Camilla e Ippolita, ovvero un paradosso e il suo rovescio

Abstract

Virgil introduces the character of Camilla at the end of the catalog of heroes in Book VII of the Aeneid (vv. 803-817): this choice sets in motion a real trend in post-Virgilian epic (ex. Ov. met. VIII 324 ff.; Val. Fl V 610 ff.). The figure of Hippolyta in the twelfth book of the Thebaid of Statius, placed at the end of the procession of female prisoners of war, represents a signaling point which is, so as to say, the opposite of the extraordinary final appearance of Camilla: if Camilla represented a new model of a young warrior true to its code of heroic values and virginity, Hippolyta, defeated and disarmed, is the emblem of the Amazon who has abandoned her nature in order to dive into the new reality of wife and mother.