Recent years have witnessed a marked increase in scholarly interest in Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica. Numerous analyses, discussions and commentaries on the poetical art of this "difficult" epic have appeared. This volume provides a philological commentary on the first book of the Argonautica. Special attention is paid to the sources upon which Valerius drew, and a comparison made with earlier literary tradition (in particular with the first book of Vergil's Aeneid, but also with Seneca's tragedies). In addition, the language, style and compositional techniques which were peculiar to epic during the Flavian period are studied.