Abstract: The rape (or threatened rape) of a sleeping Europa in Plato Comicus has curiously not attracted any attention from critics commenting on later texts which narrate the story of Europa. Yet, the motifs of night, sleep and dreaming play a prominent role in the Europa poems of both Moschus and Horace. This article will investigate the role of these motifs and argue for a closer connection between these two poems than has thus far been allowed. It will also maintain that, in both poems, the suggestion that the heroine was (or could be) raped in her ...
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