Aetna Against Henna and the Poetics of Claudian’s De Raptu Proserpinae

Abstract

Whether Claudian placed the seizure of Proserpina at Aetna or at Henna in his De Raptu Proserpinae is a controversial issue due to manuscript disagreement over place names. Looking at the question through a literary lens, this article argues in favour of locating the rape at Aetna. It sketches some critical approaches to Claudian’s De Raptu in regards to the poem’s structure and its relationship to literary models. It then considers what is at stake in understanding Aetna rather than Henna as the place of the rape and uses recent work on Claudian’s literary practices to assess the arguments.