The Life and Afterlife of the Asexual Hippolytus, Vatican Mythographers I.46

The Life and Afterlife of Hippolytus /Virbius

Name:  Vatican Mythographers Date:   10th century CE Region:   Unknown Citation:   Vatican Mythographers 1.46

When Hippolyte died, Theseus put [his wife] Phaedra in charge of Hippolytus. When Hippolytus rejected her wooing, he was falsely accused of inappropriate behavior and brought to his father for punishment.  Theseus asked his father Aegeus to avenge him, and he sent a monster onto the shore where Hippolytus was driving his chariot. This monster spooked Hippolytus’ horses and killed him.  Then Diana, moved by his purity, used Asclepius to restore him to life. Once Diana brought Hippolytus back from the dead, she entrusted his care to the nymph Egeria, and ordered that he now be called “Virbius” [“twice a man”].

The Life and Afterife of Hippolytus / Virbius

Theseus, mortua Hippolyte, Phaedram Minois et Pasiphae filiam superduxit Hippolyto, qui cum de strupro illam interpellantem contempsisset, falso delatus ad patrem est quod ei vi vellet inferre. Theseus rogavit Aegeum patrem ut se ulcisceretur, qui agitanti currus Hippolyto immisit phocam in litore, qua equi territi eum distraxerunt. Tunc Diana eius castitate commota revocavit eum in vita per Aesculapium filium Apollinis et Coronidis, qui natus erat exsecto matris ventre...Sed Diana Hippolytum revocatum ab inferis nymphae commendavit Egeriae et eum Virbium quasi “bis virum” iussit vocari.

Vatican Mythographers [10th century CE?] Little is known about the author or origin of the collection of myths known as the Vatican Mythographers, but the work’s first editor Angelo Mai found the collection on a manuscript dating back to the 10th century CE. This volume is a collection of three different mythographers who have assembled various Greco-Roman myths; although many of these myths are basic summaries in Latin, some of them are either analyzed as allegories or compared to Christian thought.