Notizie da Nestore in Ovidio, Heroides I 25-38

While it is well known that Ovid’s Penelope repeatedly gives a distorted account of the ‘facts’ of the Odyssey, and of the Iliad as well, it has gone unnoticed her manipulation of the information she received from Nestor, through Telemachus, about the returns of the Greek leaders: in her account, the ‘Argolic leaders’ return home amongst festive sacrifices, and are welcomed by their spouses, who hang upon their lips and, during banquets, hear their stories about the Trojan war. She explicitly attributes these pieces of information to Nestor. In fact, in Od. III Nestor did in- form Telemachus about the returns of the Greek leaders, but what he recounted was their ‘painful return’ (λυγρὸν... νόστον), and as far specifically Argolic leaders are concerned, he recounted the sad fate of Agamemnon, king of Argos, who returned home only to be killed by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife. Further detail about Aga- memnon’s death is provided to Telemachus by Menelaus in Od. IV. The insistence of Ovid’s Penelope on the sacrifices celebrating the return of the Greek leaders reminds the reader of the importance of the theme of Agamemnon’s death as a sacrifice in the literary tradition (especially in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon), whereas the convivial setting of Penelope’s reverie recalls the fact that in Homer Agamemnon was killed by Aegis- thus and Clytaemestra during a banquet (Od. IV 529-537, XI 405-434).