In the context of the 9th Congress of the Ganimedes Association, which is being held at the Pastor Foundation in Madrid as an online event, the PhD student Eleonora Giunchi has just delivered a paper, that examines the development of the image of the fire under the ashes in Greek literature. After addressing its connection with the concept of μῆτις in the Archaic and Classical periods, the paper focuses on the semantic variations of the image in the Hellenistic period: from its employment in erotic contexts to the almost proverbial character that it takes on in the Late Hellenistic period. In particular, it has been pointed out the relevance of some Hellenistic texts that seems to have function as mediators in the evolution of the metaphorical meanings of the image, as well as in its adaptation to the most different genres.