Qui volunt eos cognoscere, Argonautas legant

Abstract

The late antique De excidio Troiae historia, supposedly written by a soldier in the Trojan War, Dares the Phrygian, encourages the reader to consult a work called Argonautae. This article discusses three possibilities of how to understand this reference—it could either be a comment by the real author of this pseudonymous work, or the supposed translator Nepos, or the ostensible author Dares. It argues that audiences in antiquity were familiar with the idea of literature written prior to the Trojan War, and debates the possibility that the Trojan Dares might refer to a poem about the Argonauts which was composed by the mythical Orpheus. It comes to the conclusion that the reference is intentionally ambiguous.