the downfall of the hero—ironically—evokes his last speech during his agony in the Trachiniae (1046–1063), where he complains of having been defeated by a(nother) woman, namely, Deianira. Accordingly, the expression inposuisse iugum not only articulates the traditional elegiac paradox of the puellae who are victorious over men/poets (at least metaphorically); it also creates an overlap between Deianira and Iole as having both defeated Hercules.³² Deianira’s mention of Juno and Jupiter (see Phaedra at Her. 4.133–134, below, in chapter 3) contributes to the creation of further ambiguity.

The heroine describes Juno as both germana Tonantis (“the sister of the Thunderer,” 7) and Hercules’s noverca (“stepmother,” 8),³³ while the expanded reference to Jupiter hints at the humorous context of Hercules’s conception, for which one night was not sufficiently long (9–10).³⁴ In addition to sidelining Juno’s role as the wife of Jupiter by referring to her as his sister (7), lines 7–10 underscore that Hercules is the result of an adulterous relationship, thereby recalling his bastardy. According to the mythological and anthropological model of the “absent royal or divine father,” bastardy leads the illegitimate child, who is often characterized by hypermasculine traits, to achieve a legitimate status through heroic actions.³⁵ Hercules’s progressive self-legitimation is pursued through his accomplishment of the labors, but in Heroides 9 it appears entirely neutralized by his (erotic) servitude to Omphale and Iole, as well as his performance of female tasks, which are described by Deianira at lines 55–118. This delegitimation of Hercules’s status as the dominant heroic figure contributes to Deianira’s self-empowerment and self-legitimation, which are eventually sanctioned by her son, Hyllus, as the potential reader of her letter.

Deianira’s downplaying of Hercules through references to his bastardy also emerges in lines 43–44, where the heroine recounts that she is alone in her sorrow, since Hercules’s mother (Alcmene), father (Amphitryon), and his son Hyllus are all absent.³⁶ The reference to Amphitryon as Hercules’s father alludes to an alternative version of Hercules’s conception, according to which both Jupiter and Amphitryon had sexual intercourse with Alcmene on the same night.³⁷ By stressing this disputed paternity, Deianira not only underscores Hercules’s bastardy but also questions Hercules’s divine natural right, before mentioning Hyllus as his puer: “nec pater Amphitryon nec puer Hyllus adest” (Neither your father Amphitryon is here, nor your son Hyllus; 44). The choice of the word puer establishes a link with Penelope’s reference to her son, Telemachus, as a puer in Heroides 1 (98, above, in chapter 1), where Telemachus’s puerilitas contributed to legitimating Penelope and downplaying Ulysses’s status. By likening Deianira to Penelope, this reference to Hyllus as a puer underscores Deianira’s loneliness and consequent independence, as well as stressing the absence of Hercules as a paternal authority within the household. Therefore, the closeness of the reference to Hercules’s human “adoptive” father (and accordingly his disputed ancestry) and to Hercules’ son, who are both said to be “absent” (nec … nec … adest), materializes the loss of Hercules’s status as a hero and the unreliability of his central role within his family.

The absence of Hercules’s parents and son is also a means of self-affirmation for Deianira, who uses the narratological vacuum generated by the lack of other characters to tell her version of Hercules’s affairs. Hyllus is momentarily away because he was sent by Deianira to look for his father (see Telemachus in Her. 1.63–65), as knowledgeable readers may deduce from Sophocles’s drama (64–93). However, as we have mentioned, Deianira’s son can be considered to (re)enter her narrative by interrupting her writing process with the news of Hercules’s condition (143–144). Hercules’s loss of dignity as a result of his death—which is highly unheroic, being caused by a woman—is anticipated by Deianira’s progressive diminishment of his status and masculinity through her poetic discourse. Such a rhetorical strategy aims to emphasize her own agency.

This self-empowerment begins with Deianira’s (seemingly conventional) rhetorical self-portrayal as Hercules’s legitimate wife. At lines 27–28, the heroine refers to herself as Herculis uxor: “at bene nupta feror, quia nominer Herculis uxor, / sitque socer, rapidis qui tonat altus equis” (But I am said to be well mated, because I am called the wife of Hercules, and because my father-in-law is he who thunders on high with impetuous horses). On a first-level reading, the expression nominer Herculis uxor emphasizes Deianira’s passivity in the construction of her own identity (note the passive form nominer; 27) and legitimates her status as Hercules’s wife, as well as hinting at her fear that she will be replaced by Iole (131–132).³⁸ By labeling herself as Herculis uxor, Deianira underlines not only her status, but also her dependence on Hercules, insofar as she avoids referring to herself by her actual name. The use of her husband’s name for her self-definition represents the inscription of her persona into a patriarchal, heteronormative context. The unnamed heroine has no value as a person and cannot stand alone but is granted a status only within her marital relationship with Hercules. If, however, Hercules progressively loses his heroic status, his wife can finally appropriate her own identity, alongside her name, Deianira and its etymological meaning, “slaughterer of men.”³⁹

This gradual appropriation of her name is pursued throughout the epistle and achieved by the end, as Deianira begins to use her given name to refer to herself only from line 131 onward, but then repeatedly, as a refrain: “inpia quid dubitas Deianira mori?” (O wicked Deianira, why do you hesitate to die? 146, 152, 158, 164). Becoming “Deianira” implies becoming a “slaughterer of men,” the etymological meaning of her name: this is precisely what explains, justifies, and legitimates the killing of Hercules. Becoming “Deianira”—that is, the slaughterer of her man—represents a necessary evil (see inpia) to amend Hercules’s loss of status, as well as reflecting Deianira’s heroic, almost epic, code of conduct.⁴⁰ The death of Hercules is thus not merely the result of Deianira’s tragic mistake but also articulates her epic concerns about restoring the kleos (i.e., the “epic glory, reputation”) of her family. Concurrently, the murder of Hercules empowers the heroine to gain an independent agency and dominant position within her household (and narrative), as well as placing her beyond expected (gender) roles and patriarchal boundaries. By killing her husband, Deianira not only presents herself as a tragic or epic hero; she also grants Hercules a heroic death. Paradoxically, Deianira restores the dignity of Hercules and his family precisely by killing him, thereby saving her own reputation and that of her son, Hyllus, which were jeopardized by Hercules’s cross-dressing and elegiac, unheroic servitium amoris.

The legitimation of herself as the defeater, killer, and ultimately surrogate of her husband is pursued through the delegitimation and degradation of Hercules as a hero, which are enacted gradually. At lines 13–18, for instance, Deianira lists Hercules’s deeds in a very hyperbolic tone, so that his defeat by Venus (a widespread elegiac metaphor to indicate the strength of love) appears even more paradoxical and incredible (see, e.g., Her. 4.136). The mention of both Juno and Venus (11), who are usually competing goddesses within the classical tradition, increases the antithetic and paradoxical nature of Hercules’s defeat.⁴¹ By trying to oppress Hercules with labors, Juno made him a great hero (“illa premendo / sustulit,” By crushing you down, she raised you up; 11–12),⁴² whereas Venus, representing erotic passion, dominates him: “haec humili sub pede colla tenet” (The other one holds your neck beneath her humbling foot; 12).⁴³ This line recalls the topos of military or athletic victories, which in Greek are indicated by the technical verb ἐπεμβαίνω, “to step on.”⁴⁴ Equally, it also refers to the elegiac topos of the humbleness of the lover who, through humility, may gain a positive outcome.⁴⁵ The mixture of military and elegiac language contributes to downplaying Hercules’s achievements.

This overlap, along with the reversal of traditional tasks, culminates in the account of Hercules’s servitude to Omphale (55–118), which, together with the description of Iole’s triumph (120–130), represents a peak of degradation for the hero.⁴⁶ The episode is introduced by Deianira as recens crimen (“recent crime,” 53), a phrasing that has an ambivalent meaning (see line 51), since crimen can indicate both a “fault” or “crime” in a general context and an adulterous affair, particularly within elegiac poetry.⁴⁷ The account of Hercules’s enslavement by Omphale in lines 55–118 is interrupted from time to time by Deianira’s mention of Hercules’s labors or great deeds, which serve as pendants of his degradation: rhetorical amplificatio is contrasted by extreme reductio of status; hypermasculinity opposes hyperfemininity; the terms of the equation women/weakness vs. men/strength are mixed up; and motherhood becomes a space for the woman (Deianira) to exercise a certain kind of freedom. The contradictory nature of these dichotomies suggests that Hercules’s cross-dressing represents an exceptional moment, part of a liminal phase, a sort of rite of passage.⁴⁸ As a ritual performance, the cross-dressing articulates the excess of a performative or theatrical act,⁴⁹ which leads to a reversal of established patterns and to the sacrifice of the main actor, whereas it strengthens the persona relating it: Deianira.

The episode is characterized by a list of antithetic features, where Hercules’s great deeds are contrasted with his degradation and cross-dressing: the past opposes the present; the masculine hero opposes the effeminate lover.⁵⁰ For instance, the fortis … lacertos (“strong arms”) are said to be bounded with gold (59); gems are placed on the strong muscles (60), while Hercules’s own arms (his … lacertis, 61) were once able to defeat the Nemean lion (whose skin has notably become the symbol of Hercules’s strength and power).⁵¹ At line 63, Hercules is said to have dared to place upon his “shaggy hair” (hirsutos … capillos)⁵² a mitra, an oriental turban that is acknowledged to be a symbol of effeminacy, instead of the more usual poplar crown (64);⁵³ he also wore a Maeonian belt (Maeonia … zona)⁵⁴ in the guise of a wanton mistress (lascivae more puellae, 65–66). Hercules’s performance of a feminine gender is evidently linked to an oriental frame, as the mention of the Meander (55–56) and oriental objects (e.g., calathus, 73, below) and clothes (e.g., mitra, 63) confirms.⁵⁵ From the late Republic on, the eastern regions of the empire were seen as seats of depravity, sexual excess, luxury, and softness, particularly after Octavian’s propaganda had stigmatized Mark Antony and Cleopatra as the embodiment of all these vices.⁵⁶ Moreover, not only did certain oriental religious practices entail a ritual cross-dressing, but Dionysiac cults were also characterized to some extent by cross-dressing and a reversal of gender and social roles, with the result that Bacchanalia had been famously banished from Republican Rome through the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus since 186 BC.⁵⁷ While Octavian had established a link between himself and Apollo,⁵⁸ whom he took as a patron deity, Dionysus and his related cults were connected to Mark Antony and his intemperance as opposed to Octavian’s moderation and restoration of traditional customs.⁵⁹ This historical background gives a renewed nuance to Ovid’s emphasis on the oriental frame of Hercules’s cross-dressing in Heroides 9.⁶⁰

The connection between Hercules’s cross-dressing in Lydia and the Augustan historical context is further supported by Propertius 3.11,⁶¹ where among the mythological counterparts of Cleopatra, the poet mentions Omphale, along with Medea, Penthesilea, and Semiramis: “Omphale in tantum formae processit honorem, / Lydia Gygaeo tincta puella lacu, / ut, qui pacato statuisset in orbe columnas, / tam dura traheret mollia pensa manu” (Omphale, the Lydian girl who bathed in Gyges’ lake, won such honor for her beauty that he who had set up the pillars in the world he had pacified drew with his brute hands soft allotments of wool; Prop. 3.11.17–20). These mythological women’s ability to dominate their men would have reminded Propertius’s contemporary Roman readers of how Cleopatra had been able to control Mark Antony and threaten Rome’s sovereignty.⁶² In addition to entering into conversation with the references to Cleopatra and Mark Antony at Propertius 3.11, (the Ovidian) Deianira’s account of Hercules’s cross-dressing in Lydia deploys a well-established historical and literary theme to strengthen the fluid representation of gender dynamics that is characteristic of the Heroides as a whole.

The gender role reversal and Hercules’s consequent assimilation to a puella become progressively more obvious as Deianira establishes an opposition between the enemies that Hercules defeated—Diomedes (67), Busiris (69), and Antaeus (71)—and Hercules’s deplorable behavior with Omphale.⁶³ The reoccurrence of the opposition between victor and victus (“huic victor victo nempe pudendus eras,” He whom you defeated must have felt ashamed for such a victor as you; 70; see line 2, above) emphasizes this gender role reversal between Hercules and Omphale (see also molli succubuisse viro, “having succumbed to an effeminate man”; 72: mollis is a programmatic adjective in elegy, where it is used to express effeminacy).⁶⁴ By elegizing Hercules, Deianira progressively undermines his status as a (male) hero.

In this description of Hercules’s enslavement by Omphale, the hero’s performance of traditionally feminine tasks connected to spinning and weaving appears to be particularly emphasized. Along with the enslavement, the reference to Hercules’s angst at his mistress’s threats gives rise to an ambivalent interpretation of the word domina. A highly emphatic word, domina both stands for the elegiac mistress to whom the lover/poet offers his servitium amoris, and also refers to the mythological episode according to which Hercules was actually enslaved by Omphale.⁶⁵ Lines 75–80 stress the opposition between Hercules’s vigor and roughness, and the delicacy and accuracy of the spinning: compare, for instance, robusto … pollice (77) and aequa … pensa (78); stamina (79) and digitis … duris (“hard fingers,” 79); fusos and praevalidae … manus (80). Hercules’s cross-dressing is described gradually, starting with the wearing of female jewelry and ending with weaving, the quintessential female task. In contrast to other heroes involved in similar episodes (see the youthful Achilles’s cross-dressing), Hercules does not appear to fit well into female attires and behaviors, as is clearly shown in the opposition between his machismo and the delicacy that the spinning demands.

This suspension and liminality between two genders imply that the cross-dressing functions as a distorted rite of passage that prevents Hercules from experiencing his disguise as a temporary phase only to subsequently restore his status as a male hero (as in the case of Achilles).⁶⁶ The permanence of Hercules’s antiheroic behavior is confirmed by his subsequent servitium amoris to Iole (120–130) and actual defeat by Deianira, which brings about his death. What should have represented just a momentary performance of effeminate behaviors, secondary to the main plot of Hercules’s narrative, becomes in Heroides 9 a more emphatic departure from his masculinity, as well as heroic status. Since—as Judith Butler showed—performing a gender means constructing, materializing, and finally becoming an embodiment of that gender, covering their own body with female clothes and jewels leads Hercules to inscribe that body into the symbolic space of femaleness.⁶⁷ In Heroides 9, Hercules’s performance of the female gender occurs within the narrative space of Deianira’s writing. His cross-dressing, therefore, should not be seen as an active appropriation of effeminacy but rather as a progressive construction produced by a minoritarian, female voice that amplifies such a performance by stressing its contrast with Hercules’s heroic deeds in the past. By reporting Hercules’s cross-dressing, downplaying his heroic status, and eventually causing his death, Deianira appropriates her identity as “slaughterer of men,” as well as simultaneously justifying her being the slaughterer of (her) man to her son, Hyllus. This justification is pursued by means of her epistle, which presents Hercules as an effeminate character, an “alterity,” a polluted entity that needs to be eliminated to avoid miasma.⁶⁸ Hercules, therefore, has been replaced by Deianira in his role as purifier and pacifier.⁶⁹ Not only does Deianira take on the role of the hero; she also seeks Hyllus’s acknowledgment in order for that role to become effective.

The following section from this episode (85–118) further contributes to the reduction of Hercules’s status. After listing Hercules’s labors again (85–100), Deianira wonders about the paradox that Hercules dares to tell of his glorious past while dressed in the Sidonian gown (Sidonio … amictu, 101).⁷⁰ She then asks ironically whether he is not ashamed to recall his deeds in such attire (“non cultu lingua retenta silet,” Does not your tongue stay silent, held back by your elegance? 102). As speechlessness is often depicted as a desirable and appropriate form of behavior for a woman in Greek and Roman sources,⁷¹ Hercules’s silence enhances his femininity and loss of authority. Hercules’s powerlessness finds its main expression in the description of Omphale’s triumphal attitude. Such a triumph must be read as an anticipation of Iole’s triumphal procession, as well as Deianira’s final “victory” over her husband.

After sarcastically encouraging Hercules to recount his great deeds (fortia gesta), Deianira claims that Omphale (indicated as nympha; 103)⁷² rightfully took on the role of the man that Hercules was not (106),⁷³ thereby fully accomplishing the gender role reversal between Hercules and herself.⁷⁴ Hercules is equally lesser than Omphale as it was greater to defeat him than those he had defeated; Omphale is now the true heir of Hercules’s achievements and successes (110).⁷⁵ By mentioning the tela … Lernaeis atra venenis (115–116), Deianira creates a sinister link between the darts anointed with the Hydra’s poisonous blood (one of Hercules’s famous weapons) and Hercules’s death by the blood of Nessus. Although at this point in the epistle Deianira is not yet supposed to be aware of Hercules’s agony, her mention of the poisoned darts appears to ironically forecast Hercules’s death. This allusion suggests to knowledgeable readers that Deianira may not be entirely unaware that Nessus’s blood would have also been poisonous.⁷⁶

Moreover, the mention of a femina bearing the tela (115), besides anticipating another female character dealing with poisonous weapons (i.e., Deianira herself), creates an antithesis between what is thought to pertain to men, namely, weapons, and the more traditional feminine weakness.⁷⁷ Such an antithesis is enhanced by the acknowledgment that the femina who now holds Hercules’s weapons appears to be hardly able to carry the spindle heavy with wool (116), representing spinning, a traditionally feminine task, as mentioned. The graphic similarity between tela as a second declension neuter plural, meaning “weapons,” and tela as a first declension feminine singular, meaning “loom” (or “cloth being woven,” more literally), produces a verbal pun, thus enhancing the overlap between feminine and masculine tasks or objects—between Omphale and Hercules. As she is now performing a masculine role, Omphale seems to have lost her ability to carry out the quintessentially female task of weaving, thereby becoming a perfect counterpart for Hercules’s extreme femininity.

At the same time, this reversal of roles between Omphale and Hercules does not seem to be entirely accomplished. Just as Hercules does not fit properly within both feminine clothes and attitudes (see 75–80), neither does Omphale seem entirely suited to playing a dominant male role. Although she takes up Hercules’s famous club (116–117), she looks at herself in a mirror while holding it (118), thereby showing a rather feminine attitude. Beyond being a programmatic elegiac object both in the Amores and in Ars amatoria, as well as representing a symbol of female vanity,⁷⁸ the speculum can be read as a way for Omphale to look at herself with her own eyes and from her own perspective, not as a reflection of others.⁷⁹ While she looks at herself adorned in the mirror, this contemplation concerns not only her own image as a woman, but also her image as a woman dressed up like a man, performing a male role and playing the part of the domina. By actively looking at her reflection, Omphale constructs her image, thereby dismantling the heteronormative, objectified version of herself. Omphale is thus both the literary elegiac domina who metaphorically enslaves the lover/poet and a true domina who has enslaved the greatest hero, Hercules.

Deianira’s contradictory, yet emphatic and exaggerated, description of Omphale as dominating and ruling over Hercules certainly draws from the comic and elegiac tradition, but it is also reworked in order to ridicule Hercules and diminish his status. Omphale and Iole play a pivotal role in the process of Hercules’s progressive degradation, as they both subvert traditional gender categories, thereby making Hercules appear particularly effeminate.⁸⁰ After they have taken on, and replaced, Hercules’s heroic role, Deianira appropriates her own prominent status at the end of her narrative through her (un)intentional murder of Hercules. The next section shows how the death of the “hero” is rhetorically justified and legitimated to Hyllus by Deianira’s epistle.

Nomen Est Omen: Iole, Hyllus, and Deianira

After the account of Hercules’s enslavement by Omphale, Deianira focuses on Iole’s arrival in Trachis (119–130), which is described according to patterns that recall the triumphal procession of an actual Roman general.⁸¹ Drawing from Sophocles’s Trachiniae (see 293–313, 351–374), this scene has been quite evidently adapted to the Roman context, both historical (i.e., the triumph) and literary (i.e., the elegiac patterns).⁸² The account of Iole’s procession as a Roman triumphator (“triumpher,” “conqueror”) upholds the coexistence of military and elegiac features that characterizes the entire letter. When Deianira starts describing Iole’s arrival, she stresses the antithesis between her initial disbelief as to what she heard (“licuit non credere famae. / et venit … ab aure dolor,” I could distrust the rumor; and the pain came through my ear; 119–120) and her subsequent acceptance of what she sees in reality, which cannot be denied any longer (“ante meos oculos adducitur advena paelex,” A foreigner-mistress is led before my eyes; 121). While the fama at 119 (see also 41) is thought to be unreliable (but will eventually turn out to be true), the fama bringing the news of Hercules’s agony at 143–144 will be immediately accepted by Deianira.⁸³ Besides showing that she has learned to trust (bad) news in contrast to her previous skepticism, the lack of any hesitation in believing the fama at lines 143–144 is a further indication that Deianira is to some extent aware of the effects that her robe would have had on Hercules.⁸⁴ The potential unreliability of the fama is replaced by the certainty that comes when the heroine sees Iole: this scene recalls once more the comic context, wherein the display of a female rival in love is a prominent feature.⁸⁵

In the heroine’s account of the procession, sight is particularly emphasized as Deianira describes Iole in physical terms: consider, for instance, ante meos oculos (“before my eyes,” 121), invitis oculis adspicienda (“to be looked upon by my unwilling eyes,” 124), late lato spectabilis auro(“visible from afar in plentiful gold,” 127), dat vultum … sublimis (129). Beyond evoking a theatrical scene, and thus linking Iole’s procession to the following irruption of the “news” in Deianira’s “literary stage” at 143–144, this emphatic visual description of Iole’s body and attire recalls the concept of scopophilia and the scopophilic male gaze, which scrutinizes and objectifies the female body.⁸⁶ Although Iole is described by an external voice, that is, objectified, “othered,” and put on display by Deianira, her prestige and power are nonetheless not reduced.

Iole has an attractive power that forces Deianira to view the scene, in spite of her unwillingness to watch: non sinis averti (123) conveys the idea of the magnetism of Iole’s image; captiva … invitis oculis adspicienda venit (123–124) suggests that Iole is put on display, to be watched by Deianira, as well as emphasizing Deianira’s (unwilling) inspection of Iole’s body.⁸⁷ Once Deianira starts watching the spectacle of (Hercules’s and) Iole’s procession, she cannot help focusing on the details of this view.⁸⁸ Iole’s hairstyle is said to be different from what one would expect of a prisoner (125), and she clearly reveals through her appearance the nature of her destiny, namely, that she is Hercules’s paramour and not simply a prisoner (126).⁸⁹ Accordingly, she is said to be spectabilis (both “to be seen”/“visible” and “admirable,” 127; see OLD, s.v. “spectabilis”) because of the huge amount of gold that covers her, which parallels Hercules’s exuberant attire during his servitude to Omphale (55–118). This analogy between Iole and Hercules is further developed by Deianira in the following couplet, where she states that Iole holds her head high (sublimis, 129), as if she had defeated Hercules (Hercule victo, 129), as Omphale did.⁹⁰ It seems that Oechalia is still standing and Iole’s father is alive (130), since Iole behaves like the winner, whereas Hercules is the defeated.⁹¹ The military and the elegiac spheres continue to overlap, thereby contributing to the subversion of traditional (gender and social) roles.

This reversal is enhanced by and interwoven with Deianira’s ambivalent attitude toward Iole. The heroine puts the prisoner on display through her detailed description, looking at her as a spectacle; her gaze is not only scopophilic but also articulates a narcissistic identification with the object itself, that is, with Iole as the defeater of Hercules.⁹² Like Omphale, Iole has defeated Hercules on two levels, both as a traditional elegiac mistress who metaphorically defeats the poet, and in actual and more concrete, quasi-military terms, since she seems to enter the city as a victorious Roman general having been awarded the triumphus.⁹³ Iole’s temporary victory anticipates Deianira’s irreversible win over her husband, and serves to enhance Hercules’s antiheroism. If we accept as plausible the hypothesis that Hyllus may be the actual addressee of the epistle, the emphatic description of Iole would give rise to further implications, namely, that Iole’s depiction is filtered for Hyllus through Deianira’s “scopophilic” gaze. The Ovidian Deianira thus seems to remember Trachiniae 1221–1229, where Hercules urged Hyllus to marry Iole after his death,⁹⁴ and portrays Iole so that she looks attractive to her son. The Ovidian heroine not only alludes to the Sophoclean intertext but also reenacts the role of Hercules by replacing him and endorsing his last will, that Hyllus marry Iole. Deianira’s presentation of Iole as a victorious hero is thus aimed to clarify (to knowledgeable readers) that she governs Hercules’s, Iole’s, and Hyllus’s destiny, being the master of her narrative.

The rhetorical nature of Deianira’s discourse also emerges quite clearly from the arrival of the news about Hercules’s agony at lines 143–144. As mentioned, these lines (143–144) can be thought of as filling the gaps of the Trachiniae, so that the letter Deianira is writing hic et nunc would be the cause for Hyllus’s change of attitude toward his mother at the end of Sophocles’s play.⁹⁵ As soon as a generic nuntia … fama reports to Deianira that Hercules is dying because of the “poison” (tabe, 144)⁹⁶ that spread from the robe she sent to him (tunicae … meae, 144), the letter starts to be characterized by a more agitated tone and disjointed language, as we have seen. This change of accents is expressed through an increased use of rhetorical direct questions and exclamatory sentences, which start at line 145 with an expression that recalls a well-known elegiac (and nonelegiac) motif: “quo me furor egit amantem” (Where has madness driven me in my love?).⁹⁷ Deianira’s distress progressively intensifies, as appears from the refrain at lines 146, 152, 158, and 164 (“inpia quid dubitas Deianira mori,” O wicked Deianira, why do you hesitate to die?), which can be interpreted as the result of Deianira’s loss of control over her writing.⁹⁸ At the same time, the emphatic repetition of her given name, Deianira, also suggests that the heroine fully embraces her identity, thereby fulfilling the destiny encapsulated in her name, that is, to be “slaughterer of men,” of her man.⁹⁹ Finally, the death she forecasts for herself (“quid dubitas … mori”) is the marker of her appropriation of an epic and tragic code, wherein (male) heroes frequently appear to be willing to embrace death upon finding themselves ashamed of their own actions. Through this refrain, therefore, while stating her will to die immediately, Deianira also underlines her active role in Hercules’s death, which restores the order that was broken by Hercules’s cross-dressing and consequent loss of his heroic status.

Such an ambivalent attitude continues in the following lines, where Deianira claims that she cannot survive the death of her coniunx (“husband,” 147). The reference to Hercules as coniunx (147) recalls the previous occurrence of the word at 118, where it referred to Hercules as Omphale’s paramour, thereby evoking the previous gender role reversals and Hercules’s loss of dignity. On a similar note, Deianira emphasizes her status as Herculis uxor (149; see 27), which is a rather periphrastic way to refer to herself compared to the repetition of her own given name in the refrain. On the one hand, Deianira’s legitimate union with Hercules seems to give her a role within her family and society;¹⁰⁰ on the other hand, by killing Hercules, the heroine has gained independent status, as well as replacing Hercules as the hero of her narrative. Accordingly, when Deianira says that the pignus (“proof” and “pledge”) of her union with Hercules is her death (“coniugii mors mea pignus erit”; 150),¹⁰¹ she alludes to her suicide as a form of legitimation not only of her status as Hercules’s uxor but also as an equally (anti)heroic counterpart of her husband. In other words, Deianira can be believed to be Hercules’s wife only after having demonstrated that she can slaughter a man like Hercules, as well as killing herself heroically, like a male hero.

This heroic suicide is recontextualized vis-à-vis Deianira’s family history. After mentioning her brothers and relatives (151–156), the heroine refers to her mother, Althaea: “exegit ferrum sua per praecordia mater” (My mother drove the sword through her own heart; 157).¹⁰² Deianira’s reference to her family members recalls the episode of the killing of Meleager by his mother, Althaea, and therefore analogically alludes to Deianira’s responsibility for Hercules’s death.¹⁰³ Moreover, Althaea’s suicide forecasts Deianira’s self-murder and establishes a link between mother and daughter. In most ancient sources Althaea hangs herself, whereas in Heroides 9.157 she is said to have killed herself by sword.¹⁰⁴ While the sword is a weapon suited for men’s heroic deaths and is therefore uncommon for women, it is also the tool used by Deianira to kill herself in the Trachiniae (see 930–931).¹⁰⁵ The heroine’s mention of the death of Meleager, along with the reference to her mother’s self-murder by sword, reinforces the connection between Deianira as the slaughterer of Hercules and Deianira as a heroic self-murderer.

The heroine seemingly gives up her self-agency by pointing out Nessus’s culpability at 161–163; in fact, she hints again at her responsibility by using a verb in the first person singular: “inlita Nesseo misi tibi texta veneno” (I sent to you the robe saturated with Nessus’s poisonous blood; 163). While Sara Lindheim has interpreted this passage as evidence of Deianira’s weakness and passive role, I side with Sergio Casali, who argues that line 163 represents the highest point of tragic irony within Heroides 9.¹⁰⁶ By stating that she sent to Hercules inlita Nesseo … texta veneno, Deianira implies that she knew from the start that Nessus’s blood was deadly. Far from underscoring Deianira’s lack of initiative, this passage emphasizes, through the use of tragic irony, the heroine’s active role, as well as involvement, in Hercules’s death. Thus, Deianira’s display of her weakness can be interpreted as a sort of masquerade, an intentional demonstration of hyperfeminine patterns, through which the heroine is compensating and balancing the male role that she has taken on.¹⁰⁷ By stating something and implying something else, Deianira enacts her rhetorical strategies and continues her ambivalent as well as highly ironic discourse, which culminates in the final lines of her epistle.

Before addressing Hyllus in the last line of her letter, Deianira mentions her father, her sister Gorge,¹⁰⁸ her native land, and her brother Meleager, as well as invoking the light, thereby drawing on a well-established pattern in the tragic genre (167).¹⁰⁹ In her final reference to Hercules, virque, and her son (168), Deianira plays with the double function of vale (virque—sed o possis!— … vale!), which, beyond being a greeting and closing formula, literally means “to be strong/healthy”—precisely what Hercules is not.¹¹⁰ Both Howard Jacobson and Sara Lindheim argued that Deianira’s farewell confirms her desire to be (and be remembered as) the wife of Hercules and the mother of his children.¹¹¹ Yet, Deianira’s mention of Hyllus as the last person to be named within the epistle may be due to different reasons: Hyllus is the actual addressee of the letter, as Hercules is in agony or has already died; accordingly, (Ovid’s) Deianira plays ironically with her main source, Sophocles, where Hyllus reports to Hercules Deianira’s suicide and defends her after having discovered somehow that she is in fact innocent. In light of the Sophoclean model, the content of Heroides 9 suggests that Hyllus’s change of mind about his mother’s actions is caused by the reading of Deianira’s epistle. The heroine does not simply aim to justify herself to Hyllus; she also legitimates herself, as well as the destiny inscribed in her name, being “slaughterer of men,” of her man.

Deianira, however, does not accept such a destiny passively but pursues it through a well-calculated process and articulated rhetorical strategies, which range from the emphasis on herself as Herculis uxor (27–30) to the description of Hercules’s cross-dressing (55–118) and complete (love) defeat (119–130), before culminating with Hercules’s death (143–144). Therefore, Deianira’s relationship with Hyllus, alongside the possibility that she is addressing her letter to him, must be read vis-à-vis the heroine’s construction of herself as a heroic (wo)man. “Deianira” seeks to (re)appropriate herself both as a name and as a person, together with the meaning her name implies. The name Deianira (“slaughterer of men”) thus becomes a semantic and at the same time symbolic space for the development of her subjective identity. The etymological potential of this name is developed through a contradictory, ambiguous, and highly ironic discourse, which leads to the progressive degradation of the male hero and the appropriation of a masculine role.

Deianira manufactures her persona through her writing, thereby reconstructing her identity as a subject of discourse. Yet, as she keeps her agency hidden, her dominant role must be read through the filter of her ironic speech. As a writer of her epistle, Deianira displays a defeated male hero to her son, Hyllus, but without fully revealing herself. Deianira— “slaughterer of men”—shapes the story from an external, omniscient perspective without fully entering it: by maintaining her liminality and ambiguity, she reinforces the blurring between genders, social roles, and familial relationships. As we saw with Penelope in the previous chapter, the heroine’s manipulation of her maternal relationship with her son is crucial for the appropriation of agency and self-determination within her narrative. Self-determination is achieved through ironic language and the adoption of ambivalent attitudes. Penelope fluctuates between her role as a faithful wife and the master of a female-led household; Deianira oscillates between her subsidiary role as the wife of a famous hero and her self-empowerment as the murderer of that hero. The polysemy, ambiguity, and irony characterizing the heroines’ discourse serve to destabilize conventional dichotomies and rules; their multidimensionality grants them (limited) agency within the fictional world that they create. Through her writing, Deianira can be, simultaneously, Herculis uxor, Hyllus’s mother, and Deianira, “slaughterer of men.”

1. On the sources of Her. 9, see Jacobson 1974, 235–236; on intertextuality and allusivity, see Casali 1995b, 505–509; Pattoni 1995, 537–564; Fulkerson 2005, 108–109. For Deianira as a mythological figure, see Escher in RE IV 2378–2382, s.v. “Deïaneira.”

2. Jacobson 1974, 236–237.

3. Kratzer 2013, 25, with bibliography.

4. For this reason, Hercules’s nostos has been compared to Agamemnon’s return, and Deianira has been linked with Clytemnestra: see Wohl 2010, 57–58; Kratzer 2013, 36, 43.

5. See Jacobson 1974, 240–241; in Sophocles, by contrast, Deianira seems to have different concerns (see Trach. 550–551).

6. It seems that two tragic poets, Ion of Chios and Achaeus, wrote an ’Oμφάλη σατυρικὴ (i.e., a satyr play about Omphale), while two poets of Middle Comedy, Antiphanes and Cratinus jun., wrote an ’Oμφάλη where Hercules abandoned himself to sexual pleasures; see Jacobson 1974, 237–238; see Apollod. Bibl. 2.6.1–2. Hercules fluctuates through various literary genres, including epic, tragedy, and comedy. The coincidence of both tragic and comic aspects in his personality is widely attested throughout the classical tradition, in both Greek (e.g., Sophocles’s Trachiniae and Euripides’s Hercules; Aristophanes’s Ranae; Apollonius’s Argonautica) and Latin literature (e.g., Plautus’s Amphitruo; Seneca’s Hercules furens, Hercules Oetaeus); see Galinsky 1972; Liapis 2006, 48–59; Papadopoulou 2005, 4: “An aspect of Heracles which is evident in every examination of him is his fundamental ambivalence.” For gender instability in the representations of the Hercules/Omphale episode in Roman art, see Kampen 1996, 233–246.

7. In Prop. 4.9.47–50, Hercules refers to his cross-dressing and servitude to Omphale in order to be admitted to the sanctuary of the Bona Dea, whose access was traditionally restricted to women only; see, e.g., Janan 1998, 65–77; Lindheim 1998, 43–66; Welch 2004, 61–90; Panoussi 2015, 179–194.

8. This process of delegitimation appears more emphasized in Her. 9 than in the Trachiniae: see Fabre-Serris 2010, 14–16. For the gender ambiguity implied in Hercules’s cross-dressing, see Loraux 1990, 33–40; Carlà-Uhink 2017, 13–14.

9. See, e.g., Trach. 320–321: εἴπ᾽ ὦ τάλαιν᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ἡμὶν ἐκ σαυτῆς· ἐπεὶ / καὶ ξυμφορά τοι μὴ εἰδέναι σέ γ᾽ ἥτις εἶ (tell me, poor girl yourself, it is a pity for me not to know who you are!).

10. Fabre-Serris 2010, 20.

11. For a definition and discussion of the male spectator’s scopophilic gaze, see Mulvey 1989, 14–26.

12. As we shall see, this delegitimation is eventually accomplished through a female (and matrilineal) appropriation of “the name of the Father”; see Maclean 1994, 57–58.

13. Deianira’s request to Hyllus resembles Penelope’s request to her son to go in search of Ulysses in Her. 1 (see above, chapter 1).

14. Deianira’s silence in the Trachiniae is antithetic to her writing in Her. 9—just as Penelope’s letter fills up the silence imposed on her by Telemachus in the Odyssey (above, chapter 1).

15. Wender 1974, 1, 9, 11–14; Wohl 2010, 57–58.

16. See Trach. 1136, ἅπαν τὸ χρῆμ᾽ ἥμαρτε χρηστὰ μωμένη (she did everything wrong, but her intent was good); for Deianira’s hamartia, see Wohl 2010, 51–65.

17. This reference to the fama has appeared inconsistent vis-à-vis other mentions of the fama within the epistle: see Her. 9.3–4, with Vessey 1969, 350–352; see also Aen. 4.188 and 9.474 (nuntia fama).

18. Casali 1995b, 508.

19. Barchiesi 2001, 31.

20. See Curley 2013, 65, 83.

21. Besides the presence of a refrain and the change of scenario, another argument against Ovidian authorship is represented by the metrical and structural anomalies: see Courtney 1965, 66; Vessey 1969, 349–361. Although Ovidian authorship is highly debated, I side with the scholars who have demonstrated that Her. 9 may reasonably be considered authentic: Jacobson 1974, 228–234; Rosati 1989, 19–20; Casali 1995, 196–197; Murgatroyd 2014, 853n3.

22. See Casali 1995, 197.

23. Vessey 1969, 349–361.

24. Fulkerson 2005, 116: “Deianira loses control over her story (and letter) to such a degree that it includes a refrain of the kind often found in magical rituals”; see also Vessey 1969, 354–355. The use of a refrain is not a novelty in Ovid’s poetry (see, e.g., Am. 1.6.24, 32, 40, 56) and can be found also in Catullus (see Catull. 61 and 62), as well as Virgil (Ecl. 8).

25. As a possible addressee of Her. 9, Hyllus may be seen as the indirect agent of Deianira’s reshaping and adaptation of her epistle, which is adjusted according to its potential reader; on reader-response as an agent for the creation of the text, see Bleich 1978. Writing thus blurs the boundaries between author and reader (see Barthes 1975, 16).

26. See Jacobson 1974, 166; Philippides 1996, 428.

27. Jolivet 2001, 185.

28. For another example of Ovid’s interplay with his tragic sources, see below, chapter 3, on Her. 4.3–4, where epistula lecta alludes to Euripides’s deltos (Hipp. 856).

29. See Casali 1995, 31, for a discussion on the introductory formula (“mittor ad Alciden a coniuge conscia mentis / littera, si coniunx Deianira tua est”), which is reported by a minority of manuscripts and considered spurious by most editors.

30. See Soph. Trach. 293–294; for a similar use of gratulor, see Her. 6.3, where Hypsipyle ironically rejoices at Jason’s safety; see Lindheim 2003, 66.

31. See also Prop. 4.9.45–50; Sen. HO 753: “ille victor vincitur maeret dolet” (That victor is defeated, complains, and suffers); see Casali 1995b, 505.

32. See Prop. 2.5.14, 3.11.4; Ov. Rem. am. 90; Her. 6.97; see also Davies 1991 on Trach. 536. On the animalization of Hercules through the expression inposuisse iugum, see Jacobson 1974, 239–240; Lindheim 2003, 67.

33. For Juno as Hercules’s noverca, see Verg. Aen. 8.288; Prop. 4.9.44; Ars am. 2.217; Met. 9.15, 135, 181; Fast. 6.800. For the depiction of stepmothers as cruel to their stepchildren, see OLD, s.v. “nouerca,” b; Hor. Epod. 5.9–10; Sen. HO 561; Stat. Silv. 5.2.80; also Her. 12.188; Met. 9.181; Sen. Pha. 356–357; for other examples, see Otto 1890, s.v. “noverca.” Literary accounts, however, were often exaggerated and typified (see Treggiari 1991, 394–395; Watson 1995, 113–128; Dixon 2001, 24–25).

34. Moreover, in elegy Jupiter is often invoked to protect adulterous affairs: see Prop. 1.13.29, 32; 2.2.4; 7.2.3, 30; 2.26.46; 2.30.27–32; 2.32.57–60; Ov. Am. 1.3.21–24, 1.10.3–8, 2.19.27–30, 3.8.29–30; Ars am. 1.713–714; for further references to Hercules’s conception, see Plaut. Amph. 110–115; Diod. Sic. 4.9.2–3; Sen. HF 23–26, 1147–1159; HO 1863–1867; Hyg. Fab. 29.

35. For other examples of this model of bastardy, see certain characters of the Arthurian cycle or, with some variants, Abraham’s myth, with Maclean 1994, 49.

36. See Penelope in Her. 1.97–98; also Trach. 1151–1156.

37. See Plaut. Amph. 110–115; Verg. Aen. 8.103 and 214 vs. 301; Prop. 4.9.1; Met. 9.23–26, 140; 15.12 vs. 49.

38. Lindheim 2003, 66–69; also Jacobson 1974, 241; Bolton 1997, 428–429.

39. See Escher in RE IV 2378–2382, s.v. “Deïaneira”; see also Lindheim 2003, 74. For a more contemporary perspective on patriarchal appropriation of women’s names, see Maclean 1994.

40. Bolton 1997, 433–434. Barchiesi (1993, 342–343) suggests that Deianira is inpia because in Her. 9 she hesitates to follow the path laid down for her in the Trachiniae.

41. See Soph. Trach. 860–861: ἁ δ᾽ ἀμφίπολος Κύπρις ἄναυδος φανερὰ / τῶνδ᾽ ἐφάνη πράκτωρ (and the Cyprian, silent in attendance, is revealed as the doer of these things).

42. For such military imagery applied to love poetry, see Prop. 1.1.4; Ov. Rem. am. 530; see OLD, s.v. “premo,” 8.

43. For the variant readings of this line, see Goold 1977, 108–109; Casali 1995, 49–50.

44. See Hom. Il. 13.618; for similar expressions, see Verg. Aen. 10.495–496; Ov. Met. 8.425.

45. See Prop. 1.1.4, 1.10.27–28; Her. 4.149.

46. See Herzog-Hauser in RE XVIII 385–396, s.v. “Omphale”; for Omphale’s episode on Pompeian walls, see Knox 2014, 42–43, with bibliography.

47. See Am. 1.8.46, 2.18.37. For the use of crimen within the Heroides, see Her. 4.18, 31; 16.296; 17.17, 31, 48, 95; 19.105, 112; 20.7 (“adultery”); 4.25, 58; 11.49, 64, 66; 15.19 (ambiguity between “adultery” and actual “crime”); see Burger in TLL online, IV 0, 1190–1195, s.v. “crimen.”

48. Loraux 1990, 35–39; see also Bolton 1997, 430–431; on the motif of Hercules’s cross-dressing across other literary genres (particularly comedy), see Jolivet 2001, 130–141.

49. Turner 1982, 12.

50. Bolton 1997, 429–430.

51. In Soph. Trach. 1089–1111, Hercules complains that his hands and arms have been defeated by a woman.

52. Shaggy locks have a masculine valence; see Ingleheart 2010 on Tr. 2.259; see also Prop. 4.9.49.

53. For Hercules’s poplar crown, see Theoc. Id. 2.121; Paus. 5.14.2; Verg. Ecl. 7.61; G. 2.66; Aen. 8.276; Sen. HF 893–894. Worn also by men in the non-Roman “East,” the mitra was considered a symbol of effeminacy by “western” Roman authors: see Verg. Aen. 4.215–218, 9.614–620.

54. For the adjective Maeonius in connection with effeminacy, see Aen. 4.215–218.

55. For the Meander as a traditionally oriental geographical feature, see Cic. Pis. 53; Ov. Her. 7.2; Met. 2.246, 8.162, 9.451; Plin. HN 5.113.

56. Levick 2010, 40–49.

57. See CIL I 2.581; Livy 39.17–18.

58. On Augustus’s symbolical reconstruction of the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, see Zanker 1988, 66–69; Galinsky 1996, 213–224.

59. See Zanker 1988, 44–77. For the connection between Mark Antony, Dionysus, and Hercules, see Plut. Ant. 24; see also Hekster 2004, 171–178; Panoussi 2016, 184–185.

60. For cross-dressing in the eastern Roman Empire, see Icks 2017, 65–82.

61. On the connections between Her. 9 and Prop. 3.11, see Casali 1995b, 505.

62. Nethercut 1971, 411–443; Wyke 2002, 195–200; Hekster 2004, 171–178.

63. See Sen. HO 1783–1796. For Diomedes, see Eur. HF 380–388; Met. 9.194–195; Ib. 381–382, 401–402; Pont. 1.2.120–121; for Busiris, see Bömer 1977 on Met. 9.182–183; Laurens in LIMC III 1.147–152; Sen. HF 483–484; HO 25–26; for Antaeus, see Bömer 1977 on Met. 9.183–184; Ib. 399–400; Olmos and Balmaseda in LIMC I 1.800–811.

64. For mollis to refer to effeminate heroes, see Hor. Epod. 1.10; Ov. Tr. 2.411; Quint. Inst. 5.9.14; see Jacobson 1974, 240. The expression vir mollis was often used to indicate a cinaedus (see, e.g., Young 2015, 199–201; Eppinger 2017, 204): see, e.g., Livy 33.28.2; Sen. Ag. 687; Mart. 1.96.10, 3.73.4.

65. For the meaning of domina in an elegiac context, see Kapp in TLL online, V 1, 1935–1941, s.v. “dom(i)na”; for Omphale as domina, see Ars am. 2.221; Fast. 2.305; Mart. 9.65.11. On Deianira’s strategic manipulation of the traditional catalogues of Hercules’s labors, see Leventi 2022, 77–88.

66. Loraux 1990, 34–35 (= 1995, 130). For the ritual component of Achilles’s cross-dressing, as well as the irony implied in the Statian episode, see Heslin 2005, 145–152, 193–236; also Cyrino 1998, 226–239.

67. In Butler’s words, “But how, then, does the notion of gender performativity relate to this conception of materialization? In the first instance, performativity must be understood not as a singular or deliberate ‘act’, but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names” (Butler 1993, xii).

68. On Hercules’s “impurity,” see Girard 1977, 44–46; Foley 1985, 159.

69. See Soph. Trach. 1010–1016; Sen. HO 1–103; for the ambivalence of Hercules as a purifier, see Papadopoulou 2005, 20–24.

70. See Prop. 4.9.47; Ov. Fast. 2.319; Sen. HF 467; the Sidonio … amictu may be an ironic reference to the robe that Deianira will send to Hercules (see line 163).

71. See Telemachus’s speech at Od. 1.345–359 (above, chapter 1). As for the Roman world, talkativeness and initiative in women were linked to sexual desire, which was considered to be a sign of corruption and lasciviousness: see Dixon 2001, 36–40; also Dutsch 2008, 199, on women perceived as garrulous in the ancient world.

72. The substantive nympha as a generic “girl” may be an Ovidian invention: see Her. 1.27, 9.50, with Casali 1995, 95–96.

73. For the alternative reading fortia facta, see Casali 1995, 157; for the alternation between quo, quem, quod, quom in the manuscripts and editions, see Goold 1977, 116.

74. According to Fabre-Serris (2010, 18–19), by wearing Hercules’s arms and looking at herself in the mirror (see 118), Omphale is appropriating a masculine attitude.

75. For Deianira’s use of juridical language in these lines (109–110: see, e.g., procedit; cede bonis; heres) to enhance Omphale’s dominant role, see Casali 1995, 159–160.

76. See Trach. 572–577; for tragic irony, see Casali 1995, 163–164; Casali 1995b, 505–509; for the Sophoclean Deianira, see Scott 1997, 33–47.

77. See Prop. 3.11.1–4; Her. 3.144, 7.121; Verg. Aen. 1.364; also Trach. 1062–1063, where Hercules feels ashamed of having been defeated by a woman.

78. For the opposition between the mirror, which belongs to the elegiac world, and the weapons, which belong to the military and epic context, see Casali 1995, 166–167.

79. As per Irigaray 1985, the mirror is a means for patriarchal-based societies to shape the image of women according to their own needs and discourse, thus making them unable to become actual subjects of that discourse.

80. See Gerlinger 2011, 304.

81. For the Roman triumph, see Beard 2007 (107–142 on captives); the military triumph may also become a metaphor in love elegy: see Ov. Am. 1.2.19–52.

82. For the difference between Deianira’s attitude toward Iole in Sophocles and Ovid, see Jacobson 1974, 350–351; Pattoni 1991, 126–142.

83. On fama as an agent of literary creation in Deianira’s letter, see Jolivet 2001, 146–148. For unreliable or ambiguous fama, see Vetter in TLL online, VI 1, 211.11–34, s.v. “fama.” The idea that eyes are more reliable than ears is a literary topos: see Hor. Ars p. 180–181; Ov. Ars am. 2.402–408; cf. Ov. Am. 3.14.45–46; see Pattoni 1991, 129–134.

84. Casali 1995, 215.

85. See Plaut. Rud. 1045–1048; Ter. Haut. 1041–1043; Eun. 623; Ov. Fast. 3.483.

86. “The intellectual woman looks and analyses, and in usurping the gaze she poses a threat to an entire system of representation. It is as if the woman had forcefully moved to the other side of the specular” (Doane 1982, 83).

87. For inviti … oculi in Ovid, see Her. 18.4; Met. 6.628; Pont. 1.9.4; see also Prop. 1.15.39–40.

88. For the theatricality of the scene of Iole’s entrance, see Jolivet 2001, 163–174.

89. Scholars have proposed different readings of line 126, such as vultum … tegendo, vultu … tegente, vultu … decente; see Goold 1977, 116; Casali 1995, 172–175.

90. By contrast, prisoners were supposed to keep their eyes down (see, e.g., Ov. Tr. 4.2.29). The mention of the populus at 129 supports the idea that Ovid is depicting the scene of a Roman triumph, where Iole is the triumphant hero: see Am. 1.2.25; Tr. 4.2.19, 48.

91. Lindheim 2003, 69–70; Fabre-Serris 2010, 21.

92. Fabre-Serris 2010, 20–23; Doane 1982, 78: “For the female spectator there is a certain over-presence of the image—she is the image. Given the closeness of this relationship, the female spectator’s desire can be described only in terms of a kind of narcissism—the female look demands a becoming.”

93. Casali 1995, 177.

94. Casali 1995, 218–219. Such a marriage is felt by Hercules as a way of perpetuating his line; see Bergson 1993, 112–115.

95. Jolivet 2001, 184–187, 190–191.

96. See OLD, s.v. “tabes,” 3.

97. For furor egit, see Verg. Aen. 9.760–761; Her. 13.34; also Verg. Ecl. 2.69: “quae te dementia cepit” (Which madness took hold of you?). Furor is also connected with Hercules’s madness, as Hercules is notably furens in Seneca’s drama.

98. See Fulkerson (2005, 116), who connects this refrain to magical rituals (see also Bolton 1997, 433, on this refrain as self-recrimination); by contrast, Vessey (1969, 354) considers the refrain as evidence for the epistle’s inauthenticity.

99. Lindheim 2003, 74; see Soph. Trach. 1064–1065: ὦ παῖ, γενοῦ μοι παῖς ἐτήτυμος γεγώς, / καὶ μὴ τὸ μητρὸς ὄνομα πρεσβεύσῃς πλέον (my son, become my true-born son, and do not honor the name of your mother more!).

100. Lindheim 2003, 66–67, 74.

101. Casali 1995, 204. The meaning of pignus (i.e., “child”) suggests that Deianira may be making a further allusion to Hyllus: see OLD, s.v. “pignus,” 4 (“applied to children as the guarantee of the reality of a marriage”); Prop. 4.11.73; Ov. Her. 6.122, 11.113; Met. 3.134, 5.523.

102. See Her. 4.57–58, Phaedra’s reference to Pasiphaë.

103. Casali 1995, 204–206.

104. See Diod. Sic. 4.34.7; schol. Stat. Theb. 2.481, 4.103, with Casali 1995, 211.

105. Casali 1995, 211–212. “It is highly unusual for a tragic heroine to end her life with the sword” (Davies 1991 on Trach. 930–931); see also Wender 1974, 13. For feminine deaths in tragedy, see Loraux 1987 (especially 7–30).

106. Lindheim 2003, 64–65; Casali 1995, 215.

107. Doane 1988–1989, 43 (quoting Riviere): “Womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it.”

108. See Met. 8.543; see Malten in RE VII 2.1596–1597, s.v. “Gorge.”

109. See, e.g., Soph. Aj. 854–858; Eur. IA 1505–1509; Hec. 411–413; Alc. 17–18.

110. For a similar wordplay, see Her. 4.1; also Tr. 3.3.87–88.

111. Jacobson 1974, 242; Lindheim 2003, 65–66.