Nox missa ab ortu. Variazioni del motivo astronomico nel mito di Tieste e Atreo

In Seneca’s Thyestes, reversal of the sun’s course and eclipsing of daylight are very prominent features, strongly developed at a rhetoric level and symbolising the cosmic disruption provoked by nefas. However, the motif does not reflect scientific knowledge in Antiquity; moreover, a deep look at the prior tradition shows that such an interpretation is strongly influenced by the peculiar poetics of the author. In Greek tradition, astronomical details are attested in the first evidence already, but their function is totally different; it is only in Latin literature of Augustan age that reversal of the sun’s course becomes a conventional trait in hinting at the anthropophagic feast.