L’oracolo epiceno e le tradizioni argive tra locale e panellenico: un caso di riuso creativo?

According to Herodotus, before fighting against Sparta in Sepeia the Argives feared the tricks of Cleomenes. They were alerted by a Delphic oracle that predicted a female defeating a man, Argive weeping women, and a terrible triple-coiled snake that would perish. Herodotus explains that this oracle is only a part of longer oracle, delivered to the Argives, but common to the Argives and the Milesians: the so-called epicene oracle. The Argive part would refer to the battle of Sepeia; the Milesian part, quoted in 6. 19, to the fall of Miletus (494 BC). That the Argive part originally referred to the battle of Sepeia is however far from self-evident. A detailed comparative analysis of the text of the oracle and of the traditional account of the battle of Sepeia shows that the traditional account was shaped by the oracle; this means that the oracle represents the core basis on which the account was modelled. In other words, the Argive part of the oracle originally referred to another context (one of the Persian wars?) and was later recycled and related to the battle of Sepeia; the traditional account of this battle was in turn recreated with reference to the text of the oracle.