How Nonnus Employs Aratus' Astronomy in the Dionysiaca: a Case Study

This contribution aims to show Nonnus’ intertextual strategies by looking at the presences of Aratus’ Phaenomena in the Dionysiaca. In order to do so, I analyze a passage I consider particularly significant, i.e. Dion. 1.448-467, where Typhon promises Cadmus a series of catasterisms in exchange for his music. I argue that the Panopolitan places himself at the intersection point of a crossroads between two dimensions that are strictly connected to each other. The first one, vertical, enables us, in retrospect, to discover what Aratean elements attracted the author’s interest and how he incorporated them in his poem through refined games of variatio and interpretatio. The second one, horizontal, concerns the cultural (especially philosophical) context in which Nonnus works, that serves to explain the meaning of the employment of Aratus’ poem. The importance of such a study lies in the opportunity to understand and appreciate both Nonnus’ thematic and linguistic complexity, since it involves both thematic and linguistic analysis of a source that deals with a subject, i.e. astronomy, to which he devotes a lot of space in his work, in the light of the specific historical moment he lives. This context provided the author with the guidelines for the creation of a “Dionysian” astronomy. As innovation of the traditional astronomical genre, the latter represents one of the several manifestations of ποικιλία, as well as an attempt to lead ποικιλία to a sort of unity, in a Neoplatonic perspective. In conclusion, this contribution proves that Nonnus re-elaborates his model and finally outclasses it in order to build something new which leans on the philosophical background of his age. Therefore, it also allows us to better evaluate the relevance of Hellenistic poetry inside of a poem based primarily on Homer.