Penelope's Classical Legacy.
With the change of focus that Christianity brought to the Western Empire, Greco-Roman mythological characters such as Penelope changed subtly over the ensuing centuries. There is little extant evidence of Penelope in the early medieval period, but enough to suggest that she was not totally forgotten. Her name is present in different texts, particularly those thought to be involved in education, ensuring a cognisance of her within an educated, male population. This chapter will outline within which works Penelope was maintained and in what detail her identity was preserved.
Most classical sources used Penelope merely as an exemplum, highlighting one aspect of her being to reinforce a point being made. For example, several poets identify her as the archetypal chaste wife, an important aspect of both Republican and Imperial Rome.[1] It is therefore not surprising that in the second century CE Tertullian invokes Penelope's name as a more suitable woman for deification among the pagans than another Roman goddess, Bona Dea.[2] This Christian stamp of approval is picked up in ninth-century Ireland, where two grammarians include her name to describe ideas of dignity. One wonders how useful an exemplum a Homeric figure might be in this context, but surely a prerequisite for use of an exemplum is a level of familiarity? Unfortunately, in this situation, Penelope is lifted from her Homeric context, and all that can be gleaned about her is her status as a dignified and chaste person.
Mythography is another source for the identity of Penelope. Higynus in the early centuries of the Common Era constructed a work relating many of the myths inherited from the Greco-Roman past. It is apparent from the detail that knowledge of Homer's work was available to him, as the details regarding Penelope's ruse of weaving and unweaving to postpone choosing among the many suitors is not recorded in other Latin texts.[3] This work also notes the possibility that Penelope was the mother of Pan, a fact that is rarely mentioned in later sources and hints at early myths where Odysseus and Penelope were both thought to be ancestors of families important to the establishment of Rome. Ausonius also includes Penelope in his summary of Homer, nicely including some emotion, creating the sense of a person with a unique identity, as opposed to merely citing a name out of context to exemplify a different matter. There is also a third century poem, sometime attributed to Ausonius, called De Penelope. Ovidian themes are strong, as several phrases can be traced back to his works. However, it also appears to have connections to Homer's version, as the poem might be interpreted as Penelope relating a dream, a situation that occurs in the Odyssey, but not any of the Latin works currently extant.
Several themes in Homer do carry into the medieval period, despite the loss of his texts to the West in later centuries. Several writers summarised the events of the Trojan War, but only occasionally does Penelope rate a mention. In these, she is the chaste or untouched wife to whom Ulysses returns. There is no mention of her ruse to maintain her chastity, nor any mention of her feelings. She is merely an object playing a minor role in the lives of men.
----[1] Insert various quotes in here. And mention Mactoux.
[2] Tertullian
[3] explain the Cicero quote in here.