SILIUSITALICUS' PUNICA IN CLAUDIAN'S DE RAPTU PROSERPINAE

This article looks at the previously neglected literary affiliation between Claudiana De raptu Proserpinae and Silius Italicus' Punka. In Claudian, Dis is cast as a literary successor to Silius' Hannibal, as he threatens to unleash the fury of the Underworld and demonstrates behavior similar to the Titans and the Giants and wild beasts. Dis launches an attack on Sicilian soil as an external attack of a foreign enemy, like Hannibal's attack on Italy and his tour of the Phlegraean fields in Campania. Finally, Dis' rape of Proserpina is presented by Jupiter as a necessary evil opening the road to offering people the new gift of grain cultivation: thus Claudian's Jupiter continues the thread of the Silian Jupiter's prophecy in Punica III.