Quis fuit alter? Arato nella terza ecloga di Virgilio

This paper investigates the presence of Aratus in Vergil’s third eclogue, a presence that emerges, not explicitly but only by allusion, in some nodal points of the poem (in the ekphrasis of the cups staked as a prize for the singing match between the shepherds Menalcas and Damoetas, in Damoetas’ invocation of Jupiter at the beginning of the agon, and again in Damoetas’ final riddle). Through such references, Vergil alludes to one of his main poetic models, but at the same time he anticipates the role played by Aratus in the subsequent fourth eclogue, where the return of the Virgo and the golden age can also be interpreted, symbolically and metapoetically, as a return of Aratus.