Epic Ambition - Hercules and the Politics of Emulation in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica

By the time the Roman poet Valerius Flaccus wrote in the first century CE, the tale of Jason and his famous ship had been retold so often it was a byword for poetic banality. Why, then, did Valerius construct his epic Argonautica? Jessica Blum-Sorensen argues that it was precisely the myth’s overplayed nature that appealed to Valerius.