Echoes of Ovid in Claudian’s Carmina Minora 9 and 28

The paper focuses on two Claudian’s carmina minora, where the presence of Ovid has been often overlooked by critics. In carm. min. 9 (Hystrix), through allusions to the monstrous Calydonian boar described by Ovid (met. viii. 284-289), Claudian represents the small porcupine like the fabulous creature of Ovidian myth. In carm. min. 28 (Nilus) the final scene of the Egyptian land almost entirely turned into a flooded plain (vv. 37-42) evokes, at least approximately, the famous description of the landscape after the flood sent by Jupiter to destroy humanity in Ov. met. i. 291-303. Moreover, at v. 23 the reading vallata – attested just in one manuscript – may be defended against the vulgate velata, in comparing two Ovidian passages: in Claudian the weird hairstyle of Nubian peoples on the one hand recalls the kind of vallum on the rooftops of the Getae (Ov. Pont. i. 2. 21), on the other hand the rayed crown of the Son-god evoked by Phaedra (Ov. epist. 4. 159)