Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2015
Abstract
In the Old Testament part of her poem Proba attempted to synthesise two different concepts of history: the story of the first people based on the Book of Genesis and the account of the four Ages of Man circulated in the antique tradition and documented mainly by Hesiod and Ovid. Clear parallels with the mythical tradition in general and its specific version in Ovid's Metamorphoses can be traced especially in three parts of the work - the life in Paradise (verse 160-171), the life of Adam and Eve on Earth after the expulsion (verse 276-284) and the catastrophe after Abel's death (verse 290-306).
The aim of the synthesis might have been to reconcile the conflicts in the historical identity of educated Christian Romans.