#claudian

~ Sardonyx cameo portrait of the Emperor Augustus.

Period: Early Imperial, Claudian

Date: ca. A.D. 41–54

Culture: Roman

I assume you're thinking about this passage from Book 3 of Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae:

Propaganda under the cut!

So I have a bit of an admitted biased against Ancient Roman versions of Greek myths. The Romans had very different taste from the Greeks and I usually don’t like versions of their myths so I went into this feeling pretty skeptical. For the reference, I’m talking about this translation.

Each section of Claudian’s poem starts with a preface about something kind of unrelated to the actual story. Let it be noted that the poetry itself is very nice to read and mentions a bunch of other cthonic deities but it immediately starts on an ominous note about an “infernal chariot” and “the gloomy chambers of the queen of Hell.” 

Basically, Hades was the original incel and wanted to start a war because he was being denied sex and children. Yikes. So the Fates (specifically Lachesis) went to him and begged him not to start a war because it will mess up the delicate balance of things and ruin the truce between the three brothers, She says instead he should ask Zeus for a wife. Hades gives word to Hermes and basically is like, “Zeus, you have tons of ladies and tons of kids and I have no kids so you’re being really greedy here. Deny me and I’ll let all the monsters of Hades and our evil dad go free.” This is not a sympathetic Hades at all. The fixation on children specifically as opposed to Persephone herself or companionship is also really unique since in most versions of myths Hades and Persephone don’t even have children.

We cut to Demeter who is apparently barren and so dependence on Persephone is really emphasized. Again, Claudian has an obsession with children. Also notable is that Persephone is being pursued by Apollo and Ares so Demeter hides her in Sicily at Aetna. With her safe, Demeter takes off in her yellow serpent drawn chariot to Mount Ida.

Zeus asks Aphrodite to go do her work on Seph because he decided she will be Hades’ wife (as directed by Atropos) and she sets out with Athena and Artemis. Seph meanwhile is embroidering the creation of the world and when she gets to making the underworld, she starts suddenly crying as foreshadowing. The girls show up and take her outside to hang out.

Book II

The poem goes into a lot of detail about how they look and specifically Persephone’s awesome sun and moon dress. Aphrodite says, “Hey, let’s pick flowers!” and Seph and Athena make flower crowns (Artemis pointedly does not).

Then Hades comes up to take Persephone and in the process Athena and Artemis try to fight against him but Zeus basically sends a lightning bolt to tell them not to because obviously, he planned and allowed this.

Persephone on the way down asks out loud of Zeus what the heck she did wrong to deserve this fate. Mostly she’s sad about losing the light of day for the gloomy underworld; she doesn’t seem to be specifically annoyed about the marriage. It kind of implied earlier that she was somewhat interested in a marriage. Hades, feeling sympathy and love for her, wipes away her tears and tells her that it’s not so bad, the underworld has its own kind of light, and she’ll have riches, and her own tree, and lots of power because death makes everyone equal.

Once in the underworld, all the residents there get super happy and a wedding is prepared. We get a weird moment of Night (I’m assuming Nyx) blessing the wedding bed for the promise of grandchildren for Demeter because Claudian has a kink.

Book III

Zeus gathers together all the gods and says if they tell Demeter what happened he will punish the heck out of them and give them over to Hades for torturing.

Demeter meanwhile is having some troubling dreams about a plant being destroyed that was some metaphor for Persephone’s virginity and then of Seph chained up in a prison and it being her fault she’s there. She goes to Seph’s house and finds it empty so she asks Electra, the nurse, what happened. Electra tells her about the goddesses coming to hang out with her and the charioteer but says she didn’t know who it was. A nymph got crushed into water in the process before she could identify the rider either.

Demeter goes out to curse to the heavens (like mother like daughter) but no one will tell her what’s up because of Zeus’ threat. She creates a volcano and then goes off to find out what happened.

The poem was unfinished so it ends there.