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Ariadne's Mitra: A Note on Catullus 64.61–4

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Gail Tatham
Gail Tatham
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
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Extract

Among the clothes Ariadne is wearing in this scene is a finely woven headdress which Catullus terms a ‘mitra’ (1.63). Commentators have defined this mitra variously as a ‘scarf’ (Ellis, Merrill), a ‘cap or bonnet’ (Fordyce) and a ‘kind of hairnet’ (Quinn).

In Greek literature, a ‘mitra’ is any piece of cloth worn by women in various ways to tie up their hair. While the word came to be used by Latin writers, it seems to have retained its specifically Greek associations. Varro refers to ‘mitra’ as a Greek word:

mitra et reliqua ferre in capite postea addita cum vocabulis Graecisd. (de Ling. Lat. 5.130)

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 560 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

1 Abrahams, E. B., Greek Dress: A Study of the Costumes Worn in Ancient Greece (London, 1908), p. 112, fig. 54Google Scholar.

2 For examples of Polygnotos' paintings of women see Simon, Erika, ‘Polygnotan Painting and the Niobid Painter’, AJA 67 (1963), 43ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Cf. also Soph, . Oed. Tyr. 209Google Scholar; Prop. 3.17.29–30, 4.7.61–2; Sen, . Phaed. 756Google Scholar, Oed. 413; Stat. Theb. 9.795, Ach. 1.617; Val. Fl.Arg. 2.271. For the treatment of this motif in art see Picard, C., ‘Dionysos Mιτρηπ⋯ρος’ Mélanges Gustave Glotz ii (N.Y., 1972), pp. 707–21Google Scholar.

4 For Catullus’ treatment of Dionysus and Ariadne see Forsyth, P. Y., ‘Catullus: the Mythic Persona’, Latomus 35 (1976), 555–66, esp. 558ff.Google Scholar; ‘Catullus 64: Dionysus Reconsidered’, Stud. Lat. Lit. ii. 98–105; Wiseman, T. P., ‘Catullus' Iacchus and Ariadne’, LCM 2 (1977), 177–80Google Scholar; ‘Catullus Again’, LCM 3 (1978), 21–2. For a survey on Ariadne and Dionysus in art and literature, see Webster, T. B. L., ‘The Myth of Ariadne from Homer to Catullus’, G.&R. 13 (1966), 22–31Google Scholar.