La storia sacra dell’isola stella: Delo e i suoi nomi

Abstract

The island of Delos, Apollo’s birthplace, is celebrated under various names by a number of poets, each name reflecting an aspect of its mythical history. Pindar, in some fragmentary poems, and Callimachus, in the Hymn to Delos, tell the story of the minor goddess Asteria who fled the embrace of Zeus by leaping into the sea, where she became the island floating free on the waves before ‘anchoring’ to provide a place for Leto to give birth. Though apparently similar, the etymological interpretations of the names Asteria («Star-Island») and Delos («bright», «conspicuous») by Pindar and Callimachus present subtle differences. The article focuses on the ideological framework of archaic and Alexandrian poetry, showing how interpretatio nominis is a functional and ductile tool for marking different poetics.