Firmior Herculea mundus cervice pependit. Searching for the Ideal Form of Government in Claudian’s Epic De Raptu Proserpinae

This article focuses on Jupiter’s reign and on searching for the ideal form of government in Claudian’s mythological epic De Raptu Proserpinae. It suggests an interpretation of Jupiter’s reign which is based on the meaning of the two prefaces of the epic. The characters of the two prefaces, the first sailor in the first preface, and Hercules and Orpheus in the second one, are considered to be models of behaviour which are examined and problematized in the story of the epic. While the narrator does not evaluate Jupiter’s reign explicitly, he presents it as a functional combination of Herculean and Orphean motifs and of the motif of the first sailor’s audacity. Thus De Raptu Proserpinae offers its reader the opportunity to think about what the ideal form of government should be like.