Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic 9780199644094, 0199644098

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Contributors
Texts and Translations Used
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Representing Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic
Part I. Gods and Humans
1 With (a) God on Our Side: Ancient Ritual Practices and Imagery in Flavian Epic
2 Divine Messages and Human Actions in the Argonautica
3 Competing Visions: Prophecy, Spectacle, and Theatricality in Flavian Epic
4 Argive Augury and Portents in the Thebaid
5 ‘Consider in the Image of Thebes’: Celestial and Poetic Auspicy in the Thebaid
6 Malae preces and their Articulation in the Thebaid
7 Hymnic Features in Statian Epic and the Siluae
8 Religion and Power in the Thebaid
Part II. Death and Ritual
9 Chthonic Ingredients and Thematic Concerns: The Shaping of the Necromancy in the Thebaid
10 Wasted Water: The Failure of Purification in the Thebaid
11 Patterns of Darkness: Chthonic Illusion, Gigantomachy, and Sacrificial Ritual in the Punica
12 Back Out of Hell: The Virtual Katabasis and Initiation of Silius’ Minucius
13 Ritual Murder and Suicide in the Thebaid
14 The Death and Funeral Rites of Opheltes in the Thebaid
15 Epitaphic Gestures in Statius and Silius Italicus
Part III. Ritual and the Female
16 Reconcilable Differences: Anna Perenna and the Battle of Cannae in the Punica
17 Medusa, Python, and Poine in Argive Religious Ritual
18 Orphic Ritual and Myth in the Thebaid
19 Dancing in Scyros: Masculinity and Young Women’s Rituals in the Achilleid
Bibliography
Index Locorum
General Index
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Citation preview

RITUAL AND RELIGION IN FLAVIAN EPIC

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Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic

EDITED BY

ANTONY AUGOUSTAKIS

1

3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # Oxford University Press 2013 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2013 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978–0–19–964409–4 Printed in Great Britain by the MPG Printgroup, UK

To M.P., D.S., K.S., A.T., and A.T.

Preface If a personal aside can be allowed in this prefatory note, I must confess that ritual and religion have been two very important aspects in my life. Since I was born and raised in the Greek Orthodox church, a certain fascination with all aspects of religious ritual was rather inevitable from an early age, in addition to the expected charm and captivation generated by ritual formulated in an ancient language, that is, ancient Greek. In a way, then, it is very difficult to distance oneself from modern practices when studying the ancient religious practices of the Greeks and the Romans, separated from our times by some two thousand years, especially since some of these rituals and religious views eventually transformed and/or heavily influenced Christian practices. It is not within the scope of the present volume to examine the aspects of ancient religion and ritual in terms of actual practices—an arduous task—since what we shall examine here are the literary representations: a made-up, literary, often exaggerated version of such practices and, what is more, a poetic version that befits the genus grande of ancient epic. By looking at the various representations of ritual and religion in Flavian epic, the student of these epic poems comes to the inevitable conclusion, like Denis Feeney, that ‘if the Romans’ knowledge of their religion was partial, ours is understandably more so’ (1998: 142). Why Flavian epic? The period of the Flavian emperors, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian (69–96 ce), and the epic poetry produced during their rule and under their aegis, have recently received increasing critical attention, as documented by the surge of interest in Silius Italicus, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus, and the numerous books published during the past decade alone. In particular, however, the area of ritual and religion in Flavian epic poetry emerges as one that deserves thorough examination. Individual studies in the past have addressed some themes related to representations of religion in Flavian epic, such as the role of the gods (Schubert 1984; Feeney 1991; Criado 2000) or sacrifice (Hardie 1993). This book aims to fill an important gap by examining aspects of religion and ritual that have heretofore remained overlooked or hardly discussed at all. It is the result of an international conference organized by the editor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on 23–25 April 2010; some of the papers presented at the conference were chosen for inclusion, whereas various other scholars, who work in the area of Flavian epic, have also contributed chapters and therefore enhanced various areas and poems that a single conference could not possibly address.

Preface

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I owe special thanks to all participants of the ‘Religion and Ritual’ conference, who travelled to central Illinois from all corners of the United States and abroad. To the international guests, I extend a warm acknowledgement, since they literally braved the storm and the adverse conditions brought about by the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul. The volcano’s wrath provided a suitably Flavian environment and context for the conference, vividly reminding us of the eruption of Vesuvius in Flavian Italy in 79 ce, as is commemorated in one of the poems under examination in this volume, Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. The realization of the conference could not have been possible without help from various contributors: the Department of the Classics, one of the oldest departments in the University with a great tradition in Classical philology that goes back to the nineteenth century, supported this conference financially, in very difficult times for the University and for Higher Education. In particular, David Sansone, then Head of Classics, was instrumental. The School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics and the Conference Support Program of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Dean Ruth Watkins) provided generous support. I would like to thank my graduate student co-organizers of the conference, Daniel Abosso, Mathias Hanses, and Amy Oh; it was a pleasure to work with all three in creating and executing the project. In addition, I am grateful to the University of Illinois for generously helping the transition and transformation of this conference into a book: resources include the University’s world-class library, as well as a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Research Board grant, which allowed me to employ Sergio Yona, one of my doctoral students, as Research Assistant for the Spring semester of 2012. Sergio has been a careful and precise editor and proofreader; he caught a number of mistakes and made significant improvements throughout. Furthermore, I would also like to thank Hilary O’Shea, Senior Editor for Classics, Ancient History, and Archaeology at Oxford University Press, for the enthusiasm with which she embraced this project from its inception, and the anonymous referees who vetted the volume proposal and offered helpful suggestions and corrections. Hilary’s excellent team at OUP oversaw the swift journey of this book from its manuscript stage to publication, for which I remain in their debt. As the epigraph suggests, I would like to dedicate hunc nouum libellum to my colleagues at the University of Illinois on the occasion of a year of new and exciting beginnings. Fortes fortuna iuuat. Urbana-Champaign, IL Die Paschali MMXII

Antony Augoustakis

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Contents List of Contributors Texts and Translations Used List of Abbreviations Introduction: Representing Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic Antony Augoustakis

xi xv xvii 1

Part I. Gods and Humans 1 With (a) God on Our Side: Ancient Ritual Practices and Imagery in Flavian Epic Marco Fucecchi 2 Divine Messages and Human Actions in the Argonautica Gesine Manuwald 3 Competing Visions: Prophecy, Spectacle, and Theatricality in Flavian Epic Helen Lovatt 4 Argive Augury and Portents in the Thebaid Anne Tuttle 5 ‘Consider in the Image of Thebes’: Celestial and Poetic Auspicy in the Thebaid Eleni Manolaraki

17 33

53 71

89

6 Malae preces and their Articulation in the Thebaid Ann Hubert

109

7 Hymnic Features in Statian Epic and the Siluae Bruce Gibson

127

8 Religion and Power in the Thebaid Federica Bessone

145

Part II. Death and Ritual 9 Chthonic Ingredients and Thematic Concerns: The Shaping of the Necromancy in the Thebaid Ruth Parkes

165

x

Contents 10 Wasted Water: The Failure of Purification in the Thebaid Nicholas Dee

181

11 Patterns of Darkness: Chthonic Illusion, Gigantomachy, and Sacrificial Ritual in the Punica R. Joy Littlewood

199

12 Back Out of Hell: The Virtual Katabasis and Initiation of Silius’ Minucius Robert Cowan

217

13 Ritual Murder and Suicide in the Thebaid Neil W. Bernstein

233

14 The Death and Funeral Rites of Opheltes in the Thebaid Randall Ganiban

249

15 Epitaphic Gestures in Statius and Silius Italicus Martin T. Dinter

267

Part III. Ritual and the Female 16 Reconcilable Differences: Anna Perenna and the Battle of Cannae in the Punica Raymond Marks

287

17 Medusa, Python, and Poine in Argive Religious Ritual Alison Keith

303

18 Orphic Ritual and Myth in the Thebaid Christopher Chinn

319

19 Dancing in Scyros: Masculinity and Young Women’s Rituals in the Achilleid Vassiliki Panoussi Bibliography Index Locorum General Index

335

353 381 399

List of Contributors Antony Augoustakis is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois (Urbana–Champaign, Illinois, USA). He is the author of Motherhood and the Other: Fashioning Female Power in Flavian Epic (Oxford, 2010) and Plautus’ Mercator (Bryn Mawr, 2009). He has edited the Brill Companion to Silius Italicus (Leiden, 2010) and co-edited with Carole Newlands Statius’ Siluae and the Poetics of Intimacy (Arethusa, 2007). He has just completed the Blackwell Companion to Terence (coedited with Ariana Traill), while he is also working on a commentary on Statius’ Thebaid Book 8 (Oxford) and the Oxford Readings in Flavian Epic, co-edited with Helen Lovatt (Oxford). Neil W. Bernstein is Associate Professor of Classics and World Religions at Ohio University (Athens, Ohio, USA), where he directs the Latin language instruction programme. He is the author of In the Image of the Ancestors: Narratives of Kinship in Flavian Epic (Toronto, 2008) and Constructing a Roman Sophistopolis: Narrative, Identity, and Community in the Pseudo–Quintilianic Major Declamations (forthcoming). He has been a Fulbright Lecturer at National Taiwan University (2008–9) and a NEH Fellow of the National Humanities Center (2011–12). Federica Bessone is Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Turin (Italy). She studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore and at the University of Pisa. She has published a commentary on Ovid, Heroidum Epistula XII (Florence, 1997), a monograph on Statius’ Thebaid (Pisa, 2011), and articles on Valerius Flaccus, Petronius, Ovid, Statius, and Seneca. She has written the chapter on Latin Precursors in The Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy. She is a member of the scientific committee of EuGeStA. Christopher Chinn is Assistant Professor of Classics at Pomona College (Claremont, California, USA). He received a Ph.D in Classics and Critical Theory from the University of Washington. He has published several articles and book chapters on Statius and other imperial writers, focusing on ekphrasis and intertextuality, politics, and ecocriticism. He is currently completing a monograph on the issues of vision and visuality in Statius, entitled Statius’ Ekphrastic Poetics. Robert Cowan is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Sydney (Australia). He has published widely, mainly on Flavian epic and republican

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tragedy, but also on Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Lucretius, Aristophanes, Columella, Suetonius, and operatic versions of Euripides. He is currently working on a monograph on Silius’ Punica, introductions to the Aeneid and to post-Virgilian epic, and various smaller projects. Nicholas Dee is a Ph.D student at the University of Illinois (UrbanaChampaign, Illinois, USA). His research interests include Flavian epic, and he has presented papers on Statius and Valerius Flaccus. Martin T. Dinter is Lecturer in Latin Literature and Language at King’s College London (United Kingdom). He holds a Ph.D from Cambridge University. He is author of Anatomizing Civil War–Four Studies in Lucan’s Epic Body (Michigan, 2012) and co-editor of A Companion to the Age of Nero (Blackwell, 2013). He has published articles on Virgil, Horace, and Lucan, as well as Flavian Epic. Marco Fucecchi is Assistant Professor in Latin Language and Literature at the University of Udine (Italy). He has published a commentary on Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica 6 in two volumes (Pisa, 1997 and 2006), as well as numerous articles on the poetry of the Augustan age and early imperial period. He currently works on Flavian epic, devoting particular attention to its intertextual dynamics and strategies, its political implications, and the presence of echoes of contemporary history. He is also preparing a commentary on Aeneid 3. Randall Ganiban is Professor of Classics at Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont, USA). He is the author of Statius and Virgil: The Thebaid and the Reinterpretation of the Aeneid (Cambridge, 2007); Vergil, Aeneid 2 (Focus, 2008); Vergil, Aeneid 1 (Focus, 2009), and Vergil, Aeneid 1–6 (general editor, Focus, forthcoming). He is currently co-editing a commentary on Aeneid 7–12 with James J. O’Hara. Bruce Gibson is Professor of Latin at the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom), and is also co-editor of Classical Quarterly. His publications include Statius, Siluae: Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford, 2006); Polybius and His World: Essays in Memory of F.W. Walbank (2013, co-edited with Thomas Harrison); and Pliny in Late Antiquity (forthcoming, co-edited with Roger Rees). He is currently writing a commentary on Pliny’s Panegyricus. Ann Hubert is a Ph.D candidate in Medieval English Literature at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA). She is the author of an article on the fifteenth-century morality play Mankind,

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and is working on her dissertation, ‘Performing Piety: Preachers and Players in East Anglia, 1400–1520’. Alison Keith is Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of Toronto (Canada). She has written extensively on the intersection of gender and genre in Latin literature. She is the author of three books, including Engendering Rome: Women in Latin Epic (Cambridge 2000) and Propertius, Poet of Love and Leisure (Duckworth 2008), and is currently writing a monograph on the reception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Flavian epic. She is the President of the Classical Association of Canada (2010–12). R. Joy Littlewood is an independent scholar based in Oxford (United Kingdom). She is the author of commentaries on Ovid’s Fasti 6 (Oxford, 2006) and Silius Italicus’ Punica 7 (Oxford, 2011), and is working towards a commentary on Punica 10. Her research interests include Roman religion and politics in Latin poetry and interaction between the Flavian epicists. Helen Lovatt is Associate Professor in Classics at the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), where she teaches Latin and Greek literature and their reception. She started from Statius (Statius and Epic Games, Cambridge, 2005) and has now branched out to publish on Valerius and Silius, and, hubristically, the whole of ancient epic (The Epic Gaze: Vision, Gender and Narrative, Cambridge, forthcoming). She is also interested in the history of the Argonautic myth, Neo-Latin, the intersection between fiction and scholarship, and children’s literature. Eleni Manolaraki is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida, USA). She holds a Ph.D in Classics from Cornell University. She has published articles on Tacitus and Pliny the Younger, as well as on Latin epic (Virgil, Lucan, Silius Italicus, and Statius). Her monograph Noscendi Nilum Cupido: Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus is forthcoming (Berlin, 2013). Her current book project examines the motif of military mutiny in Latin imperial prose and poetry. Gesine Manuwald is Professor of Latin at University College London (United Kingdom). Her research interests include Flavian epic, Roman drama, Ciceronian rhetoric, and the reception of the Classical world in Neo-Latin literature and in opera; she has published widely on all these areas. In the field of Flavian epic, she has produced a monograph on the Cyzicus episode in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica and a number of articles on Valerius Flaccus and Silius Italicus. Raymond Marks is Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Missouri (Columbia, Missouri, USA). He has published several articles and chapters on Silius Italicus and is the author

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of From Republic to Empire. Scipio Africanus in the Punica of Silius Italicus (2005). He is currently working on the interrelation of the Flavian epic poets and on the Callimachean tradition in post–Augustan epic poetry. Vassiliki Panoussi is Robert and Sara Boyd Distinguished Associate Professor at the College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia, USA). Her research focuses on Roman literature as informed through the study of religion, intertextuality, and gender. She is the author of Greek Tragedy in Vergil’s Aeneid: Ritual, Empire, and Intertext (Cambridge, 2009). She has also written several articles on various Roman authors and is currently completing a book titled Brides, Mourners, Bacchae: Women’s Rituals in Roman Literature. Ruth Parkes is a Lecturer in Classics at Exeter College, Oxford (United Kingdom). She has published a commentary on book 4 of Statius’ Thebaid (Oxford, 2012) and is currently working upon a study of the young Achilles. Anne Tuttle holds an MA in Classics (2011) from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA). Her research interests include Latin epic poetry and Cicero. She has presented papers on Statius and Cicero and plans to continue research on epic while teaching Latin.

Texts and Translations Used The consonantal ‘v’ and ‘j’ in the Latin texts has been printed as ‘u’ and ‘i’ and ‘V’ and ‘I’ in capitals. The following standard editions have been used for quotations from the original Greek and Latin texts (BT = Bibliotheca Teubneriana; OCT = Oxford Classical Texts): Apollonius Rhodius Cicero’s De diuinatione Cicero’s Epistulae ad familiares Claudian Euripides Lactantius’ Scholia in Statii Thebaida Livy 21–25 Lucan Orphic poems Ovid’s Fasti Ovid’s Metamorphoses Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia Pliny the Younger’s Epistles Pliny the Younger’s Panegyricus Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria Seneca’s Dialogi Seneca’s Tragoediae Silius Italicus Statius’ Achilleid

Statius’ Siluae Statius’ Thebaid

Tacitus’ Historiae

Fränkel, H., OCT, 1961 Falconer, W. A., Loeb, 1923 (text and translation) Shackleton Bailey, D. R., Loeb, 2001 (text and translation) Hall, J. B., BT, 1985 Diggle, J., OCT, 1981–94 Sweeney, R. D., BT, 1997 Walters, C. F., and Conway, R. S., OCT, 1967. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., BT, 2nd edn, 1997 Kern, O., Orphicorum Fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922) Alton, E. H., Wormell, D. E., and Courtney, E., BT, 1997 Tarrant, R. J., OCT, 2004 Mayhoff, K. F. T., BT, 1870–98 Mynors, R. A. B., OCT, 1963 Mynors, R. A. B., Panegyrici Latini, OCT, 1964 Russell, D. A., Loeb, 2001 (text and translation) Reynolds, L. D., OCT, 1977 Zwierlein, O., OCT, 1986 Delz, J. BT, 1987 Hall, J. B., Ritchie, A. L., and Edwards, M. J. (eds), P. Papinius Statius, vol. I: Thebaid and Achilleid (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2007) Courtney, E., OCT, 1992 Hill, D. E. (ed.), P. Papini Stati Thebaidos Libri XII (2nd edn, Brill: Leiden, 1996) Heubner, H., BT, 1978

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Texts and Translations Used

Valerius Flaccus Virgil

Ehlers, W. W., BT, 1980 Mynors, R. A. B., OCT, 1969

Translations of major authors used throughout this book have been adapted from the sources listed below. For the rest of (minor) quotations, the authors have used their own translations. Apollonius Rhodius Claudian Euripides Livy’s Ab urbe condita 1–5 Lucan Ovid’s Fasti

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Pliny the Younger Seneca’s Dialogi Seneca’s Tragoediae Silius Italicus Statius Tacitus’ Historiae Valerius Flaccus Virgil

Race, W. H., Loeb, 2008 Platnauer, M., Loeb, 1922 Kovacs, D., Loeb, 1998 Luce, T. J., Oxford World’s Classics, 1998 Braund, S., Oxford World’s Classics, 1992 Wiseman, P., and Wiseman, A. (2011), Ovid: Times and Reasons: A New Translation of Fasti (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Ambrose, Z. P. (2004), Ovid Metamorphoses (Newburyport, Mass.: Focus) Radice, B., Loeb, 1969 Basore, J. W., Loeb, 1932 Fitch, J. G., Loeb, 2004 Duff, J. D., Loeb, 1934 Shackleton Bailey, D. R., Loeb, 2003 Levene, D. S., Oxford World’s Classics, 1997 Mozley, J. H., Loeb, 1934 Fairclough, H. R., Loeb, 1986

List of Abbreviations Greek authors and works are abbreviated according to the system of LSJ, while Latin authors and works follow the system of OLD. Any gaps are supplemented from the abbreviations of OCD3 (or adopted from OCD3 to avoid confusion among different authors). In essays treating a single author and poem, for simplicity’s sake, the quotations are not prefaced by an abbreviation, whereas in the chapters where two or more authors are extensively treated, such abbreviations are used to avoid confusion. Periodicals have been abbreviated based on L’Année Philologique. OCD3

OLD

LSJ

Hornblower, S., and Spawforth, A. (eds), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) Souter, A., Wyllie, J. M., and Glare, P. G. W. (eds), Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968–82) Liddell, H. G., Scott. R., and Jones, H. S. (eds), A Greek–English Lexicon, 9th edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)

Modern works ANRW

LIMC ThesCRA

TLL

Vogt, J., Temporini, H., and Haase, W. (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1972– ) Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich, 1981– ) Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum (2004–6) (Los Angeles, Calif., 2004–6) Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Leipzig, 1900–)

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Introduction: Representing Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic Antony Augoustakis

What do the Romans understand by the term religio?1 A well-known scholar on the subject of Roman religion, Jörg Rüpke, whose work features prominently in many chapters of this volume, asserts: ‘it was only in the very late Republic that there were attempts to coin cumulative descriptions like sacra et auspicia (Cic. Nat. D. 3.5), meaning ‘cults and divination’.2 Religio as a term, however, ‘encompasses neither the organizational infrastructure and degree of coherence of these activities, nor their shared symbolic language, nor any related metaphysical reflection’.3 As Denis Feeney points out in his influential 1998 study, the student of literature and religion should always tread this territory cautiously, since at Rome there is a variety of religious discourses, not a single concept.4 In fact, as the Romans extend the borders of their empire in the Mediterranean and beyond, the term ‘religion’ increasingly encompasses a wide array of cults, practices, and customs. Thus it reflects on the polysyllectic, pluralistic, and syncretic nature of Roman rule, in other words the absorption of elements from the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and so

1 Indispensable and concise readings on Roman religion are North (2000) and Scheid (2003), as well as (in more detail) Warrior (2006) and Rüpke (2007a). One should always consult Wissowa (1912), which is still invaluable. 2 Rüpke (2004: 179). On a historical survey of evolution and change in Roman religion, see the magisterial first volume of Beard et al. (1998). 3 Rüpke (2004: 179). Cf. Orlin (2007: 58): ‘Religion permeated almost every element of both space and time for the inhabitants of Rome, leading the Romans to believe themselves the most religious of all people and to ascribe their military success to their superior cultivation of the gods (Cic. Har. Resp. 19)’. 4 On the intersection of religion and literature, see the essays in Barchiesi et al. (2004).

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many various others.5 To be sure then, ritual6 and religion are terms which by definition imply constant change: from the third century bce onwards, Rome slowly, and perhaps at times drastically, is transformed through innovation, incorporation, and growth; likewise, religious changes always have an eye towards keeping in line with tradition, so that the new and the old coexist.7 In particular, the interplay between religion and literature seems to become subject to this metamorphosis.8 As students of Roman religion, we are fortunate to have Cicero’s treatises and analyses on the topic of religion and ritual in the late republic in his De diuinatione or the De natura deorum, for instance.9 As Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price observe, the period of the late republic acquires greater significance for the study of Roman religion, since there is a wealth of extant information concerning change and innovation, while at the same time the Romans document their views on the neglect and decline of the religious system.10 Moreover, in the late republic, religion and politics intersect. Political and military figures may appropriate the role of ‘gods’, for instance, through an apotheosis (e.g. Julius Caesar). As J. Rüpke observes, ‘Roman religion served the ruling class and enabled the communicating of the élite and the people at games, in supplications, and during crisis rituals. Religious rituals sometimes helped to express social divisions as well as to differentiate Romans along lines of gender, age, and juridical status.’11 Thus Roman identity becomes interwoven with religion and ultimately is seamlessly unified with it, while literature provides the tableau onto which such identity is mapped, processed, and eventually 5 Beard et al. (1998: 1.212: ‘No Roman propounded the view that Rome should respect the religious liberty of other peoples. This does not mean that the Romans were therefore intolerant’. Cf. Rüpke (2007b: 4). On regional religious traditions in the Roman empire, see Rives (2007: 54–88) and the essays in North and Price (2011). 6 On the difficulty of defining ‘ritual’ and on theories of ritual, see Bell’s two indispensable studies (1992; 1997), as well as Kertzer (1988) and Rappaport (1999). Cf. the introduction in Ewald and Noreña (2010: 37–43). 7 Beard et al. (1998: 1.79–113). 8 Cf. the essays in the most recent volume by Bendlin and Rüpke (2009). 9 The De diuinatione is a two-book treatise cast in the form of a dialogue between Cicero and his brother Quintus. In the first book, Quintus strongly defends the validity of divination, citing mythical and historical anecdotes of successfully fulfilled omens. In the second, Cicero vigorously deconstructs Quintus’ arguments. Composed of three books and dedicated to Brutus, the De natura deorum exposes the different ‘theological’ outlooks and perspectives of the three philosophical schools, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Sceptics. 10 Beard et al. (1998: 1.114–66). Religion in republican Rome and Italy is a topic with vast bibliography. See e.g. Bispham and Smith (2000); Harvey and Schultz (2006); Schultz (2006); and Rüpke (2012). 11 Rüpke (2004: 193).

Introduction

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internalized. Jörg Rüpke adds: ‘being not directly subjected to political decision, religion offered a powerful source for legitimizing political decisions; it remained what Georg Simmel called a “third authority”.’12 Indeed, Eric Orlin argues, ‘close cooperation between senate and the priestly colleges, and of course the fact that the members of the colleges were themselves senators minimized any possibility of conflict between religious and political authority.’13 During the transition of Roman rule from the republican to an imperial system, religion and ritual are adapted to address and reflect the needs of the times. Eric Orlin notes: ‘as the political aims of individuals came to challenge the interests of the community in the later years of the republic, it became increasingly important to claim that the gods favored particular individuals rather than the res publica in general.’14 The frequently used term ‘imperial cult’ is misleading, however, as James Rives points out, because ‘it implies an organized and coherent system of worship that focused on the emperor as god. In fact, there was a wide range of diverse strategies for integrating the emperor into religious life.’15 And, as Rives continues, ‘the mobility of worshippers, the mobility of gods, the tendency to identify gods from different traditions as the same, and the unique role of the emperor as the religious center of the empire’ provide the foundation for the religious integration encountered in imperial times.16 Thus the fear and preoccupation concerning the impending end of the world in the Roman republic is answered by the steady presence of the one man who now rules the vast empire, beginning with Augustus.17 Eventually, of course, the cult of the emperor manifests itself in wondrous ways. ‘In some parts of the empire the emperors could appear as miracle-workers and heal sick people. Thus we have the story that Vespasian . . . the founder of the Flavian dynasty, during a visit to Alexandria healed sick people by only laying his hands on them. The interested public interpreted this immediately as a sure indication that he had been elected to his office by the gods.’18 The intersection between religion, ritual, and literature is a welltrodden territory in Classics, or at least one that has attracted much critical attention in the past decade. Authors such as Virgil have received more treatment, as is attested by Cyril Bailey’s 1935 monograph Religion in Virgil; the same is true for Ovid’s poem on the calendar, the Fasti. 12

13 14 Rüpke (2007b: 4). Orlin (2007: 60). Ibid. 66. Rives (2007: 149). On religious change in the Roman empire, see e.g. most recently Ando (2008); the essays in Hekster et al. (2009); and the essays in Frateantonio and Krasser (2010). 16 17 18 Rives (2007: 133). Herz (2007: 305–6). Herz (2007: 310). 15

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Beyond the confines of canonical authors, however, there is a gap in the study of literary representations of ritual which this book aims to cover. The Flavian poems that occupy our attention in this volume are Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Silius Italicus’ Punica, and Statius’ Thebaid and the incomplete Achilleid (as well as the occasional poems called Siluae, which are also featured in various discussions). Valerius and Statius tackle the myth of Jason’s conquest of the Golden Fleece and his affair with Medea and the fratricidal war in Thebes respectively. Silius opts for a historical epic, relating Rome’s war with Hannibal. Understanding the role and function of ritual and religion in Flavian epic helps the reader comprehend the structure and meaning of the poems’ intertextual dialogue with representations of ritual in the works of their predecessors, as well as within the Flavian sociocultural context. In his 1979 study on continuity and change in Roman religion, John Liebeschuetz devotes a few pages to the topic of religion and ritual in Flavian epic, in particular with an eye to Silius Italicus’ Punica. There he concludes: ‘Silius Italicus seems to be less interested in the rich variety of traditional religious and political institutions of Rome. There has been a simplification and concentration of the Roman heritage.’19 This blanket statement does not do justice to the complex nature of the subject of religion in Flavian epic, which is the topic of this book. The following chapters attempt to promote a better understanding of the poems in line with Denis Feeney’s most recent evaluation of the role of religion in Roman epic. As the critic observes, while ‘both Virgil and Lucan understand how profoundly the sanction of the empire is bound up with its religion, even if one of them is trying to support the nexus and the other to undo it . . . [i]n Statius’ poem . . . the sum effect is a very disturbing one, with a religious vision of humans attempting to carry on their lives within inherited forms which no longer have the meaning they once had.’20 Undoubtedly, descriptions of ritual performances abound in Flavian epic: for example, Valerius details the suicide of Jason’s parents (absent from Apollonius’ account), Statius vividly re-enacts a necromancy scene in Thebes, while Scipio’s descent to the Underworld (katabasis) occupies a prominent place in Silius. This volume addresses such key issues which concern religion and ritual representations. The broader question it seeks to answer is how the poets use cults and rituals (e.g. divination), religious activities (e.g. katabasis, necromancy), and ritual metaphors (the role of 19

Liebeschuetz (1979: 173). On continuity and change in Augustan Rome, see Galinsky (2007). 20 Feeney (2007: 135).

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the uates–seer–prophet and his identification with poetry). The chapter titles suggest that the volume seeks to interpret the poems through interdisciplinary approaches, from religious studies and anthropology to women’s studies. While this collection draws on various modern studies on religion and ritual, the volume hopes to become a useful addition to the growing number of recent studies on Roman religion and ritual in particular, as documented in the notes above. This volume is divided into three major sections. The first section, ‘Gods and Humans’, includes chapters on the most important religious activities, such as prophecy/augury, prayers/hymns, and the relationship between religion and political power under the Flavian emperors. The second section, ‘Death and Ritual’, addresses specific episodes in Flavian epic that focus on religious activities associated with the dead and the Underworld, such as purification, necromancy, katabasis, suicide, and burial. Finally, the third section explores the role of the female in ritual and religion. The first part of the volume opens with Marco Fucecchi’s chapter on the appropriation of foreign divinities as a typical feature of Rome’s military and political expansion. Ancient rituals—such as the euocatio, whereby a god is invited to abandon his/her former residence and move to a new abode, or the translatio, the Roman adoption of alien gods in periods of crisis—play a significant role in and influence the imagery of imperial literary culture. In the first part, the author examines Silius’ reception of the theme of euocatio, as illustrated by the story of the Palladium (Punica 13), the talisman that guarantees Rome’s invincibility in war. Then he moves to the story of Anna Perenna in Silius (Punica 8) to demonstrate Hannibal’s futile attempt to imitate the Roman ‘imperialistic’ custom of appropriating alien gods. Finally, Fucecchi looks at the problematic Valerian assimilation of Medea to a goddess (Magna Mater and Pallas, Argonautica 7 and 8); ‘having a god on one’s side’ does not convey any sense of safety and confidence. Therefore, he concludes, Medea’s presence undermines the expectation of a successful translatio from East to West. Next, Gesine Manuwald addresses the role of divine messages and human actions in Valerius by analysing the web of communication between the divine and human spheres, such as divine councils, cooperation and argument among gods, prodigies, dreams, oracles, and prophecies, as well as prayers and sacrifices. As the author points out, information conveyed by the gods to humans tends to be limited: while the meaning of many messages is clear to readers, epic characters can only interpret them on the basis of their own experiences. Most importantly, the Argonauts never learn of the wider purpose of their journey

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according to Jupiter’s plan for the development of world history. In Valerius’ Roman Argonautica, traditional gods, as well as oracles, prodigies, and prophecies, have been adapted to a more rationalist or philosophical framework. External, supernatural forces and mysterious coincidences (determined by fate) constitute outside influences on the lives of the heroes. Manuwald suggests that by increasing the role of destiny, the Flavian poet has created a set-up not only in line with epic literary tradition but also relevant to the philosophical concerns of his time. In her chapter Helen Lovatt argues that theatricality (illusion, resemblance to and links with the theatre, emphasis on staging) plays an important part in exploring the authority and authenticity of prophecy in Latin epic. The author explores the complex relationship between vision, knowledge, and power by showing how the interaction between causality and narrative is effectively displayed in the competing prophecies of the epic genre. The chapter includes an examination of the double prophecies of Mopsus and Idmon in Valerius’ Argonautica 1, Tiresias’ necromancy and pyromancy (Thebaid 4 and 10), and the confrontation between Amphiaraus and Capaneus (Thebaid 3), as well as two episodes in Silius (Flaminius and Corvinus in Punica 5 and Liger and Bogus in Punica 4). Whether an internal vision recounted by a prophet or an external phenomenon relayed in the narrator’s words, the relationship between sign and meaning is opaque and requires interpretation. Even if the vision itself is private, the act of interpretation is often a theatrical and spectacular public experience, and one which demands the engagement and involvement of both internal and external audiences. Confrontations between prophets and rulers allow an exploration of both power and prophecy. Ultimately, Flavian epic suggests that apparent rationality can be another layer of performance. Anne Tuttle’s is the first of two chapters dedicated to an examination of the augury episode in Statius’ Thebaid 3. The author illustrates how augury and portents, as conducted and witnessed by the Argives, carry significant implications for the role of humans and the nature of the divine machinery. Tuttle looks at the intertextual relationship between Statius and the other Latin epicists with respect to augury and divine signs; she argues that the signs are essentially true, conveying clearly to the beholders what the future has in store. But some of the portents also signify that human attempts to understand the propriety and likely success of their undertaking are utterly futile. The gods themselves, especially Jupiter, actively prevent mortals from understanding the symbols of divine displeasure. Humans cannot avert disaster or attempt to regain divine favour. The Argives’ inability to interpret properly and

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respond to the signs not only casts doubt on whether the gods’ disposition is benevolent but signals a complete breakdown of the divine machinery. Because there is no opportunity for mortals to influence their relationship with the divine, the gods arguably sabotage any human effort at piety and destroy whatever relationship may exist between both realms. Continuing the analysis of the same episode, Eleni Manolaraki’s study illustrates that Amphiaraus’ augury stages a programmatic parallel between bird divination and epic interpretation. Statius critiques the fictional, arbitrary, and ultimately inadequate nature of augury as a purveyor of foresight, and proposes the visualization and interpretation of poetic imagery as a guide to deeper truths. First, Statius rejects the traditional textualization of omens as similes by ‘packaging’ Amphiaraus’ divination as imago (‘symbol’). Then a comparison between Phorbas’ (Thebaid 7) and Amphiaraus’ respective swan visions reveals several telling correspondences between the two visualizations as self-conscious rhetorical constructs. Unlike Amphiaraus, Phorbas does not look at real swans but nevertheless ‘sees’ them. Like Amphiaraus, Phorbas transcends the limits of physical vision: Amphiaraus looks at swans and perceives men; Phorbas looks at men and perceives swans. The traditional interplay of omen and simile dictates that the action of birds (omen) is allegorized (simile) by the viewer as human action. Statius’ interplay between divine (omen) and poetic communication (simile) privileges the predictive value of the latter as a means of understanding the phenomenal world. Ann Hubert’s chapter turns from augury to prayer in Statius. Despite its many articulations, prayer fails to achieve its desired result. Statius systematically portrays prayer as a self-serving and reiterative gesture: prayers betray a tension and subsequently create an irresolvable divine competition to control humankind’s religious allegiance. First, the author examines the prayer of Oedipus (Thebaid 1): Oedipus reveals that his revenge is ultimately about him, as he repeats and re-experiences his own sense of suffering and pain. The perverted intention motivating prayer equally haunts the divine response it engenders: though never invoked by Oedipus, Jupiter announces that he will fulfil Oedipus’ wish. Jupiter’s response continues the same self-serving pattern of repetition: the god is unable to answer a prayer already granted. Second, Hubert explores the poet’s propensity to end books in hymns and offers a larger schematization of prayer’s function: the first six books depict the action leading up to the war, while the second six present the results of that war; similarly, the endings of the first six books set up prayer’s potential while the ending of the second hexad affirms its failure. Statius manipulates

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prayer until it becomes merely a decoy, a clever screen, that, when lifted, uncovers the bleak world of the poem. Similarly, Bruce Gibson’s discussion examines a topic connected to the previous chapter: the hymnic features in Statius’ poetry, both in the Siluae and in the epic enterprises. A particular point of contrast emerges in the treatment of Domitian in the occasional poems and the longer epics. Whereas Statius addresses other gods in his own voice in the Siluae, it is striking that with Domitian such utterances are spoken by characters within the poems. The author then investigates how Statius exploits the hymns to contribute to the atmosphere of moral breakdown so prevalent in the Thebaid. Apparently straightforward hymns included within the Thebaid are shaped by context and literary allusion. Capaneus’ address to his right hand (Thebaid 9) not only develops Mezentius’ similar utterance in Virgil by using the techniques of hymn but also points to the questionable place of the gods and religion. Likewise, Oedipus’ address to Tisiphone (Thebaid 1) demonstrates the weakness of the gods and the power of mortal anger, as Oedipus’ summoning eclipses Juno’s address to Allecto in Virgil. From a different perspective, Tydeus’ and Adrastus’ immaculate hymnic utterances to Minerva (Thebaid 2) and to Nox and Apollo (Thebaid 1) sit uncomfortably with the tendency to see these heroes as very different kinds of moral agent. The section concludes with the chapter by Federica Bessone, who looks at Statius’ poem as a discourse on power investigating the connection between the political and the religious. Theseus emerges as a clement king, opposed to an inclement Creon. Political discourse is updated from Euripidean Athens to reflect imperial Rome; the constitutional debate is turned into an ethical and political discussion on good and bad monarchy. The author analyses how the political crisis of the Thebaid acquires a theological and religious dimension. Religion is exploited to forge a way from crisis to reconstruction, in an attempt to re-found imperial ideology as civic religion. Unlike many critics of Statius’ Thebaid in this volume, Bessone re-views Theseus as the ultimate answer provided by the poet at the very end. She first looks at the paradox of preserving the divine apparatus in the poem. Then the author looks at the altar of Clemency in Athens (Thebaid 12). While the Thebaid avoids the conventions of imperial cult, it offers a vision of the ‘divine’ benefits of empire. Thus the end of a narrative, which has put in question epic teleology and traditional theology, reinforces a new religious and political future. The second part of the volume opens with Ruth Parkes’ chapter on the Statian necromancy of Thebaid 4. Setting the Thebaid’s necromancy in the context of previous chthonic scenes in Virgil, Seneca, Lucan, and

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Valerius, the author examines Statius’ representation of the rites (location, invocations, and addresses to the shades) to show how the details are not merely formulaic but sensitive to the themes and concerns of the poem. The second section considers Statius’ choice of necromancy instead of katabasis or corpse resurrection. Despite the emphasis laid on permeable boundaries in the episode, in the Statian chthonic rite the participants do not make a trip to the Underworld; this reflects the inability to pass successfully between the boundaries of the different realms. The last part explores how the restricted and negative learning experience of Eteocles echoes the poem’s presentation of the Theban people as self-destructive and inward-looking. The chapter by Nicholas Dee continues some of the same themes and discusses the role of pollution and ritual purification in Statius’ Thebaid. Throughout the epic, many characters attempt to rid their world of its pollutants, but such attempts at purification fail to have any meaningful or lasting effect; each lustration is, in the end, an act of futility. Furthermore, the vanity of purification and the dominance of pollution highlight two important themes: the breakdown of divine power and the devastation brought about by familial violence. First, Dee looks at the necromancy as an example of pollution. Then he examines the futility of lustration as it relates to the weakness and ineffectiveness of the gods, especially in the case of Tydeus’ cannibalism (Thebaid 8). Finally, the author turns to familial relationships, arguing that the royal house is polluted beyond redemption, as the reader discovers, for instance, in Jocasta’s suicide-qua-lustration. The following two chapters look at the seventh book of Silius’ Punica and trace the function of the book’s use of chthonic ritual and katabasis. First, R. Joy Littlewood discusses Silius’ technique of extolling the Roman heroes and demonizing the barbarian enemy by adapting and reversing well-known topoi from Virgil’s foundational legend of the Ara Maxima. Q. Fabius Maximus is a descendant of Hercules, fashioned as a rescuer of the carelessly foolish Master of the Horse, Minucius. In particular, Silius enhances the dualism prevalent in post-Virgilian epic between light and darkness. The darkness of Minucius’ treachery is juxtaposed to that of Virgil’s Cacus, while Fabius comes to the forefront of the narrative as the saviour who frees the soldiers from the bonds of darkness. Among other episodes, the author investigates the prominence of chthonic ritual and illusion in the representation of Hannibal and of his supporters (the giant Moor, Tunger). Finally, Littlewood examines the symbolism of gigantomachy and Hannibal’s attack on Rome as part of a subversion of Rome’s ritual sacrifice of white oxen in the sunshine of a Roman triumph, which marks not only Hannibal’s ‘victory’ in his escape from

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imminent defeat but the breakdown of the social order of Virgil’s Georgics and the violation of Italy by barbarian invaders. Similarly, Robert Cowan studies Silius’ seventh book and stresses that the brief skirmish between Minucius and Hannibal is figured in terms of a metaphorical katabasis in which the categories of the celestial, terrestrial, and infernal are confused. The episode engages intertextually with Orpheus’ failed rescue of Eurydice from the Underworld (Georgics 4). As a whole, the episode exploits the imagery of cultic initiation, salvation, and the pseudo-deification of Fabius as a god of salvation parallel to Dionysus and others. Minucius’ entry into the battle becomes a descent into the world of the dead, and his return a rescue from it. That this salvation is figured in terms of cultic initiation can be seen from the imagery of rebirth and of light and darkness. The process is one of initiation into comprehension of the rightness of Fabius’ strategy and his virtual divinity as the embodiment of Rome. This apotheosis of Fabius climaxes in the closing lines with the cultic offerings presented to him. Silius thus casts Fabius as the divine saviour of mystery cult, a deified proto-princeps, while he also underscores the ambiguity of Fabius’ status as simultaneously quintessential republican and synecdochic hero. From necromancy and katabasis, Neil Bernstein’s chapter takes us to a study of suicide and ritual murder in the vicious world of Statius’ Thebaid by examining four episodes which initially appear to stand out as some of the few (and perhaps the only) positive examples of ritual violence: Maeon’s heroic suicide (Thebaid 3), Hypsipyle’s fake funeral for her father Thoas (Thebaid 5), Menoeceus’ self-sacrifice (Thebaid 10), and Theseus’ ritualized murder of the tyrannical Creon (Thebaid 12). As the author argues, such episodes expose the contingency of the relationship between ritual performance, the claim of merit, and the exercise of power. By narrating the actual circumstances and consequences of ritual performances, Statius complicates and eludes any expectation either that ritual actors are meritorious or that the gods involved are either virtuous or powerful. The Thebaid presents its readers with a series of difficult questions regarding the relationship between ritual, merit, and power. Finally, if Statius’ epic reflects or shapes attitudes toward ritual in Flavian Rome, the prospects for establishing a correct relationship with the gods seem bleak. The Thebaid implies that much ritual work must be done in order to restore a proper relationship with the gods after the murders and suicides of the recent civil war of 69 ce. Religious rites, death, and burial are central issues taken up by Randall Ganiban in his discussion of the Opheltes episode (Thebaid 6). The author examines the funeral rites for the baby boy killed by a snake as

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playground for various conflicts (Greek and Roman, Argive and Nemean, and death and glory), as the Argive Seven struggle to give Opheltes’ death an ideological meaning. On the one hand, the Argives carefully orchestrate the funeral rites to promote a positive interpretation and thus minimize their own responsibility. But on the other hand, their devastation of a grove to build the funeral pyre resonates with the troubling actions of Ovid’s Erysichthon and Lucan’s Caesar. As such, the episode acquires overtones of Roman civil war and of sacrilege. What becomes central for Statius’ treatment of the ritual are the two pyres prepared, one for Opheltes and the other for the serpent. Both pyres promote competing poetic aesthetics and experiences of the world of the epic: the funeral games are meant to prepare the Argives for battle and thus promote their glory; yet they contain events and portents that undermine the seeming celebration of Argive uirtus. From suicide, murder, and burial, in the last chapter in the section we move to epitaphs and epitaphic gestures. As the outcome of burial, memorialization of the heroes and their deeds on tombstones becomes part of elaborate ekphraseis in Flavian epic, as, for instance, in the case of the tomb built for Opheltes in Nemea. The poets incorporate in the genre epic motifs and techniques from funerary epigrams, such as short obituaries. From the theoretical lens of intermediality, Martin Dinter examines the influence of Greek epigram and particularly epitaph (funerary epigram) on Statius and Silius. As the author demonstrates, Greek epigraphic formulae such as ŒÆd  are absorbed into Latin poetry: by (over)emphasizing the sepulchral origin of ŒÆd , Latin authors invent a literary game in which the expression tu/te quoque serves as epitaphic gesture towards death or death to come. Epitaphs thus combine the genres of epigram, elegy, and epic, as well as extensive ritual elements in them. This chapter proposes that brief formulaic expressions serve as intergeneric (epic/epigram) and intermedial (text/stone) markers and thus promote a connotation of memorialization. The author begins from Virgil’s use of this technique and then moves on to examine in detail various scenes from the Thebaid and the Punica to demonstrate the relevance of epigram for the epic genre. Not only does it help to create discourse on death and lasting glory, but it also contributes to creating and enhancing the tragedy inherent in Statius’ and Silius’ poems. The third and final section of the volume, ‘Ritual and the Female’, opens with Raymond Marks’ study of Anna Perenna (Punica 8). Emphasis is placed here on the female goddess’s double identity. Juno asks Anna, a river nymph Carthaginian by birth, to encourage Hannibal to march to Cannae. As the author submits, Anna Perenna is a shifty,

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changeable figure, with connections to rites of passage for boys and girls, as well as to civil strife, i.e. the assassination of Julius Caesar. The battle of Cannae is a moment of change (with many allusions to civil war), the event after which Hannibal’s fortunes steadily decline and Rome’s steadily rise. Anna’s appearance is also well suited to the paradoxical aims of the battle and the gods’ involvement. She parallels Jupiter and Minerva, both of whom harm Rome in the short term but help it in the long term. Anna plays a similar role, in that she harms Rome by encouraging Hannibal to go to Cannae but helps the city to be born anew. In the next two chapters critics turn their attention to female figures in Statius’ Thebaid, while the last one focuses on Statius’ unfinished Achilleid. Alison Keith examines the end of the first book of the Thebaid, where the poet commemorates the death of the infant Linus and the heroism of Coroebus. She investigates the role of female pollution in connection with the ritual implements and aetiological narrative of the Argive court, with a focus on the relationship between the Ovidian Medusa and Statius’ ‘monstrous regiment’ of snakes, women, and snakewomen: Python, Medusa, and the incarnation of ‘Punishment’ (Poine). The author investigates Poine’s associations with the ancient figure of the reproductive demon, who characteristically kills newborn infants and/or pregnant, parturient, or newly delivered women, and is customarily regarded with dread and superstition by many Mediterranean cultures in antiquity. Like Ovid’s Medusa and Virgil’s Harpies, Poine both embodies a crisis of contagion and spreads it around. Ultimately the female monster’s death recalls Statius’ living death of Oedipus, one of the protagonists of the polluted and polluting epic. Keith’s chapter concludes with a look at the self-reflexive hybridity of Statius’ narrative style. For the poet’s intertextual hybridity finds a troubling analogue in the corporeal hybridity that the monstrous female embodies: epic and elegy, masculine and feminine disturbingly parallel the violence that pesters the house of Oedipus. Christopher Chinn’s chapter offers a discussion of female jewellery: Statius’ description of Harmonia’s necklace made by Vulcan (Thebaid 2). As the author demonstrates, the elaborate necklace alludes to the apparent conflict between epic and Callimachean poetics. But most importantly, as Chinn argues, Statius exploits Orphic theogony and ritual, and in particular, the Orphic/Cretan story of the protection of the infant Zeus (and/or Dionysus) by various daimonic powers. Chinn carefully examines several episodes (the council of the gods in book 1, Bacchus’ speech to Jupiter in 7, and the Hypsipyle episode in 5). Most strikingly, Hypsipyle is compared to the Great Mother entrusting the infant Jupiter to the

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Curetes on Crete. Hypsipyle’s saving of her father can be viewed from the angle of an Orphic ritual, in particular Orphic initiation and ‘enthronement’. Hypsipyle’s role in this rite as both shocked observer, active participant, and initiand provides various levels of focalization on this scene and freights it with palpable terror. In addition to providing an alternative, cosmological background to the poem, Statius juxtaposes the characters’ intentions and the ‘Orphic’ expectations of the narrative. In the last chapter, Vassiliki Panoussi studies the representation of young women’s rituals in Statius’ Achilleid to show that Achilles’ transvestism on the island of Scyros is accompanied by female ritual activity to emphasize female agency and power. The poem shows female ritual (expressed through Bacchic rites, choral dancing, and collective worship of Pallas) as bestowing upon the young women of Scyros a power that appears capable of containing (or at least delaying) the manifestation of Achilles’ masculinity. The girls’ agency is indicated in three ways: the power of their beauty and sexuality to attract and potentially dominate men; their association with Amazons; and their performance of Bacchic rituals. The performance of ritual, especially dances, manifests the power of the girls’ sexuality and desirability without a threat to the essence of the hero’s masculinity. The girls are themselves portrayed in their own gender-bending through references to Bacchants and Amazons, the quintessential emblems of female force. Panoussi’s analysis of Statius’ narrative strategies reveals that the poet invests typical motifs associated with women with an exceptional power that renders the young women capable of posing a threat to the full articulation of masculinity. Of course, such ritual agency can only temporarily thwart the male hero’s trajectory to fulfil his role as the warrior par excellence in Statius’ epic poem. While the chapters in this volume aim to provide an overview and a detailed analysis of specific episodes involving ritual and religion, such an enterprise could by no means be exhaustive. We hope that we have opened the way to further investigation and future studies on the fascinating world of epic poetry produced under the Flavian emperors.

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Part I Gods and Humans

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1 With (a) God on Our Side Ancient Ritual Practices and Imagery in Flavian Epic Marco Fucecchi

INTRODUCTION In Classical antiquity, religion and war appear to be reciprocally connected. The divine is directly involved in warfare from the outset (preliminary statements and declarations of war) until the end of military operations. When the Romans go to war, they need to be accompanied by their gods’ blessing. With proverbial scruple, they constantly look for prodigies and other signs of divine willingness in order to reassure themselves that their military initiative is not only legitimized by moral sanction but also ‘authorized’ by heaven. The support of their national deities, however, is not enough, as it only represents a starting point. Indeed, the Romans are also preoccupied with obtaining solidarity from the gods of their enemies: the final military victory is construed, in cultural terms, as the inevitable consequence of the appropriation of foreign divinities. In the ritual of euocatio, the most complete formulation of which is handed down to us by Macrobius, a hostile godhead is invited to abandon its temple and move to a new and better residence in the city of the conquerors.1 Such a typical feature of Rome’s military and political expansion is

1 While commenting on Virg. Aen. 2.351–2 (see below), Macrobius (3.9.1–15) distinguishes between two ritual invocations (carmina) usually performed during the siege of an enemy city, and quotes the respective texts extensively: at first (3.9.7–8), we have the proper euocatio of the gods; then (3.9.10–11), the formula of deuotio, which consists of a curse on the whole city, its inhabitants and troops.

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matched by a self-defensive attitude: the Romans are careful to keep the real name of their protective deity secret in order to avert the risk of being deprived of him (or her) in the same manner.2 This concern for having the help of foreign gods and eventually integrating them into the national pantheon also emerges in periods of crisis due to pestilence or other calamities. In such circumstances, Roman society has recourse to oracular, Sybilline prescriptions and is led to ‘adopt’ alien gods by sending legations who literally transfer the divinities to Rome from abroad (translatio). Different solutions are offered for different situations. Even a heterogeneous range of events, however, such as those collected by Valerius Maximus in the section de miraculis (‘of wonders’, 1.8), seems to originate from a common cause: the Roman anxiety to be legitimized by the gods, both national and foreign, and to have them on their own side. By accumulating the so-called peregrina sacra (‘foreign rituals’),3 Roman culture expands together with the boundaries of the state and, at the same time, indirectly reacts to a sort of ‘prenatal shock’: the violent abduction of Minerva’s statue from her temple in Troy, which caused the fall of Rome’s mother-city. In the Aeneid, this major event is tangentially mentioned by Aeneas when he quotes the words of the treacherous Sinon (Aen. 2.162–75). Clearly, the theft of the Palladium cannot be defined as an euocatio in the proper sense, especially since Minerva is said to have reacted angrily to her abduction. Nevertheless, already in the first book, the murals at Juno’s temple in Carthage have prepared us for Minerva’s increasing disaffection with the Trojans (templum non aequae Palladis, ‘the temple of the unfriendly Pallas’, Aen. 1.479; diua solo fixos oculos auersa tenebat, ‘with averted face the goddess kept her eyes fast upon the ground’).4 The ‘focalized’ description seems to reveal Aeneas’ awareness of the hostility of the goddess. Furthermore, when narrating the terrible night of the city’s capture, the hero quotes what he said to his comrades: quae sit rebus fortuna uidetis:/excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis/di quibus imperium hoc steterat (‘You see what is the fate of our cause. All the gods on whom this empire was stayed have gone forth, leaving shrine and altar’, Aen. 2.350–52).5 In fact, the diegetical boundaries of the Aeneid do not include Minerva’s return to Aeneas by Ulysses or Diomedes. As we shall see, Minerva’s transfer from Troy to Rome, which ultimately warrants the inviolability of the city, is consistently exploited

2 5

3 4 Macr. 3.9.2. Paul. Fest. 268 L. Cf. Hom. Il. 6.288–311. A collective euocatio, according to Macrobius (3.9.1–15) and Servius (ad Aen. 2.351).

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by Virgil’s Flavian successors. In Silius’ Punica, Minerva is said to have reached the future capital of the world of her own accord. Based on this ‘a posteriori’ perspective, the goddess’ departure from Asia to the West is motivated by her knowledge of the future and her enthusiasm for the attractive and prestigious destination. Minerva’s arrival at the site can be considered as a peculiar kind of translatio (rather than an euocatio in the proper sense). The fall of Troy is thus viewed as a necessary condition for the birth of Rome, the caput mundi, the residence of every god, not only Minerva. On the contrary, Hannibal, the embodiment of cruelty and tyrannical power, cannot ‘imitate’ the Roman custom of euocatio and uproot the Roman gods, not even by promising conspicuous remuneration in Africa. In Valerius’ Argonautica, which rather revitalizes an ancient Greek myth by highlighting its ‘imperial’ implications, the theme is tackled more indirectly. Medea, the protagonist of the last two books, is progressively assimilated to a powerful, exotic goddess, whose abduction vividly recalls the ancient Roman translatio ritual. By covering a long period from the legendary past to the glorious republican period, Flavian epic explores fundamental cultural issues: Rome’s determination to grow and her anxiety concerning legitimization, as well as the wish for—or the consciousness of—her eternal destiny as the centre of power and seat of the pantheon. As such, Augustan literary tradition plays another pivotal role. The story of Marcus Furius Camillus, as narrated by Livy, offers a striking example of the symbiotic relationship connecting all the topics listed above. The first part of the narrative culminates with Camillus’ capture of the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 bce (Liv. 5.19–23). Such a crucial event, a historical remake of the fall of Troy ending with the euocatio of Juno Regina to Rome, finds its counterpart at the end of the book in the rescue of Rome from the Gallic assault, guided by the same general. Camillus returns from exile and drives away the enemies from the Capitol; then, in a long and famous speech, he praises the eternity of Rome and prevents his fellow-citizens from leaving the city and transferring the capital to Veii (Liv. 5.49–55).

THE RETURN OF THE PALLADIUM A powerful argument in Camillus’ speech is related to the presence of the gods in Rome, and particularly of Minerva, who is signified by the Palladium as the pignus imperii (‘token of power’) par excellence and is carefully guarded by Vesta (Liv. 5.52.7). But it is not until Silius’ Punica

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that we will find the most extensive account of the return of Minerva’s statue by Diomedes to Aeneas at the time when the latter was founding Lavinium.6 The narrative itself occupies a strategic place in the Punica: after Jupiter’s intervention from the Capitoline hill at the end of book 12, the Punic leader decides to end the siege of Rome only when Dasius, an Apulian deserter, reveals to him that Rome is protected by the Palladium; he would never succeed in capturing the city and dethroning the supreme god.7 Dasius’ source is said to be Diomedes himself. Minerva has already landed in Italy when she appears in a dream to her abductor and temporary ‘owner’. After lamenting the inadequacy of the temple built for her by the Greek hero in Argyripa,8 she commands him thus: non haec, Tydide, tantae pro laudis honore digna paras: non Garganus nec Daunia tellus debentur nobis. quaere in Laurentibus aruis qui nunc prima locant melioris moenia Troiae. huc uittas castumque refer penetrale parentum.

(Sil. 13.58–62)

‘Son of Tydeus, this work of yours is not adequate to do honour to such great glory; Mount Garganus and the Daunian land are no fitting place for me. Go to the land of Laurentum, and seek there for the man who is now laying the foundation-stone of a happier Troy. Carry to him the fillets and chaste guardian-goddess of his ancestors.’

This type of prodigy, in which the goddess takes the initiative in declaring her divine will,9 is not without antecedents.10 To a Roman ear, however, this constitutes a peculiar reversal of the euocatio ritual, where a god/goddess is rather invited by a foreign leader to leave his/ her city with the promise of a better cult abode.11 Silius’ narrative 6 Sil. 13.36–81. Cf. Servius ad Aen. 2.166 and the testimony of L. Cassius Hemina cited by Solin. 2.14. On the episode, see Ripoll (2001) and Fucecchi (2005). 7 We are led to believe that Hannibal fears Minerva more than Jupiter. Could this be a way of implicitly recognizing the power of the goddess who, as Tritonia, plays an important role as ally of the Carthaginians? Or is it, rather, an indirect, celebratory allusion to the special cult reserved by Domitian for Minerva? 8 sedes ingrata (‘a dwelling-place distasteful’, Sil. 13.55), a detail not attested elsewhere. 9 She does not simply express fury as in Virgil (Aen. 2.172–5). The Apulian deserter of the Punica then should be considered as a ‘positive’ counterpart to the Greek trickster of the Aeneid. 10 E.g. Artemis of Ephesus appears in a dream to Aristarcha, a Phocaean woman, and commands her to sail away with the Phocaeans taking with her a sacred xoanon (a wooden reproduction) of Artemis herself in order to make it the protective talisman of the new colony, Massilia (Str. 4.1.4). 11 Camillus beseeches Juno Regina to leave Veii (Liv. 5.21.3); cf. also Ver. Fl. ap. Plin. Nat. 28.18.

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dramatizes Minerva’s reconciliation with the Trojan refugees, an act which paves the way for a foedus between them and the Greeks: after long years of war, a new land makes a new beginning possible. In fact, the interest of Dasius’ digression mostly resides in its influence upon the main narrative. The news of Minerva’s favour towards the future world capital may come as a surprise, especially considering that, in the Punica, she collaborates with Juno in supporting Hannibal. The divine approval reassures the reader about the fidelity of the goddess to Rome, while at the same time it marks the severe loss of a precious ally for Hannibal. As I have pointed out in another study,12 for this episode in Punica 13 Silius draws upon Erato’s account of the translation of the Magna Mater from Asia Minor to Latium in Fasti 4, where Cybele orders King Attalus of Pergamum to let her sail to the West: ipsa peti uolui: ne sit mora; mitte uolentem:/dignus Roma locus quo deus omnis eat (‘I myself wished to be sought. Let there be no delay. Send me, I am willing. Rome is a worthy place for any god to go’, Ov. Fast. 4.269–70). There are other important allusions, especially to the final books of Ovid’s Fasti and the Metamorphoses. Towards the end of Fasti 6, we find a brief but important remark about Minerva’s voluntary departure from Troy: sub Priamo seruata parum: sic ipsa uolebat,/ex quo iudicio forma reuicta sua est (‘Under Priam she was not well secured. She herself wished it so, from the time when her beauty was vanquished in the contest’, Ov. Fast. 6.431–2). Similarly, in a nocturnal epiphany in Metamorphoses 15, Aesculapius reassures the chief of the Roman ambassadors about his intention to leave Epidaurus and follow them: pone metus! ueniam simulacraque nostra relinquam (‘Away with fear! I shall come and abandon my form’, Ov. Met. 15.658). Silius takes all these Ovidian intertexts into account and goes a step further. His Minerva cannot even wait, but instead compels Diomedes to reach Latium.13 The goddess, who in the Aeneid is said to show hostility towards the Greeks, though without strenuously resisting the abduction from Troy, now appears to have conceived of a definite ‘strategy’ in order to change her home. As an epic successor to Virgil and Ovid, the Flavian poet narrates the continuation of the story. Minerva is perfectly able to keep the situation under control: just as Ovid’s Magna Mater states (Fast. 4.270), Minerva looks forward to dwelling in the place where the future 12

Fucecchi (2005). Nonetheless she does not go as far as to ‘move herself ’ like the Trojan Penates who, according to Val. Max. 1.8.7, mysteriously come back twice to Lavinium from Alba Longa, where Ascanius wants them to reside. 13

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Rome will rise. Perhaps the goddess had even intended to leave Troy and reach Italy with the help of Diomedes. There, as we see in the Punica, Minerva behaves coldly towards him: nec celata deam et minitans Tritonia uirgo (‘The Maiden of Lake Tritonis appeared in her divine form and warned him thus’, Sil. 13.57). She finally displays the hostility against the Greeks that Sinon and Diomedes himself attribute to her in the Aeneid (2.170–75 and 11.255–68). Furthermore, according to Dasius’ last words, Minerva does not simply dispel the Gauls who have invaded Rome, but exterminates them all: haec ausos Celtas irrumpere moenia Romae/corripuit leto neque tot de milibus unum/ingentis populi patrias dimisit ad aras (‘When the Gauls dared to break through the walls of Rome, this goddess put a speedy end to them, and of that vast horde not a single man out of so many thousands returned in peace to the altars of his country’, Sil. 13.79–81). Upon learning this detail, which has no parallel in ancient literary tradition, Hannibal finally decides to end the siege: unlike Jupiter, Minerva will not be satisfied with driving the Carthaginians away. There is a relationship then between the voice, which obliges Diomedes to return the Palladium to the founders of the ‘better Troy’, and the person who helps exterminate the Gauls. Minerva’s peremptory demand to Diomedes can be considered a paradoxical version of the euocatio ritual, when the god/goddess is usually called upon to answer a formal request.14 To sum up, if Sinon’s treacherous gift to the Trojans is finally counterbalanced by Diomedes’ return of the Palladium to Aeneas, we may also say that Dasius’ narrative is the positive (and ‘reliable’) counterpart to Sinon’s deceitful account in Aeneid 2.15 In fact, it is meant to persuade Hannibal to give up hope of capturing Rome. Like Diomedes, the harsh enemy of the Trojans who obtains his last major military victory at Cannae, the so-called campi Diomedis (‘Diomedes’ plains’), he cannot hope to fight successfully against destiny and the power of the gods,16 nor will he succeed in abducting Minerva from Rome.17 It is difficult,

14 Cf. Juno Regina in Liv. 5.22.5–6: dein cum quidam, seu spiritu diuino tactus seu iuuenali ioco, ‘uisne Romam ire, Iuno?’ dixisset, adnuisse ceteri deam conclamauerunt. inde fabulae adiectum est uocem quoque dicentis uelle auditam (‘Then a certain soldier, either divinely inspired or as a young man’s joke, asked “Would you like to go to Rome, Juno?” At this his companions exclaimed that the goddess had nodded yes; then, to conclude the scene, came this addition: she was heard to say that she was willing’). See also Plut. Cam. 6.1; V. Max. 1.8.3; D.H. 13.3.3. 15 There the abduction, represented as an offence against Minerva, is followed by the goddess’s anger and the need for expiation. 16 Virg. Aen. 11.278–93. 17 Although he is said to have tried through Capuan mercenaries (Liv. 26.27.14).

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however, to imagine Silius’ Hannibal abandoning his titanic project: reconciliation is forbidden for the Carthaginian, who, unlike Diomedes, is condemned to remain the foreign enemy who will always haunt Rome and the empire.

ANNA BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE Incited by an obsessive, atavistic hatred of Rome and determined to avenge Carthage’s (and his own father’s) defeat in the First Punic War, Hannibal is portrayed as the paradoxical result of great qualities serving bad and treacherous purposes. He aims to eradicate the divine power which assures the eternity of Rome.18 Iconoclastic fury as well as barbaric cruelty know few exceptions: at the height of success, Hannibal shows traces of ‘humanlike emotions’ only when the outstanding virtues of his enemies stir feelings of admiration, or even anxiety and fear.19 Elsewhere, the Carthaginian manifests signs of an ‘anxiety of influence’ towards Roman cultural models and goes as far as reproducing the typical Roman inclination to appropriate alien divinities, albeit without success. In the case of Dido’s sister Anna, who after her sister’s demise becomes an Italian deity,20 Hannibal tries to reappropriate a figure from Carthage’s past and give her an honourable place within the Carthaginian pantheon. In a scene reminiscent of the beginning of Aeneid 9, as Juno’s messenger and substitute of the Virgilian Iris, Anna incites the Punic general to move towards Cannae, the place of his last great victory in the war (8.202–41).21 As a reward for the prosperous omen, Hannibal promises to take her back home to Africa after the war: there she will finally be worshipped as a numen patrium (‘a goddess of his country’, 8.239). Poetic imagination blurs cultural boundaries, since Hannibal’s offer can be read as an indirect attempt to imitate prematurely the pattern

18 This consists of the traditional Olympian gods, enriched by new members, like Janus, whose ‘aristocratic’ background dates back to Augustan poetry and to the first book of Ovid’s Fasti in particular. 19 For admiration, cf. the numerous Bestattungsszenen, where the eulogy of the dead has self-celebratory implications. For fear, cf. the opening of Punica 7, Hannibal and Fabius. 20 Silius (8.44–201) reconstructs the aetiology of the cult of Anna Perenna from Ovid’s Fast. 3.545–654; see Marks, Ch. 16 below, on the relationship between the two poets. 21 Cf. Virg. Aen. 9.5–24 (Iris spurs Turnus to attack the Trojan camp). Ganiban (2010) points out a resemblance, though more indirect, to the speech addressed by Allecto (another of Juno’s envoys) to Turnus in Aen. 7.

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of euocatio—in this case a reuocatio: while trying to reappropriate the goddess, he plays the conqueror and the ‘rescuer’ at the same time.22 The Carthaginian princess, however, who has become a ‘naturalized’ Latin nymph, does represent a symbol of cultural interpenetration and negotiation.23 Her personal involvement makes her position very delicate, and different from that of a traditional divine messenger like Iris. The new goddess still remembers her origins, in particular Dido’s magna mandata (‘solemn behests’, 8.42), but her role as intermediary—not to speak of the secondary role she has in the divine hierarchy—does not allow her to take any hostile initiative against the Romans. In fact, Anna is apparently not thinking about vengeance when she springs into action. She has certainly not forgotten the past, but also seems fond of her glorious present: by now she resides in Latium, where she is worshipped as Anna Perenna.24 Such considerations problematize her relationship with the Virgilian models of auxiliary gods. At first, Anna does not display Aeolus’ deferential zeal when accepting to execute Juno’s orders (Aen. 1.77 ~ Sil. 8.40–41); nor is she struck dumb by sadness like Juturna, weighed down by the disproportionate task of trying to save her brother Turnus (Aen. 12.154–5 and 159–60).25 As Raymond Marks notes throughout his essay (Chapter 16 below), Anna attempts to rouse Hannibal’s fury anew as a tribute to Dido’s memory but does not fail to remember (proudly) her place within the Roman pantheon: ‘haud’ inquit ‘tua ius nobis praecepta morari./sit fas, sit tantum, quaeso, retinere fauorem/antiquae patriae mandataque magna sororis,/quamquam inter Latios Annae stet numen honores’ (‘I have no right to delay your bidding. One thing only I beg: suffer me only to keep the goodwill of my former country and to carry out the solemn behests of my sister, although the deity of Anna is among those honoured by the Romans’, Sil. 8.40–43). This last hexameter stresses the concessive clause, Anna’s consciousness

22 Such a sample of imperialistic behaviour is undoubtedly less destructive than the hysterical reaction before the celebratory pictures of the temple in Liternum (Sil. 6.698–716). 23 Augoustakis (2010: 136–44). 24 See esp. Sil. 8.43, 200–1 and 220–21. 25 Moreover, unlike Juturna, Anna is exclusively given an informative role: she immediately manifests herself to Hannibal and reassures him with the promise of a great victory (contrast here Juno’s ‘discouraging’ recommendation to Juturna in Aen. 12.152–3). As we shall see, Anna possibly reveals, at the end of the scene, a form of (sorrowful) consciousness of the partial, ephemeral nature of Hannibal’s success at Cannae. As for her relationship with Juturna, it is worth noting at least the formal nexus (established by the shared polyptoton, diua/dea) in Virg. Aen. 12.138–40 and Sil. 8.205.

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of her new status: she is ready to pay a last homage to her origins, but not at the cost of losing the benefits of Roman citizenship.26 Upon facing Hannibal, Anna undoubtedly performs well the task entrusted by Juno: maybe even too well, if we look at the passage carefully. Starting from the apostrophe, Anna offers an elegant example of an allusion to Diomedes.27 Anna’s speech has the air of a preliminary invitation: Hannibal has to reach the Apulian plain, where, according to the Aeneid, the Greek epic hero established himself after the Trojan war. In order to increase her interlocutor’s confidence, the goddess exaggerates the divine favour bestowed upon him (omnis iam placata tibi manet ira deorum,/omnis Agenoridis rediit fauor, ‘All the wrath of the gods against you has now been appeased, all their goodwill has come back to the children of Agenor’, Sil. 8.213–14).28 Finally, after informing Hannibal about the disgraceful choice of Varro as Fabius’ successor in the consulship (Sil. 8.214–18), Anna declares that she is indeed Juno’s emissary and, recalling her Phoenician origin, mentions her present cult in Italy (me tibi, ne dubites, summi matrona Tonantis/misit. ego Oenotris aeternum numen in oris/concelebror uestri generata e sanguine Beli, ‘I was sent to you—doubt it not—by the consort of the almighty Thunderer. I am honoured in the land of Oenotria as an immortal goddess, though I was born of the seed of Belus, your ancestor’, Sil. 8.219–21).29 The reference to a higher authority at the end of the speech could be construed as a sign of rejection of any personal responsibility, another mark of tension between Anna’s double identity: she looks as if she were restraining her emotions, if not even dissimulating the knowledge of Hannibal’s ultimate fate. In a word, Anna does not renounce paying homage to her past, but she never forgets she is a successful example of cultural integration, though not without cost. While provoking Hannibal, she seems aware of his fate as she comes to terms with it. She does not need to make the same strenuous and desperate effort as Juturna, because her role simply

26 On Anna’s misgivings about following Juno’s request, cf. Ariemma (2000: 43) with further bibliography. 27 rex o fortissime gentis/Sidoniae (‘Mightier ruler of the Phoenicians’, Sil. 8.211–12) ~ o Danaum fortissime gentis/Tydide (‘O son of Tydeus, mightiest of the Danaan race’, Virg. Aen.1.96–7); see Fernandelli (2009: 163–4). Cf. also Sil. 13.38 and 8.240–41, when Hannibal says to his troops: diua ducente petamus/infaustum Phrygibus Diomedis nomine campum (‘Let us follow the goddess to the field where the name of Diomedes is of ill omen to Trojans’); see also Marks’ discussion of the passage (Ch. 16 below). 28 An echo of Tiberinus’ exhortation to Aeneas in Aen. 8.40–41. Juno promises only a victory at Cannae, without saying that it would be the final act of the war. 29 See Marks’ discussion of the passage (Ch. 16 below).

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consists of announcing the Carthaginian victory at Cannae: the height of Hannibal’s fortune, but also the greatest demonstration of Roman endurance in the Punica. Finally, like the Virgilian Iris (Aen. 9.14–15), and contrary to Juturna, who sinks in the stream (Aen. 12.886), Anna ascends into heaven (dixit et in nubes umentia sustulit ora, ‘She ended, and her watery image rose up to the clouds’, Sil. 8.225). The curious phrase umentia ora is commonly (and perhaps correctly) interpreted as an allusion to her status as a river nymph. But the same expression is used elsewhere, though in a different context, by the narrator of the Punica when referring to tears streaming down someone’s face (sed uos, quorum oculos atque ora umentia uidi, ‘But you, whose eyes and face I saw wet with tears’, Sil. 9.30).30 This could naturally be a simple coincidence: intratextual relationships like these are to be taken into account cautiously, and in the case of Anna, every conjecture risks being invalidated by the unresolved problem of the authenticity of the so-called Additamentum Aldinum (8.144–223).31 Nevertheless, at the crucial moment of Anna’s return to heaven, one should not completely exclude the possibility of a final pathetic remark, which could be interpreted as a residual emergence of her ‘Carthaginian self ’. Resignation to fate and self-consciousness of her new status prevent Dido’s sister from overtly manifesting her grief, as Juturna does when obliged to abandon Turnus to his destiny (Virg. Aen. 12.886). Almost trying to repress a last tear, an extreme pathetic souvenir, Anna silently leaves the stage because she knows that Africa defines her past, not her future, even though Hannibal promises a lavish cult for her: ‘nympha, decus generis, quo non sacratius ullum numen’ ait ‘nobis, felix oblata secundes. ast ego te compos pugnae Carthaginis arce marmoreis sistam templis iuxtaque dicabo aequatam gemino simulacri munere Dido.’ (Sil. 8.227–31) ‘Nymph, glory of our nation, as sacred to me as any deity, be propitious and give a favourable issue to your promises. If I may fight a battle, I will set your image in a marble shrine on the citadel of Carthage, and dedicate beside it an image of Dido, and both shall be honoured alike.’

As Raymond Marks correctly observes in his essay, ‘Anna and her story show how changeable one’s identity and loyalty can be, how easily the categories of “Carthaginian” and “Trojan” (or “Roman”) or friend and 30

See also Marks’ discussion in Ch. 16 below. On this textual crux, see the balanced assessments given by Fernandelli (2009) and Augoustakis (2010: 139–40). 31

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foe can blur’. The first episode of the eighth book dramatizes the tension between Anna’s two identities and, at the same time, indirectly points out the impossibility of transferring gods to the Carthaginian side, no matter whence they originate.

CONQUERED CITIES AND PROTECTIVE GODS Through Punica 1–10 Hannibal accomplishes a number of victories, with earthquakes, inundations, and other cataclysms adding grandiosity to the narrative of massacre and slaughter. The first act of war, the capture of Saguntum, already seems more like a supernatural catastrophe than the conquest of enemy territory. Before the impotent eyes of Hercules, and the desperate intervention of Fides notwithstanding, Saguntum collapses, while its citizens are instigated by Tisiphone to commit collective suicide. Hannibal, however, does not manage to appropriate the city’s very ‘soul’. When the infernal Erinys evokes from the tomb the snake-like spirit of Zacynthus, the unlucky companion of Hercules and eponymous founder of the city, the reader is presented with an elaborate ritual, an emblematic type of euocatio which sanctions the upcoming death of Saguntum.32 In fact, the frightening prodigy only hints at the ritual pattern without bringing any further advantage to the winners: the snake plunges into the sea, but is not said to be heading for Carthage: excitus sede, horrendum, prorumpit ab ima caeruleus maculis auro squalentibus anguis. ignea sanguinea radiabant lumina flamma, oraque uibranti stridebant sibila lingua. isque inter trepidos coetus mediamque per urbem uoluitur et muris propere delabitur altis ac similis profugo uicina ad litora tendit spumantisque freti praeceps immergitur undis. tum uero excussae mentes, ceu prodita tecta expulsi fugiant manes, umbraeque recusent captiuo latuisse solo. (Sil. 2.584–94) ‘Then—dreadful to behold—a snake burst forth at her summons from its abode in the depths of the mound; its body was dark green and rough with spots of gold; its fiery eyes glittered with blood-red flame; and the mouth

32

On this episode, see now Augoustakis (2010: 129–36).

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with its flickering tongue made a loud hissing. Between the terrified groups its coils moved on through the centre of the city, and swiftly it glided down from the high walls; then, as if escaping, it made its way to the shore near the town, and plunged headlong into the waves of the foaming sea. Then indeed men’s reason tottered: it seemed that the dead were fleeing forth from abodes no longer safe, and that their ghosts refused to lie in conquered soil.’

The flight of the snake-like god, which symbolizes the city’s surrender and drives the Saguntines to despair for their survival, is a pattern traced back to Herodotus (8.41). Silius’ imagination has also been influenced by the passage in Aeneid 5 (84–9), where a serpent emerges from Anchises’ sepulchre to taste the offerings.33 The reader, however, is invited to take into account further intertexts. The flight of the protective spirit from the doomed city of Saguntum does provide a counterpart to the image of another famous departure, a not so tragic one, but rather voluntary, namely that of the snake-god Aesculapius, who in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (15.669–96) is said to leave its temple in Epidaurus in order to reach Rome.34 The Ovidian snake is pleased to seek a prestigious future; it bids its previous residence a fond farewell with no regrets (Ov. Met.15.685–7). On the contrary, the spirit of Zacynthus (the soul of Saguntum) is summoned by Tisiphone, but is not the object of a translatio: it rather begins a sorrowful exile without a specific destination (similis profugo, ‘as if escaping’, Sil. 2.590). The fall of Saguntum, the city that exemplifies fides, invites the reader to consider the fruitlessness of perverse imperialism. Hannibal embodies destructive forces and is the terrible instrument of a supernatural revenge: he cannot incorporate new gods into the pantheon of his country, nor really integrate the conquered peoples into a larger political entity. Thanks to its peculiar contextualization (war, siege, and sack of a city), Silius rewrites the ‘tragic’ potential of the Ovidian model: the god’s departure, a consensual translatio from poor Epidaurus to glorious Rome, is replaced by the spirit’s flight from Saguntum, a paradoxical euocatio symbolizing the city’s demise. An episode in Valerius’ Argonautica 5 may have served as an intermediary between Ovid and Silius. Here a series of prodigies, including the 33

Vessey (1974: 33). Among the verbal correspondences, see e.g. uibrata sibila lingua, ‘with the hiss of his darting tongue’, Ov. Met. 15.684 ~ uibranti stridebant sibila lingua, ‘with its flickering tongue made a loud hissing’, Sil. 2.587; delabitur, ‘glides down’, Ov. Met. 15.685 ~ Sil. 2.589; mediamque per urbem, ‘the city’s centre’, Ov. Met. 15.689 ~ Sil. 2.588; and also oculos circumtulit igne micantes, ‘cast about his eyes that flashed with fire’, Ov. Met. 15.674 ~ ignea sanguinea radiabant lumina flamma, ‘its fiery eyes glittered with blood–red flame’, Sil. 2.586. 34

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appearance of a big snake, indirectly announces the (extradiegetic) future: the fall of Aea conquered by Scythian troops and Aeetes’ temporary dethronement by his brother Perses. One night, Aeetes is visited by the shade of Phrixus, the Greek hero who miraculously lands in Colchis on the back of a flying ram and then marries Chalciope, Aeetes’ own daughter, before dying under unclear circumstances.35 At first, Phrixus’ voice exhorts the king to take care of the Golden Fleece sacred to Mars, if he wants to preserve his reign (V. Fl. 5.236–7); then Phrixus invites the king to let Medea leave Colchis by accepting an offer of marriage coming from abroad (V. Fl. 5.238–40). Aeetes wakes up and asks Mars’ help, whereupon an enormous snake immediately comes down from the Caucasus and, after coiling itself around the sacred grove, turns its eyes towards Greece, in a hostile, rather mysterious glance, as is commonly thought: uix ea, Caucaseis cum lapsus montibus anguis/haud sine mente dei spiris nemus omne refusis/implicuit Graiumque procul respexit ad orbem (‘Scarce had he spoken, when a serpent gliding from the Caucasian mountains, not without the will of the god, entwined all the grove with its circling coils and looked toward the Grecian land’, V. Fl. 5.253–5). Such a vision reassures the tyrant, who does not take other negative prodigies into account (5.259–60) and harshly rejects the entreaties by the priests or by Perses himself to send the Fleece back to Thessaly (5.261–2). Aeetes’ wishes, however, are to be completely frustrated by the future events. Very soon, Medea’s flight on board the Argo with the Fleece will mark the beginning of the end of her father’s power: according to Jupiter’s revelation, Aeetes will have to abdicate in favour of Perses and will be restored to the throne by Medea herself, when she comes back to Colchis with her son Medus (5.683–7). The sudden epiphany of the snake betrays that Mars is personally engaged in the defence of the sacred gift upon which Aeetes’ power directly depends. Aeetes himself, however, has no particular reason to feel confident. This is the only favourable omen within a completely illboding context; furthermore, Mars himself does not prove to be the best ally for the Colchians.36 The reader is left wondering whether the shade of Phrixus (like Virgil’s Sinon) intends to confuse Aeetes or whether the snake turns its eyes towards the Fleece’s future destination in a way slightly (and paradoxically) reminiscent of Aesculapius’ snake in Ovid: deus eminet alte/impositaque premens puppim ceruice recuruam/caeruleas 35

See Manuwald, Ch. 2 below. At the beginning of the sixth book, the warlike god is unable to decide which side to take in order to defend the Fleece, because Aeetes has promised it to Jason as a reward for his help against Perses; see Fucecchi (2004). 36

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despectat aquas (‘The god towered high and, resting heavily his neck upon the crescent prow, surveyed the sky-blue waters,’ Met. 15.697–9).

THE TRANSFER OF AN EXOTIC GODDESS Jupiter states that, just like the loss of the Golden Fleece, Medea’s flight will also be a decisive factor which will bring about Perses’ temporary victory over Aeetes. As an indirect confirmation of this assessment, Valerius implicitly gives the Colchian princess the status of a deity, who, after helping Jason by resorting to magic, becomes the protagonist of a symbolic translatio or even euocatio. Medea’s departure has been traditionally associated with the negative consequences of Aeetes’ reign. Just before the abrupt end of the poem, however, the heroine appears more and more isolated from the community of the Argo. The narrator emphasizes the difference between the difficult present and the glory of the still recent past by reflecting on the way the Greeks greet her arrival on board. Medea looks like a goddess, a second Pallas, beside the wooden image adorning the prow of the ship: qualis erat cum Chaonio radiantia trunco/uellera uexit ouans interque ingentia Graium/nomina Palladia uirgo stet altera prora (‘as when in triumph she bore the Fleece that once gleamed upon the Chaonian tree, and amid the mighty names of Greece stood a second virgin upon Pallas’ prow’, V. Fl. 8.461–3). In fact, such a venerable epiphany, which can be matched to the Palladium’s landing in Latium in Silius’ Punica (ueniamque precatus/Troianam ostentat trepidis de puppe Mineruam, ‘thus he [sc. Diomedes] asked pardon of the Trojans, and displayed to their startled sight the image of Minerva on the stern of his ship’, Sil. 13.77–8), is at odds with the atmosphere of hostile distrust which Medea progressively displays during the journey.37 The heroine feels betrayed and prepares to vent her rage on Jason, who had even made her believe that she (and not the Fleece) was the very target of the voyage ( iam non ulla requiro/uellera teque meae satis est uexisse carinae, ‘No longer do I ask for any fleece, you are my ship’s sufficient prize’, V. Fl. 8.39–40). 37 E.g. in V. Fl. 8.202–6, when, in desperation, Medea is sitting near Minerva’s image at the ship’s stern: puppe procul summa uigilis post terga magistri/haeserat auratae genibus Medea Mineruae/atque ibi deiecta residens in lumina palla/flebat adhuc, quamquam Haemoniis cum regibus iret/sola tamen nec coniugii secura futuri (‘Away on the top of the ship, behind the vigilant steersman, Medea clung to the knees of Minerva’s gilded image; there sitting with her robe cast about her eyes she still was weeping, solitary, though she journeyed with the Haemonian princes, and unsure of the wedlock that was to be’).

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In Argonautica 7, Valerius Flaccus explores a synthesis of magical powers and goddess-like qualities for Medea, as she saves friends from a cruel destiny or eventually destroys enemies when blinded by grief and rage. Medea is first given the general status of a deity by Venus, disguised as Circe. In a tendentiously persuasive speech, the camouflaged goddess pretends to relate the prayer which Jason addressed to her in order to gain Medea’s support: allegedly Medea is the only one who can help the Greek hero, whom Juno and Pallas have now forsaken (V. Fl. 7.268–75). A little later, Jason personally asks Medea for help and praises her as being mightier than the gods of heaven and hell: per te, quae superis diuisque potentior imis,/perque haec, uirgo, tuo redeuntia sidera nutu/ atque per has nostri iuro discriminis horas (‘By this power that sways alike gods above and gods below, by the stars whose course your will, maiden, can turn, by this hour of our peril do I swear’, V. Fl. 7.498–500). Thereafter, the comparison becomes rather particular, as the uirgo begins to be likened to a specific goddess. During the trials imposed on Jason, when Medea’s power makes the earth-born men turn their weapons against themselves, the self-destructive fury stimulated by the Colchian princess is compared to that raised by the Magna Mater or Bellona: qualis ubi attonitos maestae Phrygas annua Matris/ira uel exsectos lacerat Bellona comatos (‘And just as the anger of the mournful Mother tears every year the frenzied Phrygians apart, or as Bellona lacerates the longhaired eunuchs’, V. Fl. 7.635–6).38 Finally, in the eighth book, while commenting on the appearance of a temporarily appeased Medea (the marriage with Jason at Peuce gives her partial relief from sorrow), Valerius compares her renewed beauty with Cybele’s simulacrum purified by lauatio (‘ritual washing’) in the waters of the Almo: tum nouus impleuit uultus honor ac sua flauis reddita cura comis graditurque oblita malorum. sic ubi Mygdonios planctus sacer abluit Almo laetaque iam Cybele festaeque per oppida taedae, quis modo tam saeuos adytis fluxisse cruores cogitet aut ipsi qui iam meminere ministri? (V. Fl. 8.237–42) ‘Then did a new beauty inform her features, her yellow tresses received the care that was due to them, and she moved without a thought of ill. So when the holy Almo washes away Mygdonian sorrows, and Cybele now is glad and festal torches gleam in the city streets, who would think that cruel

38

Note the particular emphasis on the ritual and the annual repetition of the ira. On Hypsipyle as Cybele, see Chinn’s analysis in Ch. 18 below; on the Magna Mater in the Achilleid, see Panoussi, Ch. 19 below.

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wounds have lately gushed in the temple? Or who of the votaries themselves remember them?’

The ritual is meant to dispel the Magna Mater’s sorrow for the death of Attis.39 Contrary to Cybele in Ovid’s Fasti 4, however, Medea has not yet reached her destination: in Greece her anger will rise again with terrible consequences.

CONCLUSION All the examples analysed in this chapter demonstrate, more or less directly, the lasting influence of the cultural paradigm of translatio deorum and, in particular, of the ancient ceremony known as euocatio. Following in the steps of the Augustan reading of Rome’s prehistory and earlier (republican) history, Flavian epic, with its antiquarian taste, thematizes the relevance that Roman culture still attributes to such rituals of its past, which occur in dissimulated fashion as structures of poetic imagination. In light of the Flavian period’s imperial grandeur, however, the ancient legal preoccupation of gaining the favour of foreign gods and preventing their hostility undergoes an encomiastic reinterpretation. According to Silius, the Trojan Minerva is the first divinity who voluntarily runs from East to West in order to secure a place in the future caput mundi; many other gods follow her ‘foundational’ example, like the Magna Mater and Aesculapius. From another point of view, in Valerius’ Argonautica the Romanization of the Greek myth suggests fascinating links between an extraordinary, superhuman protagonist, like Medea and, respectively, Pallas/ Minerva or even the Magna Mater, a goddess well integrated in the Augustan pantheon by Virgil, but whose obscurely bloody past is narrated by Ovid in Fasti 4. In fact, ‘having a god on their side’ under such circumstances does not necessarily convey a sense of safety and confidence. In Flavian epic the cruel and exotic atmosphere of an archaic myth is often enhanced by an exploration of the Roman past, i.e. of the ‘relative future’. This is the way to appreciate by contrast the glorious present of the world-city.40

39 40

Cf. Ov. Fast. 4.337–42, Luc. 1.599–600.; Sil. 8.362–3; Stat. Silu. 5.1.223. I would like to thank Antony Augoustakis for his useful suggestions and editing.

2 Divine Messages and Human Actions in the Argonautica Gesine Manuwald

DIVINE MESSAGES: STATUS AND FUNCTION Following ancient epic conventions, Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica includes activities on a divine level: the poem presents gods acting according to their own agendas, divine councils chaired by the supreme god, Jupiter, and cooperation and argument among gods, as well as a web of communication between the divine and the human spheres. This interaction typically happens by indirect means, such as prodigies, dreams, oracles, and prophecies on the part of the gods, as well as prayers and sacrifices offered by epic characters. Only when the goddesses Juno and Venus make Medea fall in love with Jason (and similarly for the flashback on the events on Lemnos) is there direct intervention of gods, though the goddesses appear in disguise (6.427–506, 7.153–322). Communication between the divine and human spheres is limited: while the meaning of many messages is clear to readers, epic characters can only interpret them on the basis of their own experiences, so that signs may remain partly or completely obscure to them. Most importantly, the Argonauts never learn of the wider purpose of their journey according to Jupiter’s plan for the development of world history, i.e. the destined changes of hegemony (1.531–60).1 For these shifts to happen, the opportunities for military conflicts between peoples far removed from each other by natural barriers will have to be expanded. Valerius inserts the announcement of this plan (without an equivalent in Apollonius Rhodius) as a special divine prophecy, Jupiter’s 1

Cf. Ferenczi (1996: 44–6).

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address at the divine council.2 Given by Jupiter, fata predetermine the successful completion of the Argonautic voyage, since it is a step that will create the necessary preconditions for Greece to take over from Asia as the foremost power.3 Humans in the epic are not aware of this divine framework; hence their own actions follow their personal plans and/or individual divine messages, which they receive (e.g. in dreams) or request from gods. Therefore epic characters can be variously influenced by divine messages: gods can guide protagonists, determine the timing of actions, or confirm decisions.4 Yet the form and structure of these divine messages typically do not commit humans to specific actions; hence the characters feel free in their decisions and may try to work against the announcements, may forget or ignore omens, or may feel encouraged in their plans (esp. 1.156–83). Ultimately, however, whatever the motivation and the relation to divine signs, all human actions are shown to contribute to the overall goal determined by Jupiter’s plan.5 Such a framework raises questions concerning the status and function of divine messages, as well as the role of the gods, an issue that has received much attention from scholars who are divided in between two opposite ends: does the traditional divine apparatus represent divine powers to be worshipped, or is it part of the conventional narrative structure, thus functioning as a symbol for the humans’ own feelings? The latter view is particularly connected with the presentation of Medea’s struggle between loyalty to her family and love for Jason; the ‘goddesses’ are seen to promote love for Jason as a motivating factor in opposition to Medea’s moral concerns (7.292–9, 7.309–24, 7.371–2, 7.461–2).6 The problem of the status of spontaneous or ritually requested divine messages therefore becomes even more urgent. Psychological interpretations have been suggested: divine messages do not move human beings to anything

2 The existence of an overall plan that determines the outcome of divine and human actions does not necessarily imply that it must lead to a positive outcome for all parties concerned (but cf. e.g. Lefèvre 1998: 230). 3 On several occasions it is highlighted that the Argonauts land somewhere as arranged by fata and/or gods, and in some cases the locals entertain hopes that this will bring the help predicted by divine signs (2.322–4, 2.356, 2.445–6, 2.486, 4.483–5); see Adamietz (1976: 38 and 59). 4 For some examples, see Groß (2003). 5 Cf. Billerbeck (1986: 3130) (though she believes that Jupiter’s plan does not play a major role in the epic); Groß (2003 passim). 6 See e.g. Eigler (1991: 163–4 and 167); Gärtner (1996: 295–6); contrast Soubiran (2002: 36).

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that is against their nature,7 or prophecies agree with the hopes of human beings.8 Yet the hypothesis that the introduction of divine intervention is designed to illustrate deeper psychological processes seems difficult to sustain, even with regard to the divine influence on the decision of Medea, who, at least initially, opposes the wishes of the ‘goddesses’. With its juxtaposition and connection of human thoughts and divine intervention, Valerius’ narrative includes hints that divine messages may be read as external influences on humans. In view of the ongoing scholarly discussion, this chapter will analyse the description of divine messages and their impact on humans in the Argonautica, thereby making an attempt at determining how the poet may have envisaged gods and other supernatural forces.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DIVINE MESSAGES The significance of divine messages can be seen already in the epic’s introductory proem (1.5–21) immediately after the mention of its topic (1.1–4): here the poet places his poetry under divine guidance by invoking Phoebus Apollo (1.5), just as Apollonius Rhodius does (A. R. 1.1). Whereas Apollonius mentions Phoebus primarily as the god of prophecy, since oracles form the starting point of the plot (A. R. 1.1–7), and adds an invocation to the Muses in the catalogue of heroes (A. R. 1.22), Valerius appeals to Phoebus for inspiration and intensifies the invocation by a reference to ‘the tripod aware of the Sibyl in his house’ (1.5–7). Although scholars continue to debate whether this statement implies that the poet is one of the quindecemuiri sacris faciundis, whose duties include a cult of Apollo as well as maintenance, consultation, and interpretation of the prophetic Sibylline books, or whether he assumes a pose, it is still noteworthy that he chooses to mention this office or to invent it for his poetic persona.9

7

See Groß (2003: 9, 123, 243). For instance, Hesione sees in Hercules the saviour promised by auguries (2.485–6). Such an oracle is only found in Valerius’ version; cf. Poortvliet (1991: 262); Spaltenstein (2002: 444); Dräger (2003: 395). See also Gärtner’s (1996) interpretation of dreams as announcing an individual’s wishes. 9 For a summary of the issue, cf. Zissos (2008: xiii–xiv, 80). Boyancé (1935; 1964) claims that religion plays a major role in the epic and is an important source for certain rites described, because of Valerius’ position as quindecimuir. 8

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While references to the personality of the poet, particularly in prologues or epilogues, are not unprecedented in Roman epic, including such a detail is unusual. Earlier Roman poets like Naevius and Ennius use references to their own experiences to enhance their credibility and standing.10 Valerius places his story under the guidance of Phoebus (and also of the soon-to-be-deified Vespasian), on the basis of a close relationship between the poetic persona and the god due to the activities of the quindecimuiri. Contemporary ritual practices and institutions are taken so seriously that they can be used to enhance the poet’s role; since the quindecimuiri are concerned with looking after the Sibylline books, such a reference implies that the custom of dealing with oracles in Roman life is present from the start of the Argonautica. The significance of prophecy for the narrated action is highlighted from the beginning: even before the reference to the poet (1.5–21), the Argo is introduced as the ‘prophetic ship’, lit. ‘fate-telling ship’ ( fatidicamque ratem, 1.2). In Apollonius, the Argo is defined as ‘well-benched’ (A. R. 1.1–4). By endowing the ship with the special ability of prophecy, Valerius indicates that sacred physical items have the ability to convey information about fate. On the level of the narrative, the reason for the Argo’s faculty is explained by the fact that she has been built with divine support and incorporates a beam from a Dodonian oak: after Jason has prayed to Juno and Pallas, the two goddesses do not react directly; instead, they are described as making preparations for the journey on his behalf (1.91–5). The Argo’s divine properties are explained at her first appearance to Jason in his sleep before departure, when the sacred oak encourages him not to delay setting off any further (1.300–10). The Argo asserts that she is an ‘oak from Dodona, the servant of Chaonian Jupiter’ (1.302–3) and that ‘the Saturnian goddess could not have torn her from the prophetic woods had not heaven been promised to her’ (1.304–5). She encourages Jason to get rid of his fear and to trust in the gods and the Argo. Jason reacts ‘in fear, favourable though the omen from heaven was’ (1.309), an indication of his awe before the divine appearance.11 Jupiter’s oak, however, has now provided him with an answer to his prayer for help (1.80–90): he has received reassurance that the gods will support him. Thus the Argo’s divine intervention is not (only) intended to confirm Jason’s own decision to go on this journey or to determine the timing of 10 On Naevius, cf. Gel. 17.21.45; on Ennius, cf. Enn. Ann. 2, 3, 11 Skutsch; Tert. An. 33.8; Schol. ad Pers. Prol. 2–3 and ad Pers. 6.11. 11 Cf. Spaltenstein (2002: 137); on this scene, see Schubert (1984: 182–3); Gärtner (1996: 292–6); Groß (2003: 130–38).

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the departure;12 instead, Jupiter’s prophetic oak promises divine support of the voyage to Jason in line with the role of the journey according to Jupiter’s plans. The Argo has been endowed with divine properties which cannot be read as mere manifestations of human emotions, as becomes apparent also on two other occasions. The sacred oak plays a decisive role when a new helmsman has to be selected after the death of the original helmsman, Tiphys: the Argo chooses a third person other than the two who contend for the job (5.63–6). This outcome is predetermined, as the Argo is governed by the unspecified higher powers of ‘Fate’s prompting’ (5.65), which recognize the best helmsman for a successful completion of the journey. After the Argonauts reach Colchis, the Argo turns round of her own accord, providing a ‘sure omen’ (5.210–12). The Argonauts interpret this as a promise of return (5.212–13).13 As the omens conveyed by the Argo concern the success of the voyage, these revelations bring the Argonauts close to getting an idea of Jupiter’s plans, since the portents come from a servant of his. In his world plan, Jupiter says that his ‘oak trees, the tripods, and the spirits of their ancestors’ have sent forth the Argonauts (1.544–5).14 Although there are no other references to these motivations, the correspondence between Jupiter’s plan and the signals given by the Argo suggests Jupiter’s involvement.

DIVINE MESSAGES AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE The clear signals conveyed by the Argo are unique among the divine messages to epic characters. The Phineus episode in particular shows that Jupiter wishes humans to have only incomplete information about the future: because of his revelation of Jupiter’s thoughts and decisions to humans out of compassion, Phineus is tormented by the Harpies (4.477– 82). He is kept alive by the hope that the fata have decreed that ‘the sons of Aquilo should dispel the cruel plague’, and he knows that the

12

Thus Lüthje (1971: 27–8); Groß (2003: 134–5). Later the Argo exhibits joy when Jason wins the Fleece (8.129–30), though without any prophetic force; cf. Spaltenstein (2004: 441). 14 On the difficulties of a ‘realistic’ explanation of this statement, see Zissos (2008: 317). Dräger (2003: 357), for instance, concludes that it must refer to an oracle that Jason had received in the meantime (see n. 20 below). Feeney (1991: 318) assumes that one of the prophesying oaks is the Argo. 13

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Argonauts are coming (4.431–64); hence he is convinced that ‘not chance but God’s own will’ has brought the Argonauts to him (4.483–4). Upon arrival the Argonauts react according to the fata (4.485): two of them free Phineus from the Harpies (4.501–28). Yet the issue of whether this salvation will be permanent is called into question later, when Phineus remembers another, ambiguously worded prophecy, conveyed by ‘a voice from heaven’ (4.580), with the exact sources remaining obscure: this sors . . . diuum (‘heavenly decree’, 4.577) has linked the end of his punishment with the Argo’s successful passing through the Symplegades (4.577–84). Phineus cannot take for granted at this stage that this will happen (4.585–6). 15 While the divine prophecies first mentioned by Phineus, namely that he will be freed from his punishment by the Argonauts (4.460–61), could be interpreted as a symbolic expression of his wishes, such an interpretation is unlikely with respect to the second prophecy, non-existent in Apollonius. The complex causal link between the continuation of the journey and Phineus’ rescue rather indicates the fateful coincidences that have been engineered by a higher power with the ultimate aim of opening the seas permanently to traffic. Phineus’ uncertainty about his own fate underscores the limits of human foreknowledge more prominently than in Apollonius (A. R. 2.178–96, 2.311–425): even a seer does not know everything; what is more, he does not have permission to reveal details to other humans. Hence Phineus’ prophecy to Jason, concerning the subsequent stages of the Argonautic voyage, is only granted by exception and does not convey certain knowledge (4.557–60): what will happen after the Symplegades is presented under the condition that the Argonauts manage to pass through, and the seer is not allowed to talk about the end of the Argonautic voyage (4.623–5). Jupiter does not wish humankind to be aware of its predetermined fate (4.559–60). Still, seers have a special role among human beings: due to their relationship to the gods they know more, though there are limitations for them too.

PROPHETIC KNOWLEDGE OF SEERS AND HUMAN DESIRE FOR INFORMATION A ritual scene prior to the departure of the Argo demonstrates that the access of seers to knowledge of future events varies, and that their 15 For a fuller discussion of the Phineus episode (including these lines) and bibliography, see Manuwald (2009).

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messages are not always clear and may differ: the seer Mopsus foresees not only dangers looming because of the voyage but also details relating to incidents during the journey and to events in Colchis and beyond, up to the murder of Jason’s children by Medea (1.207–26).16 This bleak prophecy, incomprehensible to the epic characters (1.227–8),17 is followed by another, contrasting prophecy by the seer Idmon (1.228–33): Idmon also announces perils, while he includes the prospect of the successful completion of the journey.18 The prophet keeps silent about his own death, which he sees forecast by the omens (1.234–9; cf. also 1.360–61). Indeed when Idmon passes away (5.1–12), his qualities as a truthful seer are confirmed only for the reader.19 The positive outlook conveyed by Idmon is essential within the immediate narrative: derived from Apollo, his prophecy is a sufficient basis for Jason to infer that the gods support the Argonautic mission. For him it is Jupiter himself who ‘has willed the fellowship of men throughout his world, and their union in such mighty tasks’ (1.245–7). Jason’s conclusion cannot have been deduced entirely from Idmon’s words, but the seer’s positive prophecy provides the hero with the certainty that the enterprise has a purpose beyond carrying out Pelias’ tyrannical will. Even though Jason almost identifies the actual intention behind the Argonautic trip, he cannot imagine the most important element of the journey according to Jupiter, namely enabling military conflicts by means of initiating contact between distant peoples.20 A seer’s function is not limited to being a medium for divine messages. Because of special knowledge, he may also mediate between human and 16

Mopsus is aware of future events also elsewhere (8.247–51, 8.395–9). Difficult divine messages are not limited to verbal communications. On the decoration of the doors of Sol’s temple, fashioned by Vulcan, the Colchians are not yet able to identify the future events depicted, but are rather awestruck, as are the Argonauts (5.408–55); see Groß (2003: 177–83). 18 Lovatt (Ch. 3) points to ‘the contrast between the stagey prophecy of Mopsus and the matter-of-fact intervention of Idmon . . . two different types of prophecy, the dramatic and the persuasive’. 19 See Lovatt’s analysis in Ch. 3 below of the theatricality of prophecy and its political significance. 20 Cf. Ferenczi (1996: 45); but cf. Lefèvre (1991: 178). Again (see n. 14 above), Dräger (2003: 333) infers that Jason’s assessment is based on an oracle sought but never mentioned in the text. There is no evidence that the Argonauts are aware of Jupiter’s plan. Dräger (1993: 336–55) and (1998: 206–11), however, assumes that Jason had gained information from the oracles at Delphi and Dodona before sailing off. Even though pronouncements of oracles are mentioned throughout the poem without narration of an actual consultation, this is not a sufficient basis for construing a prehistory. An earlier augurium in a different context (1.156–62) has also been seen as an explanation for Jason’s views, see Lüthje (1971: 20 and 27 n. 2). 17

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divine spheres by means of rituals. Hence Mopsus can free the Argonauts from their guilt when they have sunk into lethargy after the events on Cyzicus. In response to Jason’s question whether this predicament is ordained by fatum or contrived by human hearts (3.374–5),21 Mopsus argues that people who have killed unwillingly are terrified by their conscience; at the same time, he expects that the Argonauts can be cured by a supernatural ritual, revealed to him by a Celaeneus at the edge of the Underworld (3.377–416).22 Furthermore, the seers Idmon and Mopsus are called Apollo’s men (1.228, 1.383–4, 3.372), the prophetess Polyxo is a favourite of Apollo’s (2.316), Apollo has his seat in Phineus’ breast (4.445–6), and the god himself is defined by the term augur (1.234).23 The poet creates a connection between himself and those who serve Apollo by alluding to the office of quindecemuir in the proem (1.5–7). The Romanization of practices and terminology indicates that the poem, though a literary text, is rooted in the religious reality of the time.24 The special status of seers corresponds to the expectations of the epic characters. Accordingly, after the battle on Cyzicus, during which he accidentally kills his host, Cyzicus, Jason complains that neither Apollo’s nor Jupiter’s oracles nor the predictions of seers had warned him of this misfortune, although ‘other’ evil was indeed foretold (3.299–302).25 Clearly, oracles and the interpretations of seers are expected to provide support and forewarnings. Therefore, as the Argonauts approach Colchis, Jason is even more worried, and the prophecies of the Argo’s own seers, Mopsus and Idmon, no longer suffice; hence he asks Phineus for a comprehensive prophecy (4.538–46). Jason does not lack trust in his own seers, and he knows that he has received help from Pallas and Juno, but he is keen on learning as many details as possible about the future. He obviously believes that the course of events is predetermined and can be predicted by seers. 21 For a similar alternative, cf. Virg. Aen. 9.184–7. Lüthje (1971: 108) relates Jason’s question to his desire for glory and fame. But Jason and his men would not be able to move on without the support of Mopsus’ ritual. On the significant role of Mopsus in Valerius, see Spaltenstein (2004: 114); on this passage, cf. also Schubert (1984: 269–71). 22 Mopsus’ erecting altars to ‘gods with names unknown’ (3.426–7) will have resonated with Roman readers. On relevant Roman beliefs, see Scheid (2003: 153–4). 23 On the significance of Apollo in connection with prophecies, see Schubert (1984: 183–4). 24 On religion in Roman epic, see Feeney (2007) and the Introduction to this volume. 25 Scholars have rightly observed that such predictions are not mentioned elsewhere, with different explanations (see nn. 14 and 20 above); see Dräger (2003: 414); Groß (2003: 191); Spaltenstein (2004: 96). The poet inserts the information at this point to illustrate the severity of the blow to Jason.

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That Jason continues to seek reassurance with regard to the future, although he has been told that the Argonautic voyage will ultimately be successful (1.234–8, 2.592–7), may be interpreted as a lack of confidence in the gods.26 In fact it is an expression of uncertainty, since thus far Jason has been provided with vague allusions rather than definitive certainties. At the same time it shows that he continues to have faith in the gods. Like his parents, Jason is described as someone for whom religio is important and who is careful to observe religious rituals. Hence he asks Juno and Pallas to support the Argonautic voyage before he sets off. According to the narrative, it is this belief in divine help (religio) that confirms his decision to undertake the voyage ordered by Pelias (1.79–90). Jason immediately sacrifices to the sea gods when caught by a sea storm (1.659–80), as he is aware that a possible reason for the tempest may be the Argonauts’ transgression into the new and hitherto closed realm of Neptune.

DIVINE PLANS AND DIVINE INTERVENTION Readers will recognize that Jason’s assumption concerning the sea storm is correct: the winds and Boreas in particular feel enraged at the Greeks and their ‘mad bark’ (1.574–607). This is not the only time that gods act and react for personal reasons: Mars, for instance, intervenes, prompted by a request from Aeetes (5.250–5; cf. also 6.28–30); the events on Cyzicus are a result of Cybele’s anger (3.19–31); Juno and Pallas interfere in the action: not only do they take care for providing the ship and its crew (1.91–9), but they also agree, upon the Argonauts’ arrival in Colchis, that they should join the ongoing fight on Aeetes’ side, although they know that the Argonauts will not win the Golden Fleece by doing so. Afterwards the goddesses will jointly make sure by other means that the Greeks can gain the Fleece and safely return home (5.278–99). The scene closes with the authorial comment: ‘So planned at that time the heavenly ones for men’s renown’ (5.296). Ultimately, all human actions, directed or supported by individual gods depending on personal interest, contribute to the realization of Jupiter’s plan. If divine activities contradict this goal or threaten to delay it too much, Jupiter intervenes (e.g. 3.249–52, 4.1–21, 5.672–89). Only within this framework are the gods given the freedom to pursue

26

See Groß (2003: 76–80).

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their own agendas.27 For instance, Neptune withdraws his support for his son Amycus because Jupiter wishes him to be defeated by the Argonauts to open up the seas (4.114–32). Prevailed upon by Juno and Pallas, Neptune calms the sea storm raised by the winds, because the Argonautic voyage is destined to take place (1.188–204 and 1.641–80). Despite his great powers, even Jupiter has to accept the force of fate and does not make an attempt to save his son Colaxes from death during the battle in Colchis; he only grants him enormous fighting prowess to win final honours (6.621–30).28 Humans, however, are not privy to divine operations. For instance, when the Argonauts approach Lemnos, the Lemnian women are initially minded to confront them until Vulcan quells their passions. Polyxo, ‘the priestess beloved of Phoebus’ (2.316),29 declares that ‘the god that favours Lemnos’, presumably Jupiter (cf. 2.356–60), has brought the Argonauts there,30 and that Venus herself gives the Argonauts and the Lemnian women a chance to be joined (2.316–25). Sanctioned by divine messages, the friendly reception by the Lemnian women makes the Argonauts lose interest in travelling further (2.371–3), until Hercules reminds them of their journey’s purpose (2.373–92). Here the motivation for returning to the main action derives from an epic character; ultimately, this is another step towards the fulfilment of Jupiter’s plan.

DOUBLE MOTIVATION OF HUMAN ACTIONS Whereas on Lemnos progress is brought about within the human sphere, actions of epic characters are often given double motivation: a psychological one and one based on divine messages.31 When Jason decides to accept Pelias’ order, one of the motivations is the expectation of winning glory (1.75–8). Striving for glory is therefore often seen as Jason’s sole motive and presented as a negative trait.32 The structure of the narrative

27

Cf. Billerbeck (1986: 3130) and Groß (2003: 226–38). Cf. Virgil’s Jupiter and Hercules (Aen. 10.466–72). Contrast Statius’ Jupiter (Theb. 1.197–213), whose orders are obeyed by the gods and followed by the fata. 29 Only in Valerius: see Adamietz (1976: 34); Poortvliet (1991: 182); Spaltenstein (2002: 394); Dräger (2003: 386). On this scene, see Groß (2003: 141–4). 30 If Summers’ (1894: 72) supplement fatis for the incomplete line (2.322) is correct, a god and the fata are behind the Argonauts’ stop on Lemnos; cf. Spaltenstein (2002: 396). 31 The interpretation that the involvement of gods adds a psychological dimension to individuals’ motivation (see e.g. Groß 2003: 239) explains only a part of the complex set-up. 32 See e.g. Lüthje (1971: 6); Lefèvre (1991: 178–80); Gärtner (1996: 295); Groß (2003: 12–19); but also Zissos (2008: 127). 28

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makes it clear that Jason builds on confidence in Juno and Pallas, and that his religio finally gives him the reassurance to go (1.73–4, 1.79–80). The goddesses become active immediately (1.91–9), a proof that Jason’s religio is valued. Pelias is also doubly motivated: the poet narrates that the ageing ‘tyrant’ is concerned because of Jason and ‘threats of heaven’, since soothsayers have predicted his downfall at Jason’s hands, and victims at the altar have repeated the warning.33 Above all, Jason’s fame and virtue are weighing heavily upon Pelias (1.26–30). The malicious plan Pelias develops as a response, namely to destroy Jason by ordering him to travel to Colchis, introduces the Argonautic voyage at the level of the narrative. When Pelias tries to circumvent what has been foretold by divine omens, he actually contributes to the completion of Jupiter’s plan. Pelias may be said to react to the divine message according to his nature, or the divine signs may be thought to determine the timing of his initiative.34 Yet such readings do not fully cover the complex character of the omens: the poet mentions the threatening signs, brought about by anonymous gods, as a second element independent of Pelias’ personal fears, while the phrasing, according to which sacrificial victims reinforce what the seers say, strengthens the force and plausibility of the external divine signal. Only by means of this divine authority does Pelias get confirmation that his jealous fears are not without reason. A similar structure applies to Aeetes’ motivation in Colchis.35 Here the entire set-up is rather complex and also includes direct divine intervention. In a dream, Aeetes sees Phrixus, who says: ‘dolour and ruin of your realm shall abound for you, when the fleece is stolen from the sleepdrugged grove’ (5.236–7); then he orders Aeetes not to let Medea, whomever she should marry, remain within her father’s kingdom.36 Phrixus functions as a messenger; the ultimate origin of the prophecy is not revealed. Like Pelias, Aeetes is only concerned with retaining his power; therefore he takes action to forestall the dangers prophesied by Phrixus, first by asking the gods Sol and Mars for support and then by promising Medea to an Albanian prince (5.244–58). Aeetes’ appeal to the 33 The divine signs are directly related to Jason in Valerius (there is no warning against a person wearing one shoe, as in other versions); thus the divine message can be closely associated with a psychological motivation on the human level. The poet also presents the divine message according to typical forms of Roman divination; cf. Dräger (2003: 320). 34 See Groß (2003: 7–8). The view, however, that divine signs have provoked Pelias to do what he would not have done otherwise (so, elsewhere, Groß (2003: 121)) ignores one element of the motivation. 35 Cf. Adamietz (1976: 70–71). 36 See Fucecchi’s discussion in Ch. 1 above.

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gods meets with success: a serpent appears immediately ‘not without the will of the god’, entwining the grove where the Golden Fleece is kept and looking towards Greece (5.253–5). By interpreting Phrixus’ words only with a view to maintaining his power, and disregarding the welfare of the Colchians, as the poet notes (5.263–5), the king places himself in opposition to his own people, who ask for the return of the Fleece. In particular, ‘the god who always forewarns’ (5.260)37 sends evil omens and portents throughout the city; a priest interprets them as indication that the Fleece should be returned to Greece (5.259–62). This creates a divine entity with a different message, though its identity does not become clear. By complying with this advice, the Colchians could have avoided a military conflict. But because Aeetes interprets Phrixus’ warning with reference to himself and therefore refuses to follow the people’s wishes, and as he sees Perses setting his hopes on power (5.269–71),38 the two messages sent by undetermined divinities cause the military conflict between Aeetes and his half-brother Perses (5.271–5). While it is possible to assume that the dream appearance is exploited to illustrate Aeetes’ own anxieties, the incidents in the city and their interpretation by a priest belong to a course of events that is unexpectedly created by external intervention. The occurrence of two divine messages might be interpreted as indicating two different points of view or as ambiguously phrased oracles expressing the same idea.39 But with no portents, there would be no motivation for Perses to take action. The presentation rather suggests that the events are to be seen as directed by the divine in the background, just as the arrival of the Argonauts during a truce between the two brothers is described as ‘ordained by fate’ (5.277) and thereby characterized as externally determined.

37

It is unclear from the narrative whether the phrase semper monens deus refers to a particular god (and to which one) or whether it functions as a general term for divinity; see Dräger (2003: 459); Spaltenstein (2004: 456). On this scene, see Gärtner (1996: 298–300); Lefèvre (1998: 225–8). 38 Lüthje (1971: 207–8) and Lefèvre (1998: 228) highlight that Perses’ actions are determined by concern for his own power rather than by his intention to follow divine orders. Perses’ motives, however, are described from Aeetes’ point of view, and he only becomes active in response to divine signs. 39 Some scholars place emphasis on rapta (‘seized’, 5.237) and try to reconcile the two pieces of advice: Aeetes is told of danger only if the Golden Fleece were to be ‘stolen’, but there is no warning with regard to handing it over. Yet he misinterprets the prophecy, driven by his desire for power; see Lüthje (1971: 206–7); Gärtner (1996: 299–300); Groß (2003: 113). This reading is possible in hindsight. But Aeetes reacts like Pelias, reading the prophecy in the most obvious way, which is probably intended.

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The involvement of the Argonauts in the civil war in Colchis is not yet the military conflict between Asia and Greece intended by Jupiter (1.542–54), as is revealed in a discussion between Juno and Pallas upon the Argonauts’ arrival. The goddesses decide that the Argonauts should support Aeetes, so that Pallas has a chance to engage in battle, and they agree that they will resort to other means later, in order for Jason to win the Fleece and return home (5.278–96). The goddesses’ plans are translated into reality on the human level when the Argonauts are initially deceived by Aeetes, who ‘promises’ the Fleece as a reward for their participation in the fighting (5.528–41). As a result of the divine and human motivations combined, the Argonauts make no progress, and Juno eventually realizes that her actual goal cannot be achieved in this way. Therefore she decides to gain Medea’s support (6.427–55, 7.153–299). A horrifying dream has indicated to Medea that the Argonauts’ arrival in Colchis will have terrible, predetermined consequences for her (5.329–42). Again, no specific god is identified as initiating this dream, which foreshadows the murder of Medea’s brother and her children. These portents affect an addressee who is virtually unprepared, since Medea is lying in relaxed sleep without any trouble when the dream appears (5.333–4). Thus it is made clear that the dream has prophetic significance; it has not developed from human preoccupations and does not reveal secret wishes.40 By contrast, in Apollonius’ account, Medea has a dream after meeting Jason; this dream does not extend to the future, but rather focuses on the decision to be made between Jason and her parents (A. R. 3.616–32). As Valerius’ Medea is unexpectedly confronted by divine predictions, which she does not understand, she seeks purification from the dream in an attempt to avoid the undefined horrors. This human reaction, however, brings about her first meeting with Jason, beautified by Juno (5.329–98). Within this complex series of foreshadowing, activities of individual gods and human actions, by which Valerius launches the presentation of the events in Colchis, humans may believe that they are acting freely. In fact, they become subject to a superior directing force, particularly when they react to divine signals.

DIRECT DIVINE INTERVENTION (IN DISGUISE) The same relationship between human activities and divine will applies to Medea being brought to support Jason: Juno resolves to intervene 40

On different types of dreams in the ancient world, see Kessels (1969).

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when she sees no other way of ensuring Jason’s success (6.427–54).41 The goddess first tries to deceive Venus by asking for the latter’s magic girdle, allegedly for herself (6.455–76). Though recognizing the deceit, Venus agrees, because of her long-standing hatred of Colchis (6.467–9). Armed with the girdle and disguised as Chalciope, Medea’s sister, Juno puts pressure on Medea (6.477–94, 6.575–601, 6.657–80); she leaves her when she is confident that her trick will be successful (6.680). Medea, however, is not an easily pliable object of divine will: she opposes the divine forces (7.160–61) with such might that Juno is obliged to call upon Venus for more help. Disguised as Circe, Medea’s aunt, Venus manages to lead the heroine to a meeting with Jason (7.153–406). The goddesses eventually get Medea to turn against her father and fatherland, although her pudor (‘shame’) and pietas (‘piety’) advise against it; yet she is only overcome after a long struggle and much hard work on the part of the divine. The intervention of the two goddesses is motivated by personal interests. Medea’s struggle with opposing powerful forces could be construed as a process taking place within her soul and mind, as in Ovid (Met. 7.7– 99). Valerius, however, has not chosen this option. If the goddesses are still seen as representing conflicting views and feelings in Medea’s mind, i.e. as symbols of the force of love, then the question remains why only one side should be symbolized by divinities whereas the other part is portrayed by the poet straightforwardly as Medea’s thoughts and values.42 There is no opposition between personified moral entities, as in contemporary epics, when, for instance, Virtus and Voluptas each try to persuade Scipio in Silius (Sil. 15.1–130), or when Pietas and Tisiphone fight each other in Statius (Theb. 11.457–96). Valerius shows that allpowerful supernatural forces manipulate humans, so that they follow the predetermined course of events, even against their will.43 This is a less fanciful portrayal than the corresponding scene in Apollonius, where the goddesses manage to win the support of Eros, who is called away from his games and then pierces Medea with an arrow (A. R. 3.6–166, 3.275–98). Valerius’ Medea is described as an ‘unhappy’ girl, unaware of future evils, at the mercy of her ‘false’ relative (6.490–91). Moreover, Valerius makes Hecate, Medea’s patroness, comment that 41 Throughout the poem, Juno is perhaps the goddess who has recourse to the most direct (and traditional epic) means of supporting Jason and influencing the course of events: she beautifies Jason (5.363–72); she surrounds him with a protective mist (5.399–401); she increases his fighting power (6.602–8); cf. Schubert (1991). 42 For arguments against a symbolic interpretation of the gods, see Ferenczi (1998: 344–6). 43 The power of fata is an issue in Virgil’s Aeneid as well, and it is made explicit e.g. in Aeneas’ answer to Dido when he is about to leave Carthage (Aen. 4.340–47).

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Medea will go to Greece ‘unwillingly’ (haud sponte, 6.498). At the end of the long process, Medea herself feels that she is defeated by an unspecified numen and Jason’s fata.44 Jupiter has announced Medea’s liaison with Jason as part of the predetermined course of events in world history (1.546–51); the activities of the goddesses contribute to its fulfilment.

DIVINE MESSAGES AND HUMAN REACTIONS Predetermined incidents are translated into reality, even when epic characters do not react to divine messages. For instance, Jason seems to have learned that Hercules would not participate in the journey until its very end. When the Argonauts are about to sail from Mysia and leave Hercules behind, Jason remembers an oracle that had announced ‘that he who was the mightiest in arms of all this band should be held fast by fate and Jove’s command before he reached the sea that storms about the wandering rocks’ (3.619–21). Jason wishes that this were a false oracle, but has to accept its validity.45 In this case Jason has known future sad events, but has apparently taken no steps to prevent them or to prepare himself for their eventual realization. Therefore he has to accept what is fated, even though it goes against his sense of loyalty and duty.46 Likewise, Cyzicus has not paid attention when birds and flashes of lightning predicted his death. In this context, an authorial comment asks which human would not reject the first divine signs and instead expect a long life (3.352–6). Knowledge of the future has been granted, but has not helped the individual to cope; this is explained by a common human tendency to shy away from terrible truths. Hence no particular guilt on Cyzicus’ part is highlighted; his killing of the sacred lion and Cybele’s resulting anger and revenge (3.19–31) turn out only to have triggered his end, but Cyzicus could not have avoided his predetermined fate.47 The source of these divine warnings and the time at which Cyzicus’ fate 44

Cf. esp. 7.292–9, 7.309–24, 7.371–2, 7.446, 7.461–2. The theory that these lines could be ignored because the poet would have revised them before publication (Lüthje 1971: 118 n. 1) is an easy solution, but there is no evidence for such an assumption. Dräger (2003: 423) again infers that Jason had sought this oracle before departure; cf. also Groß (2003: 228–9). 46 On the consequences of this scene for Jason’s characterization, see Adamietz (1976: 51). 47 Lüthje (1971: 106–7) believes that Cyzicus bears some guilt for his death because he had not taken the warnings seriously. The poet, however, emphasizes that this is not 45

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is sealed (the building of the Argo) suggest that his death is part of the predestined plan for the world in connection with the Argonautic voyage. Both Cyzicus’ and Jason’s behaviour reveals a certain type of human reactions to divine messages, which is similarly described by Statius (Theb. 6.934–7) and Silius (Sil. 13.494–506). Since such a response to divinely conveyed messages is presented as characteristic of humans in Valerius, it becomes all the more remarkable how seriously epic characters take divine messages: either they obey them or they try to achieve a different result. While some of the foreshadowing is linked to Jupiter or Apollo, a large proportion comes from unidentified sources, from unspecified numina/diui, or is given in impersonal form. Nevertheless, they are all taken into account by the epic characters. This might suggest that the presence of gods as named individuals is rather an element of poetic tradition; and in Valerius’ time anthropomorphic features that turn gods into full-scale individuals are limited in literary descriptions. Yet this does not explain sufficiently the divine influence on the lives of the characters, as well as the complex juxtaposition of fatum, the intentions of other gods, and Jupiter’s world plan.

FATE AND ‘FREE’ DECISIONS OF GODS AND HUMANS In the Argonautica, there exists a hierarchy between fatum and individual gods, inasmuch as Jupiter’s plan determines the lives of the characters. The rest of the gods, including Jupiter himself, cannot obstruct the force of destiny set a long time beforehand. Only within this predetermined framework are the gods given the freedom to pursue their own agendas. Whenever Jupiter intervenes as moderator, other divinities learn why their actions have to be limited by firm boundaries. For the protagonists who never receive clear information about the overall framework, the gods remain their addressees: humans worship them in rituals and ask for support and further information about the future. It is not obvious to humans that the gods themselves are not completely free in their actions. Since the epic protagonists are aware that they are subject to the workings of fate (or the wishes of the individual gods) beyond their

Cyzicus’ particular fault, but rather the ordinary behaviour of humans; see also Groß (2003: 192–3).

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control, they try to learn as much as possible. By being forewarned or by at least understanding the context afterwards, humans are able to come to terms with what they experience. Divine messages are often unclear and must be interpreted; the personality of individuals influences human actions accordingly.48 There is therefore space for psychological motivation behind human actions, as Valerius seems to suggest by exploiting double motivation.

DIVINE MESSAGES The status and function of divine messages emerges from the overall relationship between human characters and the gods or fata:49 humans view the gods as powers that influence their lives and deserve worship; divine messages may provide (partial) insight into what is predetermined by fate.50 The gods, however, often follow their own agendas and do not act in accordance with the fata. Therefore Jupiter has to call them to order.51 Still it is clear that, besides the noticeable influence of gods, there is an impersonal fate to which even Jupiter is subject, and which will be realized at any cost. This provides a further, philosophical layer, informed by Stoic doctrine: although, in contrast to his predecessor Lucan, Valerius has introduced gods into the epic narrative, the concept underlying the Argonautica is actually not so different from the De bello ciuili, because fortune and fate are important factors in Lucan’s epic too (e.g., Luc. 1.262–5, 2.699–701, 3.392–4, 9.890–91). Therefore the (Olympic) gods in Valerius function both as traditional elements in the narrative and as representatives of a middle level in the relationship between the divine and the human spheres. A crucial difference, however, is that the

48 Groß (2003: 9, 123, 243) stresses that divine messages support the characters of individuals and that humans have to act by themselves. The presentation in the epic seems to suggest, however, that humans are happy to obey divine wishes, even though it is often difficult to identify them. 49 Fortuna is also mentioned several times as a cause for particular actions or events (e.g. 2.594, 3.293, 5.113). 50 Cf. Tuttle, Ch. 4 below, on augury. 51 Cf. Jupiter’s words to Juno at Virgil’s Aen. 12.800–6: she is aware that what has been ordained by Jupiter and by fate must happen, and she only asks for concessions in an area that has not been determined in order to satisfy her personal wishes (Aen. 12.807–28). To a certain extent Jupiter allows the fates to have their way without intervening (Aen. 10.111–13).

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narrator in Lucan wishes that Jupiter left humans unaware of the future, so that they can still enjoy hope rather than live in fear of terrible events to come (Luc. 2.4–15); in Statius (Theb. 3.551–65) there is also an outburst against the unsettling consequences of wanting to know the future. Conversely, Valerius’ characters try to seek reassurance by gaining information about the future, while Jupiter withholds complete knowledge from them. Within the context of the relationship between gods and humans Jupiter is presented as occupying a special role: he has created the world plan, he checks that it is fulfilled by contributions from gods and men and that other gods do not interfere too much, but he is himself subject to the necessities of this plan.52 Jupiter calls his plan fata (1.534), though elsewhere fatum/fata and Jupiter are juxtaposed (3.620).53 Indeed, the idea that Jupiter may not be the concrete figure, who hurls thunderbolts, but rather a supernatural, powerful force that determines everything, and could also be called ‘fate’ or ‘providence’, agrees with Stoic doctrine found in Seneca the Younger (Sen. Nat. 2.45). That humans are ruled by predetermined fate is in line with ideas in Seneca and Lucan: human will is irrelevant, for what has been determined by fate will happen, and unwilling humans will be dragged along in that direction and even made guilty against their intentions (Sen. Ep. 107.7–11; Luc. 7.485–8). The notion that Jupiter as a creator has fixed a world plan and cannot change it afterwards, and that humans and gods, including Jupiter himself, are subject to its rules, has a parallel in Seneca’s De prouidentia (Sen. Dial. 1.5.8–9). The dialogue’s juxtaposition of Stoic fatum and active gods reads almost like a philosophical concept for Valerius’ Argonautica. Thus Valerius has created a framework not only in line with the literary tradition of epic, but also relevant to philosophical concerns of his time. In the Argonautica traditional gods, as well as oracles, prodigies, and prophecies of the poetic tradition, have been adapted to a more rationalist or philosophical framework, where, however, external, supernatural forces and mysterious coincidences (actually determined by fate) remain as outside influences on the lives of epic characters. Engaging with gods as powerful entities by receiving divine messages and prayers in an

52

Ferenczi (1996: esp. 37–8, 46, 47–8) emphasizes that in Valerius there is less scepticism and more harmony than in Lucan, and that there is hope for a basic order of things. Valerius shows that there is an overall order, even though it may not be always positive for the humans affected. 53 For some preliminary thoughts on the gods and fate in Valerius, see Manuwald (1999: 177–224).

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attempt to ward off bad consequences or at least to be prepared for impending events is the only, not always successful, option for the protagonists to cope with their situation. Attributing events to the workings of destiny, which will carry on irrespective of the wishes and intentions of individuals, is a step towards an explanation of the course of events that humans are confronted with, but do not always understand.

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3 Competing Visions Prophecy, Spectacle, and Theatricality in Flavian Epic Helen Lovatt

PROPHECY AND THEATRICALITY The competing prophecies of Idmon and Mopsus in Valerius’ Argonautica 1 set up a dialogue between tragic theatricality and epic reticence, both of which offer opportunities for deception and persuasion.1 The Argo has entered the water, and Jason has sacrificed to Neptune and the sea-gods; as the flame shoots into the air, Mopsus appears: protulit ut crinem densis luctatus in extis ignis et escendit salientia uiscera tauri, ecce sacer totusque dei per litora Mopsus immanis uisu uittamque comamque per auras surgentem laurusque rotat. uox reddita tandem, uox horrenda uiris. tum facta silentia uati. (V. Fl. 1.205–10) ‘As soon as the fire, struggling among the heap of entrails, sent forth a tongue of flame and climbed the throbbing flesh of the bull, behold! Along the shore the holy Mopsus possessed of the god, wondrous to view, shook the fillets and his hair, tossing in the wind, and the laurel wreath. At length speech issued, speech terrifying to mortals; and then silence was ordered for the seer.’

1 See Zissos (2008: 186–207); Stover (2009) sets this scene in dialogue with Statius’ Thebaid 3.499–647. See also Manuwald’s discussion in Ch. 2 above.

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After the gradual ritual build-up (1.184–5, launching of the ship; 1.186–7, the sounds of the launching sailors’ cries and Orpheus’ lyre; 1.188–92, sacrifices; 1.193–203, Jason’s prayer), the sudden entrance of Mopsus takes us by surprise (signalled by ecce, 1.207). We visualize him as an inspired prophet, showing the signs of prophetic madness. After sight comes the sound of an eerie, inhuman voice. Finally the audience responds: the Argonauts fall silent for the prophet. The inspired vision which Mopsus describes for his audience (heu quaenam aspicio!, ‘Alas! What is the sight I see’, 1.211) begins with its own epic epiphany of Neptune calling a council of the gods (aequoreos uocat ecce deos Neptunus, ‘Neptune is summoning the gods of ocean’, 1.212) and ends with a tragic scene (cerno en thalamos ardere iugales, ‘Lo, I discern the bridal chambers all ablaze’, 1.226). The speech is full of rhetorical fireworks: apostrophe (Iuno, . . . Pallas, ‘Juno, . . . Pallas’, 1.215; Pollux, 1.220; Aesonide, ‘son of Aeson’, 1.226); repetition (sic . . . sic, ‘so . . . even so’, 1.214; nunc . . . nunc, ‘now . . . now’, 1.216); exclamations (per quot, ‘through how many’, 1.217– 18; quantus, ‘how much’, 1.221); and rhetorical questions (cur, ‘why’, 1.218; unde, ‘whence’, 1.220; quem, quaenam, quos, ‘what, what woman, whom’, 1.223–5). This is a highly theatrical sequence, drawing its climactic material from the tragedy which inevitably underlies any post-Euripidean Argonautica, the Medea (224–6). Furthermore, the audience responds with terror: iamdudum Minyas 2 ambage ducemque/terrificat (‘Now for a long time the prophet terrifies the Minyae and their leader with this dark utterance’, 1.227–8); a contrary voice intervenes, that of Idmon, who is marked by a negative enumeration of all the signs of inspiration shown by Mopsus. He, too, can see the future in the flames but offers soundbite condolences, ratis omnia uincet (‘The ship shall overcome all things’, 1.236). Yet he suppresses the negative outcome of his own death, leaving pity as a private response, while Jason manipulates the prophecies to claim divine authorization for the voyage. The contrast between the stagey prophecy of Mopsus and the matter-of-fact intervention of Idmon is equally pointed, both between the characterization of the two figures and between the two different types of prophecy, the dramatic and the persuasive. Finally, the role of Jason emphasizes the importance of political power and influence in selecting and interpreting the words of the prophets, while dramatic irony operates in the gap between his interpretation and the interpretation

2 A spondee is missing from this hexameter, commonly filled by uates; see Zissos (2008: 198).

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presented by the narrator to the reader, as well as the privileged knowledge from previous literary history. Prophecy is an important part of epic and of Roman culture.3 It serves to extend the temporal reach of narrative and to authorize the decisions of characters, narrative choices, and political stances. This is why James O’Hara’s unpacking of the authoritative prophetic voice of Jupiter in the Aeneid raises so many problems for the poem as an Augustan panegyric: if Jupiter is on display producing manipulative rhetoric, how then should we react to the rhetoric of the poem?4 This chapter sets out to investigate another aspect of the portrayal of prophecy in Flavian epic which threatens to unmask the prophet: a self-conscious theatricality, in which staging and performance come to the fore. I look at two aspects of performance and persuasion, both of which are present in the Idmon and Mopsus episode: first, at the pyromancy and its connections with tragedy, in conjunction with Tiresias in Thebaid 10 and his Senecan necromancy in book 4; second, at the prophetic agon, in which two characters confront each other about the interpretation of a prophecy, bringing in Statius’ Amphiaraus and Capaneus, as well as two episodes in Silius (Bogus and Liger, Flaminius and Corvinus); finally, I suggest that intertextual complications add to the instability of these prophetic episodes and explore the implications of the theatricality of prophecy for a metapoetic reading of foretelling the future in Flavian epic.

WHAT IS THEATRICALITY? The idea of theatricality implies a performance designed to impress, persuade, even deceive: the creation of an illusion with the aim of convincing your audience. It also suggests an association with the theatre. For instance, Virgil’s Dido episode has been read as a complete tragedy set within the epic poem.5 The setting is described in detail and presented as a scaena, a ‘stage’ (Aen. 1.164; cf. 1.427–9); Venus wears cothurni when she meets Aeneas at 1.337 (‘buskins’) and acts like a tragic prologue; the whole episode is structured like a tragedy, with a central verbal agon between Aeneas and Dido and a climactic death; tragic 3 For a study of prophecy as a political tool in the Roman empire, see Potter (1994) and Manolaraki’s essay (Ch. 5 below) with further bibliography. 4 O’Hara (1990). 5 Cf. e.g. Harrison (1972/1973); Muecke (1983); Pobjoy (1998); Wlosok (1999). On tragedy in Virgil’s Aeneid, see Hardie (1997) and Panoussi (2009).

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similes, recalling Orestes and Pentheus, make even more self-conscious intertextual markers (4.300–3 and 469–73). Internal audiences watch the action, from Aeneas in his cloud (1.494–7) to Dido watching the departing Trojans (4.586–8) and her companions watching Dido as she stabs herself (4.663–5). Ritual contributes to this theatricality: Dido’s magic rites create distraction and suspense in the build-up to her suicide (4.504–21). This degree of theatricality is extreme: certainly not all of these markers are present in prophecy scenes (at least not all at once), and some scenes are more theatrical than others. But even if epic prophecy scenes are only partially theatrical, it is important to acknowledge that the tactics of persuasion and the creation of authority and belief are not entirely verbal but also visual. Prophecies often seem staged, and the creation of awe in the internal onlookers and their separation from the world of normality displays an affinity with the framing and emotional intensity of a theatrical performance. The responses of internal audiences to these episodes channel readers towards acceptance and involvement while at the same time making readers aware of potential deceptiveness. There is a similarity with the workings of ekphrasis inasmuch as ekphrastic hope is always undermined by ekphrastic failure; it is surely no coincidence that Aeneid 6 is framed by ekphraseis: the frieze of Daedalus at the beginning (6.14–43) and the gates of Sleep at the end (6.893–9). Theatricality and spectacle are present but not dominant in Aeneid 6: both the Sibyl’s prophecy and the parade of heroes are performances, even if they are designed to create a sense of authority and authenticity. When the Sibyl tells Aeneas that this is not the time for ‘spectacle’ (spectacula, 6.37), she sets up a contrast between the self-indulgent grief of Daedalus and the productive, didactic tone of her own revelation. Yet she, too, produces a spectacle. The cavern is a self-contained stage (6.42–4). The whole performance has a strong emotional effect on Aeneas and the Trojans as internal audience: gelidus Teucris per dura cucurrit/ossa tremor (‘A chill shudder ran through the hard bones of the Trojans’, 6.54–5). When Apollo takes her over, he ‘forms’ (fingit, 6.80) the Sibyl like a work of art, but also like a character. She speaks the words of another, less like a poet-uates and more like an actor. In De bello ciuili 5, the discourse of authority and illusion in Lucan’s Phemonoe episode is both more theatrical and more complicated. 6 The reluctance of the Delphic prophetess to play her part becomes a deliberate simulation of the signs and acts of prophecy (Luc. 5.114–57), by

6

See O’Higgins (1988) and Masters (1992: 91–149).

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which Appius is not deceived (5.157–61). But does this serve to give a stronger sense of reality to her subsequent, more successful performance? The lavish descriptions of setting, the history of the Delphic oracle, and philosophical/theological explanations of prophecy establish Lucan’s authority as narrator, along with the authenticity of the oracle; but its more recent silence under oppressive political power undermines that authenticity. Lucan’s narratorial lament about the insufficiency of prophecy (5.198–208) marks it as real while questioning its effectiveness. Yet the final result of the whole episode is deception: Appius is cheated by the equivocal prophecy (ambiguis frustratum sortibus, ‘deceived by the ambiguous oracle’, 5.225) and carried away by empty hope (uana spe rapte, ‘seized by groundless hope’, 5.227). The melodramatic nature of the Erichtho episode (Luc. 6.419–830) is even more extreme, the processes of prophecy more stagey, less plausible, and the result empty, even though the witch’s authority seems to go beyond that of the gods themselves.

NECROMANCY, PYROMANCY, AND STAGING THE FUTURE Flavian epic adopts and intensifies this theatricality. We have seen above the competing visions of Idmon and Mopsus in Argonautica 1; the necromancy at the end of the same book is comparatively subdued (a mere twenty-one lines, V. Fl. 1.730–51); the ritual and theatricality are displaced onto the actual suicide of Aeson and Alcimede, accompanied by the sacrifice of a bull and a prayer to the Underworld powers (1.774–817), which is watched by their young son (1.823–5) and the soldiers sent to kill them (1.818–21).7 My focus here, however, is on the necromancy in Statius’ Thebaid 4, in which the competing visions of Tiresias and Laius are set in the context of multi-layered literary echoes, most importantly of Senecan tragedy.8 There are two prophetic scenes involving Tiresias in the Thebaid: the necromancy in book 4 and the pyromancy in book 10; together they

7 Edwards (2007: 144–60) explores the theatricality of suicide (especially Cato’s and Seneca’s) in Roman historiography; on the suicide scene in Valerius and its connections with Statius’ necromancy, cf. Parkes’ discussion in Ch. 9 below. 8 On Statius and Greek tragedy, see Heslin (2008). On Statius’ Thebaid as tragic, see also Franchet d’Espèrey (1999).

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form a reworking of Tiresias’ prophecies in Seneca’s Oedipus.9 In Seneca, Tiresias first instructs Manto to perform a sacrifice (Oed. 293–350), during which the behaviour of the flames is closely examined, and then to inspect the entrails (351–89). Since neither reveals the name of the murderer, Tiresias goes on to carry out the necromancy, which is described after the event by Creon (530–658). Statius’ Tiresias moves directly to the necromancy, dismissing other types of prophecy as ineffective (Theb. 4.409–14), in a clear gesture of metapoetic rivalry.10 Whether or not Seneca’s Oedipus was, or was intended to be, performed, it is formally theatrical, participates in the tragic mode, and, as Hanna Roisman points out, the prophecy scenes are particularly spectacular.11 Statius takes this theatrical apparatus and uses it to create a version of Odyssey 11 in which Tiresias is the subject rather than the object of the necromancy; he brings the necromancy on-stage (thus pointing up the epic affinities of Creon’s speech in Seneca), elaborates and intensifies the drama and suspense by adding material from Lucan’s Erichtho episode, as Ruth Parkes discusses in Chapter 9 below.12 The long description of the dark wood of Diana (4.419–42), stained by the proto-civil war of the earth-borns, sets the stage and tone. Sacrifice and its preparations are described in detail (4.443–68). Tiresias makes two ritual invocations of the dead (4.473–87 and 500–18), and his blindness allows for Manto’s description of the Underworld, as if following stage conventions; a catalogue of Thebans provides another virtual spectacle (4.553–78) and leads into Tiresias’ inspiration. Whereas Seneca’s Tiresias has claimed that he is too old to take the god, Phoebus, into his breast (Oed. 297–8), Statius’ seer takes him in, transcends the limits of vision, and performs the role of the inspired and maddened prophet. All this staging and build-up leads to two (or arguably three) competing prophetic visions: first Tiresias sees the downcast Argive ghosts (Theb. 4.589–91) and predicts a Theban victory: auguror hinc Thebis belli meliora (‘Hence I augur the better of the war for Thebes’, 4.592). But 9 On prophecy in the Thebaid, see Ganiban (2007: 44–70), as well as the essays by Tuttle and Manolaraki (Chs 4 and 5 below). On the necromancy, see also the essays by Parkes and Dee (Chs 9 and 10 below), esp. Parkes on the sources used by Statius. On Statius’ connection with Seneca’s Oedipus, see Taisne (1991); Boyle (2011: xc–xciii); Augoustakis (forthcoming a); and Chs 9 and 10 below. 10 For a metapoetic reading of the necromancy, see Parkes (2010). 11 Roisman (2003: 15): ‘The three scenes in which Teiresias figures, albeit rather differently in each, are all spectacles, in the sense of extravagant and fantastic displays.’ 12 Vessey (1973: 258) acknowledges the spectacular and dramatic nature of Statius’ necromancy: ‘Tiresias and Manto act out a sacred drama of which Eteocles is a frightened spectator . . . We are given a panoramic view of the history of the doomed dynasty, its past, its present and its future.’

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his optimism is immediately compromised by the sight of the victims of Tydeus (4.593–602); his address to them, in which he seems to offer consolation for death by mentioning the fact that they have avoided war, becomes a reworking of the Sibyl’s prophecy to Aeneas of a renewal of war and destruction: existis casus: bella horrida nobis,/atque iterum Tydeus (‘You have life’s chances behind you. For us war’s horrors, and Tydeus once again’, 4.601–2). Later, in book 10, Tiresias claims to have told Eteocles not to go to war, but to no avail (10.592–3). Perhaps this is his warning, but if so, it is far from clear.13 In fact, rather like Seneca’s Tiresias, all his preparations, rituals, and the build-up of his authority result in less than total conviction. He does not seem at all sure of what his vision actually means. This intertextual inconsistency is ironically appropriate: we do not know which version of Tiresias we have before our eyes, and just as the prophecies offer competing visions, so the intertextual resonances pull us in different directions. The sum of the parts is a confusion which reinforces the overall message of the inconstant, shifting nature of words and communication. In contrast, Laius seems confident of his aims and is viciously malevolent as well as deliberately deceptive. Persuaded by Tiresias’ flattery to approach, drink, and speak, he offers a warning in his sarcastic questions: why would he be a good prophet when he hates Oedipus, his sons, and Thebes? The epithet praeclari (‘splendid’, 4.629), applied to his grandsons, is particularly biting. His actual prophecy is multiply deceptive: the Thebans will not die beautiful deaths or receive any divine weapons. Victory for Thebes will be almost immediately qualified by defeat over Creon’s refusal to bury the dead. The words which are understood by the characters are the deceptively optimistic ones, while those which convey the ominous truth (the Furies will gain Thebes, and Oedipus’ curses will win the ultimate victory) remain an opaque riddle. Laius is marked by his hatred and deliberate deception, mixing the malevolence and resentment of Ajax and Dido with the role of the sponsoring ancestor. What he sponsors is a renewal of violence, destruction, and intra-familial conflict. What complicates this episode further is the way that Statius gives us very little sense of the responses of the internal audience: unlike Jason, Eteocles does not, or rather cannot, interpret the competing visions: haec ubi fatur/labitur et flexa dubios ambage relinquit (‘So saying, he [Laius] sinks and leaves them perplexed at his tortuous riddle’, 4.644–5). If Tiresias is not being tendentious in book 10, then perhaps he had 13

Williams (1972: 102) suggests that this is an inconsistency arising from Statius’ reliance on Euripides’ Phoenissae, in which Tiresias is Eteocles’ enemy; Theb. 10.594–5 is a close echo of Eur. Ph. 884–5.

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accurately interpreted the warning, only for Eteocles to ignore him.14 But we, as readers, while not perplexed by the riddle, which we can interpret with hindsight, are left perplexed by our lack of knowledge about how the characters understand it. As Ruth Parkes suggests in her essay, ‘far from being an unthinking rehash of literary topoi, the necromancy captures the familial dysfunction and sense of inward-looking stasis which pervades Statius’ universe.’ In the much shorter and less theatrical pyromancy in book 10, Tiresias, like Laius, demands to know why they have chosen him as a prophet when they have not trusted him in the past. Finally the seer yields to the demands of the crowd. Again, the flames admit more than one possible interpretation: the ‘blood-red tips of flame’ (sanguineos flammarum apices, 10.599) and the ‘twofold fire’ (geminum . . . ignem, 10.599–600) foreshadow the fratricide and the brothers’ burial with competing funeral pyre, as well as Menoeceus’ sacrifice. As an Oedipus figure, Creon insists that Tiresias reveal his prophecy. Here he becomes an innocent bystander, struck by the prophecy, as Capaneus will be later struck by the thunderbolt of Jupiter (grandem subiti cum fulminis ictum,/ non secus ac torta traiectus cuspide pectus/accipit, ‘when he feels the mighty impact of a sudden thunderbolt, as though a flying javelin had transfixed his breast’, 10.618–20). Similarly, Virtus’ intervention maddens Menoeceus like a thunderbolt hitting a cypress.15 We are given only one explicit interpretation, but the double-edged effect of the prophecy is brought out by this destructive imagery. The tragic conflict between tyrant and prophet is not straightforwardly presented, but lurks beneath the surface in the imagery. Statius’ prophecies involving Tiresias are theatrical in a number of ways: they draw closely and in a complex fashion on tragic models; they present a performance, which, while it may or may not be actively deceptive, does on some level work through illusion; they allow competing visions and interpretations to confuse and complicate any sense of epic teleology.

PROPHETIC AGONES Another dramatic characteristic of prophecy is its tendency to generate and involve conflict over interpretation. The interpretation of the 14

Similarly, Dee suggests that Eteocles’ purification ritual is set up in such a way as to

fail. 15

On Menoeceus’ suicide, see Bernstein (Ch. 13 below).

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communication of gods to men is already very much a public and dramatic spectacle at the beginning of the Iliad. For instance, Calchas is persuaded by Achilles to explain the reasons for the plague in the face of Agamemnon’s hostility (Hom. Il. 1.59–120). On the Trojan side, Hector denies Polydamas’ interpretation of a bird omen and claims that his own direct connection with Zeus is a more effective form of communication (12.195–250). The watching internal audiences are marked out in both episodes, creating the pressure on Agamemnon (1.109 and 116–17), which leads to his quarrel with Achilles, and temporarily valorizing Hector’s decision by their assent (12.208–9 and 251–7). In Apollonius’ Argonautica, the quarrel between Idas and Idmon is set amongst the tale-telling and feasting of the Argonauts as a body (A. R. 1.460–95). The confrontation between prophet and king becomes a quintessentially tragic verbal agon. Two exemplary scenes stand out: Tiresias and Oedipus (Soph. OT 300–462) and Tiresias and Creon (Soph. Ant. 988–1090). In both cases Tiresias’ blindness is emphasized; in the first, it has particular significance because it foreshadows the eventual fate of Oedipus.16 In both scenes, the king threatens the prophet (OT 368; Ant.1057), but in the former, Tiresias does not display fear (OT 369), and in the latter he seems to hold Creon in contempt; and Creon does in the end listen to the prophecy. After the augury scene in Thebaid 3, which will be examined in detail by both Anne Tuttle and Eleni Manolaraki, Melampus retires to the countryside and Amphiaraus strips off his prophetic insignia like Aeschylus’ Cassandra (Theb. 3.566–8). His reticence is depicted in visual terms: he hides ‘from the sight of the people’ (aspectum uulgi, 3.570) in darkness (3.571–2); when he finally speaks, he describes himself as ‘drawn from the shadows’ (elicior tenebris, 3.623). This is a theatrical moment which has considerable continuity with Lucan’s Phemonoe: just as she is made to speak by Appius and by the force of Apollo, Amphiaraus is made to speak by the madness of the crowd.17 The extremity of prophecy is displaced onto the madness of the Argives: Capaneus is correct (if ironically) when he says augur ego (‘I am the augur’, 3.668). Capaneus competes to set Amphiaraus up as the mad (or fraudulent) prophetess of Lucan’s scene (3.611–16). Amphiaraus is also significantly 16 On sight and blindness: Soph. OT 284–6, 302–3, 324, 367, 371, 374–5, 388–9, 411–12, 454; Ant. 988–90, 994–5, 1033–5, 1084–6. 17 Though sometimes it works in paradoxical ways: just as Virgil’s Apollo forces the Sibyl to speak (fingitque premendo, Aen. 6.80), so Amphiaraus ‘presses his mouth shut’ (premit ora, Theb. 3.574).

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similar to the Sophoclean Tiresias, who initially refuses to speak to Oedipus (less like Calchas, because he has no protector upon whom he may call). As Tiresias insists on his own immunity to the coming disaster, and in the face of Oedipus’ threats (Soph. OT 350–56), so Amphiaraus responds to the implied threat of Capaneus’ sword by relying on his knowledge of his own death (Theb. 3.623–4). Like Virgil’s Helenus (Aen. 3.374–462), he also establishes his authority by reusing the words of Jupiter: he asks the Argives whether their lives bore them (adeone animarum taedet? ‘are you so weary of your lives?’ Theb. 3.631), reusing a key word from Jupiter’s prophecy (taedet saeuire corusco/fulmine, ‘weary am I of raging with flashing bolt’, 1.216–17).18 Despite his acknowledgment that the prophecy is in vain, still Amphiaraus wheels out every prophetic tactic for establishing authority, especially eyewitness authority: like Virgil’s Sibyl, he has penetrated the secrets of the world (3.637), but unlike her, he has also broken in on the council of the gods (3.634). He emphasizes what he saw: quae signa futuri/pertulerim (‘what signs of futurity I endured’, 3.639–40), uidi . . . uidi (‘I saw . . . I saw’, 3.640–41), as well as using the language of prophetic vision (deus ecce furentibus obstat, ecce deus! ‘see, the god opposes your frenzy, see, the god!’, 3.643–4). Capaneus’ response combines a sarcastic suggestion that Amphiaraus is a Lucretian Epicurus figure, who could use his words to influence the world (3.657–9), while simultaneously using Lucretian language himself to claim that fear has created gods (3.661); he ends with an implied threat to the life of the prophet if he should attempt to stand in the way of war once they arrive at Thebes, usurping the role of augur for himself. Capaneus’ pseudo-prophecy is confirmed in the traditional manner, by thunder: rursus fragor intonat ingens/hortantum et uasto subter uolat astra tumultu (‘Again thunders out the great roar of the backers and flies in vast tumult to the stars’, 3.669–70). Here the word order leaves it ambiguous until the beginning of the second verse as to whether it is Jupiter who is actually confirming Capaneus’ words; only then does it become apparent that he is validated by the earthly thunder of the mob. In a typically Statian manner, this scene mixes up oppositions established by the earlier tradition, assimilating prophet and warrior, destabilizing the relationship between knowledge and virtue, humans, and gods.

18 This link is strengthened by the use of adeo three verses below at 1.219, and the repeat of the word arcanus, used in another key phrase from Jupiter’s prophecy, two lines before the end of the speech (arcano de pectore, ‘from my secret heart’, 1.246); Amphiaraus also refers to arcana at 3.625.

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Silius’ prophetic scenes may be less theatrical and more historical than those of Statius and Valerius, but they still use elements of performance and spectacle to address the issue of interpretation and persuasion. Let us look at two prophetic agones: Flaminius’ disregard of the evil omens before the battle of Lake Trasimene, and his battle with Corvinus (Sil. 5.24–207), followed by Punica 4.101–42 (omen of the hawk, doves, and eagle given rival interpretations by Liger and Bogus, who is killed by Flaminius at 5.376–409). Before the disastrous defeat at Lake Trasimene, Flaminius is offered every opportunity to turn back, but refuses to do so. This scene is made more dramatic by the invention of Corvinus to give a voice to the opposition to Flaminius.19 The setting, which is for battle and not just prophecy, is given a lavish description, including even an aetion for the lake’s name (Sil. 5.1–23). The description of the situation of both armies, Flaminius’ legions marching in disarray while Hannibal’s troops lie hidden, increases dramatic irony for the reader; the lake breathing out mist (5.34–7) intensifies the ominous atmosphere, and the play on seeing and the lack thereof. The text puts Hannibal in charge by comparing him to a fisherman constructing a trap (5.47–52), as if he were creating the space and producing the spectacle. At 5.59–129, Flaminius ignores a whole catalogue of negative portents, which is significantly similar to Lucan’s catalogue of portents at Pharsalus (Luc. 7.151–84).20 Silius’ list of omens develops the historical accounts into something much more spectacular and dramatic. The two prose accounts in Cicero (Diu. 1.77) and Livy (22.1.8–13) focus on psychologizing accounts of people’s reactions and lists of individual events seen by viewers all over the Italian countryside. These catalogues of portents are a topos of Roman history, and Silius does evoke the associations with historiography: the refusal of the sacred chickens to eat is a particularly Roman sign, marked as such by its association with Latium and time-honoured custom (ales, priscum populis de more Latinis/auspicium, ‘the birds, which the people of Latium consult by ancient custom’, 5.59–60). Silius personifies the chickens, moving quickly away from a prosaic version: ceu praescia luctus/ 19

On Flaminius as a demagogue, see Ariemma (2010). Bull flees altar: Sil. 5.63–5 ~ Luc. 7.165–7; standards reluctant to leave soil: Sil. 5.66–9; Luc. 7.161–4. Pomeroy (2010: 30) links the bull with Livy (21.63.13–14) or Aen. 2.223–4. The equally significant link to Cicero (Diu. 1.77), which is the only other account to share Silius’ image of the sacred chickens refusing to eat, underlines the epic’s reflection of an active debate on the nature and effectiveness of communication with the gods via prophecy and omens. Lucan moves on to characterize Caesar as instigating or even creating the portents (7.168–71), and then suggest that they might have been in the fevered imaginations of those about to fight (7.172–3). 20

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damnauit uesci planctuque alimenta refugit (‘refused to eat as if aware of coming disaster, and fled from their food with flapping wings’, 5.61–2). In Cicero’s version, the chickens display no such human emotions, and when the standards stick in the ground, they do so without blood spurting out. Moreover, there is not much overlap between Livy’s list of prodigies (22.1.8–13) and those in Silius. Livy’s Flaminius ignores a double omen (22.3.11–13), first by falling off his horse and then by being unable to pull up the standards (which he attributes to the fear of the men). Silius’ epic portents are much more spectacular: they all take place in the theatre of war and grow in drama, visibility, and magnitude, until the whole lake is set on fire. The introduction of Corvinus, a prophetic figure invented by Silius, adds further to the theatricality of the episode: it becomes an agon between prophet and leader, with two opposing speeches and an internal audience: talia Coruinus, primoresque addere passim orantum uerba, et diuisus quisque timere nunc superos de Flaminio, nunc deinde precari Flaminium, ne caelicolis contendere perstet. (Sil. 5.101–4) ‘So spoke Corvinus, and all the chief officers added words of entreaty; and each man, beset by a double fear, prayed now to the gods not to fight against Flaminius, and now to Flaminius, not to persist in fighting against heaven.’

Flaminius appears in the eyes of the internal audience as remote and blasphemous, not just as a general insisting that his strategy is the right one, but as a character in history striving to gain epic glory, and a Capaneus-like figure fighting a lone battle against the gods: sat magnus in hostem/augur adest ensis, pulchrumque et milite dignum/auspicium Latio, quod in armis dextera praestat (‘The sword is a sufficient soothsayer against the foe, and the work of an armed right hand is a glorious omen worthy of a Roman soldier’, 5.118–20); deforme sub armis/uana superstitio est; dea sola in pectore Virtus/bellantum uiget (‘Empty superstition ill becomes an army; Valour is the only goddess who flourishes in the warrior’s breast’, 5.125–7). The different layers of epic causality work together to make his response, and the defeat, inevitable. The narrator’s introduction to the speech (auditoque furens socias non defore uires, ‘and when he heard that a friendly force would be supplied, he cried in fury’, 5.106) implies that Flaminius’ main motivation is not blasphemy but the desire to keep all the glory of victory for himself rather than sharing it (also evident in his speech at 5.114–16). The rest of the speech betrays the consul’s fluster and self-justification: or perhaps he really is tormented by the ghosts of the dead at the Trebia (5.127–9). We are offered a

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psychologizing reading of his motivations, a determination to win victory on his own; the omens communicate, not necessarily divine will, but the inevitability of the story. Flaminius’ rhetoric of secular scorn for sacred authority is itself a cover for his true self-absorption. When we are given access to the divine sphere, briefly and vestigially (and this passage reads more like Lucan than Virgil in the lack of prominence given to divine machinery), the gods are not preparing to fight Flaminius, but rather, as in Thebaid 11, turning away their gaze (5.201–7), but ‘not willingly’ (non sponte, 5.202): Mars is stupefied by Hannibal’s success, Venus weeps, Apollo consoles himself with his lyre; only Juno watches. Silius here equates the ineffectiveness of portents to avert disaster with the powerlessness of the gods in the face of a fate that has already been decided: heu uani monitus frustraque morantia Parcas/ prodigia! heu fatis superi certare minores! (‘Alas, for fruitless warnings and prodigies that seek in vain to hinder destiny! Alas, for gods who cannot contend against Fate!’, 5.75–6). This scenario evokes the moment in the Iliad when Zeus is favouring the Trojans: Eris and Zeus are the only ones watching the battle, while all the other gods stay resentfully away (Hom. Il. 11.72–83). The gods cannot even watch when they have no option to intervene; this is not indifference, but rather too much emotional involvement.21 Silius here makes an unusually strong parallel between the gods, his mortal characters, and his readers. This is not dramatic irony, because the signs are understood, but ignored. The show must go on. Where Flaminius and Corvinus never really compete in their interpretation (Flaminius simply denies any significance to the prodigies), the rival prophecies of Liger and Bogus in Punica 4 do offer two different ways of reading the same omen. The episode begins with a play on prophecy and narrative momentum. As the battle at Ticinus is about to be joined, an omen occurs: haud mora iam tantum campi dirimebat ab ictu, quantum impulsa ualet comprendere lancea nodo, cum subitum liquida non ullis nubibus aethra augurium mentes oculosque ad sidera uertit. (Sil. 4.101–4) ‘There was no delay, and soon the combatants were separated only by as much ground as a lance sped by a thong can cover, when suddenly all eyes

21 On the powerlessness of the divine in Flavian epic, cf. the discussion in the essays by Tuttle, Manolaraki, Bessone, Dee, and Bernstein (Chs 4, 5, 8, 10, and 13 below).

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and thoughts were turned to the sky by a portent appearing in the clear and cloudless heavens.’

As we have seen, Lucan and Statius use the extravagant expansiveness of their prophecy scenes to delay the onwards march of a narrative that loathes itself. Here Silius instead uses the omen as a way to kick-start the battle. A hawk kills fifteen out of sixteen doves, but the final one is rescued by an eagle and pecks the plume of the young Scipio’s helmet. Silius sets up a duel of interpretation: first Liger interprets it as a sign of ultimate Roman and Scipionic victory (4.120–30); then Bogus takes note only of the first half of the omen, in which the hawks kill the doves, and attempts to authenticate his interpretation with a spear-throw which begins the fight (4.131–42). While Liger seems to take the Roman (or narratorial) perspective, and Bogus the Carthaginian, both address Hannibal (Poene, ‘Carthaginian’, 4.122; Tyrio regi, ‘Carthaginian king’, 4.131).22 There is no sign that Hannibal has heard either of them. This interpretive contest is certainly watched by both armies: all eyes turn to the sky (4.104); it is similar in some ways to Valerius’ multiple prophecies: Liger’s experience in reading omens maps onto that of Idmon.23 Raymond Marks brings out a link back to Lucan: Catus, who comes forward to meet the spear of Bogus, is the name of the first character killed in the first battle of the De bello ciuili (Luc. 3.585–91).24 He argues that this passage shows the self-destructiveness of Rome, a self-destructiveness which will be transferred onto Carthage in the later books of the poem. Liger is certainly given strong authorial endorsement (and direct speech) over Bogus; he has the vision and the visual language of persuasive prophets, as well as the self-awareness and caution to leave open the question of whether the omen is authentic. It is Bogus who makes a deceptive prophecy here, like Idmon, failing to tell the full story. Yet on his side too there is room for the opposite possibility: he throws the spear ‘as if prompted by heaven and aware of coming events’ (ceu suadente deo et fatorum conscius, 4.135). The spear-throw activates two possible Virgilian intertexts: Ascanius’ duel of words versus weapons with Numanus 22 Marks (2005a: 164–5 and n. 6) seems to interpret Liger as Roman (although he calls him simply a ‘seer’ throughout, he differentiates the two by calling Bogus ‘a Carthaginian seer’), while in Ch. 4 below, Tuttle takes both as Carthaginian. Is this a conflict in prophecy mirroring the conflict in the war, between Roman expertise and Carthaginian self-deception? Or are they two rival attempts to persuade Hannibal? 23 Stover (2009), citing Vessey (1973: 154) and Fantham (2006: 155). All three focus on the relationship between Silius/Valerius and Statius (double augury of Melampus and Amphiaraus/confrontation between Capaneus and Amphiaraus), but Stover holds that Silius’ episode is also based on the Valerian passage. 24 Marks (2010a: 133); see also Marks (2005a: 16–17; 2005b: 130–31).

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Remulus (Aen. 9.590–637) and Juturna’s false omen (Aen. 12.244–69), which causes the augur Tolumnius to hurl a spear at the Trojans, restarting the proto-civil war.25 Ironically, it is Bogus who is the Ascanius figure, using his weapon instead of words (although Liger makes the prayer to Jupiter, which equates to Ascanius’ prayer at Aen. 9.625–9). There is a reversal here, though: the theatrical prophecy (Liger, with his direct speech) is fuller and more convincing, while the matter-of-fact interpretation is the deceptive (or mistaken) one. Catus, who runs forward to meet Bogus’ spear, takes the active role in embracing death, so that Bogus’ spear-throw does not validate his words in the same way that Ascanius’ arrow answers Numanus Remulus’ insult. Bogus seems also to be following in the footsteps of the deluded Tolumnius, in the description of the hurling and flight of the spear: contorquet primus in hostes . . . hastam (‘He first hurls his spear against the enemy’, Sil. 4.134–5; cf. contorsit in hostis, Aen. 12.266).26 On the other hand, Liger’s recognition of Jupiter is similar to Tolumnius’ accurate but misleading recognition that his bird omen comes from the gods: nosco te, ‘I recognize you’, Sil 4.126 ~ agnosco deos, ‘I recognize the gods’, Aen. 12.260. The omen does come from the gods, but the gods are deliberately deceiving him.27 This is a different sort of intertextual complexity from that of Valerius’ prophetic doubling discussed below: here what seems initially like two structurally separate responses to the same omen, possibly one on each side of the battlefield, breaks down into a complex of uncertainty, the sort of intertextual blurring which strikes readers as typical of Silius.28 Prophecy is a particular form of foreshadowing that contributes to a sense of the inevitability of epic teleology and causation. But here, competing interpretations and intertextuality combine to destabilize the authenticity of both omen and interpretation. If Rome’s defeat (and Hannibal’s victory) is only part of the story, then Rome’s victory too may be only part of the story, a story in which the constant presence of Lucan undermines (and makes Lucanian) Silius’ use of Virgil. And just as there are many turning-points, and many different whole stories available to a reader of Silius, so there are many potential endpoints of prophecy: Jupiter’s speech to Venus while Hannibal crosses the Alps prophesies the Flavian emperors coming to a climax with Domitian (3.593–629); Scipio’s katabasis on the other hand offers a more

25

Marks (2005a: 165 n. 6). Also illa uolans, ‘the spear flying’, Sil. 4.136 ~ hasta uolans, Aen. 12.270, in the same metrical position. 27 On this passage, see Tuttle’s discussion in Ch. 4 below. 28 On Silius’ poetics of contingency, see Cowan (2010); on Silian intertextuality, see e.g. Littlewood (2011: xx–xxiii) with further bibliography. 26

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complex picture, which he sums up as ordine duro . . . rebus Latiis (‘a harsh destiny for the Roman state’, 13.868–9); it roughly reverses the Virgilian Underworld by offering positive reconciliation with the past, along with an Ennian vision of Homer, but finishing with a negative (and distinctly Lucanian) look to the future-present, displaying Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar as those to come (13.850–67).29 Two allusions to the Virgilian shield of Aeneas link these two prophetic episodes and complicate things still further: first, just after Bogus’ prophecy, the Gallic allies of the Carthaginians go into battle, and Crixus has a shield with a reference to his ancestors’ capture of Rome: . . . Tarpeioque iugo demens et uertice sacro pensantes aurum Celtas umbone gerebat. colla uiri fuluo radiabant lactea torque, auro uirgatae uestes, manicaeque rigebant ex auro, et simili uibrabant crista metallo. (Sil. 4.152–6) ‘Madman, he displayed on the boss of his shield the Gauls weighing gold on the Tarpeian ridge and the sacred peak. The snow-white neck of the hero was gleaming with a golden collar, his clothes were striped with gold, and his gauntlets were stiff with gold, and his helmet-crest was brandishing the same metal.’

To which we may compare Virgil’s description of the Gauls: aurea caesaries ollis atque aurea uestis,/uirgatis lucent sagulis, tum lactea colla/auro innectuntur (‘They had golden hair and golden clothes, they glitter with striped cloaks, their snow-white necks are garlanded with gold’, Aen. 8.659–61). It is as if Crixus were an ekphrasis brought to life, presumably mirroring in his dress the ancestors portrayed on his own shield. When Flaminius puts his armour on (5.130–48), his shield portrays another moment from Aeneas’ shield, the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus (humentique sub antro,/ceu fetum, lupa permulcens puerilia membra/ingentem Assaraci caelo nutribat alumnum, ‘and on it the she-wolf, in the dripping cave, was licking the limbs of a child, as if he were her cub, and suckling the mighty son of Assaracus for his translation to heaven’, 5.143–5; cf. Aen. 8.630–34). Both men are shortly to die; the prophecies of the glory of Rome are here redeployed in an ironic fashion. Scipio will take the ineffective spear-throw of Bogus and turn it into an effective one against Crixus and his valorization of Rome’s

29

The death of Bogus at Lake Trasimene marks him out as an ineffective prophet (5.401–9); rather than facing death despite foreknowledge, he considers himself actively deceived by the gods and the empty signs.

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opponents; but even though he kills Crixus, he will not be able to avert Roman defeat in the battle. Similarly, Flaminius’ quest for personal glory will lead to his own death, in marked contrast to the shield’s narrative of Roman victory. By the logic of the double reversal above, perhaps these negative echoes reinforce the overall message of the shield, which takes its ultimate form in the triple triumph of Augustus. Flaminius may die, but Rome will conquer in the end, and Scipio’s apotheosis will mirror that of Romulus.30

CONCLUSION Let us return briefly to the competing visions of Idmon and Mopsus in Valerius. Andrew Zissos has explored the links to Lucan’s Phemonoe (and also to the multiple prophecies in the De bello ciuili 1).31 The description of Mopsus significantly echoes the portrayal of Phemonoe’s destructive Apolline inspiration, while Idmon’s lack of inspiration draws on the prophetess’s earlier attempt to fake it in order to avoid prophesying. If Jason’s limited perspective on events and his desire to imitate Aeneas by encouraging his men points to the importance of Virgil in this passage, one wonders whether Mopsus can be seen as Lucan, and Idmon as an anti-Lucan, a return to a calmer, more Virgilianizing mode of prophecy and speech. The style of Mopsus’ prophecy, with its apostrophes, staccato sentences, and impassioned/puzzled questions, is not only like Lucan’s matrona at 1.674–95 but also like Lucan himself, urging those he views and narrates to act. Alternatively, the prophetic doubling might constitute an awareness on Valerius’ part of the split voice of epic after Lucan. The calmer, more classicizing Idmon is a deceptive prophet in the mode of James O’Hara’s analysis of the Aeneid, omitting the crucial negative points—explicitly his own death, but implicitly the death of Jason’s parents. These ironies are quite in keeping with Apollonius’ epistemological world, in which the plans of the gods and their actions are kept from both protagonists and readers for much of the poem.32

30

On other visual quotes in the epic tradition (where allusions to the shield of Aeneas are particularly important), see Dinter (forthcoming). 31 Zissos (2004). See also Hershkowitz (1998b: 26–7). 32 Zissos (2004) coins the phrase ‘prophetic anxiety’ in relation to Valerius’ characters. But it is already a feature of Apollonius, where prophecy often inspires confusion or worry and a sense of separation from the gods rather than communication with them.

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Prophetic conflict in epic is very closely related to tragedy. The interpretation of omens rests on the mortal plane of epic narrative; it is only the divine realm that divides it from tragedy. Portents lend themselves to epic and tragedy because they are both theatrical and narrative devices. They represent the human tendency to apply narrative where it is not appropriate, to create narrative out of randomness, which Gregory Currie and Jon Jureidini call ‘over-coherent thinking’.33 They are theatrical because of their visual impact, the ephemerality of their performance, and the need for interpretation negotiated by society. Historicity resides in the list structure, and the intricate detail of geography and timing. Epic must come at the top of any scale of narrativity, which is perhaps not unrelated to its hyper-coherence, the causal overdetermination, which seems to me particularly epic and which spills over into multiple explanations and aetiology.34 It is striking that in the world of Flavian epic, the more theatrical the prophecy, the better it becomes. Those who look as though they are not really putting on a show, but instead offering deeds and practicality, are simply performing a further layer of deception. So Idmon and Bogus, who ought to win our approval for their straightforwardness, are in fact either incompetent or not telling the whole story; in the case of Tiresias and Laius, the first seems to be ineffective and partial in either his understanding or his explanations, while Laius is deliberately deceptive. Calmness is not to be trusted: the truth will always be horrendous. Flavian epic operates in a world which does not want to listen and believe, only to watch and marvel.35

33

Currie and Jureidini (2004). On causation, see Hardie (2008) and Cowan (2010). 35 Many thanks to Antony Augoustakis for hospitality, encouragement, great patience and almost superhuman efficiency. 34

4 Argive Augury and Portents in the Thebaid Anne Tuttle

Scholars have debated whether the literary disposition in which Statius’ account of the Argive–Theban war is couched is one of despair and gloom or of hope and redemption.1 The supporters of both the pessimistic and optimistic interpretations consider the role of the gods and fate, crime, deserved or undeserved punishment, predestined cruelty, use of people as pawns, and the poem’s denouement.2 Regardless of the perspectives on the overall atmosphere of the epic and of its conclusion, however, the position of Argos within the Thebaid is clear: the Peloponnesian city’s bleak destiny remains unalterable. It could be that Theseus’ victory in the twelfth book represents a sign of redemption;3 and yet the imminent defeat of Argos anticipated in the epic prior to book 11 still supports a rather ‘pessimistic’ reading of the Thebaid, namely, that the doom of the cities and the peoples’ roles within the framework of fate—or within Jupiter’s plan4—are fixed, and that the people themselves have no freedom to act contrary to the will 1

See Augoustakis (2010: 30–91, esp. 30 n. 1) on the three trends, pessimistic, optimistic, or pluralistic, surveyed also in Braund (1996: 17–18). On the most recent reassessment of the poem that combines the pessimistic and optimistic interpretations, see Bessone (2011: 128–35), who recognizes the forces of evil but also underscores the positive presence of Theseus in the final book (‘il finale inverte la rotta e tenta una soluzione, per quanto provvisoria’, 104). 2 See Bessone (2011: 104): ‘la Tebaide è un’epica del nefas, dominate da forze negative e modellata sull’epos di Lucano e sulla tragedia di Seneca . . . ’ 3 As seen by Bessone (2011), who notes, however: ‘Esemplarità e pessimissmo sono inscindibili in questo finale, quasi una sigla che definisce l’epica di Stazio . . . Quando la guerra si realizza sul campo—la Tebaide dimostra—può diventare difficile distinguere una guerra giusta da una sbagliata’, 199). Pace Bernstein’s conclusions in Ch. 13 below. 4 It is difficult even to assess who, if anyone, may be consistently behind the unfolding of the action; among the primary driving forces are first Tisiphone, then Jupiter, followed by

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of fate or the gods. As William Dominik has observed, ‘abuse of supernatural power is the predominant, pervasive motif in the Thebaid . . . it is the tale of the supernaturally engineered annihilation of humanity.’5 Dominik’s point is clearly demonstrated in the instances of augury and omens on the Argive side. The omens, to which the men of Argos bear witness and react, and the augury itself of book 3 demonstrate an inclination toward autonomy and an attempt at responsible and pious decision-making. Yet the results of, and reactions to, the portents reveal an inextricable futility in the Argives’ attempts to determine or understand the future. Their path is unswerving in spite of their augurs’ testimony, and in spite of obviously bad omens; Statius uses the supernatural elements—augury and portents—evident on the human plane to emphasize the vanity of action and thought on the part of the people of Argos. Even more than illustrating the human position, as we shall see, the divine communication to the Argives paints a frightening picture of the deities in the epic. As Federica Bessone claims in Jupiter’s case, ‘[Stazio] nega a Giove, se non la volontà o la visione complessiva, di certo l’espressione di un disegno volto al bene e la sua compiuta messa in atto.’6 Indeed, the nature of the messages highlights the collapse of the celestial machinery in terms of moral authority and communal relationship to the mortal sphere before battle is ever engaged. As Eleni Manolaraki observes in Chapter 5 below, ‘Statius creates literary prodigies that unravel emotional and ethical complexities of the war beyond the battlefield envisioned by Amphiaraus.’

THE ROMAN CONTEXT FOR STATIUS’ AUGURY Divination by augury, here strictly the observation of birds7 in flight to discern whether the gods approve of an intended action by a person or

Dis. These three may be seen as the main enforcers of fate in the poem. Cf. also Manuwald (Ch. 2) on Jupiter’s plan in Valerius and the role of fate. 5

Dominik (1994a: 1). Bessone (2011: 54). Of course, the indictment is particularly one of Jupiter, traditionally the representative of cosmic order, moral authority, and divine justice. On Jupiter in the Thebaid, see most recently Bessone (2011: 53–8 and esp. 53 n. 3 for further bibliography). In particular, Bessone promotes the stance that Jupiter’s propensity towards nefas is later counterbalanced by Theseus’ çغÆŁæøÆ (cf. esp. 54, 67). 7 As Green (2009:159) calls them, ‘the gods’ messengers to mankind’. 6

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group of people8 (hereafter called ‘recipients’), is interpreted by the Romans as a means of influencing the recipients’ decisions. If the augur reads disapproval or displeasure in the skies, the person(s) whose actions require the gods’ approval either changes plans or attempts an immediate expiation in hope of assuaging the gods’ anger and renewing their favour. Augury signifies a relationship between the mortal and the divine, human trust in the honest communication of divine will. As part of his propaganda in the early principate, Octavian emphasizes the traditionally held views on the beneficence and reliability of augury.9 Generally, the signs in the augury are believed to be true; any miscommunication or deception of the recipients is ascribed to misreading of the signs by the augur himself (Cic. Diu. 1.37–71). Portentous or prodigious events, such as upheavals in nature, are signs that relations between men and gods have been disrupted,10 and once recognized as such ‘require a response’.11 People are expected to react to communication from the gods, and to make decisions only after taking the auspices into account. As Statius’ augury echoes the Roman rite of taking the auspices,12 it carries political connotations as well. In Roman augural practice, the gods through their communication are considered to be members of the community. Political reciprocity becomes important, even a religious imperative, and is achieved through the human responses to the gods’ communication of their displeasure, namely through expiation or an alteration in behaviour.13 For augury and portents to be legitimate communication, then, reciprocation by humans must remain possible. This element also affects the impact of augury and portents in the framework of the Thebaid. While the Latin epicists widely use augury and portents14 to illustrate the relationship between the human and the divine planes, in various poems several depictions of supernatural phenomena call into question any positive presuppositions, namely that the gods communicate truly and clearly and offer an opportunity for humans to ‘make things right’. 8 Beard et al. (1998: 2.166 and 171). On divination history, see ThesCRA 3.79–80; for more general information, see ThesCRA 3.79–104. 9 Green (2009: 149). Though certainly in the late republic there is widespread criticism and doubt of divination in general; see Fowler (1911: 296). 10 Beard et al. (1998: 2.172). 11 Ando (2008: 14). 12 Frings (1991: 50). 13 Ando (2008: 3 and 6). 14 Following Green (2009), I shall define these as unsolicited signs in nature, indicating the gods’ intervention or disapproval.

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This recasting of divine communication with humans necessarily impacts the poems thematically, perhaps most clearly the Thebaid. In order to analyse fully the implications of the augury at Argos and the later portents observed by the Argive host, the depiction of supernatural communication by Statius’ predecessors, Virgil and Lucan, and by his Flavian contemporary epicists, Silius Italicus and Valerius Flaccus, must be examined further.

LITERARY MODELS The Aeneid offers two mirroring instances of augury. In the first, Venus, disguised as a Spartan huntress, acts as augur and reads the sky to encourage Aeneas to continue toward Carthage; she anticipates the future success of his voyage (Aen. 1.393–400). This augury not only proves to be true, but is also traditional in its presentation; it is intended to influence the decisions of Aeneas as a leader.15 The communication is reliable, and the divine realm—in this case, Jupiter himself—is honest in its intention to convey the consequences of Aeneas’ actions.16 The second augury, on the other hand, paints a rather different picture. In Aeneid 12, Virgil casts suspicion on the practice of augury—more specifically, on the nature of the gods’ communication through the augury, the observation of the seizing of a swan by an eagle (Aen. 12.245–56). As Green argues, Virgil insinuates that bird-signs not only may be interpreted incorrectly but may also be purposefully deceptive. In the case of the Latins and their assumption that the successful eagle represents them, Virgil does not blame the wrong interpretation on a misreading. Rather, he indicates that the sign from the gods is intended to deceive the Latins: quo non praesentius ullum/turbauit mentes Italas monstroque fefellit (‘than which none was more potent to confound the Italian minds and cheat them with its miracle’, Aen. 12.245–6). Their appropriate and expected reaction (to attack Aeneas) is ‘pious’, and they have no reason to fear defeat, as they believe they execute the will of the gods. Thus, the lie of the augury which impels the Latins to battle dooms them to defeat. Though they communicate through bird-signs, the gods are not always benevolent with its use. For Virgil, people may react to

15

Venus urges Aeneas on (Aen. 1.401), with the promise that, if he should continue to Carthage, his men and fleet would be restored to him. 16 Green (2009: 154–5). See also Manolaraki, Ch. 5 below.

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augury to negate or change the predicted future, but the prediction in the bird-sign itself may be false.17 In Lucan’s De bello ciuili, predictions of the future do not include a lengthy or detailed scene of augury before the war begins, and so it is necessary to look briefly at the impact of portents, the apparition of Roma, and the scene of divination by haruspicy, which has its parallel in the Thebaid. The Neronian poet mentions repeatedly the lightning, the earthly tremors, and the strange behaviour of animals as signs18 that the imminent civil war is already disrupting cosmic order.19 The fear of the people indicates that they understand the meaning of these portents. Yet Caesar, Pompey, and their respective allies wage the war contrary to universal laws of human society and in spite of the dire warnings. The nature of omens and characters’ reactions is encapsulated in the omen of Rome’s appearance to Caesar before the crossing of the Rubicon (Luc. 1.183–212). Caesar obviously recognizes that the portent signifies that his assault on Rome is forbidden; and yet he does not hesitate. The communication from the celestial realm is not dishonest; it is, quite simply, ineffective. While the civil war seems fated to happen, Caesar nevertheless is both informed of and understands the cosmic injunction against his actions. He is evidently frightened by Rome’s appearance and message (Luc. 1.192–4), and responds to it with an explanation of his actions and a shift of the blame onto Pompey (Luc. 1.200–203). He chooses the war and its consequences anyway, while his criticism of Pompey demonstrates that he understands that someone must expect to pay for the ruin of civil war. While fate plays a role in the unfolding of the events, Caesar here deliberately acts contrary to the warnings of the apparition, giving his reasons for doing so, and thus chooses his path freely.20 The scene of haruspicy at the end of the first book also gives clear and foreboding signs of what is to come. Arruns knows from the reluctance of the bull (Luc. 1.612–13), the putrid gore (Luc. 1.614–15), and the defilement of the liver (Luc. 1.618–22, 1.626–9) that the war is outright condemned (Luc. 1.630). He then offers a prophecy which he clouds with 17

Green (2009: 156–8). Cf. e.g. in the first three books, Luc. 1.233–5, 1.522–83, 2.1–4, 3.36, 3.211–12, 3.417–25. 19 A reading of Lucan’s portents is by no means simple, because the divine machinery is, for all literary purposes, nonexistent. It is useful to read them as proof to humans that the civil war is a breach of a universal moral code, that the cosmos itself conjures signs (the gods themselves are disinterested in human affairs, 7.454–5), including the appearance of the personification of Rome, to warn against the breaking of a natural law. 20 See Braund (1992: xxv–xxix). 18

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ambiguity (Luc. 1.637–8), followed by a similar reading of the stars by Figulus; both question the intent of the gods and the trustworthiness of the signs, but the reader knows that they read the signs aright, and that the forewarnings of doom are clear. The recipients of the signs hope desperately that their interpretations are wrong, or, as in Arruns’ prophecy, that the signs are tainted by infernal powers (Luc. 1.635–6). Nevertheless, the prophetic ambiguity does not assuage the people, and in spite of Arruns’ and Figulus’ proclaimed doubt, their hearers are terrified (Luc. 1.673) because they know that the signs are true. Still, Caesar’s will cannot be turned by bad omens. In our examination of Statius’ augury we will return to the connection between Lucan’s use of portents and the portents observed by the Argives. These Argives’ nearest literary companions in the augural rites can be found in the other Flavian epicists, Silius and Valerius.21 In Punica 4, Silius describes briefly a scene of augury and its two interpretations (Sil. 4.101–42). Here, a hawk harasses a group of pigeons but is then driven away by a young eagle. The Carthaginian Liger, a man able to ‘perceive the warnings of heaven’ (sentire monentes, Sil. 4.120),22 takes into account both parts of the augury, promising Hannibal success over the Roman troops as indicated by the hawk but warning him against excess, for which the punishment would be his defeat by the eagle. Bogus contradicts Liger by merely urging Hannibal on to battle, deliberately forgetting the eagle and focusing on the meaning of the hawk. He then demonstrates his faith in his incomplete reading by hurling the battle’s first javelin (Sil. 4.134–5). Once again, the gods’ communication of their will and pleasure is not dishonest, and the humans involved are free to act in response to the sign.23 In this case, taking into account only the augury itself, Hannibal’s actions and their consequences may be said to be the result of error or irresponsibility with regard to Bogus’ interpretation and subsequent advice. Hannibal does have access to both honest communication and true interpretation in Liger. His choice, either to respect Liger’s or Bogus’ reading, is made with the backdrop of at least honest, if not benevolent, divine machinery, and an awareness of the possible future.

21

On the various scenes of ornithomancy in Flavian epic, see Ripoll (2002). The idea of admonishing also sets up the expectation for the recipient to react. 23 Cf. Manuwald, Ch. 2 above: ‘Divine messages may provide (partial) insight into what is predetermined by fate.’ And as Lovatt observes in Ch. 3 above, ‘prophecy is a particular form of foreshadowing that contributes to a sense of the inevitability of epic teleology and causation. But here competing interpretations and intertextuality combine to destabilize the authenticity of both omen and interpretation.’ 22

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Finally, let us turn to a counterpart scene for the augury in Thebaid 3, Valerius’ Argonautica 1.205–39.24 This is another instance of a ‘double augury’, as in Argos, but serves a much different function. Mopsus gives his prophecy first, replete with an ‘overwhelmingly negative and pessimistic view of the future’, which Idmon follows with a correspondingly ‘positive and optimistic one’.25 Idmon’s second augury serves to calm the recipients of the augury and the readers, with the augur deliberately attempting to assuage the Argonauts’ fears to the point of withholding negative information. The result is a twofold perspective on the nature and purpose of augury,26 and perhaps the augurs’ forthrightness. Idmon’s motive is likely to encourage the men in the undertaking of the voyage, but his nuanced presentation of the future casts suspicion on the art. Although the dual augury includes two different reports, contradictory in tone, the expectation that the recipients will react to the augury is implied. Idmon, and by extension Valerius, are successful in raising spirits and motivating the Argonauts forward through the narrative toward their destiny. Though the element of reciprocity is not overly evident, Statius does use Valerius’ framework to colour his own presentation of augury in the Thebaid, not with similarity but with stark contrast, and in a situation where reciprocity is impossible. Altogether, the preceding (by nature selective) four readings of divine will—in Lucan’s case, portents—invite questioning and comparison of the value, reliability, and purpose of augury and omens. In Virgil’s augury, the benevolent disposition of the gods and forthright nature of the bird-signs are questioned, but not necessarily man’s ability to react freely to the signs. The characters witnessing Lucan’s portents, in which the moral injunctions against the civil war are obvious, act, either by will or fate, with full knowledge against the warnings of the portents. The cosmic signs are trustworthy and the characters are aware of the consequences of their actions. Likewise, while Silius’ augury results in conflicting readings, the nature of the sign itself is not questioned. Hannibal seems free to choose the interpretation he prefers and to react accordingly. Valerius’ two augurs also do not question the birdsigns, and each speaks authoritatively and truly to his respective augury—although he may alter the tenor of the truth in order to benefit his hearers. Valerius uses the dual augury to address the potential 24 On the scene, see also Manuwald in Ch. 2 above. Stover (2009) suggests that Valerius’ scene is a model for Statius; Feeney suggests an interaction between the epics, which may include interaction between the augury scenes themselves, Feeney (1991: 313). 25 Stover (2009: 449). 26 Stover (2009: 449–51).

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darkness of fate in the quest of the Argonauts, but offers the crew and the readers a sort of consolation prize in the second augury, where, in spite of the hardship and suffering to be endured, a degree of happiness is nevertheless promised. Statius’ augury and, to a lesser extent, portents surpass any of these in foreboding and in implications of the darkness of the divine machinery in the Thebaid, to which the discussion now turns.

THE ARGIVE AUGURY Shortly before the Argive augury, Tydeus returns from his embassy—and the Theban ambush—and stirs up hostility against Thebes amongst the Argives (3.324–86). Adrastus is hesitant to call his men to arms (3.443–4) and orders the two augurs, Melampus and Amphiaraus, to take the auspices and discover the will of the gods concerning the war (3. 449– 51).27 Adrastus does not realize that Mars with his entourage has already inflamed the men of Argos to battle (3.420–39). The augurs, in what soon becomes a typical Argive reaction, are unsatisfied with their first divination, the examination of the entrails of young sheep (3.456–9). They then turn to the skies. The structure of the scene recalls the double augury from Valerius’ Argonautica and the seers’ prophecies there. A certain outcome is therefore anticipated before the reading of the birds even begins. In light of Valerius’ Idmon and Mopsus, whom Statius replaces with Amphiaraus and Melampus respectively, the reader expects a dark interpretation from Melampus and then comfort and equivocation from Amphiaraus.28 And yet Statius will not fulfil such expectation. Before Melampus proceeds with the first of the two readings, Amphiaraus opens the augury by invoking Jupiter as the originator of all augural omens (3.471–4), asking that, should it be possible, Jupiter send clear sign of Argive victory or defeat (3.491–6). Such a demand is of course extremely ironic, not only because it follows the juxtaposition of the description of Mars’ preparations and Adrastus’ reluctance, but also because earlier in the book Jupiter had given his command to Mars personally to incite war (3.230–35). Jupiter himself, possibly through Tisiphone’s agency,29 exclaims iam semina pugnae ipse dedi (‘I myself 27 On the augury of book 3, see most recently Fantham (2006 [2010]); Ganiban (2007: 55–61); Stover (2009). 28 Stover (2009: 450–53). 29 As she has taken action already, immediately answering Oedipus’ request for vengeance (see Hubert, Ch. 6 below). For discussion on the humans’ perception of Jupiter’s lack

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have already sown the seeds of battle’, 3.235–6). The reader already knows the outcome planned by Jupiter for the Argive Seven. Nevertheless, in light of the Latin epic tradition before Statius, there are numerous possibilities for the outcome of the prophetic reading. The god(s) may deceive the augurs, and the Argives may thus be led into war under false pretences, as in the Aeneid; the signs may be clear, and the Argives defy them willingly, believing their reasons for the war justify their defiance; the augurs may offer differing—and perhaps wrong—interpretations, as in Silius; or there may be a second sign by which the Argives and the reader, like the Argonauts, learn of a more positive outcome awaiting the Argives after the war. The Argive augury takes a unique—and most foreboding—turn. In the first place, while the double augury very clearly echoes the Argonautica, nevertheless, because of its structure and Amphiaraus’ character and comments,30 the thematic function is wholly dissimilar. Upon answering Melampus’ description of the ominous vultures, Amphiaraus immediately warns that the second augury contains no promise of a ‘silver lining’. Instead, as he declares, similes non ante metus aut astra notaui/prodigiosa magis (‘But never before have I observed terrors like these or heavens more prodigious’, 3.522–3). Contrary to other literary precedents, Amphiaraus continues in Melampus’ footsteps, in a manner that heightens the horror of the scene;31 as Stover points out, following Ganiban, ‘[it] functions to redouble the horror of what is to come in the Thebaid, a narrative that is dominated exclusively by the forces of hell who unleash unmitigated death and destruction.’32 More importantly, Statius deliberately overturns the function of the second augury, as expected from the pattern in the Argonautica. The second augury not only seals the coming doom for Argos, but also demonstrates that no real consolation exists. Thematically, the double augury offers no balance between bad and good, suffering and wellbeing. Instead, both dark interpretations highlight the absolute and imbalanced darkness and horror of the fratricidal war, as well as the inevitable despair of the Argives. This imbalanced darkness originates in Jupiter’s use of the Argives as destructive agents against Thebes (1.240–43), though he declares that

of involvement, or lack of promptness, see Feeney (1991: 346 and 356–7). For his part, Jupiter seems hardly aware that he has been slow to act. 30 Cf. 3.520–21: nec me uentura locuto/saepius in dubiis auditus Iasoni Mopsus (‘And Jason in doubt listened to me no less often than to Mopsus as I told of things to come’). 31 Frings (1991: 52–3). 32 Stover (2009: 452); cf. Ganiban (2007: 55–61 and passim).

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both peoples are being punished (1.224–6).33 This decision, he declares, is a mansurum et non reuocabile uerbum (‘pronouncement fixed and irrevocable’, 1.290–92). The later actions of the Argives correspond to Jupiter’s pronouncement in book 1; in the augury, in particular, Jupiter makes it obvious that the Argives are his instruments of destruction and announces his intention to destroy them. As Amphiaraus watches the swans, here representative of the Thebans, he spies another group of birds (3.530–33). As eagles, and more specifically as bearers of Jupiter’s lightning (septem ordine fuluo/armigeras summi Iouis exultante caterua, ‘seven arm-bearers of highest Jupiter, an exultant troop in tawny line’, 3.531–2), the Argives symbolize Argos’ special utility to Jupiter, not to the benefit of the troops; it rather emphasizes their instrumentality. While the Argives may yet respond sensibly to the augury, nevertheless the destruction of their representatives, the eagles (3.539–45), which Amphiaraus believes is due to Jupiter’s wrath, does not bode well for them (saeua repente/uictores agitat leto Iouis ira sinistri? ‘What fierce wrath of baleful Jove suddenly drives the victors to death?’ 3.537–8). Though the augury indicates that the Argive assault will first be a success, the Seven will then fall in a crushing defeat orchestrated by the very god who enables their earlier victory, and whose intervention in the augury is evident.34 In this case of augury in epic, then, Jupiter is all too frank in his message through the birds. He declares openly to Melampus and Amphiaraus his will and intentions. What follows ought to be the interpretation of the auspices to the people and Adrastus’ and the Argives’ decision to defy the augury or attempt to win the gods’ favour. But both augurs, in terror, sequester themselves from the rest of the city (3.570–73), afraid to reveal the meaning of the omens, regretting their vocation and rejecting the gods (3.547–51). This, however, does not seem to matter to the Argives. Filling the citizenry with hunger for war (3.577–93), Mars sweeps the men away in a frenzy (3.576–8). Yet momentarily they seem eager for Amphiaraus’ reading; they are spurred on by Capaneus’ blasphemous taunting of the uates and disregard for his divinely sanctioned authority.35 After Amphiaraus responds with his ill tidings (3.640–44), Capaneus and the others reject him and his admonitions. Amphiaraus, however, seems to have expected such behaviour, indicating even before their reaction that the augury, and divination in general, have proved futile 33 At the same time, he disregards the fact that the gods’ crimes have been just as heinous; see Feeney (1991: 355). 34 Dominik (1994b: 166 and 191–2). 35 Rüpke (2007a: 231).

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(3.635–7 and 645–7). Though augury traditionally prefaced a decision, in the case of Argos the augur himself understands that to read this auspice is to read, not a possible future, but the only future, which cannot be averted by any action on the part of the recipient of the omens. This is an overturning of augury’s very function, and as such it prefaces the complete overturning of the divine structure. Since the function of augury is undone, the omen cannot be averted, and in addition it cannot be understood properly. What is the reason for the Argives’ inability to respond to the omens? The descriptions of Mars’ activity before and after the augury indicate that it is warlike furor that prevents the Argives’ consideration of and proper response to the augury. Mars, acting on orders from Jupiter, has incited this upheaval; the gods are therefore responsible for the Argives’ trespasses against the declared will of the gods: deus ecce furentibus obstat ecce deus! (‘See the god opposes your frenzy, see, the god!’, 3.643–4).36 The Argives never have the opportunity to understand and address, as Lucan’s Caesar does, the signs they receive. Rather, they are compelled by fate, and Jupiter’s will, to misunderstand or ignore the repeated signs of divine displeasure. Jupiter’s control is emphasized repeatedly in the auspice and the events which correspond to it.37 A brief look at the divination of the haruspex and two portents witnessed by the Argives reinforces the argument that it is ignorance, due to divine determinism, that prevents the Argives from reacting to supernatural signs that the war they undertake is nefas.

PREWAR PORTENTS First, let us look at the portent of the falling shield (2.256–61). No Theban at first denies the obvious terror of the bad omen during the double wedding, foretold to Adrastus through an oracle. And yet the Argives look to their king and then compose themselves, even though they are troubled. Statius shifts focus to the necklace of Harmonia and its ekphrasis38 and thus distracts the reader: the Argives themselves, as much as they may deliberate, never consciously consider the significance of the omen. Jupiter himself chooses Adrastus to become Tydeus’ and Polynices’ father-in-law, for the express purpose that they may advance

36

Consistent with Jupiter’s refusal to punish, or take responsibility for, the gods’ nefas in the past. 37 38 Dominik (1994b: 191–2). See Chinn, Ch. 18 below.

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upon Thebes from Argos. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the Argives may not be permitted by circumstance or the gods to change their course of action. Jupiter has chosen his method and tools of punishment for both Thebes and Argos, and though their doom may be communicated to them, the Argives cannot clearly perceive and internalize the information. Second, before the Argives officially embark on their campaign in the fourth book, an unnamed priest reads the entrails of several animals. Statius says that this haruspex neglects to declare his dark findings to the armed men (4.15) so that he may not deny them hope. In Lucan’s haruspicy, Arruns simply veils the truth with a dubious prayer that the sign might turn out to be false, though this façade does not assuage the people’s fear. His Statian counterpart’s decision, however, is juxtaposed with a long description of the troops’ sorrow (4.16–23). Mars has, it seems, momentarily departed, and the Argives are hesitant to go into battle. Thus, the haruspex’s decision to withhold the bad omens seems of little import. And despite his own and his soldiers’ reluctance, Adrastus does not take time to reconsider or take counsel; they simply leave. Though having earlier rejected the augury and still ignorant of the omens of the entrails, the no-longer-eager troops depart on behalf of their king and Polynices (4.75) as if they had no choice, indicating that Jupiter’s intention drives them even contrary to their emotional dispositions. As much as the gods deny comprehension to the mortals, even when they (especially Mars) are not inciting them to furor, they compel the Argives to act contrary to their instincts. The third portent closes the funeral games of book 6 and, after the delay and distraction of the competition, reminds the reader of Argos’ imminent doom. This portent consists of Adrastus’ returning arrow (6.938–46). Like the fall of the eagles in the augury in book 3, the sign very specifically represents one Argive prince—Adrastus himself. Not only do the witnesses refuse to analyse the omen, but they also offer various flimsy explanations for the arrow’s return. In an apostrophe, Statius himself muses that fate is made clear in omens, yet man fails to respond properly: fata patent homini: piget inseruare (‘The fates lie open to man, but he cares not to observe’, 6.934–5).39 The signs from the gods are a waste of time because people make them so. At first, this seems a criticism of a purposeful neglect of responsibility in light of the revealed 39 The alternative meaning of piget, as a stand-in for paenitet, may also imply that the Argives should repent of the future foretold by the omen or regret their disregard for it; this nuance brings an additional cold irony, since six of the seven at any rate will not live to regret their decisions.

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future. Yet Statius indicates that to the Argives at least ‘deep lies the mighty outcome, the evil revealed’ (penitus latet exitus ingens/monstratumque nefas, 6.944–5). Like the augury, which is clear to at least Amphiaraus, the omens are not within the Argives’ scope of understanding, as they prove incapable of applying any insight they might otherwise have garnered from both the augury and the portents. If the Argives in general are prevented from understanding the gods’ communiqués, two men in particular illustrate the significance of divine dominance over the wills of the humans in the epic: Adrastus and Amphiaraus. Adrastus is pious and reluctant to engage in the war. Thematically, if the Thebaid is indeed an epic of horror and despair, Adrastus’ hopes and disposition exist only to be dashed and to heighten the inevitable darkness that pervades the poem.40 Like Latinus in the Aeneid, the position of authority and level of discernment avails Adrastus nothing; in intertextual terms, ‘at the very moment that Amphiaraus’ auspicy presents the possibility that the disastrous war might be averted, Amphiaraus and the Argives “replay” literary models that make the war in Statius still more inevitable.’41 Adrastus’ attempt at thwarting Jupiter’s commands is undermined and his doubts are forcibly dismissed. In the end, even he seems not to understand the uates’ prediction. On the other hand, Amphiaraus comprehends the omens from the beginning. Even when in later books he is swept away by his passion for war (book 7), he understands the fixedness of fate and the Argives’—and his own—powerlessness to resist the will of the gods, avert consequences, or turn aside Jupiter’s anger. He also knows that the gods are responsible for the outbreak of the war.42 The seer suffers a fate similar to the other leaders, including Capaneus. Amphiaraus’ skills and understanding are of no avail. Alone of the Argives he acts with full knowledge of fate, as he knows at the same time that his knowledge is useless to his people, because they are destined not to listen and not to avert the war. Though Amphiaraus in this way is unique among the Argives, his ‘prophetic ability . . . proves to be of no value . . . since he is unable to save Argos or himself from destruction. Neither the priest nor the Argives are able to exert any measure of control over their lives; their lack of free will epitomizes the hopeless plight of human figures in the Thebaid and contributes much to the despairing tone.’43 The interpreter of Apollo’s

40 41 42 43

Ganiban (2007: 55 and 58). Ganiban (2007: 59). See Dominik (1994a: 113–14 and 116), as well as Dominik (1994b: 197). Dominik (1994b: 198).

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will, with a glorious personal history, cannot make use of his skill, and suffers in the very understanding of the futility of his knowledge. After looking at the augury scene and other portents, and their implications for two important Argive men, a synthesis of such scenes in the epic tradition will help us understand the role of gods and the divine machinery in the Thebaid. Returning to the three other epicists, Virgil, Lucan, and Silius, we can re-evaluate the augury and portents in light of the other writers’ ‘questions’. In Virgil, the omen sent by the gods to the Latins seems blatantly deceptive. In Statius, not only is the augury true, but Amphiaraus also perceives Jupiter’s direct intervention in the bird’s behaviour. The augury itself is not deceptive. But this is indicative only of Jupiter’s confidence in the fixedness of fate (sometimes, his own will, as the two seem to intermingle). As we have seen, he states that his commands are irrevocable. The augury, then, is not intended to warn the Argives of anything or permit them an opportunity for expiation. Jupiter is not deceptive simply because there is no risk of his will being either understood or altered; he and Mars, among others, prevent both. In the world of the Thebaid, humans are unable to understand, much less avert, the predicted future. In light of Lucan’s poem, the portents carry the same implications as the augury. While Lucan’s depiction of portents illustrates the pervasiveness of destiny and fate, Caesar’s will is nevertheless in line with fate even if he defies the omens. In the Thebaid, the will of the Argives is entirely irrelevant, and so is their understanding of the signs of the nefas of the war. Fate here is also fixed, but there is no necessary connection between the characters’ ambitions; fate is fixed because Jupiter compels the Argives to act as the punishing agency against Thebes. Also, the portents do not permit the characters the opportunity of justifying their actions to the reader, the gods, or themselves. Because they do not fully understand the portents, they do not seriously question their actions. This is another sign that their comprehension of the war’s moral implications signifies very little in terms of how the gods judge their nefas. To return to augury, Statius’ augurs, like those in the Punica, take the auspices in order to advise their leader on the propriety of the war. Melampus and Amphiaraus, however, never deliver their interpretations of the signs to Adrastus himself, nor does he weigh them. Only Capaneus and his followers force the augury from Amphiaraus, and even then, the augury has no impact on their actions. The uates’ authority is utterly rejected. Here, there is no competition between the augurs for influence or interpretation. More foreboding is the fact that, rather than questioning the reliability of the augurs, in Statius the augurs’ interpretations do not matter at all. Unlike Hannibal, Adrastus does not even have the

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opportunity to weigh the augur’s advice before he takes action. As Helen Lovatt notes, ‘in a typically Statian manner, this scene mixes up oppositions established by the earlier tradition, assimilating prophet and warrior, destabilizing the relationship between knowledge and virtue, humans and gods.’ Statius surpasses other epic poets in a negative portrayal of augury and omens. But unlike Virgil’s depiction, this is not the result of deception on the part of the divine. Statius’ Jupiter and the other gods do not need to deceive, because the Argives, as tools of Jupiter’s wrath, have no discernible ability to act contrary to his will. They in fact have no free will of their own, nor the dignity of understanding the augury or portents, whose meanings are kept hidden from them. Statius surpasses the other epicists’ doubts or ambivalence on the subject, and the picture therefore becomes much darker. The focus of this darker picture is not the augury or portents themselves, but rather the indictment of the gods, which they necessitate. While Jupiter’s use of the Argives and instigation of the war in general is supposedly just punishment for past crimes, the Argives of the present— in the poem—are given no opportunity for expiation. Communication from the gods in the Thebaid does not include the element of reciprocity and does not allow the recipients to react. Augury and portents, especially true signs, are not only futile but utterly hollow, because the gods prevent the recipients from understanding their significance. Futility is the defining characteristic for the Argives. If augury and the possibility of appeasement betokens a trust existing between mortals and the divine, the augury and portents of Statius, wherein characters are prevented from understanding or reacting according to the communication, indicate a breakdown of that trust and of any relationship between the two realms. The gods’ moral standing is indeed suspicious, but the breakdown of the relationship evident in the augury also signifies a complete collapse of the divine machinery in the Thebaid. While one can argue for abuse of divine power in the poem as a whole, the supernatural instances of communication alone signify a predetermined—and likely unjust— fate for the Argives. Through the augury alone, it becomes possible to discern the disposition of the gods. While Jupiter gives a very thorough depiction of the future, the celestial powers are nevertheless not benevolent. As representative of the other heaven-dwelling gods,44 through the augury Jupiter proves that human responsibility, at least for the Argives, 44

As distinct from the infernal deities, whose traditional characterization with regard to benevolence or malevolence merits further analysis. In the Thebaid, however, Statius invites a comparison between the celestial and infernal deities, represented by Jupiter and Dis (with

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is no longer as important, but instead irrelevant in the unfolding of the plot of the Thebaid. But the divine machinery also collapses in terms of any moral obligations or reciprocal relationship to the Argives and, by extension, to humankind as a whole. Jupiter can be viewed as a chessplayer, and the Argives as his pawns. In that case, for them omens are futile and shadowy; for him, they are both a waste of time and evidence of his destructive irresponsibility in communication. The war with Thebes is predestined to be bleak, but unexpectedly so, since blindness to the true warnings is ironically engineered by the god of bird-signs himself.

AUGURY AND THE END OF THE SEVEN Amphiaraus declares that the Argives are represented by the eagles, and that the swans symbolize the Theban heroes. This is borne out in their deaths and Adrastus’ escape, which reflect the falls of the eagles in the augury scene. What merits further exploration, however, is the imagery used in the passages in which the Argive heroes’ deaths take place. For instance, just before his death, Parthenopaeus, the blossoming youth and perhaps the hero most emblematic of naïve Argive hope, is like an albus . . . olor (‘white swan’, 9.858–9).45 This role reversal in terms of symbol, without any reversal in fate, may indicate that, thematically, the Argives and Thebans are interchangeable, inasmuch as both are agents of Jupiter’s will and victims of his caprice. A further complication in the analysis of the purpose of the augury is the disappearance of Jupiter (and even his rival, Dis) before the epic’s conclusion. The gods’ loss of interest in the war and in Theseus’ intervention, however, does not prevent Jupiter’s initial purpose from being fulfilled. Indeed, it does not matter whether the gods remain to observe how humanity regroups or copes with the outcome. The hasty conclusion is brought about by Creon’s edict and Theseus’ invasion. This is proof not only that the relationship between the divine and mortal planes has evaporated, but also that even at the close of the conflict, the gods have no interest in restoring order from the chaos of civil war.46 The major powers have played a role in the action as long as they might wreak Tisiphone) respectively, when Dis and the Furies seem to ‘hijack’ the action preceding and during the battle; see Feeney (1991: 250–52) and Ganiban (2007: 117–51). 45

For more discussion of bird imagery in this instance, see Manolaraki, Ch. 5 below. Feeney (1991: 340) points out that the confusion is caused by constant delays in the action. 46

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havoc or, like Apollo and Athena, spur their respective favourites to glory. When the dust settles, the vindictive yet active gods become like their Lucanian counterparts: utterly unconcerned with human affairs. With Creon having forbidden the burial of their men, the Argive women seek justice from another power on the mortal plane, owing to the power vacuum left in the wake of the gods’, particularly Jupiter’s, withdrawal.47 Jupiter has not proved himself consistent as the punisher, a champion of justice. His abandonment of the epic altogether indicates that, as in the augury, through which it is clear he is not open to any attempt at expiation, he is interested only in crushing the humanity he claims to be justly punishing (1.214–47). All the while, the Argives who seek the revelation of his will, presumably so that they may act accordingly and rightly, are still compelled by him from the beginning to pursue their own destruction.48

47

Feeney (1991: 356–8). I would like to thank the editor for his guidance and instruction during the research process, and for his advice in the writing and polishing of the completed article. I would also like to thank the fellow contributors to this volume, for their helpful questions and suggestions; their input was essential in the editing and evolution of this essay into its final form. 48

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5 ‘Consider in the Image of Thebes’ Celestial and Poetic Auspicy in the Thebaid Eleni Manolaraki

quid autem uolunt di inmortales primum ea significantes quae sine interpretibus non possimus intellegere, deinde quae cauere nequeamus? (‘In the first place, why do immortal gods see fit to give us warnings which we cannot understand without the aid of interpreters? In the next place, why do they warn us of things which we cannot avoid?’) (Cic. Diu. 2.54)

INTRODUCTION Roman discourse on divination is rich and variant, ranging from trust to scepticism to rejection.1 The most notable paradigm of this attitudinal complexity is probably Cicero’s De diuinatione.2 In the second book, Cicero delivers a rationalist critique against divination, censuring its arbitrary nature and its traditional use for political expediency (e.g. criticism of augury in Diu. 2.70–83). Cicero’s self-conflicting stance has

1 On the origins of the dispute over divination in Greek thought, see Burkert (2005: 36–43). 2 On Cicero’s conflicting views on divination, see Kany–Turpin (2003); Wardle (2006: 5–20); Guillaumont (2006). Hesitation between faith and scepticism is common throughout Greek literature; for examples, see Bonnechere (2007: 148–50).

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long puzzled readers, especially considering his membership of the college of augurs.3 Within the wide span of Roman standpoints toward divination, a frequently expressed idea is that regardless of its authenticity, mantic arts cannot help humans break the inexorable web of fate, as Tuttle has discussed extensively in Chapter 4 above.4 In Statius’ Thebaid no divinatory event illustrates this fatalistic surrender better than auspicy. Amphiaraus’ oionoscopeia on Perseus’ hill (Theb. 3.460–565) vividly dramatizes this experience, while other auguries in the epic reinforce it.5 In his own persona Statius also critiques the usefulness of divination, when he bemoans all mantic practices as human greed for forbidden knowledge (3.552–65). The present discussion does not aim to challenge the futility of ornithomancy in the face of the Thebaid’s mythic and literary predestination, a task already executed well by Tuttle. Rather, it offers a complementary reading of Amphiaraus’ omen from the perspective of Statius’ narrative and narrating contexts.6 I posit that this episode—evidently a Statian addition to the myth—re-enacts the Thebaid’s reception by the reader.7 Statius forges an exegetical bond that welds the poetic and didactic values of his epic to the hermeneutics of auspicy, and he accomplishes this by engaging his readership in a sign–inference process parallel to the two seers’ experience. Any metapoetical partiality to this episode is hardly surprising, since its artistic self-awareness is readily recognized. Elaine Fantham illustrates no fewer than seven models for the warring eagles and the swans on Perseus’ hill.8 In the vein of Statius’ dialogue with his epic predecessors, Tim Stover establishes that Amphiaraus’ auspicy and his subsequent

3 Cf. Cic. Brut. 1 and Phil. 2.4; Plut. Cic. 36.1. See Jocelyn (1971: 45) and Burkert (2005: 44–5). 4 On the futility of mantic diction, see Gibson (2006a: 254–5); Bonnechere (2007: 146). 5 Cf. Maeon in 2.690–96 (with Bernstein’s analysis of suicide in Ch. 13 below) and Thiodamas in 10.192–3, 201, and 488. 6 Bushnell (1982: 10–12) illustrates the usefulness of discerning between Girard Genette’s terms récit (story) and narration (narrative) in the context of epic omens. By ‘narrating context’, I mean Statius’ contemporary historical and sociocultural circumstances. 7 Vessey (1973: 152) does not exclude the possibility that this could be an ‘old-established part in the legend’. 8 Fantham (2006: 153–5): Calchas’ prediction at Aulis (Hom. Il. 2.322–9), Helen’s prophecy to Telemachus (Hom. Od. 15.172–8), Theoclymenus’ prophecy to the same (Od. 12.524–34), Venus’ prophecy to Aeneas (Virg. Aen. 1.393–400), Tolumnius’ erroneous explanation to the Rutulians (Aen. 12.257–64), the Ovidian Calchas’ prophecy at Aulis (Ov. Met. 12.13–21), and Liger’s prophecy to Hannibal (Sil. 4.120–33).

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confrontation with Capaneus (3.598–647) combines elements from the neikos between Idas and Idmnon in Apollonius (A. R. 1.440–94) and the prophetic duel between Mopsus and Idmnon in Valerius Flaccus (V. Fl. 1.205–28).9 Along these self-referential lines, Amphiaraus is an established poetic mouthpiece for Statius, an identification that inevitably renders his prophecy a précis of the Thebaid’s subsequent books.10 My privileging of avian flight as metaphoric for poetic performance relies on several theoretical frameworks. Ornithomancy is the oldest and most prestigious mantic practice—already central in Homer—and it has a long meta-literary pedigree.11 The hero Palamedes is said to have invented the alphabet by observing the flight of birds; birds reveal the murder of the poet Ibycus by flying over his murderers; others mark the burial grounds of Hesiod and Theseus.12 In these episodes, birds ‘speak’ through flight as humans do with words. Additionally, the notion of auspicy as a model for narrative reception is conventional wisdom in Greek epic. Gregory Nagy argues that the Homeric bird omen (BÆ, ‘sign’) necessitates a cognitive process (ÅØ ) that occurs simultaneously, both within the dramatic action (to the characters) and within the narrative (to the reader).13 Rebecca Bushnell, too, parallels internal bird-viewer and external bird-reader: ‘A character in the epic learns to differentiate between an insignificant bird, a bird that bears an omen, and one that represents the epiphany of a god; similarly, a reader tries to distinguish between simile, bird sign, and epiphany’.14 Derek Collins drives the point home: ‘Early epic has . . . appropriated the inherent ambiguity in the discourse of bird omen as a metaphor for how it should be read itself.’15 The frequent Homeric metaphor of words as ‘winged’ ( Æ  æ Æ) also facilitates the approximation between bird flight and human speech.16 Finally—and closer to Statius—the notion that the reader of poetry operates as exegete of divine signs is already theorized by Cicero. In the persona of Quintus, he boldly states: ‘Those who interpret (interpretes) all these things seem to approach very closely to the divine

9 Stover (2009: 440–51). On Mopsus and Idmon, see also the essays by Manuwald and Lovatt (Chs 2 and 3 above) as well as Lovatt’s discussion of the theatricality of prophecy. 10 On Amphiaraus as Statius, see Masterson (2005: 290, 298–303); Ganiban (2007: 56–61); Stover (2009: 452). 11 On the antiquity and prominence of ornithomancy in Greek literature, see Collins (2002: 21, 36–8); Baumbach and Trampedach (2004: 123, 150–56); Bonnechere (2007: 151) (with bibliography). 12 For Palamedes and Ibycus, see Manolaraki (2012: 301; for Hesiod and Theseus, see Dillon (1996: 115). 13 14 Nagy (1983: 51). Bushnell (1982: 9). 15 16 Collins (2002: 35). Létoublon (1999).

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intention of those they interpret, just as philologists do for poets (grammatici poetarum)’ (Diu. 1.34). As David Wardle elucidates, ‘it is clear that Cicero is drawing a comparison: diviners stand in the same relation to the gods as commentators do to poets.’17 Anchored in these premises, my discussion rests on three arguments proceeding from a stylistic scrutiny of the Statian text to its sociohistorical context. First, I demonstrate that Amphiaraus’ oionoscopy is verbalized as a self-conscious, rhetorical piece shaping a mental picture for its external rather than for its internal audience, the seer Melampus. The metapoetical valence of Amphiaraus’ augury is then consolidated through comparison to another avian epiphany, the Theban Phorbas’ farewell to the Boeotian troops (Theb. 7.282–9). Although not technically an auspicy, this send-off is included as additional evidence that Statius synthesizes avian decipherment and poetic reception. Second, I elucidate the narrative effect of Statius’ connection between celestial and poetic decipherment. His overlap between ornithomancy and poetic interpretation comments on both auspicy and his own epic. By aligning the two, he primarily asserts his artistic independence and originality as a latecomer into the Theban myth.18 Earlier familiarity with the fates of the Seven poses for poetic successors the risk of banality: Statius confronts this intimidating palimpsest by reformulating not the unalterable content of prophecy (the war with Thebes) but rather its epistemic frame, the manner in which it becomes visually and cognitively apprehended. Through his equation of augural reading and poetic reception, Statius also dynamizes his (only formulaically) heroic epic as a hermeneutic, prophetic template of human aggression. Third, I outline a Roman context of divination that can be considered as stimulus for the rhetorical self-consciousness of Amphiaraus’ utterance. David Vessey has already identified the contemporary ring in Statius’ editorializing on divination connecting it specifically to the Flavian emperors’ ‘curb on occult practices’.19 Although narrow in its fixing of Statius onto a specific imperial policy, the point is well taken inasmuch as it discerns the relevance of this episode to Roman religious politics. In this vein, I consider Statian augury as commentary on 17 Wardle (2006: 198). Struck (2005) convincingly argues that divination constitutes a conceptual scheme for ancient literary criticism and especially allegorism. 18 On Roman imperial poets as latecomers in epic mythology, see Hardie (1993: esp. 114–16); Hershkowitz (1998b: esp. 35–104); and Feeney (2004b). A detailed survey of the Theban myth from Aeschylus to Lucan and Seneca is found in Braund (2006: 260–67). 19 Vessey (1973: 156). Snijder (1968: 188) sees in this episode a ‘markedly anachronistic character, as Amphiaraus and Melampus take the auspices exactly like Roman priests’.

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divination qua political experience. Statius’ preoccupation with power and ambition certainly legitimates a critical view of his ornithoscopies as relevant to the sociocultural context of his epic, imperial Rome.20 Even the lexical definition of auspicium (‘bird augury’), which subsequently evolves into ‘leadership, authority, auspices of a king or general’ (LSJ s.v. 1 and 4), encourages a broadly political reading of the scene on Perseus’ hill, to which we now turn.

HEAVENLY WRITING By position, content, and detail, Amphiaraus’ augury initiates the reader in the process of viewing and understanding avian flight as corresponding to human action. Statius communicates his authorial investment in this scene by flagging it at both ends: Amphiaraus’ prayer to Jupiter, in which he favours ornithomancy over seven alternative mantic techniques (3.471–96),21 and his editorial critique of divination as a deluded human quest (3.552–65). Let us narrow down this long scene to its salient rhetorical figures by omitting Melampus’ initial observations (3.502–15), which have already been discussed by Tuttle. What follows is the allegorizing identification of the Thebans with swans and the Argives with eagles. The individual fates of the seven eagles are also elided (3.539–47), to conclude with the prophets’ reaction: huc aduerte animum: clara regione profundi aetheros innumeri statuerunt agmina cycni. siue hos Strymonia Boreas eiecit ab Arcto, seu fecunda refert placidi clementia Nili. fixerunt cursus: has rere in imagine Thebas: nam sese inmoti gyro atque in pace silentes ceu muris ualloque tenent. sed fortior ecce aduentat per inane cohors; septem ordine fuluo armigeras summi Iouis exultante caterua intuor: Inachii sint hi tibi, concipe, reges . . . trepidos sic mole futuri

20 On central themes of the epic as expounded in scholarship of the past 50 years, see Coleman (2003: 9–24). 21 These are three Apolline oracles, the Libyan Ammon, the shrine of Apis at Alexandria, the oracle of Zeus at Dodona, and a cult of Pan at Pisa; Fantham (2006: 150 and nn. 9 and 10). On the role of prayer in the poem, see Hubert, Ch. 6 below.

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Eleni Manolaraki cunctaque iam rerum certa sub imagine passos terror habet uates; piget inrupisse uolantum concilia . . . (3.524–33, 547–50)

‘Look hither: in the bright region of the deep ether countless swans have marshalled their columns, whether Boreas expelled them from the Strymonian Bear or the fertile gentleness of the placid Nile brings them back. They have halted their flight. These consider as symbolizing Thebes; for in peace and silence they hold themselves motionless in a ring, as though behind walls and rampart. But look, a braver band approaches through the void. I see seven arms-bearers of highest Jupiter, an exultant troop in tawny line. Imagine them to be the Inachian kings . . . Terror seizes the seers, thus frightened by the weight of the future, as they suffer all that will betide under a sure semblance.’

As noted above, Fantham recognizes several epic ancestors for this scene. Statius undoubtedly combines various aspects of his models, yet his intriguing divergences from them raise the meta-narrative profile of his episode. One important departure is his conflation of omen description and omen decipherment, traditionally two separate movements belonging to the primary narrator and the internal diviner respectively.22 In her discussion of Homeric omens, Bushnell justly maintains that omen redescription by internal diviners provides an opportunity to ‘revise the narrator’s “story” and to relate it to a human context through analogy’.23 In narrative time, the external audience views the omen with the epic narrator before the internal poet-prophet who subsequently attempts to interpret it. In sum, omen redescription sets up two epistemic altitudes: a higher one inhabited by the external audience, the other by the internal viewers.24 The distinction between poet/diviner and internal spectator/external audience is clarified by contrast to the first augury of the Aeneid, that of the disguised Venus on the shores of Libya. To encourage the shipwrecked Aeneas, Venus asks him to look at twelve flying swans, and 22 In Od. 15.160–64, the flight of an eagle is first presented by the primary narrator and then redescribed and interpreted by Helen (Od. 15.172–8). The authorially portrayed flight of a hawk (Od. 15.525–7) is followed by Theoclymenus’ decoding (Od. 15.531–4). Similarly, Virgil first describes the omen created by Juturna (Aen. 12.244–56), and then reports Tolumnius’ erroneous conjecture (Aen. 12.257–64). Ovid describes the sparrows-andsnake omen at Aulis before citing Calchas’ prophetic interpretation (Met. 12.13–17 and 13.18–21). Liger too decodes an omen already depicted by Silius (Sil. 4.103–19 and 120–33). 23 Bushnell (1982: 4). 24 The idea is neatly stated by Collins (2002: 33) in the context of Homer and Hesiod: ‘One of the most striking ways in which early epic represents bird divination is to use a bird omen to skew an internal character’s perspective from that of the external audience generally.’

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she interprets their flight as an auspicious omen for the fate of his lost ships. The Virgilian readership sees the swans for the first time with Aeneas, while Venus incarnates both the internal oionoskopos and the primary narrative voice of the epic. By attributing the transmission and interpretation of the omen to Venus, Virgil assigns her with its creation both as a construct in the story (she has conjured the spectacle to encourage Aeneas) and in the narrative as an approving authorial nod to Aeneas’ teleologically Augustan mission, as Tuttle discusses in her chapter. Commenting on these two levels of interpretation, Steven Green aptly contrasts Aeneas’ ‘limited, earthly viewpoint’ with the readers’ Roman hindsight of his founding success.25 Returning to the Thebaid, the above models provide a patent foil to Amphiaraus’ ornithomancy. Statius echoes the Virgilian, single-process treatment of the omen by having the seer simultaneously display and interpret it. In this he differs from previous prophets, who decode scenes first viewed by the primary narrator and his audience. The Thebaid’s audience, however, views the omen for the first time with Melampus. On the level of the story, the reader identifies with Melampus’ internal spectator, confused and powerless to turn away from the predicted events. On the level of the narrative, she infers the entire tale from the few lines condensing the deaths of the Seven. By collapsing internal and external spectator, Statius activates the auspicy both as an event within the dramatic action and as his original re-vision of the old myth. Other features underwrite the scene as a self-conscious return to Theban lore. One such signal is Amphiaraus’ curious surmise regarding the orientation of the swans (3.526–7). As the commentator plainly puts it, ‘the swans are described as either migrating from the north or returning from Egypt to Italy’.26 Amphiaraus’ alternatives (note siue . . . seu) momentarily suspend the epic tale with a slice of natural history about the migratory habits of swans. Amphiaraus could have easily answered his inopportune question by considering the season of the year. Like other European migrants, swans are southbound in October/ November and northbound in March/April.27 His hesitancy is even more jarring considering the very principles of augury, whose bedrock is the location of the birds relatively to the augur. Certainly none of Statius’ auspical models problematizes the direction of the prophetic birds. He alone grafts the theme of migration into the rhetoric of augury to insert spatial ambiguity. 25 26 27

Green (2009: 155). Snijder (1968: 212). Manolaraki (2012: 302–3).

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While the swans’ directional alternatives raise eyebrows at the level of the storyline, they can be productively viewed from the perspective of narrative semantics. Philip Hardie argues that the enumeration of two or more substitute explanations for a natural phenomenon is a staple of ancient thought. Commenting on the function of this principle in Statius, he remarks that the effect of alternatives ‘is to create the impression of a world where seemingly accidental or trivial events or coincidences may in fact contain much deeper meanings’.28 Hardie’s model favours a deeper meaning in the swans’ unorthodox flight, and one such interpretation may be submitted here: by having Amphiaraus wonder if the swans are southbound or northbound—contrary to his eyesight, the seasonal directives of migration, conventional augural premises, and the epic topos of bird omens—Statius destabilizes his avian epiphany as a physical experience. Instead, he plants the idea of the directionless swans as a rhetorical tableau rather than a photographic transmission of events within the story. The suspended swans constitute a mixture of verbal image and realistic snapshot, to be seen in the reader’s mind rather than through Melampus’ eyes.29 More clues encourage an interpretive path that privileges mental visualization in the narrative over physical vision in the story. Amphiaraus discerns no physical cause for the sudden bloodbath of the seven eagles, hence his question: ‘What fierce wrath of baleful Jove suddenly drives the victors to death?’ (quae saeua repente/uictores agitat leto Iouis ira sinistri? 3.537–8). Certainly the eagles are not bled by the swans, since according to the rules of epic omens (and nature) Zeus’ imperial bird is the predator of cranes, swans, geese, and similar waterfowl. The eagles’ invisible destruction has no parallel in Statius’ augural models, which feature readily observable causes for bird plights. The hidden causes of the Statian eagles’ demise are invisible to the augurs but visible to Statius’ readership, who already know the myth. Indeed, from the two prophets’ viewpoint and with the exception of Amphiaraus’ self-recognition (3.547), neither the number of eagles nor their ruin makes sense. Moreover, the order of their fates does not follow Amphiaraus’ enumeration.30 As in the inscrutable direction of the swans, Statius guides his audience 28

Hardie (2008: 91). My reading of the scene coheres with Statian language and style as outlined by Pollmann (2004: 50): ‘Statius has a tendency to focus on the subjective and psychological aspects of an action and emphasises the anti–realistic and imaginary . . . focus[ing] on human subjectivity . . . and highlighting its deceptiveness.’ On the assimilation of viewer and reader in the Thebaid, see Lovatt (1999: 126) and Pagán (2000: 439–48). 30 Statius almost reverses the order by having Amphiaraus killed in book 7, Tydeus in 8, Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus in 9, Capaneus in 10, Adrastus fleeing the battle in 11, and 29

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to reflect on the relationship of image and text and to view the augury as a prophecy by poetic precedent rather than as a natural behaviour of birds apprehensible through vision. Amphiaraus’ descriptive language further nudges the boundary between physical sight within the story and mental image generated by the narrative. Without veering too far into Statius’ models, we may identify a crucial linguistic commonality among them that contrasts instructively with Statius’ stylistic treatment of his scene. In five out of the seven augural models enumerated by Fantham, the omen is contextualized through a simile—the traditional means of encoding avian portents into the epic tale (as the birds do X, so humans will do Y).31 In general, epic omens rely on the analogical dynamic between omen and simile. To an extent Statius follows previous epicists in substantiating the omen with a simile, as is evident in his equation of the swans’ circular flight to patrolling the walls of Thebes (3.530). Yet he goes beyond the simile by emphasizing Amphiaraus’ drawing of a mental picture for Melampus. Let us pause at the expressions rere in imagine Thebas and sint tibi concipe reges. The phrases literally mean ‘consider in the image of Thebes’ and ‘let these be the Inachian kings to you’. In her translation, Jane Joyce captures closely the original by rendering ‘suppose that they represent Thebes’ and ‘let these be your Inachians, count them as kings’.32 Both the imperative rere and the jussive subjunctive sint, however, are misfits in the context of epic ornithomancy. Rather than ‘shape’ the omen into a simile, Amphiaraus asks Melampus to build the scene for himself and to employ allegorical thinking for its decipherment. Amphiaraus’ invitation to Melampus to turn his attention to the birds (hunc aduerte animum, 3.524) is another prompt to intellectual, creative self-agency. Although based on the sensible parallel between eyesight and mental awakening, uertere animum and the cognate animaduertere/ aduertere emphasize concentration and reasoning over physical vision. The expression is particularly at home in rhetorical contexts, where awareness of visual and aural detail is essential to success.33 Given its Polynices killed in 11. On the death of the Seven and Amphiaraus’ prophecy, see also Tuttle in Ch. 4 above. 31 See Bushnell (1982) and Buxton (2004). In Calchas’ and Helen’s respective prophecies, this analogy is expressed through the simile ‰ . . . S (Il. 2.326 and 328 ~ Od. 15.174 and 176), and echoed in the Virgilian omens (ut . . . haud aliter, Aen. 1.397 and 399 ~ ut auis, Aen. 12.262). In Od. 12.531–2 and Met. 12.18–19, the simile is omitted for the sake of the conjecture. 32 Joyce (2008: 75). 33 Cf. Rhet. Her. 4.67.17; Cic. Clu. 1.1, Cael. 7.4, Off. 1.37; Rep. 2.31.10, Tusc. 1.108; Lucr. 3.45, 3.181, 4.812; Ov. Met. 15.832; Plin. Nat. 22.2.3 and 25.5.4; Tac. Hist. 4.83.2.

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semantic proclivity toward mental insight rather than physical sight, it is safe to argue that with uerte animum Melampus is asked less to look at the scene and more to address it as if reading or hearing a text, similarly to Statius’ reader.34 In addition, the concluding authorial comment that the prophets are crushed by ‘a sure semblance’ of things to come (3.548) stylizes Amphiaraus’ augury as oratorical composition. Statius’ imagine repeats Amphiaraus’ request to Melampus to think the swans in imagine Thebas (3.528), and conflates his rhetorics of augury with Statius’ creation of the scene as proleptic of the subsequent narrative.35 Let us note through a few parallels how the Statian imago and the related expression tibi concipe (3.533) imprint their rhetorical and literary capital onto the oionoscopy. Cicero, for instance, praises authors past for the models (imagines) they bequeath to posterity (Cic. Arch. 14.11). Envisioning these ideals clearly consists of receiving the texts written about them.36 According to Valerius Maximus, one orator paints such a vivid image of humanity’s plight (miseranda imagine) that he drives some of his audience to suicide (V. Max. 8.9.ext.3). In a more pleasant flight of imagination, Ovid asks his readers to conceive by their wit (ingenio concipe) the salacious scene he can only hint at in his text (Ov. Rem. 359–60). Quintilian crystallizes these ideas in the context of rhetorical and literary theory.37 He urges his aspiring orator to build a persuasive image for himself (concipere imagines rerum), in order to articulate compelling appeals to his audience (Quint. Inst. 11.3.62). Only when he conceives strong mental images is he able to verbalize them successfully for his audience: ‘The person who will show the greatest power in the expression of emotions will be the person who has properly formed what the Greeks call phantasiai (let us call them “visions” [uisiones]), by which the images of absent things are presented to the mind (repraesentantur animo) in such a way that we seem actually to see them with our eyes and have them physically present’ (Quint. Inst. 6.2.29). Virgil and Cicero meet these standards, since they create salient

34 Contrast e.g. Venus’ request to Aeneas to look at the auspicious swans (aspice, Aen. 1.393). 35 The presence of imago is especially indicative of this blend because it alludes unequivocally to the ekphrastic workings of uisio or phantasia. The Stoic, epistemological definition of phantasia as sensory perception is beyond the scope of this chapter. Bartsch (2007) discusses the combination of philosophical and aesthetic phantasia as a vehicle in Senecan didactism. 36 Note that Cicero’s ideal reader ‘looks into’ these verbal images (intuendum) much as Amphiaraus peers into the avian scene (intuor, 3.533). 37 Quintilian’s construction of literature as a communicative system parallel to rhetoric follows on Aristotle’s Poetics; see Struck (2005: 147).

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images to be apprehended by their audience (Inst. 8.3.63–4). In effect, the intrusion of imago and concipere into Amphiaraus’ rhetoric cements my conceit of his omen as narrative visualization rather than physical vision. His augural pronouncement is one more poetic imago in the Thebaid, manifest through no ritual other than storytelling and story-reading. The argument gains strength once we consider that Statius uses Amphiaraus’ imagistic vocabulary in non-auspical contexts to knit physical and mental vision with emotions and premonitions. To the reader, the behaviours inferred from these instances are as reliable predictors of the action as the auspices on Perseus’ hill. In his trip to Argos, Polynices ‘envisages in his mind the royalty overdue’ (animis male debita regna/ concipit, 1.314–15). On hearing Opheltes’ death howl, Hypsipile deduces his fate ‘through the augury of her mind’ (mentis ab augurio, 5.546).38 Argia is consumed by the thought of Polynices seeking burial (‘no image comes to her mind more often’, nulla animo uersatur imago/crebrior, 12.191–2). Parting ways with the other Argive women, she assures them that she is acting on her ‘soul’s augury’ (auguriumque animi, 12.204). Jocasta tells Eteocles that she will appear as an ominous spectacle to him: ‘I shall stand at the very threshold of the gate, an unlucky omen, a frightful image of crimes’ (stabo ipso in limine portae/auspicium infelix scelerumque inmanis imago, 11.339–40). Statius stages the Argives’ lamentation of Amphiaraus (8.162–207) in terms evoking the doomed diviner’s address to Melampus: ‘Imagine the scene, now that licence is granted to lament’ (quae tibi nunc facies postquam permissa gemendi/ copia, 8.162–3). His apostrophe to the reader with tibi and facies (equivalent to imago) breaks the dramatic illusion to underline the transfer of the scene from the poet’s mind to that of his audience.39 In the persona of Amphiaraus, Statius similarly invites Melampus to ‘read’ the eagles as Argives (3.533). The intertextual and intratextual dialogues of Amphiaraus’ ornithomancy suggest that Statius deviates from the topos and particularly its typology of bird omen as simile. Instead, he grounds his episode in the iconographic domain of rhetorical and literary theory, especially its tenet of bringing images ante oculos through the ekphrastic, emotive power of speech. Fuelled by these semantics, the scene presents itself to Melampus and the reader properly and fully only in the mind’s eye. Internal viewer 38 The extended semantic field of augurium as ‘prediction, prognostication’ (OLD s.v. 4) facilitates the conflation between formal augury and reasonable speculation. Cf. Pliny’s famous augurium to Tacitus about the latter’s Histories (Ep. 7.33.1). 39 In a similar editorializing moment, Valerius rhetorically asks Medea to imagine her imminent fratricide (V. Fl. 8.312).

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and external audience coalesce in the process of inductive reasoning in order to decode the scene created by Statius’ poetic-prophetic mouthpiece. Amphiaraus’ address to Melampus is Statius’ creative re-presentation of the Theban myth to his readers. His originality lies in actively involving them in the building of the omen through their prior knowledge and his own ‘winged words’. In addition to his use of epistemic vocabulary, Statius also stages the scene thematically and structurally as authorial contrivance. Several disjunctions between the omen and its gradual unfolding undermine it as a promissory and incontrovertible allegory of the ensuing action. One divergence spotted above is that the order in which the Seven are killed in the narrative does not match their order in the omen. Another device by which Statius edits Amphiaraus is by associating him with swans, contradicting the seer’s self-identification as eagle.40 Similarly, Statius’ assimilation of the Argive army to migrant flocks leaving the Nile (5.11–14) conflicts with Amphiaraus’ identification of the Argives as eagles, which neither are waterfowl nor fly in flocks. The Argive Parthenopaeus is likened to a swan (9.857–60) also against Amphiaraus’ identification of him as eagle. In his correctives Statius also implicates women, agents excluded from Amphiaraus’ omen. In structural terms, the correspondence between his augury and the narrative exhausts itself in book 11 with the death of the last two ‘eagles’, Eteocles and Polynices. The last book and its feminine resolution lie outside Amphiaraus’ vision of the future.41 Toward the end, Argive women arriving at the altar of mercy in Athens are assimilated to migrant cranes catching sight of the Nile (12.515–18). Critics note the similarity between Amphiaraus’ augury (clementia Nili, 3.527), and the women’s arrival on the Nile-like ara Clementiae (Nilo, 12.518), but without much comment.42 Yet this marked correspondence inevitably plants the idea that the Argive women’s arrival at Athens is a partial, perverted realization of Amphiaraus’ Nile-bound (?) swans. Statius here extends Amphiaraus’ limited vision by opposing the Argive prophet’s notion of 40 E.g. Amphiaraus’ homeland (4.227), his white fillet (4.218), his soldiers’ swan plumes (4.236), and his white equipment (6.326–31). One of his horses is ‘snowy white’ and appropriately named Cycnus (6.524). Even Amphiaraus’ death is foreseen by Apollo through swans (6.383); see further Manolaraki (2012: 304). 41 On the last book of the poem, see Pollmann (2004: 21–7). Among important discussions on its feminine closure are Dietrich (1999); Lovatt (1999: 136–40); Pollmann (2004: 25–7, 44–8); Augoustakis (2010: 75–91). 42 Manolaraki (2012: 305–8). On the ara, see most recently treatment by Bessone (2011: 102–27 and esp. 106–11 with further bibliography). On the foundations of Roman political clementia, see Flamerie de Lachapelle (2011).

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epic action as an exclusively masculine prerogative. Instead of conventionally textualizing omen through simile, he uses simile in the context of the ara Clementiae to create an inclusive feminine auspicy that supplements that of Amphiaraus. This survey of avian discrepancies between prophet and poet indicates that Amphiaraus’ fractional ornithomantic knowledge is enhanced throughout the epic by Statius’ poetic omniscience. Statius creates literary prodigies that unravel emotional and ethical complexities of the war beyond the battlefield envisioned by Amphiaraus. In metapoetical terms, he asserts his command of a more layered and reliable understanding of the events. Statius elevates his reading of that war into an abstract and prescient decipherment of human vulnerability, a reading superior to divination as a means of coping with existential angst. One may compare here Martti Nissinen’s definition of the usefulness of augury as synchronic and not solely predictive: ‘Divination tends to be future-oriented, not necessarily in the sense of foretelling future events, but as a method of tackling the anxiety about the insecurity of life and coping with the risk brought about by human ignorance.’43 The reading of the Thebaid effects the same divinatory, existential consolation that operates both in Statius’ contemporary present and in a projected context of his future readers. A similar compression of avian and poetic semiotics occurs in an episode associated with Amphiaraus’ oionoscopeia, the Theban teichoscopy, where Antigone and her tutor Phorbas gaze down at their allies streaming into the battlefield (7.243–373). As he enumerates the various contingents, Phorbas pauses to bid farewell to a group of young Boeotians: uos etiam nostris, Heliconia turba, uenitis addere rebus opem; tuque, o Permesse, canoris et felix Olmie uadis, armastis alumnos bellorum resides. patriis concentibus audis exultare gregem, quales, cum pallida cedit bruma, renidentem deducunt Strymona cycni. ite alacres, numquam uestri morientur honores, bellaque perpetuo memorabunt carmine Musae.

(7.282–9)

‘You too, Heliconian throng! You come to aid our fortunes; and you, Permessus and Olmius, happy in your tuneful waters, have armed your nurslings though they hang back from war. You hear the company exult in

43 Nissinen (2010: 341); the synchronic value of divination is similarly identified by Struck (2003: 171) and Bonnechere (2007: 145).

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their native choirs, like swans escorting bright Strymon when pale winter yields. Go you in good cheer, never shall your praises die and the Muses will celebrate your wars in perpetual song.’

In his commentary, Johannes Smolenaars readily acknowledges both the centrality of these lines in the teichoscopy and their metapoetical dimension.44 What has not been noted, however, is an instructive affinity between Phorbas’ salutation and Amphiaraus’ divination. Even though Phorbas does not technically utter a prophecy, the link with Amphiaraus’ announcement is not arbitrary. Phorbas’ sighting of the Boeotians outside the Theban walls (7.241 and 281) realizes Amphiaraus’ original vision of swans as representing those very walls (3.530). Moreover, like Amphiaraus, Phorbas is a self-referential character for Statius. His farewell candidly evokes Virgil’s address to Nisus and Euryalus (Aen. 9.446–9), while his aspiration for their poetic afterlife (7.289) nods to Ovid (Met. 1.4).45 Phorbas’ poetic endowment also emerges from the Virgilian scene that Smolenaars considers as Statius’ primary model.46 The juncture in question belongs to the catalogue of Italian allies, where Virgil likens Messapus’ singing soldiers to swans (Aen. 7.698–705). The parallel spotlights Phorbas as an intermediary character perched between story and narrative. Similes are authorial tools for explicating and extending the autonomous world of the epic tale. Internal characters do not speak in similes but are themselves objects of simile (e.g. warriors fighting like lions). Phorbas transcends the confines of his fictive role by applying a simile to characters within the dramatic action, thus appropriating a task particular to the epic narrator. The thematic proximities of Amphiaraus and Phorbas encourage a comparison of their respective swan visions as sign–inference instances, scenes in which a non-evident truth becomes apparent by means of visual hints. Unlike Amphiaraus, Phorbas does not look at real swans but he nevertheless sees them, a perceptual picture he articulates in his simile (quales, 7.286). His address to Antigone (7.285) is both descriptive and prescriptive: as he tells her that she listens to the Boeotians’ song as a swan song he implies that this is how she should listen to it. Like Amphiaraus, who builds the allegorical scene for Melampus, Phorbas decrees the fateful meaning of the Boeotians’ song by dictating to 44

Smolenaars (1994: 138–9); cf. also Markus (2003: 458–60). On the correlation between teichoscopy and katabasis, see Augoustakis (forthcoming c). 45 See Smolenaars (1994: 141–2); Lovatt (2006: 62–5); and cf. Statius’ eulogy of Hopleus and Dymas (10.445–8). Markus (2003: 459) argues that Phorbas as bard of epic glory echoes Statius’ Silu. 5.3.233–7. 46 Smolenaars (1994: 141).

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Antigone their similarity to swans. Enabled by the notion of swan song as mournful, he induces his internal and external audience to hear the Boetians’ singing march as a pre-emptive self-lamentation.47 Of course, to draw the performative parallels between Amphiaraus and Phorbas is not to gloss over the different epic taxonomies of oionoscopy and teichoscopy.48 Yet Phorbas’ authorial appropriation of simile does animate a metamorphic epiphany of the Boeotians as swans, and thereby a figurative auspicy about their demise. His promise of poetic posterity clearly implies that he does not expect them to return. Statius’ display of analogical thought between the typologies of omen and simile reveals his virtuosity in renewing the myth. The traditional interplay between omen and simile dictates that the action of birds is allegorized as human action by a prophet, whose interpretation is encoded in the text as a simile. Yet Statius reverses the direction of the signifying relationship: by means of a simile he makes an omen out of human action. His reversed allegorical conceptualization of men as birds makes for an omen as eccentric as Amphiaraus’ ekphrastic augury. After all, both Amphiaraus and Phorbas transcend the limits of physical vision. The Argive looks at swans and perceives men; the Theban looks at men and perceives swans. Individually, neither vision is a complete representation of the war. Amphiaraus does not reveal the fates of the Theban swans but focuses on the deaths of the Argive eagles. Phorbas predicts the fate of the Theban allies without reference to their Argive counterparts. Both their pronouncements are supplemented and elucidated by the ultimate augur Statius, whose prophetic utterance is the Thebaid itself.

POETIC WRITING The point that has emerged so far is that in Amphiaraus’ and Phorbas’ anomalous auguries Statius assimilates the communication of divine signa to the reception of his epic uerba. In Amphiaraus’ vision, he

47 Smolenaars (1994: 142) makes this connection but without attention to its augural dimension; on swan song as lamentation, see Manolaraki (2012: 304). 48 In molding Phorbas’ simile into auspicy Statius may have drawn inspiration from his tragic models, which associate Thebes with Tiresias’ oionoscopies: e.g. Tiresias, ‘the shepherd of birds’ (Aesch. Sept. 24); Tiresias’ prophecy based on bird cries heard from his ‘birdwatching seat’(Soph. Ant. 999); Pentheus destroys the seats from which Tiresias ‘watches the birds’ (Eur. Bacch. 347).

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problematizes auspicy by highlighting the literary and aesthetic principles of the scene. In Phorbas’ salutation he gives the impression of auspicy by reversing the metaphorical transfer between omen and simile. By pointing out auspicy as a narrative construct and by equating celestial and poetic writing, Statius displays his epic as a divinatory vision of human nature. This vision manifests itself both in the particulars of his story and in the major, diachronic themes of the Thebaid: audiences can ‘see’ war and civic dissolution as perennial dramas beyond the particulars of the Theban cycle. Statius’ claim to foresight of human fortunes is not limited to the mythic universe of the Thebaid,49 yet his double exposure of poetry and auspicy inevitably comments on both. In what follows, I submit that the two instances examined above creatively distil the prominence of divination in Roman thought and practice. This proposition is certainly aligned with Statius’ larger ‘Romanization’ of the Theban myth.50 Some representative historical and cultural background on Roman divination may open the way to future work on Statius’ augural episodes. Human misgivings about prophetic signs first occur in Homer. Hector famously rejects the entire oionomantic system and argues that ‘the best omen is to fight for one’s country’ (Il. 12.243).51 In Apollonius’ Argonautica, a crow mocks the augur Mopsus for being romantically obtuse (A. R. 3.932–7). In the context of republican and imperial Rome, however, divination acquires a sharp political and ideological edge. According to a legend preserved in Ennius, Cicero, and others, the fratricidal quarrel that leads to the foundation of Rome is sparked by Romulus’ and Remus’ contesting auspices.52 The critical interdependence of augury and politics becomes readily apparent in the republic, especially in its last century. In two landmark essays, Mary Beard and Malcom Schofield illustrate Cicero’s centrality in the Roman theorizing of divination, and reject the futile search for a personal and uniform attitude toward it.53 Current discussion places Cicero’s self-conflicting views within the radical transformation of the republic in the 50s and 40s bce and especially Caesar’s pivotal role.54 Written in 46–45 bce under Caesar’s dictatorship, 49 Cf. Silu. 5.2.164–5, where Statius foretells the successful return of his friend Crispinus from an imperial assignment and his subsequent career by insisting that the omens and auguries of poets come true; see Gibson (2006a: 254–5) and further Lovatt (2007). 50 Pollman (2004: 28–31); Braund (2006: esp. 259 and n. 1), for summary of scholarship. 51 See Bushnell (1982: 4–8); Dillon (1996: 108–9). 52 Jocelyn (1971); Linderski (2007). 53 Beard (1986); Schofield (1986). 54 Brown (2009: 69). See summary of recent scholarship in Schultz (2009: 193 and n. 2); Jacobs (2010: 318 and n. 8). Rasmussen (2000) argues that modern attempts to recover

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Cicero’s anti-divination treatise bears the traces of collective apprehension over the removal of augural power from the senate and its abuse for the sake of political gain.55 The bond between ritual augury and political power is consolidated in the empire, where portents routinely legitimize or challenge monarchical rule. Octavian adopts the name Augustus for its association with augury, a choice consonant with his role as the founder of a new Rome.56 He also makes extensive use of his augural authority to strengthen his (un)constitutional position between 30 and 27 bce, by performing rituals, such as the augurium salutis, the augurium imperii, and lustratio.57 From Augustus to Domitian and beyond, inadvertent and solicited omens in imperial history and biography routinely signal the vicissitudes of monarchy.58 This schematic outline of Roman divination indicates that Amphiaraus’ auspicy may well encourage Statius’ contemporary audience to process the political and moral ambiguity of divination. The argument can even be reduced to biographical criticism: Statius’ father is an instructor of religious matters including augury, an experience that must have literally brought the topic home.59 Intimations of its Roman pertinence are certainly dispersed throughout our focal episode.60 For one, it is preceded by an attempt at haruspicy (3.456–8), a trademark of Roman (Etruscan) religion that clues the reader into the contemporary relevance of the subsequent augury.61 Unlike his epic models in which avian epiphanies occur without warning, Amphiaraus is ordered to solicit auspices by a wavering Adrastus (3.440–51). The diviner’s activity is firmly institutionalized by royal authority. Ultimately it apprises Adrastus of his status within the divine dispensation and his obligations to it. This stately dimension is aligned with the civic, authorizing power

Cicero’s ‘belief system’ are methodologically (if unconsciously) skewed by Christian concepts of faith as central to religious experience. 55

Brown (2009); North (1990: 57–8). Cf. Ov. Fast. 1.609–12; see Morani (1984: esp. 69–70); Linderski (1986: 2290–91); Green (2009: 149–50); Kearsley (2009: 165 n. 111). 57 Reeder (1997); Kearsley (2009). 58 Morgan (2000); Wildfang (2000); Vigourt (2001). 59 See Silu. 5.3.181–2 with Gibson (2006a: 260, 338). 60 My argument about the Roman relevance of Amphiaraus’ augury is not undermined by the fact that Roman divination never purports to predict the future but only to reveal divine approval or disapprobation (Wardle 2006: 7–8). Amphiaraus follows the Roman formula by seeking divine assent or its opposite (3.491 and 495), not a full version of the future. 61 On the haruspicy as a Roman clue in this episode, see Vessey (1973: 153). Snijders (1968: 188) identifies Perseus’ hill as a metaphor for the Roman Capitol. 56

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of divination in republican and imperial Rome.62 Another Roman trace is Amphiaraus’ prayer for auspicious birds to appear on the left (3.493), the side considered positive in Rome, not Greece.63 Additionally, Statius theorizes auspicy in both bookends of Amphiaraus’ episode—the seer’s prayer and his authorial criticism of divination. David Vessey identifies the latter as a locus philosophumenus, and he points out what he considers its ‘declamatory ring’.64 Neither Amphiaraus’ catalogue of prophetic practices nor Statius’ ‘philosophic’ critique of divination (3.471–96, 3.552–65) belongs to the epic topos of augury. In the Thebaid ’s epic models, ornithomantic scenes occur as a matter of course within the story, without scrutiny over alternative divinatory means or authorial commentary about the futility of the practice as a whole. These idiosyncratic, self-reflective asides belong rather with technical and philosophical expositions of divination along the lines of Cicero’s treatise. Indeed, Ciceronian reflections on augury may be closer to Statius’ cultural mirror. In one of his letters, Cicero strikingly equates his doomed partisanship with Pompey to Amphiaraus’ futile foreknowledge of Argive defeat: ‘Duty then, or my reputation with the honest men, or sensibility carried the day. Like Amphiaraus in the plays I set out “witting full well,/to bane right plain to see” (prudens et sciens/ad pestem ante oculos positam)’ (Fam. 6.6.6).65 This precedent for Statius has been promptly identified, but its greatest pertinence for our focal scene has not been fully absorbed. The Statian Amphiaraus surrenders to an inescapable divine web that coheres with the epic apparatus of cruel gods and immutable fate. On the other hand, Cicero’s compulsion is an all-too-human capitulation to peer pressure, to the constrictions imposed by one’s social visibility, and to an inner moral imperative. The personal responsibility and autonomy implicit in the Ciceronian Amphiaraus informs its Statian counterpart as much as the epic models examined above. Even though limited by epic typology, Statius’ selfaware Amphiaraus (and his prophetic companion Phorbas) touches upon Roman misgivings about augurium: its ambiguity and ultimate subjectivity, its authorization of decisions pertaining to the collective fate of individuals and states, and the human initiative and responsibility that comes with the use of augury as authentication of power structures.

62

On divination as legitimating of monarchical rule, see Burkert (2005: 43–4) and Nissinen (2010: 345–6). 63 On left as positive in Rome, see Fantham (2006: 149); on right side in Greek custom, see Collins (2002: 27–9); Bonnechere (2007: 151). 64 Vessey (1973: 156). 65 Fantham (2006: 147) adduces the parallel but without further comment.

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The augural contexts merely sketched here indicate that Statius’ amalgamation of ornithomantic and poetic semiotics may be further examined against the backdrop of Roman experience with divination. One such cultural component is the contested interpretation of celestial signs in the pursuit of power, with paradigms as old as Romulus and as recent as Vespasian.66 Another is the Ciceronian substitution of ritual augury by educated speculation in a context of political and social instability. By underlining subjectivity and poetic artifice as the building blocks of auspicy in the two episodes examined here, Statius enacts the arbitrary and dangerous nature of prophetic utterance. By carving a niche in the action on Perseus’ hill to theorize augury, he ruptures the generic constrictions of epic to make contact with another tradition, that of philosophic scrutiny of divination. While he subscribes to the doubts regarding the benefits of augury, he offers, I believe, a useful substitute for it. This is his Thebaid, an amalgam of reasonable speculation and prophetic insight into perennially gathering storms of human ambition and self-destruction.67

66

On Vespasian’s omens, cf. Suet. Vesp. 5.1; Tac. Hist. 2.50; D. C. 44.10.3. Note, in particular, Tacitus’ tart remark about the Flavian succession: ‘It was only after Vespasian’s rise that we came to believe in the mysterious movings of Providence, and supposed that portents and oracles (ostentis ac responsis) had predestined the throne for him and his family’ (Hist. 1.10.3). See further Morgan (2000: 28 and n. 8). 67 Heartfelt thanks to the editor and Greek host extraordinaire, Antony Augoustakis, for his invitation to the conference. I am grateful to Martin Dinter, Helen Lovatt, and Lily Panoussi for their insights and suggestions at the reading of this paper.

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6 Malae preces and their Articulation in the Thebaid Ann Hubert

Whether spoken formally as a hymn praising a divinity or spontaneously as a plea for help, the act of praying acknowledges a relationship between the human and the divine, as we have seen in Gesine Manuwald’s chapter on Valerius Flaccus. How Statius construes that relationship and what its implications are for the Thebaid’s resolution are the concerns this chapter addresses. Frances Hickson Hahn observes, ‘While scholars of Roman religion have paid considerable attention to festivals and ritual acts, they have for the most part neglected the study of prayer in its own right.’1 A similar situation prevails in the critical discussion of prayer in the Thebaid, wherein scholars tend to focus either on the precise execution of hymnal composition2 or on its confluence with broader themes such as excess,3 consumption,4 madness,5 or female lament.6 Prayer’s destructive and vexed description emerges throughout these discussions. Neil Coffee, for example, states: ‘Amphiaraus can rely on the gods to punish Eriphyle because he knows that although they answer no prayers that bring true aid, the gods’ desire to consume the pleasures of violent spectacle does lead them to answer calls for further mortal suffering’;7 Debra Hershkowitz locates the source of madness spiralling out of control in Oedipus’ prayer, calling it ‘a programmatic

1

Hickson Hahn (2007: 247). Dominik (1994b) discusses the formal breakdown of at least 13 types of prayer in the Thebaid. See also Pighi (2009) and ThesCRA 3.151–79 for additional discussion of settings for and formal types of prayer. 3 Ahl (1986); Feeney (1991); Henderson (1991); Hardie (1993). 4 5 Coffee (2009a: 185–271). Hershkowitz (1995; 1998a). 6 7 Fantham (1999); Bernstein (2008). Coffee (2009a: 229). 2

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poetic statement . . . [that] establishes madness inextricably in the epic’s very foundations’.8 As I shall argue, prayer undeniably informs the discord the Thebaid promises, but it also orders that discord. Statius’ tendency to end the books of his epic in hymns and pious expression suggests a schematic employment of prayer in the Thebaid. This tendency discloses correlations between the conclusions of each book, conclusions which realign prayer with death in the epic’s escalating depiction of violence. Despite its many articulations, prayer repeatedly muddles rather than clarifies the relationship between gods and humans on the one hand and between gods of the heavens and the Underworld on the other. Oedipus highlights this confusion in book 11 when, lying prostrate over his sons’ corpses, he utters: heu dolor heu iusto magis exaudita parentis uota malaeque preces! quisnam fuit ille deorum qui stetit orantem iuxta praereptaque uerba dictauit Fatis? (11.616–19) ‘Ah grief and parental vows heard too well and evil prayers! Which of the gods stood beside me as I prayed and caught my words to tell the Fates?’

Since Tisiphone and Jupiter respond separately to his prayer in the first book, Oedipus’ pointed and unexpectedly perceptive question betrays the chaos surrounding divine response to prayer in the Thebaid at the same time that it exposes prayer itself as the source of this disorder.9 Beginning with Oedipus’ curse and concluding with Adrastus’ hymn to Apollo, the action of the first book serves as the starting point for unravelling prayer’s function in the poem, for in book 1 Statius establishes prayer not only as a perverse and menacing articulation but also as a selfish and self-gratifying utterance. Neither pious humility nor concerted devotion, but self-aggrandizement and pleasure, are the intentions prayer conveys. By discussing expressions of prayer in the first book and then considering Statius’ propensity to end the books of his epic in hymns and death, I shall argue that prayer becomes a decoy, a clever screen that, when lifted, reveals the world of the Thebaid as a bleak, irredeemable playground over which Oedipus, the gods, and even Statius himself placate their own desires.

8 9

Hershkowitz (1998a: 248). Cf. Dee’s discussion of the scene in Ch. 10 below.

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PERVERSA VOTA: GETTING THINGS STARTED The prayer Oedipus utters to curse his sons at the beginning of the Thebaid establishes prayer as a perverse articulation, both in its intentions and in the divine response it engenders. It begins with a threefold address, invoking the gods of the Underworld, the river Styx, and Tisiphone, whom Oedipus directly beseeches: adnue, Tisiphone, peruersaque uota secunda (‘Tisiphone . . . give me your nod and favour my warped desire’, 1.59).10 By means of a series of conditional statements establishing his prior sufferings, Oedipus proceeds to relate personal circumstances that will predispose Tisiphone advantageously towards him, neatly tying off the conditions of his past with one that looks to the present: exaudi, si digna precor quaeque ipsa furenti/subiceres (‘Hear oh hear, if my prayer is worthy and such as you yourself might whisper to my frenzy’, 1.73–4).11 The prayers which started as peruersa (1.59) are now, after Oedipus’ self-description, digna (1.73). Oedipus uses prayer as a self-serving instrument that justifies his pain, and in so doing ignores the propriety of what he asks. Indeed, the remainder of Oedipus’ prayer conveys the injustice he suffers, but postures it as a source for selfgratification through repetition:12 orbum uisu regnisque parentem non regere aut dictis maerentem flectere adorti quos genui quocumque toro: quin ecce superbi —pro dolor!—et nostro iamdudum funere reges insultant tenebris gemitusque odere paternos. hisne etiam funestus ego? et uidet ista deorum ignauus genitor? tu saltem debita uindex huc ades et totos in poenam ordire nepotes. indue quod madidum tabo diadema cruentis unguibus abripui uotisque instincta paternis i media in fratres, generis consortia ferro dissiliant. da, Tartarei regina barathri, quod cupiam uidisse nefas, nec tarda sequetur mens iuuenum: modo digna ueni, mea pignora nosces.

(1.74–87)

Dominik (1994b: 102) explains that the ‘special mention of gods . . . and collective address of other deities is intended to ensure that all possible means of divine assistance is canvassed’. 11 Hickson Hahn (2007: 240) identifies these as strategies to gain a deity’s favour when making a request. For a discussion of the formal components of this prayer, see Dominik (1994b: 102–4). 12 Gibson (2004a) explores the idea of repetition in relation to Hypsipyle’s narrative, and while I do not draw directly on his article for my present discussion, my own thoughts on prayer have been influenced by his work. 10

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‘Those I begot (in any bed whatsoever) did not try to guide me, bereft of sight and sceptre, or sway my grieving with words. Nay behold (ah, agony!) the kings in their pride, and even during my calamity, they even mock my darkness, impatient of their father’s groans. Even to them am I unclean? And does the sire of the gods see it and do naught? Do you at least, my rightful champion, come hither and range all my progeny for punishment. Put on your head this gore-soaked diadem that I tore off with my bloody nails. Spurred by a father’s prayers, go against the brothers, go between them, let steel make partnership of blood fly asunder. Queen of Tartarus’ pit, grant the wickedness I would fain see. Nor will the young men’s spirit be slow to follow. Come you but worthy, you shall know them my true sons.’

Oedipus, as the parentem . . . orbum uisu (1.74), prays to see the fruition of his curse: da . . . /quod cupiam uidisse nefas (1.85–6). By casting the intention of his prayer, that is, the destruction of his sons, between references to the status of his sight, Oedipus reveals how he derives pleasure from repetition: if his sight can be reinstated, he can take pleasure in watching a crime whose performance allows him to readminister pain. Statius confirms this self-gratifying intention in book 11 when Oedipus, raging over Eteocles’ and Polynices’ corpses, wishes to gouge out his eyes for a second time: o si fodienda redirent/lumina et in uultus saeuire ex more potestas! (‘Ah, would that my eyes could return to me to gouge and the power to rage against my face as of old!’, 11.614–15). Prayer is a mechanism Oedipus uses to slake his lust, but its utterance instead reignites the desires of his initial destruction. Even before the eleventh book, in this very prayer, Oedipus is guilty of enjoying the repetition of his initial curse: he fashions Tisiphone as a second Jocasta, since it is Tisiphone who nourishes him in her lap after his birth (1.60–61), and Tisiphone to whom he ascribes the activity and fruition of his criminal nights (1.68–70). The satisfaction Oedipus seeks from Tisiphone and his new curse attempts to gratify a void lingering from his original curse, that is, validation for feeling pleasure in the act of self-blinding. Prayer aims at the fulfilment of the speaker’s wishes, and the revenge Oedipus invokes is ultimately wreaked on himself, as it offers him the opportunity to re-experience indulgently his own pain. The references to blindness and sight in Oedipus’ prayer, however, include another entity. Jupiter, unlike Oedipus, can actually see these crimes (uidet, 1.79), but is too lazy (ignauus, 1.80) to respond, making the god’s inaction all the more insulting to the sightless Oedipus. Oedipus turns to Tisiphone simply because she is present and ready to listen to him, as she immediately arrives at Thebes to grant his prayer. Nonetheless, Jupiter announces to his council of gods that he, a deity not even addressed in the prayer’s

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invocation, will fulfill Oedipus’ wish.13 Thinking he answers Oedipus’ prayer, in actuality Jupiter only echoes Oedipus’ curse, a repetition that inserts Jupiter as a speaker who also has as his goal paternal self-gratification at familial expense: nunc geminas punire domos, quis sanguinis auctor/ipse ego, descendo (‘Now I descend to punish two houses, my own blood’, 1.224–5). But the reiterative pleasure sought by both god and man ultimately remains empty; for, just as Oedipus cannot remove his eyes a second time, so too is Jupiter unable to partake in the satisfaction that Tisiphone has already produced by enraging Eteocles and Polynices. Jupiter’s response instead magnifies the scope of human suffering which Oedipus’ curse originally anticipates.14 While Oedipus can only seek revenge on his sons, Jupiter can exact punishment on every Argive and Theban: noua sontibus15 arma/iniciam regnis, totumque a stirpe reuellam/ exitiale genus (‘I shall bring new warfare on the guilty reigns and tear the whole deadly stock out from the root’, 1.241–3). In the Thebaid, Jupiter’s uninvited involvement lets loose the chaos of divine activity generally and of divine response to prayer specifically. Juno is quick to demonstrate these points to her husband through words of dubious praise:16 iamdudum a sedibus illis incipe, fluctiuaga quas praeterlabitur unda Sicanios longe relegens Alpheos amores: Arcades hic tua (nec pudor est) delubra nefastis inposuere locis, illic Mauortius axis Oenomai Geticoque pecus stabulare sub Haemo dignius, abruptisque etiamnum inhumata procorum reliquiis trunca ora rigent; tamen hic tibi templi gratus honos; placet Ida nocens mentitaque manes Creta tuos. (1.270–79) ‘Begin straightaway with those dwellings where the wave-wandering waters of Alpheus glide, distantly retracing his Sicanian love. Here the men of Arcady set your shrine (nor do you blush) in abominable ground; there was the chariot of Oenomaus, gift of Mars, and horses worthier to be stabled under Getic Haemus. There even now stark and unburied are the mangled heads of the suitors, torn from their remains. And yet the grace of a temple

13

Ahl (1986: 2838–9); Hershkowitz (1995: 59) calls Jupiter’s entrance into the poem ‘completely gratuitous’. On the portrayal of Jupiter in the poem, see extensively Tuttle’s and Bessone’s essays in this volume (Chs 4 and 8). 14 Coffee (2009a: 207). 15 Cf. Bernstein’s discussion of the adjective in Ch. 13 below. 16 On Juno’s speech and Jupiter’s death on Crete, see Chinn, Ch. 18 below.

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there pleases you; guilty Ida and Crete that tells falsely of your death is to your liking.’

The several locations of Jupiter’s shrines are all places where transgressions have occurred. For instance, Jupiter welcomes praise from criminal sites in Arcadia, from a people whose king, Lycaon, once dared to serve a meal of human flesh. And yet he currently seeks to destroy the Argives for the same behaviour: hanc etiam poenis incessere gentem/decretum; neque enim arcano de pectore fallax/Tantalus et saeuae periit iniuria mensae (‘This line also I have resolved to assail and punish, for false Tantalus and the outrage of the cruel banquet have not vanished from my secret heart’, 1.245–7). Prayer to Jupiter reveals his hypocrisy,17 not only in his inconsistent attitude but also in his accountability for the present situation: as the self-proclaimed progenitor of Argos and Thebes, Jupiter wishes to punish ‘the character imposed on all the men’ (1.227), a character nevertheless which stems from his own immoral and lustful conduct.18 The source of Jupiter’s compounding wrath is himself. And when Juno reminds Jupiter of his supposed death on Crete (1.279–80), in effect she equates the god with Oedipus, as both figures use prayer to exact unjustified and cruel revenge. Thus the references Oedipus makes to his blindness and Jupiter’s sight finally unite these kings, for it is Jupiter who enacts Oedipus’ desire to blind himself by throwing down the cloud cover that blocks Eteocles’ and Polynices’ impending duel; now bereft of sight, Jupiter is powerless to stop the atrocities, the repetition of which has lost its desired self–gratification: auferte oculos! absentibus ausint/ista deis lateantque Iouem; sat funera mensae/Tantaleae et sontes uidisse Lycaonis aras . . . (‘Avert your eyes! Let them dare such things in the gods’ absence and hide from Jove. Enough to have witnessed the deadly banquet of Tantalus and Lycaon’s guilty altars . . . ’, 11.126–8).19 Even though prayer seeks to fulfil its speaker’s wishes, that fulfilment is delusory, as both Oedipus and Jupiter discover through their engagement with prayer. Oedipus’ grief, expressed by Antigone’s silent relief—saeuum gaudens planxisse parentem (‘[she], happy in that her savage father had mourned’, 11.633)—turns prayer into an empty articulation, because Tisiphone cannot exact revenge and restore Oedipus’ sight; she only grants part of his prayer and so denies the cyclic repetition of pleasure for which he longs, just as Jupiter’s averted eyes show the desire for pleasure in the repetition of crime for what it is: heinous. Jupiter’s attempt to appropriate a prayer addressed to Tisiphone further underscores prayer’s vanity. Jupiter’s 17 19

Feeney (1991: 355); Dominik (1994b: 35). See also Dee’s discussion in Ch. 10 below.

18

Ahl (1986: 2839).

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true aim is not honest praise, but the repetition of pleasure from devotion, even if the latter is completely contrived by the god himself. Prayer in the Thebaid fails to achieve its desired end for Oedipus and Jupiter and, what is more, to uphold the authority Jupiter so eagerly wants to establish.20 Jupiter’s inability to watch the climatic duel marks his decision in book 1 to aggrandize Oedipus’ curse at the moment of his loss of authority.21 The already tired Jupiter (1.216–18) relies not on his own strength but on Pluto’s to generate power, when he swears by the Styx (1.290) to magnify Oedipus’ curse. He then fails repeatedly to launch the expedition, and once war begins, it is Pluto who actually determines the ensuing events (8.65–83).22 Jupiter is even rhetorically stripped of the symbols of his power: in two instances, Tisiphone is quicker than Jupiter’s fire (igne Iouis . . . citatior, ‘swifter than Jove’s fire’, 1.92; caelesti . . . ocior igne, ‘swifter than celestial fire’, 11.483),23 and Pluto becomes the Thunderer (Tonans, 11.209). Jupiter’s attempts to establish authority and claim power are met with failure not only throughout the Thebaid but, more importantly, even as the poem commences. Furthermore, by pleading for Tisiphone’s assistance and by excluding Jupiter’s intervention, Oedipus’ prayer brings about the chthonic takeover of the heavens as it develops in the course of the Thebaid. And within the epic’s first book, the divine disconnect that Oedipus’ prayer exposes is replayed almost instantly by Adrastus as he recounts Argos’ history to Polynices and Tydeus. This digression places the problematic expression of prayer plaguing the Theban house of Oedipus in Argos’ distant past. The story involves Apollo, Python, the raped and impregnated Psamathe, and Coroebus, the topic of Alison Keith’s essay in this volume (Chapter 17 below). Apollo’s victory over Python ‘concerns the ordering of the universe and . . . follows the standard paradigm in which sky gods gain control’.24 The story, however, ultimately points out that ‘Apollo’s punishment of Argos . . . undoes his earlier slaying of Python by unleashing on humans another chthonic force’.25

20 Bernstein (2004: 64–8) describes Jupiter as impotent throughout the Thebaid and discusses the ‘pattern of disavowed authority’ which he and the other Olympians display. See also Ch. 13 below. 21 On Jupiter’s departure as a ‘paradox of poetics’, see Bessone, Ch. 8 below. 22 Ahl (1986: 2860); Hill (1996: 46); Hershkowitz (1998a: 266); McNelis (2007: 125); Coffee (2009a: 211–12). 23 Hershkowitz (1995: 59) notes that ‘Jupiter’s activity—or rather, inactivity—is set in apposition to Tisiphone’s activity throughout the poem’. 24 25 McNelis (2007: 25). McNelis (2007: 36).

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Tisiphone’s decision to answer Oedipus’ prayer therefore reactivates a divine struggle chronologically set prior to the action of the epic but sequentially placed before the resolution Adrastus offers to Apollo’s story. Its location contributes to the confusion between Tisiphone and Jupiter as the epic opens,26 and corroborates Juno’s concern that there is no temporal limit to curb Jupiter’s continually increasing anger: quod si prisca luunt auctorum crimina gentes subuenitque tuis sera haec sententia curis, percensere aeui senium, quo tempore tandem terrarum furias abolere et saecula retro emendare sat est? (1.266–70) ‘But if the peoples expiate the ancient crimes of their first ancestors and this late resolve has entered your anxious thoughts, to pass time’s old age in review, how far back, I ask, does it suffice to cancel earth’s mad doings and purge the ages in reverse?’

No end is at hand, as I have argued, until Jupiter stops deriving pleasure in punishment, that is, at the moment of the fratricidal duel. Though desired by and granted to Oedipus, the fight exposes the perversion of prayer’s intention and divine response to it. The principles of prayer’s self-gratification, delusory effect, and empty results revealed by the juxtaposition of books 1 and 11 apply to all utterances of prayer in the Thebaid and can be observed most readily in the deaths of each of the Argive heroes. Prayer plays a central role in their demise, and Statius exposes its prominence systematically through his penchant to end the books of his epic in hymns and death.

HEROIC ENDINGS? Statius displays an inclination for schematizing action throughout his epic. For example, if the first six books of the Thebaid depict the action leading up to the war, the second six present the results of that war. Similarly, if the endings of the first six books can be understood as setting up prayer’s potential in the Thebaid, the endings of the second six can be seen as affirming its failure:27

26

Feeney (1991: 347–8), discusses the destabilizing effect which Tisiphone’s presence serves. 27 See Dominik (1994b: 25) for an outline.

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Book 1: Hymn to Apollo Book 2: Hymn to Pallas Book 3: Argia with son supplicates Adrastus Book 4: Hymn to Nemea Book 5: Amphiaraus ties Opheltes’ death to prophecy Book 6: Adrastus’ arrow and its prophecy Book 7: Apollo mourns Amphiaraus’ death Book 8: Pallas denies Tydeus immortality Book 9: Parthenopaeus with Diana (disguised) prays for mother Book 10: Jupiter kills Capaneus Book 11: Antigone beseeches Creon regarding exile and burial of the dead; Creon partly grants her prayer Book 12: Statius’ prayer regarding the Thebaid and the Aeneid As this summary shows, the early books culminate in hymns, to Apollo, to Pallas, to Nemea; the later books close heralding death: of Amphiaraus, Tydeus, Parthenopaeus, Capaneus, and, of course, book 11, with its panoramic view of the Theban battlefield littered with rotting and unburied corpses. Yet the correlations between these books’ conclusions show how the self-serving, reiterative, and destructively aggrandizing nature of prayer defines the Thebaid’s suffering and annihilation: Books 1 and 7: Apollo Books 2 and 8: Pallas Books 3 and 9: Child–parent relationship construed through prayer Books 4 and 10: Sustenance of prayer (finding water) and annihilation in its absence (Capaneus) Books 5 and 11: Death of war’s first victim (Opheltes) and destruction of armies, i.e. prophecy comes full circle Books 6 and 12: Man unsure of position in world, i.e. Adrastus cannot interpret the meaning of arrow, nor can Statius his work’s reception The deaths of the Argive heroes are none other than the wake of destruction left by the spreading pandemic released by Oedipus’ and Jupiter’s infectious engagement with prayer. Placing the conclusion of each book in pairs highlights the correlation between prayer and death in more detail. Apollo figures prominently in the conclusions of Thebaid 1 and 7, first as the addressee of Adrastus’ hymn and then as a mourner over his seer Amphiaraus. Apollo’s invoked

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and actual presence at the conclusions of these books confirms the connection between prayer and death. As Charles McNelis points out, Adrastus’ hymn, ‘[f]ar from celebrating the gods, . . . calls attention to the numerous problems that revolve around the Theban war, and Adrastus’ Argives will be unwittingly drawn into this struggle’.28 Indeed, the grounds for Adrastus’ praise of Apollo ironically articulate the Argives’ undoing: tu doctus iniquas Parcarum praenosse manus fatumque quod ultra est et summo placitura Ioui, quis letifer annus, bella quibus populis, quae mutent sceptra cometae . . .

(1.705–8).

‘You have skill to know the cruel spinning of the Parcae and the fate that lies beyond and highest Jove’s future decrees—what peoples a year of pestilence betide, what peoples wars, what sceptres comets change.’29

Fate, Jupiter’s decisions, war, and changing sceptres motivate Oedipus’ prayer earlier in the book, and so Adrastus revisits, in fact repeats in his hymn, the components driving Oedipus’ prayer; but Adrastus, unawares, embeds both divine and human suffering in his prayer’s articulation. Human and divine pain surfaces in the conclusion of book 7 when Apollo mourns Amphiaraus: desiluit maerens lacrimasque auertit Apollo (‘Apollo leapt down grieving and turned away his tears’, 7.789). Of course both Apollo and Amphiaraus know of his fated death, and so in both books Statius points to the inescapability of fated events, a confirmation which, seemingly obvious, nevertheless is in need of reinforcement after Oedipus attempts to use prayer to undo his fate and to reenact the moment of his self-blinding.30 Likewise in Thebaid 2 and 8, the endings unite Pallas and Tydeus. These four books construe divinities with their favourites, but whereas the first coupling registers divine pain through Apollo’s perspective, the second pair does so through Tydeus’. After his rout of the Thebans in the second book, Tydeus sings a hymn to Pallas dedicating his spoils to her (2.725–6) and promising, if he ever returns home, to build her a golden temple (2.726–31).31 Prayer’s self-serving and self-gratifying intention surfaces as Tydeus uses this temple to announce his military prowess to Pallas: 28

29 McNelis (2007: 43). Dominik (1994b: 39, 91). Vessey (1973: 135) notes a linguistic connection between these two books as well, pointing out that the phrase letifer annus (1.707) ‘[recurs] in book 7 during the aristeia of Amphiaraus’. 31 Cf. Hannibal’s similar promise to Anna, as analysed by Fucecchi and Marks. 30

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hic ego maiorum pugnas uultusque tremendos magnanimum effingam regum, figamque superbis arma tholis, quaeque ipse meo quaesita reuexi sanguine, quaeque dabis captis, Tritonia, Thebis. (2.732–5) ‘Here I shall fashion battles of ancestors and dread faces of great-hearted kings, shall nail arms to proud domes, arms that I have brought back won by my blood and arms that you, Tritonia, shall bestow when Thebes is taken.’

Even though Tydeus expresses these deeds in praise of Pallas, they readily form a catalogue of his own greatness, and thus become an expression of his own glory as much as that of the goddess.32 The arrogant self-praise of Tydeus’ hymn relays a lacking sense of religious anxiety: Frances Hickson Hahn explains that ‘cautionary formulae . . . appearing at the conclusion of a vow and detailing the conditions under which the vow would be considered fulfilled’ anticipate the ‘various situations that might potentially invalidate the discharge of a vow’ and so cancel ‘the validity of the vow’s fulfillment’ to the divinity.33 Tydeus includes no such precautionary language in his hymn and his death eventually does interfere with the accomplishment of his vow.34 Tydeus’ undoing is his inability to keep his promise to Pallas, a reality Pallas enacts at the end of book 8, when she keeps immortality from her protégé:35 iamque inflexo Tritonia patre uenerat et misero decus inmortale ferebat, atque illum effracti perfusum tabe cerebri aspicit et uiuo scelerantem sanguine fauces (nec comites auferre ualent): stetit aspera Gorgon crinibus emissis rectique ante ora cerastae uelauere deam; fugit auersata iacentem, nec prius astra subit quam mystica lampas et insons Ilissos multa purgauit lumina lympha. (8.758–66) ‘And now Tritonia had come; she had swayed her father and was bearing immortal glory to the unhappy warrior. She looks at him, sees him wet with

32

Georgacopoulou (1996: 275–81). Hickson Hahn (2007: 241). Vessey (1973: 147). 35 Hershkowitz (1998a: 256–9) acknowledges a reversal of roles in the juxtaposition of these books as well, seeing Pallas’ presence in book 2 as the reinstatement of Tydeus’ sense, and her absence in book 8 as the cause for his madness. Coffee (2009a: 195–8) joins these books via linguistic echoes between Tydeus and the Sphinx and their shared desire to consume human gore. On the death of Tydeus, see also Dee’s essay in Ch. 10 below. 33 34

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the issue of the broken brain and polluting his jaws with living blood—nor can his comrades wrest it away. The Gorgon stood rough with hair outflung and the asps upreared before her face concealed the goddess. Turning from the prostrate man, she flees, nor ascends to the stars until the mystic torch and guiltless Ilissos had purged her eyes with plenteous water.’

The martial prowess motivating Tydeus’ praise of Pallas in book 2 manifests itself after his aristeia in book 8 as cannibalistic rage preventing redemption. The lust for total domination in war which Tydeus’ prayer betrays at the closing of book 2 is actually satisfied when he devours Melanippus, savagely ripping into his killer’s brains. The self-focus and self-gratification of Tydeus’ final action reveals the insincerity of his praise of Pallas in his earlier hymn. Pallas’ horror, as she imminently would have conferred divinity but ultimately refuses to do so, confirms her absence both in his hymn and in his death. Whereas these four books portray the interactions between specific heroes and gods to disclose prayer’s ineffectiveness, the fourth and the tenth books juxtapose the hymn celebrating Nemea and Capaneus’ death to offer reflections on the inanity of prayer in a general manner. Nemea’s ‘immortally swelling’ river (inmortale tumens, 4.840) saves the parched Argives, and its praise reinforces the sustenance prayer can grant humankind, as its unknown speaker suggests (aliquis regum, ‘one of the kings’, 4.831). But since the sustenance prayer conveys is ultimately empty—a point Statius subtly reinforces by giving this speaker no identity—its failure results in humankind’s annihilation: Capaneus’ flame-absorbed body, at one point compared to a raging river, is completely consumed as he dies.36 In particular, Capaneus literally embodies prayer’s inanity and selfgratifying nature because he utterly eschews the gods in his articulation of prayer; instead he employs the formulaic utterance of prayer to worship himself: ‘ades o mihi dextera, tantum/tu praesens bellis et ineuitabile numen,/te uoco, te solam superum contemptor adoro’ (‘Help me, right hand, my only present and inevitable deity in battle, I call upon you; you only I, contemner of the High Ones, adore’, 9.548–50). As Bruce Gibson notes, ‘Capaneus’ entire utterance is cast in a form that emphasizes the incongruity of having an opponent of the gods address a hymn to his right hand, with its typical hymnic features such as anaphora and use of o as well.’ Capaneus elevates himself to the status of god and fulfils his own prayer, successfully hurling his javelin to kill Hypseus (9.546–69), Vessey (1973: 170) points out, ‘Water is an image of life, and the thirst suffered by the warriors is a foreshadowing of their future death.’ On wasted water, see Dee’s detailed discussion in Ch. 10 below. 36

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just as Jupiter would throw his thunderbolt. In fact, Capaneus’ hands are even compared to thunderbolts when he wrestles with Alcidamas (6.750–51). Capaneus’ ability to fashion himself as a god for the purpose of accomplishing what is normally granted through prayer, and of challenging deities in combat, poses a serious threat to Jupiter when Thebes is attacked. After all Capaneus has already slain the snake sacred to Jupiter that killed Opheltes (5.565–74). Jupiter’s response to Capaneus’ blasphemy comes in the form of complete annihilation, wherein one thunderbolt almost is not enough to destroy Capaneus (paulum si tardius artus/ cessissent, potuit fulmen sperare secundum, ‘if his body had yielded a little later, he might have hoped for a second bolt’, 10.938–9). Jupiter’s action highlights that the supreme god cannot diminish the greatness of Capaneus’ assault or death.37 Just before his death, Capaneus becomes a reflection of the destruction produced by Jupiter’s selfish engagement with prayer: once he reaches the summit of Thebes’ tower, Capaneus hurls parts of the city back onto itself (10.880–82); such action mirrors the effect of self-worship in prayer, that is, self-destruction. Indeed, Jupiter’s self-annihilation soon follows, in approximately 100 lines, as he averts his eyes and so expunges himself, his power, and his control from the remainder of the Thebaid.38 The conclusions of the third and ninth books reflect on the broad concepts of sustenance and annihilation, more particularly by construing child–parent relationships through prayer. At the end of Thebaid 3, Argia stands holding her son and beseeches her father Adrastus on behalf of her husband to attack Thebes (3.696–8). Her supplication is self-serving in that it addresses ‘the threat that his [Polynices’] uxorial residence at Argos poses to her status and to their son’.39 While she hopes that ‘the conquest of Thebes will offer a necessary improvement of her new family’s social status’,40 unlike so many of her male counterparts, at least Argia is aware of the difficulty prayer brings upon herself: et nunc maesta quidem graue et inlaetabile munus ut timeam doleamque, rogo; sed cum oscula rumpet maesta dies, cum rauca dabunt abeuntibus armis signa tubae saeuoque genas fulgebitis auro, ei mihi, care parens, reditum fortasse rogabo! (3.706–10) ‘In sadness now I ask a heavy, joyless boon—to fear and grieve. But when the sorrowful day shall break our kisses and the trumpets give their harsh

37 39

Hill (1996: 45–50). Bernstein (2008: 86).

38

Bernstein (2008: 89). Bernstein (2008: 86).

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signals to the departing host and your faces shall gleam with cruel gold, then, alas, perhaps, dear father, I shall ask a second time!’

Her supplication encapsulates the suffering that articulations of prayer introduce, for the wish sustaining her present hope will later bring her husband’s death, and by extension, her and her child’s ruin.41 Although Argia’s son survives the war, Atalanta’s, at the end of the ninth book, dies after instructing Dorceus (Diana in disguise) to comfort his wretched mother and to give her the hair he had once dedicated to Diana at the start of the war:42 ‘hunc tamen, orba parens, crinem’, dextraque secandum praebuit, ‘hunc toto capies pro corpore crinem, comere quem frustra me dedignate solebas. huic dabis exequias, atque inter iusta memento ne quis inexpertis hebetet mea tela lacertis dilectosque canes ullis agat amplius antris. haec autem primis arma infelicia castris ure, uel ingratae crimen suspende Dianae’. (9.900–7) ‘ “But this lock, mother bereaved” (and with his hand he offered it to be cut) “this lock, you will take in lieu of my whole body, that you used in vain to comb, though I thought scorn. To this you will give burial and as part of what is due remember to see that none blunt my arrows with novice arm or any more lead my beloved hounds in any glade. As for this shield, unhappy in its first campaign, burn it, or hang it up as a reproach to thankless Diana.” ’

To Diana, whom Parthenopaeus chides as ungrateful, he dedicates his weapons, objects he thinks fittingly convey her criminal offence towards him. Parthenopaeus does not realise that Diana stands beside him listening.43 Therefore, when he gives her his hair, in essence he frustrates the intention of his own prayer, because, instead of handing Diana a manifestation of crime, he gives her a representation of his years of devotion: flauus ab intonso pendebat uertice crinis Arcados; hoc primis Triuiae pascebat ad annis munus et, Ogygio uictor cum Marte redisset, nequiquam patriis audax promiserat aris. (6.607–10)

41

On Argia in book 12, see Dee and Chinn, Chs 10 and 18 below. On the first part of Parthenopaeus’ speech as epitaph, see Dinter, Ch. 15 below. 43 On the connection of Parthenopaeus’ and Atalanta’s hair and the failure of purification, see Dee, Ch. 10 below. 42

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‘The Arcadian’s blond hair hangs from his unshorn head: he used to tend it from earliest years as a gift for Trivia and had boldly promised it (in vain) to his native altars when he returned victorious from Ogygian warfare.’

The hair Parthenopaeus has always preserved for Diana becomes a visual pun—crinem for crimen (‘hair’ for ‘crime’)—because it replaces the weapons he intends to give her, and casts, in hindsight, all his prayer to her as an inane, even criminal, articulation. Hippomedon and Polynices are the only two Argive heroes who do not die at the conclusion of a book. Hippomedon’s death occurs earlier in book 9, before that of Parthenopaeus, but nonetheless confirms the uselessness of prayer. Hippomedon prays to Mars Gravidus (who does not respond) to save him from drowning (9.506–10), requiring Juno to beseech Jupiter to do so (9.510–21).44 Jupiter grants her wish, but Hippomedon dies soon thereafter at the hands of angry Thebans, making his prayer to live, though answered, pointlessly successful. Polynices, on the other hand, dies in the middle of book 11: Statius opts to close the book with Antigone’s twofold request to avoid exile and to bury the dead, and Creon’s partial agreement to limit the distance of her father’s exile (11.708–54). And yet the image of the unburied, putrefied corpses which pollute Thebes at the conclusion of the book forms a striking counterpoint to the grand burial and immortality which Opheltes receives at the end of book 5 (5.733–52). These books’ conclusions unite the deaths of the first and last victims of the war, and thus complete the events fated through Amphiaraus’ prophecy in book 3, as Eleni Manolaraki and Anne Tuttle have already discussed.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE? The last book of the poem, which stands outside the scope of Amphiaraus’ prophecy, heralds the arrival of the Argive women at the altar of Clemency in Athens (12.481–511). As Federica Bessone explains in her essay on the ara, ‘the cult [of Clementia] is devoid of iconography, because the goddess prefers to inhabit the hearts of her devotees. The negative style of the exordium [i.e., of the ekphrasis on the altar] exalts

44 Dominik (1994b: 104) states that Hippomedon ‘does not intend that the war-god reply to his prayer; his purpose is not to obtain answers to his indignant questions, for the manner in which he phrases his rhetorical questions makes a reply from Mars difficult. The purpose of his interrogatory prayer is to emphasize the injustice of his plight.’

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the exceptional character of the cult: this is not a powerful deity, but the personification of a moral abstraction, a never-neglected and nevernegligent goddess, who accepts no sacrifices nor sumptuous images’. This altar represents those who need it,45 and even though the Olympians contributed to its establishment (12.499–500, 503–4), only those wretched people who stand before it are able to yoke its power. The altar therefore exists precariously: by placing at the disposal of those who worship at it the power to resolve difficulty, the altar removes the need for prayer to the Olympians; and, by invoking themselves as a source of resolution in prayer, the suppliants at this altar have the potential to reinvent themselves as the terrifying and subversive figure of Capaneus. Statius even invokes the capacity this altar encompasses to let loose chaos by allowing Evadne, Capaneus’ wife, to express the Argive women’s suffering.46 Yet, significantly, it is not Clemency but Theseus to whom Evadne turns to target her sharp speech. The altar of Clemency thus serves only to reinforce that the Olympians are absent as the Thebaid comes to an end: whatever resolution Statius is about to offer rests firmly in human hands.47 But instead of departing from prayer’s destructive articulation, Evadne’s only recourse in her supplication, even in the absence of the Olympians, is to repeat the pattern of construing divinity: ubi numina, ubi ille est/fulminis iniusti iaculator? ubi estis, Athenae? (‘Where are the gods, where that hurler of the unjust thunderbolt? Where are you, Athens?’, 12.561–2). Evadne’s poignant and desperate questions ascribe to Athens divine standing, while at the same time she wonders whether Athens will become another unreliable divinity, absently present. As the supreme commander of his city, Theseus is appropriately compared to Jupiter in an epic simile a few lines later (12.650–54), a simile that problematically thrusts Theseus into the discourse of self-gratifying and self-aggrandizing behaviour exemplified by Jupiter.48 And like Jupiter, Theseus certainly derives personal pleasure in his involvement, a point Statius makes subtly when Hippolyte’s subdued

45 McNelis (2007: 164). For further bibliography on the ara, see Bessone (2011: 102–11) and Ch. 8 below. 46 Feeney (1991: 363) points to the irony of placing a ‘speech on human duties . . . in the mouth of the widow of Capaneus, the most inhuman of the heroes’. On Evadne’s speech, see also Gibson, Ch. 7 below. 47 Feeney (1991: 353). 48 McNelis (2007: 161) agrees that ‘since Jove is so negative throughout the poem, Theseus’ comparison to him is not positive or necessarily good’. Hershkowitz (1998a: 270) feels that neither Theseus nor Jove are cast in a positive light. In their essays in this volume, Bernstein (Ch. 13) and Bessone (Ch. 8) offer two opposite interpretations of Theseus and the resolution of the poem at the end.

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and pregnant body emerges both before and after Evadne speaks (12.532–9, 12.635–8). Evadne’s searching questions and Statius’ epic simile at best hinder—if they do not in fact completely obliterate— Athens’ and Theseus’ ability to rectify the situation.49 In addition, Statius registers Theseus’ inability to rectify through women what Oedipus’ prayer damages. Before Theseus’ arrival in Thebes, Antigone and Argia compete to claim the glory of Polynices’ burial (12.456–61) and later, after Theseus’ victory, the Theban women never join their Argive counterparts in the actions of burial and mourning.50 Even though Theseus’ presence ensures burial, this burial does not mend the Theban/Argive divide which Oedipus’ prayer sets in motion, which Polynices’ and Eteocles’ ghosts still enact after their demise (12.429–46), and which the Theban and Argive women’s actions continue in mourning.51 Yet Theseus’ failure should not come as a surprise. Even the altar of Clemency, the representation of the power of Theseus and his city, is incapable of curing distress within the confines of the Thebaid: mox hospita sedes/uicit et Oedipodae Furias (‘By and by the hospitable abode conquered Oedipus’ Furies’, 12.509–10). Statius defers the altar’s restorative ability, as he does every other human enactor of its virtue, and instead indulges the Thebaid’s defiance for divine resolution. If a glimmer of hope is retrievable from the Thebaid, it comes in the story of Hypsipyle, who, by recounting her own tale and then the Thebaid’s, is eventually reunited with her sons.52 Whether they go on to fight at Thebes is unclear in the poem, and as this question remains unanswered, it is possible that she and they escape the destruction and the divine confusion running rampant throughout Statius’ epic. But Hypsipyle’s final fate must be relegated, like that of Adrastus and the Thebaid itself, to the uncertainty prayer creates for its speakers. Like Hypsipyle, whose credibility comes under scrutiny from the repetition of

49 Ahl (1986: 2896–7); Hershkowitz (1998a: 298–300); Augoustakis (2010: 75–91). Vessey (1973: 312) is of the opposite opinion, and prefers to see Theseus as the epic’s saviour, the ‘model of a clement and just king’. See Bessone, Ch. 8 below, for a slightly different interpretation, taking into account the positive and negative traits in Theseus’ behaviour. 50 See extensively Augoustakis (2010: 75–91). 51 On female lament in the poem, see Augoustakis (2010), 30 and n. 1 for further bibliography. 52 On Hypsipyle’s saving of her father Thoas, see Bernstein’s analysis in Ch. 13 below. McNelis (2007: 92–3) points out that Euneus and Thoas complete in the foot-race at the funeral games, wherein ‘they display devotion to one another’ and so stand as the sole example of positive fraternal relations in the epic. For a pessimistic interpretation of Hypsipyle’s reunion with her sons, see Augoustakis (2010: 57–61).

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her story,53 Adrastus and the Thebaid stand as entities unsure of their position in their respective worlds: Adrastus is unable to understand the meaning of his returning arrow (6.934–46), just as Statius, though he does honour himself in his epilogue,54 cannot know with certainty the reception of his work (12.810–19). Yet to Adrastus and to the Thebaid, the chance to live on is granted, and just like Hypsipyle, they continue to reiterate their tales regardless of proper interpretation. Thus Statius joins the endings of books 6 and 12, at once reprimanding humanity for wanting to know its fate and congratulating himself for conveying it. The function of prayer undeniably remains a means to glorify its speaker.55

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Gibson (2004a). Hardie (1993: 110–11). 55 I would like to thank Antony Augoustakis for his help on this chapter at various stages in its development. 54

7 Hymnic Features in Statian Epic and the Siluae Bruce Gibson

INTRODUCTION This chapter examines Statius’ use of hymnic features in both the Siluae and in the epics. It may seem strange to consider the use of hymn in a poet such as Statius, whom one might regard as fundamentally literary in character1 and far removed from the world of archaic Greek hymns. As Alex Hardie has shown, however, the tradition of encomia and hymns is in Statius’ time flourishing throughout the Greek world: poems in praise of gods or other figures are regularly composed, setting a very high premium on the successful practice of forms which we should consider aligned with hymn.2 The association of hymn with epideictic is likely to have been extremely strong; thus it is no surprise to find that such categorizations as Menander’s later division (Men. Rh. 331.18–332.19 ed. Russell and Wilson) between praise of gods and of ‘mortal things’ ( a ŁÅ ) can in Statius’ time be paralleled in Quintilian’s discussion of epideictic (Inst. 3.7.6–10). While Plato remarks (Rep. 10.607a4) that the only forms of poetry that can be admitted to the city are hymns (oØ) to the gods and encomia to mortals, it is generally believed now that ‘hymn’ originally may have referred to any composition in hexameters, whether addressed to mortals or to gods.3 1 On the term ‘literary’ in approaches to Roman religion, see Feeney (1998: 141–2). On the Hellenization of native Roman genres, see Cairns (1972: 92–7); on prayer and hymns in Rome, see Hickson Hahn (2007) and Pighi (2009). 2 Hardie (1983: 85–91). 3 Cf. the usage of o to refer to the singing of Demodocus (Hom. Od. 8.429), and of the verb E in Theocritus to refer to poetry in praise both of gods and of mortals (Theoc. Id. 16.1–2).

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The history of ‘hymns’ and their development is a contested arena, an inevitable consequence of our own varied concepts of hymn and the extremely long time-frame during antiquity within which hymns are composed. Simon Pulleyn has offered a useful overview, where hymn begins as a hexameter composition, which then becomes a poem focused on a god, before being separated into one of a number of different types of song written for gods.4 Mary Depew has argued that deixis is a crucial feature of hymn, both in terms of original performance and for the commemorative aspect which would have characterized the inscription of a hymn.5 There is also some overlap between the terminology of ‘hymn’ and ‘prayer’ in classical literature:6 hymns often include an explicit section of prayer at the end, and have many features in common with prayers. Menander Rhetor moreover seems to include simple prayers within the wider category of hymn (Men. Rh. 333.24–6 Russell and Wilson).7 With Statius, a looser concept of the hymn, associated with praise of a god, can be most useful. Statius himself participates in the Capitoline contest (Silu. 3.5.31–3, 5.3.231–3).8 Though Quintilian’s comment that praise of Jove is its perpetual subject matter (Inst. 3.7.4) should probably be understood as solely referring to the oratorical portion of the agon musicus,9 Statius’ own poem on the Capitoline contest is likely to have been in praise of Jove, as indicated by his complaint about Jove’s ingratitude (Silu. 3.5.31–3).10 In the Alban games, where Statius was victorious, we know that he praised the emperor, for he was awarded the prize for singing of wars against the Germans and Dacians, a reference to Domitian’s campaigns (Silu. 4.2.65–7).11 These references to Statius’ own competitive singing provide a reminder that praise is an integral part of his own experience. It is thus reasonable to look for the exploitation of hymn in Statius’ poetry.

4 See Pulleyn (1997: 43–55). Evans (2001: 42–7) argues that the concept has a ceremonial dimension even in its earliest appearances. 5 Depew (2000: 77). 6 Cf. Hickson Hahn (2007: 236): ‘For the Romans . . . there was no distinction between prayer and spell and poetry and song . . . ’ 7 See further Pulleyn (1997: 48). 8 On the Capitoline contest, see Caldelli (1993); Hardie (2003: 126–34); Gibson (2006a: 352–3), on Silu. 5.3.231. 9 Caldelli (1993: 68). 10 On the exact dating of these games, see Gibson (2006a: 261–2). Newlands (2002: 114, 196) sees the mention of Jove here as a reference to the emperor. 11 See Coleman (1988: 101).

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THE EXPLOITATION OF HYMN IN THE SILUAE The predominantly encomiastic character of Statius’ Siluae provides a natural point of departure for exploring the influence of hymn.12 Accordingly, I will begin by looking at Statius’ use of hymnic techniques in his treatment of gods in the occasional poems before going on to consider his presentation of the emperor. This will then serve as a transition to the epics, where I shall concentrate almost exclusively on the Thebaid. It is worth keeping in mind that the hexameter is not only the metre of Statian epic but also the principal metre of the Siluae. The first poem of the third book of the Siluae is a good starting-point, for it contains two kletic hymns.13 This unusual feature arises from the poem’s context, the rededication of a shrine to Hercules at Surrentum by Statius’ friend Pollius Felix, who has created a much more lavish edifice for the god. But Statius’ use of hymnic features is also linked to the manner in which time is employed. The poem opens with an address to Hercules, informing him that Pollius is rebuilding the temple (Silu. 3.1.1–7), which is followed by a summons to the god in a kletic hymn (23–48). The poem breaks off with an epic invocation of the Muse Calliope (49–51), which signals the start of Statius’ account of how the temple is rebuilt by Pollius. At length the poet describes the founding of a small festival, including athletic games, and then invites the god to be present at and participate in the contest (154–62), before an epiphany of the god who agrees to take part.14 The poem thus presents a pattern according to which the god is invited to appear and then take part in the festival in his honour. This not only recalls examples, such as the epiphany of Athena in Callimachus’ Fifth Hymn, where the goddess’ epiphany follows a previous request for her presence (Callim. H. 5.33 and 137),15 but also evokes the structure of the worship of Hercules in Aeneid 8, where Aeneas’ arrival whilst the Arcadians are engaged in ritual activity (Virg. Aen. 8.102–12) is followed by an aetion of their worship of Hercules 12 The Siluae provide one instance of a stand-alone hymn, 5.4, which can be seen as kletic hymn summoning the god Somnus; see Laguna Mariscal (1990); Gibson (1966; 2006a: 379–82). 13 Hardie (1983: 125–8) views the poem as an anathematikon, citing examples such as IG XIV.1389 (Marcellus’ poem celebrating Herodes Atticus, who had dedicated land to Athena and Opis, with a kletic address to the goddesses). Hardie (1983: 127) also comments on the second kletic hymn at the end of the poem; cf. Newlands (1991: 450). 14 Hardie (1983: 127–8). 15 See Bulloch (1985: 244) for parallels for the announcement of a god’s epiphany and the instruction to worshippers to receive the god.

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(8.185–275), before a hymnic address to the god (8.293–302). Although Carole Newlands has suggested that Pollius’ worship of Hercules has little to do with Aeneid 8,16 Statius strikingly keeps the structure of the episode in Virgil, so that Pollius’ cult of the god seems oddly reminiscent of and yet different from the public cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima in Rome. Statius is concerned to evoke an atmosphere of simplicity in the address to Hercules: the god is asked to arrive without his warlike accoutrements (Silu. 3.1.34–6), which, as Newlands has rightly pointed out, reflects a contrast with the association of Hercules with violence.17 Aeneid 8, however, may still be at issue, as Statius applies the simple values of the Roman past to Pollius, who is said to have created for the god a ‘fortunate and simple home’ (Silu. 3.1.32). Paradoxically, Pollius has made the city of Puteoli opulent and has created a luxurious temple for Hercules, but the adaptation of Virgil’s structure in Aeneid 8 of ritual, aetion, and then more ritual is effected through Statius’ use of two kletic hymns, thereby enhancing Pollius’ association with a religious piety characteristic of a remote pre-Roman past. Pollius is a rich benefactor, but he also wins credit as a natural successor to Evander’s simple cult of Hercules. We shall see later on how Statius provides an entirely different reworking of the same episode from Aeneid 8 in his Thebaid. In Siluae 3.2, hymnic elements are also exploited. Statius addresses a kletic hymn to Isis (101–26), a deity appropriate both for her connections with the eastern regions where Maecius Celer will be travelling and for links with the Flavians.18 Since these hymnic aspects have been discussed in some detail by Gabriel Laguna Mariscal in his commentary,19 I shall merely note here how Statius incorporates references to the contemporary Roman world and Domitian into an address to Isis: the emperor is referred to as the ‘Latin leader’ (Silu. 3.2.104), and the whole context is one of evoking both the past and the prospect of future successes for the Flavians in the East. Thus the address to the goddess enhances and lends grandeur to Statius’ presentation of Maecius Celer’s future service for the emperor in the East.

16 Newlands (1991: 446) notes that there is no reference to the slaying of Cacus, and argues that the Virgilian passages evoked are the storm in Aeneid 4 and Vulcan’s making of the arms of Aeneas in Aeneid 8. 17 Newlands (1991: 444). 18 See Hardie (1983: 158) (the address to Isis) and 189 (Flavian connections); on the Flavians and Egypt, see Darwall–Smith (1996: 139–53). 19 Laguna Mariscal (1992: 229–36); cf. Hardie (1983: 158).

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DOMITIAN AND HYMNIC ELEMENTS When addressing Domitian in the Siluae, as we shall see, Statius does not use his own voice, as he does in his address to Sleep (Silu. 5.4) or in the addresses to Hercules and Isis (Silu. 3.1 and 3.2). Instead, Statius opts for the direct speech of various characters.20 The prefaces nevertheless crucially present Domitian in religious terms, in anticipation of the use of hymnic elements within the poems.21 Thus in the preface to Siluae 1, Statius refers to the first poem as follows: primus libellus sacrosanctum habet testem, sumendum enim erat ‘a Ioue principium’. centum hos uersus, quos in ecum maximum feci, indulgentissimo imperatori postero die quam dedicauerat opus tradere iussus sum.22 (Silu. 1 pr. 16–19) ‘The first poem (libellus) has a sacrosanct witness, for I had to take “my beginning from Jove”. These hundred verses which I have composed on the great horse, I was ordered to hand over to the most indulgent emperor on the day after the dedication of the work.’

Here, the emperor is described as a sacrosanct witness, and also as Jove, evoking Hellenistic court poetry, as Newlands rightly notes.23 Statius also draws on Aratus’ hymnic beginning to Jove, KŒ ˜Øe IæåŁÆ (‘Let us begin from Zeus’, Arat. 1), and the tradition of echoes of this passage by Latin authors.24 The comparison between Jove and the emperor is already long-established in various contexts, such as Ovid’s exile poetry.25 The reference to an actual encounter with the emperor might even convey Domitian’s presence as an epiphany. In the preface to the fourth book, Statius explains how he has begun each of his books with an invocation of the emperor. The language is again religious:

20

For an overview of the speeches in the Siluae, see van Dam (1984: 507–8). On Domitian and divinity in the Siluae, see now Seager (2010). 22 Though many editors have printed ausus sum (which I myself supported in Gibson 2006b: 168), Sandstroem’s emendation of M’s iussum, a very strong case for reading the Renaissance correction iussus sum has been made by Seager (2010: 370–72). 23 Newlands (2002: 53–4), comparing Theoc. Id. 17.1 and also Callim. H. 1 (to Zeus); cf. Geyssen (1996: 145 n. 1). For discussion of the opening of Theoc. Id. 17 in terms of genre, see Fantuzzi (2000: 142–3). Another important strand of Hellenistic hymn is Cleanthes’ hymn to Zeus; see Thom (2005). 24 Newlands (2002: 54) notes the echo of Virg. Ecl. 3.60. Cf. Germ. Arat. 1–2; Calp. Ecl. 4.82–6, with Gibson (2004b: 5–6); and Quint. Inst. 10.1.46, with Gibson (2006b: 168–9). 25 On Ov. Tr. 2.33–42, see Ingleheart (2010: 82). 21

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reor equidem aliter quam inuocato numine maximi imperatoris nullum opusculum meum coepisse; sed hic liber tres habet . . . (Silu. 4 pr. 2–3) ‘Indeed I think that I have never begun any little work of mine without invoking the divinity of our most great emperor; but this book has three of them . . . ’

This claim is usually interpreted as a reference to Statius’ publication of his first three books of the Siluae simultaneously,26 since books 2 and 3 do not begin with Domitian. The first and fourth books of the Siluae evoke hymnic practice simply by virtue of using religious language in the prefaces,27 and by having the emperor as the subject matter of the opening poems (the first three in the case of book 4). Within the poems of the Siluae themselves, however, Statius’ technique in approaching the emperor in hymnic fashion is to assign direct speech to characters. For instance, Manlius Curtius, associated with the Lacus Curtius,28 makes a direct address to Domitian, praising him for saving Rome (Silu. 1.1.74–83). Curtius begins appropriately with salue, magnorum proles genitorque deorum (‘Hail, offspring and father of great gods’, 1.1.74), before explaining how his site is fortunate in having this opportunity to know of the emperor’s presence. John Geyssen has observed that this is a moment of revelation of Domitian’s divinity in the poem,29 and though one might argue that Statius’ use of a Ioue principium in the preface has already conveyed this, the sudden direct address to the emperor certainly underlines a sense of his divinity.30 In 1.1.79, reference to Domitian’s achievements, including the bella Iouis (‘wars of Jove’), evokes the gigantomachy, emphasizing the conceit from the preface which identifies Domitian with Jove, whilst at the same time alluding to the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, where Domitian had fought against his Vitellian opponents during the civil war.31 The simultaneous identification and differentiation of Domitian and Jove is continued after this speech, for Statius speaks at the end of the poem of how the statue is immune from the fire of Jove (1.1.91), a glance obviously at the end of

26 See Coleman (1988: 55–6); pace Nauta (2002: 285–9), who argues for separate publication of the first three books in 92, 93, and 94 ce. 27 For another example of religious language applied to Domitian, cf. Silu. 5.1 ep. 8–10, where Statius uses the analogy of gods and priests in referring to Domitian and his associates. On the letter preceding Silu. 5.1, which is not a preface to the whole book, see Gibson (2006a: xxviii–xxx, 76). 28 On this identification of ‘Curtius’ within the poem, see Geyssen (1996: 104–5). 29 Geyssen (1996: 106). 30 On the Du-Stil (second-person address to a god), see Norden (1913: 143–63). 31 For bella Iouis, cf. Theb. 1.21–2 and Gibson (2006a: 343–4) on Silu. 5.3.195–9.

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Ovid’s Metamorphoses (15.871–2), but also an indication of the blurring of the identification. Statius’ decision not to speak in his own voice, but to allow the venerable figure of Curtius to do so, is noteworthy. Domitian’s status as a deity makes it appropriate for him to be addressed by other gods or lofty figures. This is confirmed by Siluae 4.1, one of the three Domitianic poems at the beginning of the book, celebrating Domitian’s seventeenth consulate (1 January 95 ce). Janus’ speech to the emperor is comparable to the kind of speech which a consul might make to the emperor on assuming his consulship.32 Even before Janus’ speech, however, there is much emphasis on general rejoicing in Rome. Lines 3–4, where Domitian is said to rise with the new sun,33 might imply a religious dimension to the events, after the description of Domitian as ‘opening the year’ in line 2, evoking the god Janus himself. Most of the poem is the speech of Janus, which, like that of Curtius, opens with a direct address: salue, magne parens mundi, qui saecula mecum/instaurare paras (‘Hail, great parent of the universe, who are preparing to inaugurate the era with me’, 4.1.17–18). The advantage for Statius in avoiding an address to Domitian in his own voice is apparent: only a grander figure like Janus can be appropriate on the occasion of the new year. Moreover, ‘occasional poetry’ (I use the phrase with no censorious slant) exploits evocation of hymnic practice, since by its very nature it can recreate the notion of performance with greater facility than a poem which is less tied to a particular context.34 Thus Janus uses the technique of deixis, asking the emperor if he is able to see the enhanced appearance of the temple (Silu. 4.1.23); this recalls descriptions of ritual settings within the context of hymns. In Siluae 4.3 too, a poem on the new Via Domitiana from Sinuessa to Puteoli,35 figures other than Statius himself directly address Domitian:36 the river Volturnus thus thanks the emperor (4.3.72–94),37 a speech that echoes the one exchanged by Delos and Leto in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3.50–88), where Delos’ concerns about the modest nature of her location are assuaged with the promise of the improvements which the 32

Hardie (1983: 193). On astronomical imagery in Hellenistic encomium, see Coleman (1988: 66). 34 For the mimetic dimension of hymn, and performance context, see Depew (2000: 77–9). 35 For general discussions of the poem, see Coleman (1988: 102–5); Newlands (2002: 284–325); Smolenaars (2006); Lóio (2012). 36 Newlands (2002: 301) notes the use in the poem of ‘two internal dramatic narrators . . . who are thus distanced from the poetic self ’. 37 For Volturnus’ speech, see Newlands (2002: 301–9); Smolenaars (2006: 229–33); Lóio (2012: 281–4). 33

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god’s patronage will bring. In Callimachus (H. 4.266–73), Delos also makes a speech exulting in the birth of Apollo and rejoicing in his future favour. The comparison with Statius should perhaps not be pushed too far, but geographical features do engage with the gods in the Homeric Hymns (contrast Homeric Hymn to Apollo 3.375–87, where Apollo’s anger causes the stream Telphousa to be covered with rocks and her spring to be hidden). The same poem includes a speech from the Sibyl to the emperor, which illustrates the kind of scene-setting which also occurs in Callimachean hymns:38 sed quam fine uiae recentis imo, qua monstrat ueteres Apollo Cumas, albam crinibus infulisque cerno? uisu fallimur? an sacris ab antris profert Chalcidicas Sibylla laurus? cedamus; chely, iam repone cantus: uates sanctior incipit, tacendum est. (4.3.114–20) ‘But whom do I see with white hair and fillets at the far end of the new road, where Apollo marks out old Cumae? Am I deceived in my gaze? Or does the Sibyl bring forth Chalcidic laurels from the sacred caves? Let us yield; lyre, now put aside your songs: a more sacred bard begins, we must be silent.’

This passage can be compared with Callimachus, Hymn 5, where the poet creates an atmosphere of religious expectation at the poem’s start, or with the opening of his second Hymn, where there is again an anticipation of the appearance of a god and a request for ritual silence (H. 2.17). Statius’ description of the Sibyl as uates sanctior plays on the ambiguity of uates as poet or as priest, while the phrase also points to the hymnic aspect of Statius’ approach to Domitian. In her speech (4.3.124–63),39 the Sibyl refers to her earlier prophecy of the construction of the Via Domitiana, which she combines with an expression of epiphany (en! hic est deus, ‘lo! here is the god!’, 4.3.128). The language also recalls the Virgilian Sibyl’s deus ecce deus! (Virg. Aen. 6.46), which precedes Aeneas’ direct prayer to Apollo (Aen. 6.56–76).40 The Sibyl affirms that Jove has entrusted no better person than Domitian

38

Smolenaars (2006: 234–6). On the Sibyl’s speech, see Newlands (2002: 309–23) and Smolenaars (2006: 237–44). 40 Coleman (1988: 131) notes the revelatory language, comparing Virg. Aen. 6.791; cf. Newlands (2002: 313–14) (who compares Lucr. 5.8) and Smolenaars (2006: 237–8). 39

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with earthly rule since the time of Aeneas.41 Further use of deixis in 4.3.134–6, with the repeated hic, as the Sibyl praises the powers of Domitian, provides an appropriate background for the prophetess’ direct address to the emperor: salue, dux hominum et parens deorum (‘Hail, lord of men and parent of gods’, 4.3.139).42 Once again Statius uses hymnic features in dealing with Domitian, but refrains from using his own voice to do so in the Siluae.

DOMITIAN AND HYMNIC LANGUAGE IN THE EPICS Paradoxically, there is far more about Domitian in the Siluae than in Statius’ epics, even though the former is a lower form of poetry than mythological epic.43 Statius opens the Thebaid and the Achilleid with a recusatio, putting off writing about Domitian as too grand a topic.44 Nevertheless, in spite of his stated intention to postpone proper treatment of Domitian, Statius addresses him directly in hymnic fashion in the epics, whereas in the Siluae such utterances are assigned to characters within the poems.45 In the proem to the Thebaid,46 Statius will limit his work’s subject-matter to the house of Cadmus (1.16–33), for he is not yet ready to sing of Domitian’s wars against the Germans and the Dacians (1.17–22). This may seem a conventional refusal, but Statius goes on to address the emperor directly with tuque, o Latiae decus addite famae/ quem . . . (‘And you, glory added to Latium’s fame, whom . . . ’, 1.22–3), a classic hymnic opening in the Du-Stil, with a relative pronoun following.47 Statius also discusses possible celestial locations for Domitian (1.24–30), effectively reversing the trope of mentioning places on earth where a god might tarry.48 The poet then makes almost a kletic appeal to Domitian, capped in 1.31 with the recognition that Domitian is ruler of sea, land, and sky. Before reverting to Theban subject-matter, Statius

41 For the relationship between Zeus/Jupiter and kings, see Nisbet and Hubbard (1970: 164–5) on Hor. Carm. 1.12.50; Nisbet and Rudd (2004: 9) on Hor. Carm. 3.1.5–6. 42 Coleman (1988: 132) compares Enn. Ann. 203 Skutsch. 43 Gibson (2006b: 167–73). 44 On Statius’ use of recusatio, see Nauta (2006: 30–37) and Gibson (2006b: 169). 45 For the detachable quality of Statius’ praise of Domitian in the two epic prologues, see Dominik (1994a: 142). 46 See further Nauta (2006: 30–31). On the proem of the Thebaid, see Vessey (1973: 60–67); Henderson (1998: 215–16); Ripoll (1998: 515–18). 47 See further Norden (1913: 168–76). 48 Cf. Luc. 1.45–62 for postponement of Nero’s deification; see Roche (2009: 138–44).

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anticipates a future song for Domitian, echoing the frequent endings of Homeric Hymns, where the poet promises a future song about the god, as well as the end of Theocritus, Idyll 17 (135–7), where the poet envisages that perhaps he will recall Ptolemy in the future ( ÆØ, ‘I will remember’, Id. 17.136).49 Even though the Thebaid will not be about Domitian, Statius still opens the work with hymnic language addressed to the emperor in his own voice. The Achilleid’s shorter proem conventionally begins with an address to the Muse,50 and the poet’s wish to treat the whole of Achilles’ life (Ach. 1.1–7), followed by an address to Apollo. As in the Thebaid, however, Statius draws on hymnic practice in the address to the emperor in (1.14–19), invoking him by tu (‘you’), and then continuing with two relative clauses before a direct request for the emperor’s pardon and another glance back at the old hymnic tradition of promising another song in honour of Domitian (magnusque tibi praeludit Achilles, ‘and great Achilles is your prelude’, 1.19). Both Statian epics thus open with hymnic addresses to the emperor; contrast, for example, the less direct opening of Georgics 3, where Virgil anticipates a future work on Augustus with his description of the poetic temple, but does not address Augustus in the second person.51 Thus Statius’ epic invocations of Domitian strikingly combine hymnic features with recusatio, whilst also echoing the older concept of a hymn as a proem to another poem.

THE WIDER EXPLOITATION OF HYMNIC FEATURES IN THE THEBAID Let us now turn to the use of hymnic or prayer motifs within the primary narrative. The poem offers many examples of hymnic utterances by characters.52 The first aspect I shall explore is how Statius uses versions

49 See Hunter (2003: 195–6), who cites the following: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 2.495, Homeric Hymn to Apollo 3.545–6, Homeric Hymn to Hermes 4.579–80; for discussion of theories of hymns as proems, see Evans (2001: 54–7). For hymn as mnema, see Depew (2000: 69–77). 50 On the Achilleid’s proem, see Heslin (2005: 71–82). 51 Cf. Lucan’s direct address to Nero (Luc. 1.38–66), and Valerius Flaccus’ address to Vespasian (V. Fl. 1.7–21; see further Ripoll 1998: 504–9) and Zissos (2008: 81–95); neither passage has any suggestion of a future work to come. 52 See Dominik (1994b: 88–119) on ‘prayers’ in the Thebaid, for which he gives a figure of 30 examples (88 with n. 15); see also Hubert’s extensive discussion in Ch. 6 above.

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of hymns as a means of contributing to the atmosphere of moral breakdown, which characterizes the fratricidal war for control of Thebes. In Thebaid 10 Capaneus attempts to challenge Jupiter, as he ascends the walls of Thebes, and ultimately fails. Before that, however, book 9 offers a revealing passage, where Capaneus addresses his right hand after Hippomedon’s death, as Ann Hubert has already discussed in her essay: ‘ades o mihi dextera, tantum/tu praesens bellis et ineuitabile numen,/te uoco, te solam superum contemptor adoro’ (‘Help me, right hand, my only present and inevitable deity in battle, I call upon you; you alone I, contemner of the High Ones, adore’, Theb. 9.548–50). Michael Dewar has noted that this address is like a prayer, and compares Mezentius’ simpler address in Virgil’s Aeneid (10.773–4).53 Capaneus’ entire utterance is cast in a form that produces the incongruity of having an opponent of the gods address a hymn to his right hand, with its typical hymnic features such as anaphora and use of o as well.54 A kletic address directed at a spear is a powerful pointer to the more general breakdown of values and conventions in the Thebaid. At Thebaid 1.56–87,55 Oedipus addresses the powers of the Underworld (1.56) and the Fury Tisiphone (1.59), strongly evoking a poetics of nefas.56 At the same time, the invocation recalls Virgil’s request in his own voice to the powers of the Underworld in Aeneid 6: di, sontes animas angustaque Tartara poenis qui regitis, tuque umbrifero Styx liuida fundo, quam uideo,57 multumque mihi consueta uocari adnue, Tisiphone, peruersaque uota secunda . . . (Theb. 1.56–9) ‘Gods that rule guilty souls and Tartarus too narrow for punishments; and you, Styx, livid in your shadowy depth, whom I see, and Tisiphone, on whom I so often call, give me your nod and favour my warped desires . . . ’ Di, quibus imperium est animarum, umbraeque silentes et Chaos et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late, sit mihi fas audita loqui, sit numine uestro pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas. (Aen. 6.264–7)

53 Dewar (1991: 161–2); cf. Dominik (1994b: 100). On Capaneus and Virgil’s Mezentius, see Ripoll (1998: 340–41) and McNelis (2007: 141). 54 Cf. Norden (1913: 144 and 149–60). 55 On this speech, see Hubert, Ch. 6 above, and Dominik (1994b: 102–4), who calls it an example of protreptic prayer. 56 Ganiban (2007: 38–41). 57 For the paradoxical emphasis on seeing here, see Ganiban (2007: 39 n. 66).

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Like Virgil, Statius’ Oedipus begins with an address to the Underworld gods (di) and refers to one of the rivers of the Underworld. But whereas Virgil asks for permission (sit mihi fas) to open the Underworld by revealing in poetry what lies beneath the earth,58 Oedipus opens the Underworld physically by summoning Tisiphone and asking her to favour his perverse requests. The concern for fas in Virgil is overturned by Oedipus, who asks Tisiphone to give him that which is nefas (1.85–6), the peruersa uota, as Ann Hubert has discussed in Chapter 6 above. Oedipus has already listed his crimes, including the murder of Laius and his marriage to Jocasta, with a series of si-clauses. Reminding a god of previous good conduct is a familiar technique: Pulleyn offers the speech of Chryses to Apollo in Iliad 1 as an example of this da-quiadedi (‘give because I have given’) type, where Chryses recalls previous benefits conferred on the god (Il. 1.37–42).59 Similarly, Oedipus’ speech implies past connections with Tisiphone (1.60–61), since he claims that the Fury has cherished him from the moment of his birth; Oedipus even notes that he has obtained his children for Tisiphone (natosque tibi, scis ipsa, paraui, ‘[if] I got children, for you, you know it yourself ’, 1.70).60 This is followed by a direct kletic address to Tisiphone (huc ades, ‘come hither’, 1.81). Thus the presence of hymnic elements in Oedipus’ speech underlines the overthrow of moral norms. Statius’ Oedipus is here developing the technique used in Juno’s address to Allecto in Virgil (Aen. 7.331–40), where, as Nicholas Horsfall points out, the goddess addresses the Fury with prayer language.61 Oedipus’ address is even more shocking, since it is one from a mortal to Tisiphone. The sequel to Oedipus’ speech illustrates Statius’ ability to manipulate the conventions of prayer and hymn: talia dicenti crudelis diua seueros/ aduertit uultus (‘As he spoke such words, the cruel goddess’ severe gaze was turned towards him’, 1.88–9). The epithet crudelis creates an initial expectation that the goddess will turn away her gaze from Oedipus. Compare, for instance, Athena’s refusal, after the Trojan women offer her a robe in Homer (Il. 6.311) and Virgil (diua solo fixos oculos auersa 58

On Virgil’s invocation, see Norden (1957: 208–10) and Hickson (1993: 53–4). See further Pulleyn (1997: 16–38). Cf. the notum iter ad Thebas (‘the well-known path to Thebes’, 1.101) taken by Tisiphone immediately afterwards. 61 Horsfall (2000: 230–34). 59 60

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tenebat, ‘the goddess, her face turned away, held her eyes fixed on the ground’, Aen. 1.482). Tisiphone’s cruelty, however, resides in granting Oedipus his request, so that Tisiphone’s gesture (aduertit uultus) is the opposite of the rejection of the Trojan women’s prayers by the goddess (auersa in Virgil). Oedipus’ address to Tisiphone, and the paradoxically cruel decision of the Fury to listen, provide a programmatic exposition of how relations between mortals and the gods will operate in the poem: the first interaction, not between a mortal and a god of the upper world, but with one of the Underworld, constitutes a powerful warning.62 Later on in Thebaid 1, a feast is held in honour of the impending marriages of Polynices and Tydeus to Adrastus’ daughters. After a brief ekphrasis of a cup used to offer libations (1.543–51),63 Statius describes how Adrastus hails all the gods, with especial attention to Apollo. Adrastus then begins to explain to his guests why Apollo is worshipped (1.557–8), an obvious parallel to Evander’s explanation to the Trojans in Aeneid 8 of the worship of Hercules, which provides the origin not only of the cult celebrated by Evander but also of the cult of the Ara Maxima in Rome (see above for Statius’ very different exploitation of Aeneid 8 in Silu. 3.1). Evander’s account of Hercules’ destruction of Cacus and the establishment of the cult is followed by a libation (Aen. 8.278–9) and then a hymn performed by the Salii, qui carmine laudes/Herculeas et facta ferunt (‘who relate in song the praises and deeds of Hercules’, Aen. 8.287–8).64 The first part of the praises of Hercules in Virgil is given in indirect discourse (Aen. 8.288–93), but there follows a second-person address to the god in classic hymnic fashion, stating his various victories, with anaphora of tu, and ending with a request to the god for his presence (Aen. 8.293–302). Statius keeps the Virgilian pattern, since Adrastus similarly provides an aetion of Apollo’s cult (1.557–672): Apollo fathers a child by Crotopus’ daughter, who is slain by dogs, when he is left on his own.65 Apollo sends a monster, which is killed by Coroebus; the latter offers himself to Apollo after the god sends a plague as further collective punishment. Coroebus’ speech (1.643–61) might be regarded as the opposite of a hymn,66 since he refuses to acknowledge that he is a suppliant, attacks Apollo for being more 62 See Feeney (1991: 346–7) on Tisiphone’s responsiveness to Oedipus here. For other invocations of the Underworld powers, cf. Tiresias’ kletic address to the chthonic powers in 4.473–87 (and see Parkes, Ch. 9 below) or Adrastus’ hymnic address to Night (1.498–510). 63 See Keith’s analysis in Ch. 17 below. 64 McNelis (2007: 28). 65 On this episode, see Keith’s extensive analysis in Ch. 17 below. 66 On this speech as deuotio, see Dominik (1994b: 109–10). See further Vessey (1973: 135–6); McNelis (2007: 45); cf. Coffee (2009a: 215–16).

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concerned about the fate of a monster than with humans, and then accepts what he expects is an inevitable death from Apollo, if the god would only halt the plague. Thus Adrastus provides a very different kind of aetion from Evander’s account of the cult of Hercules, where Hercules’ destruction of the monstrous Cacus provides a general benefit. The negative character of Adrastus’ aetion inevitably colours Adrastus’ hymnic address to Apollo, which rounds off the book.67 This setpiece hymn is extremely conventional with its evocation of locations favoured by the god, his powers and attributes, before a request for the god’s presence, as McNelis has noted.68 But the contrast with the Hercules cult in Aeneid 8 and the immediate context of Adrastus’ narration, which has emphasized Apollo’s destructive vindictiveness, combine to undermine the hymn.69 Although this is a not uncommon way for Apollo to be considered,70 the earlier presentation of the divine council (1.197–302) does not here permit a favourable view of Apollo, whose vengeance against Argos is in keeping with Jupiter’s desire to bring about war and disaster in the action of the Thebaid itself.71 The Salian hymn in Virgil praises the heroism of Hercules; but there is little in the way of praise for Apollo in Adrastus’ narration, while Coroebus’ speech comes close to attacking Apollo. And whereas Virgil’s Salian hymn is a choral performance, Statius’ Adrastus is a single performer, implying a lack of collective Argive involvement with the god. Finally, the anachronistic cult names of Osiris and Mithras suggested for Apollo at the very end of the hymn sound a jarringly contemporary note far removed from the world of archaic hymn performance.72 At the end of Thebaid 2 Tydeus addresses Minerva (2.715–42), after the goddess has told him to spare Maeon, the last survivor from the fifty

67 For this hymn as an example of Sminthiac hymn, see Dominik (1994b: 91–8); see also the reading of Adrastus’ hymn in Taisne (1994: 259–63). On the wider parallel with the Aeneid, see McNelis (2007: 27–9). 68 McNelis (2007: 43). 69 McNelis (2007: 43); cf. Dominik (1994b: 94). 70 Rutherford (2001: 115–26) speaks of ‘paeanic ambiguity’. 71 On the divine council, see Hill (1990: 105–6); Feeney (1991: 348–9, 354–5); Dominik (1994a: 4–15); Delarue (2000: 245–7, 298–303); Hill (2008: 130–41). 72 Cf. Men. Rh. 445.26–446.6, ed. Russell and Wilson (1981), for titles attached to Apollo, including references to Mithras as a title used by the Persians and Horus by the Egyptians; see further Russell and Wilson (1981: 360–61). Vessey (1973: 134–6) sees the references to Osiris and Mithras as anticipating the positive actions of Theseus (a bull-slayer by virtue of the killing of the Minotaur) at the end of the poem; cf. Franchet d’Espèrey (1999: 357–60). Dominik (1994b: 95–7) argues for a more pessimistic interpretation. For a recent survey of Mithraism, see Gordon (2007).

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Thebans who ambushed him.73 After heaping together the dead and their weapons (2.707–12), Tydeus’ hymn of thanks is perfectly crafted,74 including Minerva’s warlike attributes,75 a request that she accept the offering (2.719), a list of possible places where she may be, and a promise of future offerings including a temple. Here the hymnic address to Minerva may come as a surprise, after Tydeus’ fight with Polynices (1.408–34) and his obvious relish for slaughter in the encounter with the fifty Thebans (2.527–681). Ultimately, however, Tydeus will not have the opportunity to provide Minerva with any temple, since he will die at the end of Thebaid 8, losing the immortality which Minerva would have offered him, after she sees him gnawing on the head of the Theban Melanippus. The hymn at the end of Thebaid 2 thus shows an unexpected dimension to Tydeus, who, like Adrastus, rounds off the book with a hymn, as Ann Hubert has discussed. It is noteworthy, however, that Tydeus has the same facility as Adrastus for fashioning such a wellformed address, especially when we are accustomed to seeing Adrastus as moderate and Tydeus as extreme.

CONCLUSION The two examples just discussed illustrate how conventional hymns can be incorporated in their entirety into the speech of characters, but need to be examined in the light of the wider context. I wish now to consider two examples where Statius uses hymnic motifs, but not complete hymns. My first example is from Thebaid 4 (383–404).76 Statius has been describing the Theban preparations for war, when a Bacchant suddenly appears in a frenzy (Theb. 4.377–82) and utters a prophecy (4.383–404), which arguably recalls the frenzied matrona’s speech at the end of Lucan’s first book (Luc. 1.678–94).77 Within the speech there are moments that evoke hymnic practice, though with reversals and variations. The speech begins with a conventional address to Bacchus, omnipotens Nysaee pater (‘all-powerful father from Nysa’, 4.383), which may

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On Minerva’s intervention, see Hershkowitz (1998a: 254–6). See further Feeney (1991: 366–7) and Hubert, Ch. 6 above. Cf. the defence of Tydeus’ carefully formed rhetoric in Mulder (1954: 354). 75 On the Gorgon shield in 2.715–17, see McNelis (2007: 58). 76 See Hardie (1993: 23–4); Dominik (1994b: 115–16); Ganiban (2007: 62–5); Parkes (2012: 206–14); and Parkes’ analysis in Ch. 9 below. 77 Hardie (1993: 23 n. 11); cf. Ganiban (2007: 62–3). On Lucan, see Roche (2009: 375–9). 74

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glance at the controversies on the birthplace of Dionysus expounded in the fragmentary Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (1.1–9).78 There is then an immediate reproach to the god, who has given up on his love of his ancestral home, yet even this is expressed in the relative clause style so often found in hymns (cui gentis auitae/pridem lapsus amor, ‘whose love for his ancestral people has long ago fallen away’, Theb. 4.383–4). Then there is a sudden shift to a lament that Bacchus’ descendants are planning war and ‘unspeakable kindred crimes’ (cognatumque nefas, 4.392). Instead of being summoned to defuse the crisis, as one might expect in a kletic hymn, Bacchus is asked to send the speaker as far away from Thebes as possible, to avoid her having to reveal what will happen. She attributes her frenzy to the god and reverts to a vision of bulls fighting, so that the address to Bacchus is then entirely abandoned, as she turns to addressing Polynices and Eteocles in anticipating the horror of the war to come (4.401–4).79 At the end of the speech the poet refers to Bacchus departing from her in almost a reverse epiphany (4.404–5). The speech begins with the characteristic features of hymnic language, but by the end of the Bacchant’s utterance it is no longer the god but the Theban brothers who are being addressed. Even though Bacchus is behind the inspiration of the Bacchant, his status as a god is not enhanced but diminished by this speech. My second example is an address to a mortal which nevertheless draws on the conventions of hymn: Evadne’s speech addressed to Theseus to secure his help against Creon’s denial of burial to the Argive dead (12.546–86).80 A significant part of the speech consists of narrations of events at Thebes and complaints about Creon’s conduct, but there are hymnic features as well. Thus the opening address to Theseus as belliger Aegide (‘warlike son of Aegeus’, 12.546) is followed by a relative clause describing the future opportunity for glory presented to him by Fortune in the plight of the Argive women (12.546–7). After a long complaint concerning the treatment of the dead, Evadne praises various victories of Theseus, framed in terms of his willingness to grant burial to the defeated (12.575–9). There is then a direct request for Theseus to act, on the grounds that he has previously given assistance to other places (12.580– 82), a variation on a common prayer motif of appealing to a god because he has previously conferred benefits.81 Evadne’s speech is described as 78

See West (2001). See further Ganiban (2007: 64–5), comparing Virg. Aen. 6.834 and 12.720–21. On Evadne’s speech, see also Hubert, Ch. 6 above. 81 On the topos of da-quia-dedisti (‘give because you have given’), see Pulleyn (1997: 17 with n. 3). 79 80

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preces (‘prayers’, 12.545), and Evadne herself uses similar language in expressing the hope that Athens may never have to make an appeal such as hers (et inuictae nil tale precentur Athenae, ‘and may Athens, undefeated, never pray for such a thing’, 12.586). These hymnic features may heighten our existing sense of Theseus as a godlike figure in this last book of the Thebaid; he is, for example, as Feeney notes, compared to Jove in a simile at 12.650–5582 (and also to Mars at 12.733–5), which may point to the manner in which the conventional gods have rather been eclipsed, first by the Underworld powers (as Tuttle, Manolaraki, and Hubert have discussed in their essays) and then by the mortal Theseus. Evadne’s appeal to Theseus moreover follows the women’s visit to the altar of Clementia in Athens, which is conspicuously presented as different from a normal cult in not having any image of the god or sacrifice (12.481–505).83 Yet, as has been pointed out effectively by Ganiban, the altar in Statius and the clementia of Theseus are not necessarily the same thing.84 Strikingly, for all Statius’ remarks on the cult of Clementia, rather conventional cult language is used very soon afterwards, as Evadne and the Argive women turn from the altar to marvel at the triumphator Theseus,85 and address their prayers to him. Evadne’s use of motifs associated with hymn in her speech to Theseus might suggest how traditional patterns of reciprocity and exchange between mortals and gods have broken down: the appeal made to Theseus—whose role has aspects of both princeps and god, as Federica Bessone discusses next—is ultimately the one which is able to lead to the war’s resolution. This last example is of interest, since it shows how even in epic poetry hymnic elements can be used in praise of a mortal. We are not so far here from the hymnic features used by Statius in the Siluae in addresses to the emperor. At the same time, as one would expect in primarily encomiastic poems, Statius can use hymnic language to address divinities (to Hercules and to Isis in Siluae 3.1 and 3.2). In the case of Domitian, however, Statius reserves the most obvious evocation of hymnic practice for the mouths of other characters in the Siluae, not addressing the emperor in hymnic fashion in his own voice. To conclude, Statius exploits hymns in 82 Feeney (1991: 357); cf. Braund (1996: 15), who also notes the divine resonance of Theseus’ own announcement of his presence at 12.594 (adsum, ‘I am present’). On Theseus’ character and on the contrast with Jupiter, see Bessone’s detailed discussion in Ch. 8 below. 83 On the ara, see Bessone, Ch. 8 above. 84 Ganiban (2007: 214–24, esp. 219); cf. Braund (1996: 9–16); Ripoll (1998: 426–51); Delarue (2000: 161–6); Coffee (2009a: 232–6). On the positive role of the ara and of Clementia, see Bessone’s extensive discussion in Ch. 8 below. 85 On the movement of the Argive women away from the altar (12.540–41), see Ganiban (2007: 220) and Coffee (2009a: 234).

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terms of their epideictic dimension in the Siluae and in the proems to the epics, but in the representational genre of epic, he is also able to use hymns both in terms of characterization and as a way of reflecting on the gods. It is an irony that the presence of hymnic features in the Thebaid in fact points to the moral weaknesses and flaws of the gods in that poem.86

86 I am indebted to Antony Augoustakis and to Catherine Ware for their comments, and to audiences in London and Tallahassee for valuable discussion.

8 Religion and Power in the Thebaid Federica Bessone

EPIC AND POWER, HUMAN AND DIVINE Religion and power interact constantly, not just in the Roman world. We know it well, in the United States and in Italy, even if we experience it differently: Robert Bellah’s Civil Religion in America (1967) has been republished in 2009 in the volume La religione civile in Italia e in America;1 the theme found a space in Italian newspapers after the inaugural speech of Barack Obama (20 January 2009) and is currently at the centre of a debate on the role of Catholic religion and the absence of a civil religion in Italian political life.2 The connection between religion and politics concerns social history, but also the history of literature. Among the poetic genres of Classical antiquity (and beyond), epic has a privileged relationship with power: the genre of arma uirum (‘the arms of heroes’), singing war and victory, lends itself to celebrating the political framework imposed by winners and the values on which it is founded. In Rome, epic discourse is related to political discourse and, from Virgil onwards, to imperial discourse. The ‘epic of winners’ (as David Quint defines it), which dominates the European tradition, is a model constructed in the Aeneid and contested by Lucan, who opposes to it, by a polemical gesture, an ‘epic of losers’.3 In the Augustan age, political authority promotes the role of epic poetry as the moulder of national identity and assigns to it a prestigious cultural function: ‘your Aeneid,’ Ovid says to Augustus in Tristia 2.533.

1

Bellah (1967), repr. in Bortolini (2009), together with an essay on Le cinque religioni dell’Italia moderna (original edn 1974). 2 3 Stille (2009); Mancuso (2009). Quint (1993).

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Moreover, the epic genre as an ‘interweaving of divine and human stories’4 gives a doubled representation of power, as it matches the assertion of human power with the designs of divine power; the latter provides an authorization and a paradigm for the former. Cosmos and imperium: the order of the world guaranteed by divine authority is paralleled by the political order, which replicates on earth the hierarchical structure of the universe, of which it is part. This is another scheme reversed by Lucan: in the De bello ciuili, the catastrophe of civil war, the end of republican libertas, and the beginning of the empire are accompanied by the negation of divine providence and by the removal of the divine machinery of epos.5 In the epic tradition, the evolution of literary forms goes together with the transformation of the ideas and images of power, human and divine. The relationship between ‘epic and empire’ (the title of Quint’s book) is an example of the interaction between genres and power, which I shall investigate here: not only a social confrontation between literary and political authority—between intellectuals and power—but a relationship between structures and representations of power and structures of poetry, between sociopolitical (or theological) and poetic forms; a relationship that connects literary discourse, through complex cultural, ideological, and aesthetic mediations, with political and religious discourse.

THE BROKEN EPIC: FORM AND IDEOLOGY The Thebaid follows in the footsteps of the Aeneid really ‘from a distance’, as Statius proclaims (12.816–17). A century of imperial and literary history divides the Flavian poet from his predecessor and brings him closer to Seneca and Lucan—that is, to the forms in which epic and tragedy have elaborated on the experience of autocracy and reflected upon the nature and dangers of absolute power. The Thebaid is, in great part, an epic of nefas: by reversing Virgilian formulas, it is informed by the negative attitude of the De bello ciuili and models itself on the poetics of tragedy. Through the eleventh book, the Thebaid is an epic with neither winners nor losers: the war between brothers, tragically impious, 4

Diom. GLK 1.483.27. Feeney (2007: 135): ‘Both Virgil and Lucan understand how profoundly the sanction of the empire is bound up with its religion, even if one of them is trying to support the nexus and the other to undo it.’ 5

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turns out to be also tragically useless (nil actum bello, ‘war has achieved nothing’, 12.442). And yet the twelfth book at last transforms Statius’ poem into an epic of the winner: by killing the new tyrant, Creon, Theseus imposes a solution on the Theban story and an epic closure to the narrative. The ending aligns itself with the ending of the Aeneid; and, like the ending of the Aeneid, it makes the interpretation of the whole poem problematic. Statian criticism follows in the footsteps of its Virgilian counterpart: with regard to the role of Theseus and Clementia, it divides itself into optimists, pessimists, and pluralists.6 As I have argued elsewhere,7 I believe that the Thebaid is a discourse on power, and that it inscribes in itself the consciousness of a crisis: the broken structure of the poem makes pessimism and exemplarity coexist. The tragedy of tyranny staged in the first eleven books is contrasted with an ideological proposal: an attempt to re-establish the values on which the imperial institution is based. Statius recasts Euripides’ two plays, The Phoenician Women and, in the closing book, The Suppliant Women; as in the Greek drama, he contrasts the degenerate power of Thebes with the political ideal embodied by Athens and its ruler. Theseus is no longer imagined as the founder of democracy, but is restored as a clement king, opposed to the inclemency of Creon. The political discourse of The Suppliant Women is thus updated to imperial Rome: the constitutional debate which opposes democracy to tyranny is turned into an ethical–political discussion of the good and bad uses of monarchy. The distinction is now that between king and tyrant. What separates the two is the exercise of power founded on clemency.8 In the Thebaid, epic form and political discourse coincide; the fracture between the two is crucial for our understanding of the poem. The two antithetical and asymmetrical parts of the epic are to each other as the De clementia is to Seneca’s tragedies: they form two facets, positive and negative, of the same discourse on absolute power. The condemnation of tyranny and the exaltation of clement kingship set up an oppositional rhetoric, typical of discourses on power: in the search for exemplarity, the Thebaid has almost the ambition of becoming a speculum principis (‘the emperor’s mirror’). At the same time, the splitting of the epos gives poetic form to the experience of a crisis: it is from the depths of pessimism 6 See Tuttle, Ch. 4 above, as well as Dee, Ch. 10 below, who argues for the lack of ritual cleansing by the poem’s end. 7 Bessone (2011). 8 Pace Bernstein’s analysis of Theseus in Ch. 13 below, who argues that ‘this king is subject to the same passions that give rise to the brothers’ destructive civil war’.

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that Statius makes a positive proposal emerge by an effort to reconstruct the imperial ideal. A professional poet in Flavian Rome, Statius experiments with mythological epic poetry as a way of talking about power alternative to encomiastic poetry. In the Siluae, the misery of Nero’s tyranny and of the civil wars is opposed to the greatness of the empire under the Flavian restoration. In the Thebaid, the contrast between Thebes and Athens suggests the perennial coexistence of opposing potentialities in the very nature of absolute power. Thebes represents the dark side of Rome, as in Attic tragedy it stands as the alter ego of Athens. Rome is and can be an ideal Athens with an ecumenical dimension, but has also been, and may risk being again, a new Thebes. The repression of the negative, which connotes on the surface the ‘poesia al presente’ of the Siluae, contrasts with a largely negative epic, which in a problematic sense elaborates on literary tradition and historical experience.

RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE The crisis expressed by the division of the poem into two parts also concerns the theological and religious dimension. The unitary design, which in the Aeneid makes narrative and providence coincide, is now disrupted. Jupiter’s plan appears restricted to a destructive course, namely to punish by war the sins of Thebes and Argos. A positive aim is excluded from sight for a great part of the poem.9 By means of a crescendo, the first eleven books lead to the horror of the fratricidal duel. In the twelfth, Theseus leads a just war against Thebes, kills Creon, and is welcomed into the city as liberator. The overall design of the epos up to its last turn is never announced, except for a cryptic remark in the ninth book: in a rebuking tone, Juno reminds the king of the gods of his promise of an Athenian intervention, never mentioned before in the narrative (ubi Cecropiae post proelia flammae,/Theseos ignis ubi est?, ‘Where are Cecropian flames after battles, where Theseus’ fire?’, 9.518–19). Theseus’ intervention must look surprising, like that of a deus ex machina;10 furthermore, the shift in the last book occurs in the absence of the gods: when Theseus appears, there is no more trace of Jupiter. Before the nefas of the brothers is carried out, the god has already left the stage. The fratricidal duel is part of Jupiter’s punishment plan but

9

On Jupiter, see Tuttle, Ch. 4 above.

10

Braund (1996).

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is in itself a nefas, a culmination of impiety that not even Jupiter wants to see. The responsibility for staging the fratricidal furor is left to the Furies, the Muses of tragedy. But Statius goes even further. On the battleground, humans remain alone: even the Furies withdraw at last, because human furor is mightier than theirs. Once the Olympian gods, the infernal deities, and the allegorical personifications have disappeared, the human characters themselves complete the action of the poem: in the eleventh book they accomplish evil better than the Furies, and in the twelfth they will accomplish good better than Jupiter. The narrative’s progressive concentration on human nature is the most daring novelty of the Thebaid.11 In a recent synthesis, Denis Feeney discerns in this ‘disturbing’ epic representation of human and divine relations ‘a vision of human experience which is related only obliquely to the experience of empire’.12 And yet I believe that, in a different sense, Statius’ epic innovation is profoundly related to the experience of empire. Like the political discourse, the religious discourse of the Thebaid traces a route of crisis and reconstruction and attempts to recast imperial ideology as a type of civil religion.

GODS AND MEN The divine machinery that drives the Thebaid towards nefas does not preside over the solution of the story. It is the human world which dominates the ending and, in the name of the absent gods, takes over responsibility for the cosmic order. Various factors contribute to the boldness of an epic design so distant from the Aeneid. The gods of the poem are discredited, Jupiter above all.13 The theme of fratricidal war enhances the dissatisfaction with traditional theology already voiced by Virgil, at the moment when war in Latium is regarded as a civil war (Aen. 12.503–4). Coming after Ovid and Lucan, Statius restores the divine machinery of epos, but not its dignity and effectiveness: most of all, he

11

Feeney (1991: 359–62, 389–91). Feeney (2007: 135). 13 Feeney (1991: 346–7, 353–8); Delarue (2000: 291–338; 2006: 110–11). Pace the Stoic interpretation offered by Vessey (1973: 82–91), a wholly negative image of the god is constructed by Dominik (1994a: 1–4 and passim). Cf. also Hill (1990; 1996; 2008). On the problematic theology of the poem, see Criado (2000). 12

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denies to Jupiter, if not the will or the overall view, certainly the expression of a design aimed at good and its fulfilment. The myth of the Seven is a tragic myth, and the Thebaid makes epic and tragedy coexist by inventing an absent providence. Theseus’ intervention is foreseen in Jupiter’s plan, but the plan is not disclosed to us except in parenthetic form. By contrast, the poem exhibits more than one protest against the lack of intervention of the supreme god: these are the accusations, voiced by the tragic genre, against divine indifference, which allows evil to accomplish itself unopposed. The presumed absence of Jupiter becomes, at the climax of the narrative, a deliberate absence. The most problematic passage in the Thebaid concerns Jupiter’s choice to withdraw before the fraternal duel: absentibus ausint/ista deis lateantque Iouem (‘Let them dare such things in the gods’ absence and hide from Jove’, 11.126–7).14 The paradox of a god who refuses to see the spectacle of the nefas he has wanted becomes a paradox of poetics: the poetics of an epic that is as far removed from Virgil as it is from Lucan, and closer to tragedy. Faced with the fight between kinsmen, Jupiter decides to suspend his own agency: Statius thus answers Lucan, who, at the battle at Pharsalus, denies the existence and providence of Jupiter (Luc. 7.445–55). The answer of the Statian god is precise, and dismantles the accusation by appealing in a reverse way to the same mythical example, among others (Theb. 11.127–9). It is by a paradox that Statius preserves the divine apparatus: by removing Jupiter from the end of the poem, the Flavian poet keeps a distance from the Aeneid but refuses the atheism of Lucan. The Thebaid approximates tragedy, without denying epic poetry. The providential plan is restored, but it looks more problematic than ever. Before the duel, the personified Pietas hurls the harshest accusation directed toward the father of the gods, the same pietas of which Jupiter is the guarantor in the Aeneid. She protests against the cruelty of the supreme god and against Nature, which has created her for the contempt of men and, often, of gods (11.457–64). Pietas, Clementia, Natura are the forces that Oedipus feels revived in himself when he weeps in repentance at the corpses of his sons (11.605–7). The adjectives sera and tarda (‘too late’, 11.486 and 605) announce a crucial but belated poetic turn, a counter-trend epic ending after eleven books of arma nocentia (‘harmful weapons’). The values which the gods have not defended or embodied in a credible way in the poem—Pietas, Clementia, Natura—are reclaimed As Ann Hubert shows in Ch. 6 above, ‘Jupiter’s inability to watch the climactic duel marks his decision in book 1 to aggrandize Oedipus’ curse as the moment of his loss of authority.’ 14

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by Theseus: at the ara Clementiae, he binds himself to an action led by Natura (Naturamque ducem, ‘Nature our leader’, 12.645), while he ends the war with a pius tumultus (‘friendly confusion’, 12.782), the fraternization of the enemies on the battlefield. In the Thebaid, the representation of the divine is characterized by continuity and break. Once the celestial scenery has been removed, the deities reappear side by side with, or associated by analogy to, women and men, who decide on earth the action of the poem. The Argive women march towards Thebes: Juno escorts them (12.134–6, 291–4, and 295–311). Theseus decides the war against Thebes: Athena shakes the aegis and scares the city (12.606–10). The hero throws his spear to begin the expedition and looks like Jupiter rousing a tempest (12.649–55). He raises the spear on the battlefield: the enemies run away, as if they had seen Mars (12.730–36). Traditional epic language is employed in a poem that attempts a new type of discourse: the power of the gods is reduced to a complement and an image of the action of humans.

ABSENT PROVIDENCE AND THE MAN OF PROVIDENCE Paradoxically, the gods of epic must decline in order for this new epic to suggest an exit from the crisis at hand. The twilight of Jupiter can be explained by poetic, cultural-historical, and ideological motivations. First, it constitutes a literary choice, between epic and tragedy. Then, cultural-historical premises are significant factors for such a representation: Jupiter’s punitive role is part of a pattern in Roman literature to represent the crime of civil war as divine punishment for the impiety and the hereditary sin of a people.15 As such, the myth of Thebes is closely linked to the history of Rome. Statius follows the rhetoric of deprecation of civil wars and applies to the Theban story categories elaborated in the context of Roman history. In this, the epic design of the Thebaid shows affinities even with the pessimism of Tacitus: the gods do not care for the good of men, but for their punishment (Hist. 1.3.2), as Bernstein shows in Chapter 13 below. The crisis of providence, however, is solved by the providential intervention of a saviour, another pattern in Roman literary culture going

15 Wallace-Hadrill (1982: 25–6). Cf. Hor. Carm. 3.6.7–8 and 13–14, with Nisbet and Rudd (2004: 98, 101).

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back to Cicero and the Augustan poets, namely the soteriological advent of a beneficent, divine, and providential personality to the rescue of an afflicted mankind. The intervention of this charismatic individual is exploited to justify first the passage from republic to empire and then imperial succession, that is, to celebrate the emergence out of the chaos of a former emperor’s rule.16 In the Thebaid, the replacement of furor by clementia seems to repropose in narrative form the scheme of a panegyric. Just as in imperial succession, in epic narrative the opposition between the irrationality of despotism and the advent of an enlightened power ensures the passage from chaos to order. And, as in the encomiastic tradition or in the treatises æd ÆغÆ (‘On kingship’),17 the redemptive value of clemency effects an ecumenical rebirth. Only a clement power can burden itself with the sufferings of all humankind; Seneca asserts this in the Consolatio ad Polybium, even before he does so in the De clementia. The Thebaid shows this in the universalist vocation of the ara Clementiae. The altar provides a common shelter for mankind, protecting them from the injuries of power: commune animantibus aegris/confugium, unde procul starent iraeque minaeque/regnaque (‘a common refuge for living creatures in trouble, whence anger and threats and monarchies should stand far removed’, 12.503–5). This soteriological model, however, has its own limits in the poem, since there is no visible and continuous teleological line to express faith in a possible palingenesis. The, provisional, Athenian solution to the Theban crisis does not efface the vision and prospect of two irreconcilable worlds: tragic Thebes as the reverse of Athens, tyranny as the other side of monarchy. Furthermore, the break in the narrative reveals a problematic split between divine and human action. Fratricidal impiety has chased the gods away from earth, as in the close of Catullus 64 (405–6), and only a godlike man, sent by the gods to the aid of humans, can expiate their vices without fleeing to heaven, as in the end of Georgics 1 (403–5) or in Horace (Carm. 1.2.47–9). Finally, the altar of Clemency, originally a gift from gods to mankind, is at the centre of a scene from which the gods are now nearly absent. The providential intervention of Theseus, a figurative representation of Jupiter, succours an epic world in which Jupiter’s providence has declined. It is this crucial point of the poem that we must now consider before attempting a comparison between Jupiter and Theseus.

16

Cf. Cic. Marcell. 18; Hor. Carm. 1.2.25–6 and 29–30; Virg. G. 1.500–1; Sen. Apoc. 4.23–4; Plin. Nat. 2.18.1. 17 See Bessone (2011: 30).

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RELIGION AND POLITICS: THE ARA CLEMENTIAE In the Thebaid, political and religious discourse are tightly connected. The ideological centre of the poem is found in the description of the ara Clementiae at the centre of Athens: the altar sacred to the ‘unfortunate’ (miseri, 12.483), where the Argive women take refuge. The action of Euripides’ Suppliant Women is transferred from Eleusis, and the temple of Demeter is replaced by a symbolic place, a synthesis of Greek and Roman concepts. Statius transforms the øe Kºı, the ‘altar of pity’ attested in the Athenian agora, into a monument to a central value of Roman imperial ideology: clementia. In a quasi-Roman triumph for his victory over the Amazons, Theseus listens to Evadne’s request and commits himself to action; he promises war against the tyrant Creon, whose behaviour has already been branded as inclementia regum (11.684). As I have demonstrated elsewhere, Clementia and Theseus are part of the same ethical–political ideal which re-proposes, in Roman imperial terms, the çغÆŁæøÆ embodied by Athens, accomplished by its mythical heroes, and celebrated by a rich encomiastic tradition.18 Religion and politics, the language of cult and the language of power, mingle in the description of the ara. This is an ekphrasis that places side by side the representation of the sacred place and of its cult with an account of its origin and history: urbe fuit media nulli concessa potentum ara deum, mitis posuit Clementia sedem, et miseri fecere sacram; sine supplice numquam illa nouo, nulla damnauit uota repulsa. auditi quicumque rogant, noctesque diesque ire datum et solis numen placare querelis. parca superstitio: non turea flamma nec altus accipitur sanguis, lacrimis altaria sudant, maestarumque super libamina secta comarum pendent et uestes mutata sorte relictae. mite nemus circa cultuque insigne uerendo, uittatae laurus et supplicis arbor oliuae. nulla autem effigies, nulli commissa metallo forma dei: mentes habitare et pectora gaudet. semper habet trepidos, semper locus horret egenis coetibus, ignotae tantum felicibus arae. (12.481–96)

18

Bessone (2009; 2011: 102–27).

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‘In the midst of the city was an altar made over to no deity of power; gentle Mercy made there her seat and the unfortunate consecrated it. Never was she without a new suppliant, no prayers did she condemn with a refusal; whoso ask are heard. Night and day they are allowed to come and propitiate the goddess by plaints alone. Frugal is her cult, no flame of incense or deep measure of blood is accepted: the altar is moist with tears and above it hang severed offerings of sad hair and clothing left when luck changed. A gentle grove surrounds, with signs of worship to be revered, laurels entwined with wool and the tree of the suppliant olive. No image is there, no shape of deity committed to metal; she joys to dwell in minds and hearts. Always the place has at hand the fearful, always bristling with gatherings of the needy; only to the fortunate is her altar unknown.’

The altar stands at the heart of the city and is not dedicated to the ‘powerful gods’ but to ‘mild Clemency’. It is made sacred by the wretched, who always crowd it and continuously appease the numen by means of their laments. The ritual does not require sacrifices, except for the offering of the suppliants’ tears, hair, and clothes. The cult is devoid of iconography, because the goddess prefers to inhabit the hearts of her devotees. The negative style of the exordium exalts the exceptional character of the cult: this is not a powerful deity, but the personification of a moral abstraction, a never-neglected and never-negligent goddess, who accepts no sacrifices nor sumptuous images. The first negative sentence is striking: nulli concessa potentum/ara deum (12.481–2). The sacred seat is defined by the exclusion of the ‘powerful gods’.19 The same altar that shelters men from the arbitrary will of tyrants (unde procul starent iraeque minaeque/regnaque, ‘anger and threats and monarchies should stand far removed’, 12.504–5) is itself sheltered from the power of the gods—as if to keep away the tragic play of power, human and divine, staged heretofore in the poem. A dissatisfaction with traditional theology thus emerges, together with anxieties about the degeneration of autocracy, vividly expressing the need for a renewal of religion and of power. Mitis Clementia appears opposed to divine power; in fact, it opposes itself to the inclementia of the gods as exemplified in the beginning of the poem in the aetion of Apollo and Coroebus.20 There the god gives proof of his cruelty, until he is induced to mitigate his anger by the heroism of his opponent. The hero’s protest voices a worrying interrogative: quod si . . . saeuo tanta inclementia caelo est (‘But . . . if the cruel heavens are so merciless’, Theb. 1.648–50). By means of inclementia, Statius evokes here As Hubert observes in Ch. 6 above, ‘the altar therefore exists precariously’, although she comes to different conclusions. 20 On the role of the story, see extensively Keith, Ch. 17 below. 19

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the problematic intertext of Venus’ disclosure to her son in Aeneid 2: diuum inclementia, diuum/has euertit opes sternitque a culmine Troiam (‘The gods, the relentless gods, overturn this wealth and make Troy topple from her pinnacle’, Aen. 2.602–3). In Virgil, this scene becomes a tragic vision, in which Jupiter himself instigates the gods to destruction (Aen. 2.617–18).21 Randall Ganiban is right to indicate in Apollo’s ferocity a reflection upon absolute power: ‘In this world of oppressive autocracy, clementia . . . has become the ideal virtue.’22 I do not, however, believe that ‘the tyrannical exercise of power through clementia’ exhausts the discourse of the Thebaid. I rather view this tragic, initial theme as the background against which the different clementia of Athens and Theseus must materialize, and with it a semantic shift in the narrative. The divine inclementia of the exordium is paralleled, towards the end of the eleventh book, by the inclementia regum, embodied by Creon. But the Athenian intervention, decided with a religious and political commitment at the ara Clementiae, diverts the poem in the end from a vision of tyranny to a glimpse of ideal monarchy, from problematic divine power to exemplary human authority, from a discredited clementia to a refounded clementia. At the climax of the first section of the ekphrasis on the altar, the ethical dimension of Clementia is emphasized even before the political (12.494). The intimate character of the cult, however, should not be construed as a private type of piety but as an outline for an ideal political power. In particular, Claudian, an attentive interpreter of Statius, applies the image to Stilicho: haec dea [sc. Clementia] pro templis et ture calentibus aris/te fruitur posuitque suas hoc pectore sedes (‘This goddess dwells now not in temples nor by altars warm with incense but in your heart wherein she has made her home’, Stil. 2.12–13). By extolling Clemency to a level beyond the divine, Statius gives credit again to a political ideal that Lucan, who had demythologized the clementia Caesaris, had destroyed. The political import of Statius’ religious discourse, which comes to the fore in the second part of the ekphrasis (12.497–513), will be confirmed by Theseus’ later actions. The story of the children of Heracles, which is associated with the foundation of the ara, recalls the repertoire of praises of Athens.23 It is the encomium of çغÆŁæøÆ to the advantage of Athenian hegemony that provides the model for this eulogy of clementia

21 Cf. the end of Sophocles’ Trachiniae on Łø ~  IªøÅ (‘unkindness of the gods’, 1266). See Gasti (2006); contra Horsfall (2008), on Aen. 2.602. 22 Ganiban (2007: 21). 23 Bessone (2009: 188–94; 2011: 111–16). Contra, see Hubert, Ch. 6 above.

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as a justification of the Roman empire. Statius’ ideological proposal anticipates the Second Sophistic: the Roman political concept is enriched with a Greek background, while the particularity of the Athenian ideal is surpassed by the new universalist perspective, now opened up by the Roman empire. But the poet of the Thebaid goes even further. By interpolating a catalogue, he ranks clemency among the original gifts from gods to humankind, traditional in the praises of Athens. Statius endows the ideology of clementia with a religious sanction, as well as with a mythical legitimation. The Flavian audience is exposed to an archaeology of imperial values and the new foundation of political theology. That which looks worthy of a cult is a divine quality of the human world. Clementia metamorphoses the earthly power, on which human prosperity depends, into a ‘divine’ one. With ara Clementiae, the Thebaid constructs the foundation myth of a civil religion.

THE HERO, JUPITER, THE EMPEROR: CLEMENTIA AND PROVIDENCE With the development of imperial ideology, as well as of panegyric and encomiastic conventions, there is a change in how Roman culture configures the relationship between religion and power. Elected by the gods, a gift of the gods, the princeps represents divine providence on earth, as Seneca’s De clementia declares and Pliny’s Panegyric confirms.24 The theoretical frame remains unaffected, while the emphasis given to the different elements changes. Chosen and guaranteed by Jupiter, the emperor may in fact appear now as the sole, true, and autonomous guarantor of providence among men. The presence of the ruler ensures that Jupiter is not missed: talia esse crediderim, quae ille mundi parens temperat nutu, si quando oculos demisit in terras et fata mortalium inter diuina opera numerare dignatus est; qua nunc parte liber solutusque tantum caelo uacat, postquam te dedit, qui erga omne hominum genus uice sua fungereris. fungeris enim sufficisque mandanti, cum tibi dies omnis summa cum utilitate nostra, summa cum tua laude condatur. (Plin. Pan. 80.4) ‘It is thus, I fancy, that the great Father of the Universe rules all with a nod of the head, if he ever looks down on earth and deigns to consider mortal 24

Sen. Cl. 1.1.2; Plin. Pan. 1. Cf. Ferri (2003), on Sen. Oct. 487–8, and Fears (1977).

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destinies among his divine affairs. Now he is rid of this part of his duties, free to devote himself to heaven’s concerns, since he has given you to us to fill his role with regard to the entire human race. And you are filling it, worthy of his trust in you: since every passing day brings every advantage for us and the greatest glory for you.’

The reversal of perspective, compared to the traditional religious conception, is striking. If a divine providence has ever existed, namely a Jupiter able to turn his eyes to the earth, then his intervention in human affairs must find a model in the visible and tangible conduct of the emperor: talia esse crediderim . . . si quando . . . dignatus est. Pliny appears to overturn Seneca’s point of view, according to which the ruler must propose to imitate the divine model and can thus be almost like a god.25 In the Panegyric too, clementia draws the princeps closer to divinity: clemency must be understood not only as moderation in punishing but as provident willingness to intervene everywhere, always, and with promptness, where assistance is required.26 The foresight of the emperor, however, may supply a model for divine providence itself, a providence that no longer needs to be imagined at work in heaven. The divine ability to succour makes the ruler truly fit literally to replace Jupiter on earth: quid? in omnibus cognitionibus quam mitis seueritas, quam non dissoluta clementia! . . . o uere principis atque etiam dei curas, reconciliare aemulas ciuitates, tumentesque populos non imperio magis quam ratione compescere; intercedere iniquitatibus magistratuum, infectumque reddere quidquid fieri non oportuerit; postremo uelocissimi sideris more omnia inuisere omnia audire, et undecumque inuocatum statim uelut adesse et adsistere! (Plin. Pan. 80.1 and 3) ‘Now let me turn to judicial matters, where you showed how strictness need not be cruel nor mercy weak . . . This is indeed the true care of a prince, or even that of a god, to settle rivalries between cities, to soothe the passions of angry peoples less by exercise of power than by reason: to intervene where there has been official injustice, to undo what should never have been done: finally, like a swift-moving star, to see all, hear all, and be present at once with aid wherever your help is sought.’

It is the same image which the more markedly laudatory Seneca of the Consolatio ad Polybium attributes to the emperor, maximum et clarissimum numen (‘greatest and brightest divinity’, Sen. Dial. 11.12.3) and to his clementia (not yet distinguished from misericordia): a beneficent 25

Sen. Cl. 1.7.1–2; 1.19.8–9; see Braund (2009: 238–40) and Griffin (1976: 219–21). Cf. Letter of Aristeas 188. 26 Cf. Letter of Aristeas 190.

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force capable of running throughout the world, bringing help in due time, without neglecting anyone: . . . quae ex uirtutibus eius primum optinet locum . . . clementia . . . interim magnum miseriarum mearum solacium est uidere misericordiam eius totum orbem peruagantem . . . non uereor ne me unum transeat. ipse autem optime nouit tempus quo cuique debeat succurrere . . . o felicem clementiam tuam, Caesar . . . (Sen. Dial. 11.13.2–4) ‘And his mercy, which in the list of his virtues holds the chief place . . . Meanwhile, the great consolation of my own wretchedness is to see his compassion spreading over the whole world . . . I do not fear that I shall be the only one it will pass by. But he himself knows best the time at which he ought to come to each man’s rescue . . . O how blessed is your mercy, Caesar . . . ’

The reversal of perspective is also evident in the development of encomiastic poetry between the Augustan and the Flavian age. Faith in Jupiter is now fashioned to depend on the safety of the emperor. The emperor, the source of prosperity, is the living proof of the favour of the gods towards men,27 and as true living Jupiter now identifies himself with providence. From the parallelism between the emperor and Jupiter what comes to be asserted, implicitly or explicitly, is the superiority of the praesens numen (‘present divinity’) of the princeps, nearer, more effective, and important than the gods and Jupiter himself.28 It is the ruler who ensures perpetual peace and welfare on earth. Flavian literature shows an analogous orientation in other genres as well. Pliny the Elder, for instance, offers a radical criticism of traditional religion and mythical theology. He counters these with a euhemeristic vision, mixed with the Stoic faith in the divinity of nature and with hints of solar cult:29 Pliny’s discussion culminates in the exaltation of Vespasian and of his sons, destined for heaven on account of their merits. The ideological import of this construction is evident.30 Pliny assigns a marked pre-eminence to the godlike action of the emperor in the world: deus est mortali iuuare mortalem (‘For mortal to help mortal— this is god’, Nat. 2.18). But let us return to Statius. A Ioue principium (‘from Jupiter the beginning’, Silu. 1 praef.) is the sign of the Siluae31—but Jupiter has by 27

Ov. Tr. 5.2.47–8; Mart. 2.91.1–2 and 7.60.1–2 (contrast Hor. Carm. 3.5.1–4). On the association, assimilation, or identification of the emperor with Jupiter, see Fears (1981) and Zanker (1988: 230–38). 29 See Scott (1932); Attridge (1978: 60–61); Köves–Zulauf (1978: 194–5). 30 Citroni Marchetti (1991: 21–5). 31 Cf. Gibson, Ch. 7 above. 28

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now taken on the features of the emperor. At the end of the Thebaid, as in the Siluae, Statius inverts the power relations between the supreme god and his earthly representative. The absence of Jupiter as guarantor of a providential plan is contrasted with the action of a ruler who is compared to Jupiter and who takes his place in the epic solution.32 The closure expresses a relative optimism: the problematic consciousness that the recurring impiety of the human world can be corrected by the godlike action of an ideal leader, who appears to be a man of providence. Furthermore, the role of Jupiter in the Thebaid, as I have discussed it, not only poses serious questions concerning the idea of providence but also makes the image of power rather problematic. Many critics see in the wholly negative representation of Jupiter an underlying criticism of Domitian.33 I believe that such a perspective can be reversed: the weakness of a partly discredited divine power is contrasted with the efficacy of a human power with ideal features. Jupiter’s abdication leaves the stage free for Theseus’ intervention: a ‘self-sufficient hero’ who acts in the name of the gods without apparent divine direction. This human model of kingship proves superior to the divine model offered by the poem. The invention of an absent providence exalts the role of the man of providence: in this, too, the Thebaid is an epic of paradox. The bold innovation introduced by Statius presupposes a transformed cultural background compared to the Augustan age and can be explained also by reference to ideological change. The role of Theseus in the absence of Jupiter is, in my view, the narrative realization of a mature imperial ideology, according to which the sole true providence is the safety of the ruler: a vision of power that finds, as always, legitimation and models in divine power, but that in fact entrusts to the supreme earthly authority the realization of the world order. In an indirect way, the assertion of the imperial cult at the expense of traditional religion undermines the presentation of the gods, which has already been threatened by the criticism of mythical theology and by the doubts of tragedy.34 The preeminence given to the earthly power marks an almost autonomous assertion of human authority: this is not only a visible reflection of an absent divinity, but a credible substitute for a discredited power.

32

On the complementarity between Theseus and Jupiter, cf. Braund (1996: 15–16, n. 42). 33 Dominik (1994a: esp. 161–7). 34 On the cult of the emperor as the religion for and of the Roman empire, see Ando (2000: esp. 295, 394, 407, and cf. 232–53, 269 and n. 289; 2003: 344). See also Galinsky (2007: 80–82).

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The superiority of Theseus lies in his ability to exercise clementia, in the full and renewed sense of the word, as proposed by the poem. The Thebaid sets up a comparison between divine and human authority. Statius grants Jupiter the literary consciousness of the charges levelled at him: in the ‘clemency speech’ of the seventh book (7.199–214),35 the god replies to well-known criticism from the epic and tragic tradition. At the same time, he appropriates the language of moderation when he talks about his ability to punish; encomiastic poetry often attributes moderation to the emperor himself on the model of Jupiter. The supreme god employs clemency slogans, such as the claim to punish ‘rarely’ (rarus, 7.202), ‘late’ (tardum, 7.208), and ‘unwillingly’ (inuitus, 7.203). Jupiter seems to know that the profession of clemency is a royal duty: in Statius, the king of the gods is well versed in treatises æd ÆغÆ . In the Thebaid, however, the responsibility of the supreme god towards humans is evidently reduced to a punitive programme. Jupiter’s first speech in the poem begins with terrarum delicta (‘earth’s sins’, 1.214); Theseus’ speech to the troops opens with terrarum leges (terrarum leges et mundi foedera mecum/defensura cohors, ‘Soldiers, who will defend with me the laws of earth and the world’s covenants’, 12.642–3). It is up to the ruler of Athens to defend the universal right to burial and, with it, the law itself which keeps the cosmos together. Words and principles announced here by Theseus (12.642–8) are in part the same as those of Jupiter, in the manifesto of the seventh book (7.215–8), but the gap is evident. Statius has distributed between the god and the hero the tasks of destruction and of reconstruction, the punitive and the providential functions.36 Whereas the god professes a ‘negative’ clementia to justify his chastisement, Theseus revitalizes clementia, the attitude of a power not only moderate in punishing but also protective and beneficent, animated by the consciousness of a salvific mission. The progression of the poem from the dei potentes, through divine personifications (Virtus, Pietas), to the mitis Clementia, who acts through Theseus, follows closely the transition from the world of the gods to the divine qualities of the human cosmos. It culminates in the truly ‘divine’ role of the ruler as saviour of the rest of mankind. The last protest against Jupiter in the poem is that of Evadne in her supplication to Theseus: heu princeps Natura! ubi numina, ubi ille est/ fulminis iniusti iaculator? ubi estis, Athenae?’ (‘Ah primal Nature! Where are the gods, where that hurler of the unjust thunderbolt? Where are you,

35

Cf. Smolenaars (1994: xix–xx, 97–8).

36

Pace Bernstein in Ch. 13 below.

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Athens?’, 12.561–2).37 The anaphora of ubi culminating in the appeal to Athens and to its king marks the passage of responsibility from gods to men, the appointment of a man to assert justice and clemency, in epic and in history. It is the narrative and ideological turn of the poem: from an absent providence to the providential action of the ruler. The choice of Capaneus’ wife as spokeswoman of the Argives voices a partial theological criticism, which corresponds, however, to anxieties well represented in the poem. The consequences are remarkable. Theseus’ action looks equally valid in a traditional religious perspective (that of the ruler, who claims a mission recognized by the gods) or in a sceptical and protesting perspective, that of Evadne, who appeals to the universal rights of man and to princeps Natura. A religiousness, that even the wife of the blasphemous Capaneus recognizes, prevails over the traditional religion that the poem has questioned: faith in the natural and universal rights of all men, equal among themselves, and trust in the political power which can enforce those rights. Outside its panegyrical proem, the Thebaid avoids the conventions of imperial cult, but not the vision of the ‘divine’ benefits of empire. The closing section of a narrative that has put into question epic teleology and traditional theology expresses in a problematic form a vision simultaneously religious and political: not the undisputed faith in a transcendent divinity, but a sort of immanent civil religion—a laic religion of power.38

37

See also Hubert, Ch. 6 above. I thank Matthew Leigh for revising my English at an earlier stage, and Antony Augoustakis for substantially improving the final version. 38

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Part II Death and Ritual

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9 Chthonic Ingredients and Thematic Concerns The Shaping of the Necromancy in the Thebaid Ruth Parkes

In a nod to a long literary tradition which stretches back to Homer’s Odyssey, every extant martial epic of first-century ce Rome boasts some form of infernal episode. It may seem that by incorporating a necromancy in the fourth book of his Thebaid, Statius is unthinkingly following convention, and that elements of his depiction are standard. However, Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica shows that epics did not need to contain conversation with the dead.1 Setting the Thebaid ’s necromancy in the context of the chthonic passages of Homer, Virgil, Seneca, Lucan, and Valerius Flaccus,2 this chapter argues that Statius carefully draws on his predecessors’ Underworld scenes in a way that responds to the themes of his poem. The first part examines how the inclusion of an infernal encounter befits the Thebaid ’s wider concerns; the second analyses the reasons behind Statius’ choice of necromantic ritual; and the third section considers the decisions made by Statius in his representation of the rites, focusing upon the lessons which are available for Eteocles.

1 Admittedly, Apollonius does evoke the Odyssean necromancy. Cf. e.g. the rites in book 3 (1029–41) which are performed before Jason’s contest; see Knight (1995: 182–3). 2 Hom. Od.11.13–640; Virg. Aen. 6.236–898; Sen. Oed. 530–658; Luc. 6.423–830; V. Fl. 1.730–826. For detailed analysis and commentary, see Parkes (2012: 214–81).

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The allure of the chthonic episode can in part be attributed to the dominance of the infernal realm in Statius’ epic. It is telling that Tiresias is shown privileging necromancy over types of celestial divination in recognition of its greater effectiveness:3 ille deos non . . . caede iuuencum . . . tam penitus . . . quam . . . manes/ . . . patuisse refert (‘He says that the gods do not so thoroughly reveal themselves by slaughter of bullocks . . . as the shades [reveal themselves]’, Theb. 4.409 and 413–14). This special potency of the Thebaid’s Underworld deities, here acknowledged by the seer, has well been brought out by recent criticism: Dis and the Furies, notably Tisiphone, have been shown to have considerable sway.4 Such infernal dominance can be seen through comparison of Statius’ necromancy with the chthonic episodes of his predecessors. Before entering the cave of Avernus which leads down to Hades, the Virgilian Sibyl organizes the sacrifice of four bullocks (Aen. 6.243–6) and calls on Hecate (6.247) whilst Aeneas slays victims (a lamb to Night and Earth and a heifer to Proserpina, 6.249–51) and burns bull carcasses upon an altar he has erected to Dis (6.252–4). Statius’ description of the sacrificial ritual (Theb. 4.443–68) closely engages with this Virgilian scene. For example, the Sibyl’s first action is to make black bullocks to stand (nigrantis terga iuuencos/constituit, Aen. 6.243–4), whereas Tiresias ‘gives order that sheep dark of fleece and black herds be stationed’ (uelleris obscuri pecudes armentaque sisti/atra monet, Theb. 4.445–6). The Sibyl’s removal of bristles from the victims’ heads to give as a first offering (Aen. 6.245–6) is picked up by Statius’ observation that the animals have had their heads shorn (Theb. 4.461–2) and sprinkled with meal. In both cases the victims’ blood is collected into bowls (Aen. 6.248– 9 ~ Theb. 4.464), and Aeneas places bull carcasses upon Dis’ altar (Aen. 6.252–4) while Manto offers up entrails to the pyre-altars of various deities, including Dis (Theb. 4.465–7). The parallels between the two passages throw into relief the differences. In a move which befits the emphasis laid upon infernal forces in his poem, Statius increases the number of altars from a single one to eight, adding one for Proserpina, one for each of the three Furies and three (in a nod to her triple form) for Hecate (Theb. 4.455–61).

3 Cf. Sen. Oed. 390–94; Luc. 6.425–34. On Tiresias’ role in Menoeceus’ sacrifice, see Bernstein, Ch. 13 below. 4 See Feeney (1991: 350–2, 376–8); Ganiban (2007: 117–51); and the essays by Tuttle, Manolaraki, and Gibson in Chs 4, 5, and 7 above.

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The dominance of the Underworld realm is also reflected in Statius’ inclusion of speeches addressed to hellish powers (Theb. 4.473–87). Virgil mentions only briefly that a deity is summoned when referring to the Sibyl’s address to Hecate (Aen. 6.247).5 In his chthonic episode at Oedipus (530–658), Seneca spends a mere five lines detailing Tiresias’ spell-casting and his summoning of the spirits of the dead, Dis, and Cerberus (Oed. 559–63).6 Statius, by contrast, devotes 33 lines to a verbatim rendering of Tiresias’ two speeches (Theb. 4.473–87 and 501–18), following the example of Lucan, who included Erichtho’s two lengthy addresses to Underworld forces (Luc. 6.695–718 and 730–49). The Statian speeches refer to a number of infernal characters, such as Dis, Proserpina, Hecate, Charon, and Mercury. But of particular note is the prominence given to Tisiphone, a figure missing from Virgil’s katabasis.7 She receives a five-line address and is entrusted with the important task of bringing forth the impious dead (a crowd from which the Theban and Argive shades portrayed at 4.553–645 will be drawn). She is, as we have noted, a key player in the world of the Thebaid. Indeed, this makes her an especially apt choice to lead the criminal shades who are described, in a touch of hyperbole, as ‘mostly of Cadmus’ blood’ (pluresque e sanguine Cadmi, Theb. 4.484). These are likely to have been familiar faces to the Fury, whose history of involvement in Theban trouble is revealed by Oedipus’ claim that she was often summoned by him (1.58) and the choice of the adjective notum (‘well-known’) to describe her journey to Thebes at Thebaid 1.101.8 Thus the decision to include a necromancy reflects the prominence Statius gives to his infernal sphere. The insertion of a chthonic episode also speaks to another of the Thebaid ’s concerns: the fate of the dead and their afterlife. The ancients popularly believed that the offering of funeral rites conferred everlasting peace upon dead souls. Statius’ epic explores the bestowal of such rites or, more commonly, their non-bestowal. There are no wholly unproblematic funerals in the poem until 12.797–807, when Theseus ensures the cremation of Argive corpses, banned by Creon’s decree (11.662–3).9 The instances of interment in the poem 5 Cf. Hom. Od. 11.46–7, where Odysseus notes that he ordered his companions to pray to Hades and Persephone. 6 Cf. Boyle (2011: 244). 7 Aeneas only sacrifices to Night, the ‘mother of the Eumenides’ (matri Eumenidum, Aen. 6.250). Tisiphone and Megaera are summoned at Luc. 6.730–35 (cf. also Luc. 6.695); sheep are sacrificed to Megaera and Alecto at Sil. 13.432–3. 8 For the Furies’ track record of meddling in Theban affairs, cf. also Theb. 1.124, 1.228–9, and 4.57; see Gibson’s discussion in Ch. 7 above. 9 On Theseus and the burial of the Argives, see Bessone, Ch. 8 above.

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tend to be cases of perverted burial. Karla Pollmann notes that a substitute funeral occurs when Capaneus overlays Hippomedon’s corpse with the spoils of another warrior (9.562–5) and Dymas offers his own body as covering for Parthenopaeus’ cadaver (10.441).10 We might add that the other Argive chieftains who fall in the war also suffer warped burial, for Amphiaraus enters Hades directly through a chasm in the earth (8.1–8), Capaneus’ body is burnt by lightning (10.927–38), and Polynices is crushed beneath the armour of his dying brother (11.573).11 Together with this interest in quasi-burial, there is a focus on the prohibition of funeral rites which starts with Eteocles’ treatment of Maeon’s body (uetat igne rapi, pacemque sepulcri/impius ignaris nequiquam manibus arcet, ‘he forbids funeral fire and impiously but idly denies the peace of the tomb to the unwitting ghost’, 3.97–8). Indeed, until Theseus’ final actions, the instances of burial which do occur are balanced, and somewhat overshadowed, by examples of forbidden interment: thus the ambushers are provided with pyres (3.174–8) with the exception of Maeon (3.111–13), and thus Creon gives rites to the Thebans (12.50–55), including his son Menoeceus, who is honoured with a sumptuous pyre (12.60–92),12 whilst he denies fire to the Argive cadavers (12.55–6; 12.94–103) and Polynices (12.58–9; his body is finally illicitly cremated upon the same pyre as his brother’s at 12.420–46). There is only one exception to this rule, the cremation of Opheltes, and even here the sepulchral rites strike a discordant note.13 The magnificent funeral is worthy of a great warrior, rather than an infant: arma etiam et ueterum exuuias circumdat auorum/gloria mixta malis adflictaeque ambitus aulae,/ceu grande exequiis onus atque inmensa ferantur/membra rogo (‘Glory mingling with distress and pride of the afflicted palace places arms too and trappings of ancient forebears around the bier, as though a great load was being borne to burial, a vast body for the pyre’, 6.67–70). This discrepancy draws our attention to the pathos of the child’s early death. It also encourages us to ponder the Argives’ motives: the excessive piety they display seems almost compensatory for their part in the negligence which leads to the child’s death. The theme of a peaceful afterlife figures from the beginnings of the epic tradition, with Patroclus’ plea for funeral rites in order that he might join other ghosts beyond the infernal river (Hom. Il. 23.71–4). And it appears in epic necromantic ritual since the accepted request for interment made by the ghostly Elpenor, killed in a fall (Od. 11.71–80). In the 10 12 13

11 Pollmann (2004: 34). See Parkes (2011: 87–8 and n. 29). On Menoeceus’ sacrifice, see Bernstein, Ch. 13 below. On Opheltes’ funeral, see Ganiban, Ch. 14 below.

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Roman epic tradition, we may see Virgil’s development of the motif in Aeneid 6, where Odysseus’ encounter with Elpenor lies behind Aeneas’ pre-katabasis burial of Misenus upon the Sibyl’s orders (Aen. 6.149–84) and the futile request of the shade Palinurus for either the scattering of earth upon his corpse (6.365–6) or a lift across the river Styx (6.370–71).14 Palinurus is, in fact, one of a throng of unburied souls whose plight rouses Aeneas’ sympathy: as the Sibyl explains, they are doomed to reside on the infernal river banks for a hundred years, their passage rejected by the ferryman Charon (6.325–30). Divine law forbids their premature crossing, as shown by the Sibyl’s rejection of Palinurus’ plea (termed a ‘wild longing’, dira cupido, at 6.373): desine fata deum flecti sperare precando (‘Cease to dream that heaven’s decrees may be turned aside by prayer’, 6.376).15 Variations on this motif then appear in Statius’ post-Virgilian epic predecessors.16 Lucan’s chthonic episode displays a strong interest in death and its rites, as shown by the description of Erichtho’s ghoulish interests (Luc. 6.513–15; 6.525–68; 6.582–7), her resurrection of a cadaver (6.619–827), and the corpse’s prophecies of burial sites (6.807– 20). In particular, Lucan’s scene engages with the funereal concerns of the Aeneid. Thus, as Jamie Masters has noted, Erichtho’s search for a corpse to bring back to life (Luc. 6.619–41) draws on the burial of Misenus and Aeneas’ search for the golden bough (Aen. 6.136–235), paradoxically presenting a resurrection qua interment.17 And thus the pyre preparations (tunc robore multo/extruit illa rogum, ‘then the witch heaps up a pyre with plenteous timber’, Luc. 6.824–5) evoke the construction of Misenus’ pyre (pinguem . . . et robore secto/ingentem struxere pyram, ‘they raise a huge pyre rich with . . . oaken logs’, Aen. 6.214–15).18 Furthermore, the detail that the soul is summoned ‘from the silent river bank’ (Luc. 6.778) resonates with the fate of Palinurus, for it would seem that the chosen victim has not gone beyond the Styx because his body is unburied:19 here Erichtho does not require the cooperation of Charon, who is used to ferrying souls over the Styx for her rites (tuque o flagrantis portitor undae,/iam lassate senex ad me redeuntibus umbris, ‘and you, o ferryman of the blazing water, old man already tired out by shades returning to me’, Luc. 6.704–5). Such allusions serve to highlight the

14

Knauer (1964: 66). Otis (1964: 292) thinks that the Sibyl here teaches Aeneas about ‘divine law and divine clemency, . . . the inexorability and the justice of fate’. 16 For Statius’ contemporary Silius, cf. Sil. 13.445–87 and 760–61. On the katabasis motif elsewhere in Silius, see the essays by Littlewood and Cowan in Chs 11 and 12 below. 17 18 19 Masters (1992: 190). Masters (1992: 195). Masters (1992: 199). 15

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impiety of Erichtho’s actions. Whereas Aeneas dutifully honours his companion with burial, Erichtho’s bestowal of the final rites (Luc. 6.822–5) comes after she has brought the anonymous soldier to life a second time. In the words of Jamie Masters, ‘if the corpse is Lucan’s version of Misenus, then it is doubly an affront to decency and an affront to the Virgilian model that this neo-Misenus should be denied his proper burial but should on the contrary be co-opted into performing a main role in the rest of the episode.’20 Whilst Erichtho’s efforts to ensure the soldier passage over the infernal river may appear beneficent in contrast to the Sibyl’s seemingly harsh treatment of Palinurus, in her actions she is merely fulfilling her part of the bargain: she persuades the soldier to speak with the promise that he not be disturbed again (Luc. 6.762–70). Furthermore, the Sibyl denies Palinurus’ plea out of respect for divine law (Aen. 6.373–6), but Erichtho’s resurrection of the corpse flouts such rules: the corpse requires spells and drugs in order to die following the transgression of nature’s laws (Luc. 6.822–4). Valerius Flaccus adds further twists to the funereal motif. One of the participants of Valerius’ necromancy, Aeson, begs passage to Elysium (da placidae mihi sedis iter, ‘grant me entry to the abode of the quiet’, V. Fl. 1.793).21 He asks the ghosts he has summoned for an Underworld journey rather than, as is the norm, receiving this request from them. For he has learnt that his brother Pelias is preparing arms against him (1.747) and acts in anticipation of his imminent suicide: while wishing lack of burial (1.813–14) and hence unrest upon his enemy, he desires that his own shade may find peace. In support of his plea, he also slays as a propitiatory offering the bull which Alcimede had marked for death (1.793–4). It was by means of this sacrifice and incantation that Cretheus’ shade is to return to Hades: ‘for without that no thin shade will the dark ferryman take away, and . . . they stand at the mouth of Orcus’ (neque enim ante leues niger auehit umbras/portitor et . . . primis stant faucibus Orci, 1.783–4). We can thus see that epic chthonic episodes regularly feature the topic of infernal (un)rest. This does not mean, however, that it has been unthinkingly included by Statius. In fact, like Lucan, who develops the funereal focus of his Erichtho episode in line with the poem’s exploitation of burial as a unifying motif,22 Statius uses his chthonic scene to develop the theme in line with the wider concerns of his epic. Taking his 20

Masters (1992: 195). On the necromancy and katabasis episode in Valerius, see Zissos (2008: 379–82); on the suicide of Jason’s parents, see Bernstein, Ch. 13 below. 22 See Mayer (1981: 168) for this unifying motif. 21

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cue from the De bello ciuili, Statius paradoxically presents preparations for bringing the dead back to the upper world in language which evokes the preliminaries to Misenus’ cremation. Felled trees are ‘rolled up’ (aduoluunt, Theb. 4.455) to build pyre-altars, just as they are in the construction of Misenus’ pyre (aduoluunt, Aen. 6.182); the description of how Tiresias entwines the pyre-altars with cypress ( frontes atque omne cupressus/intexit plorata latus, ‘in front and on every side lamented cypress twines’, Theb. 4.460–61) recalls the description of the pyre in Virgil (ingentem struxere pyram, cui frondibus atris/intexunt latera, et feralis ante cupressos/constituunt, ‘They raise a huge pyre. Its sides they entwine with sombre foliage, set in front funereal cypresses’, Aen. 6.215– 18); and Tiresias’ application of torches (subiectare faces, Theb. 4.468) to ‘black leafage’ (frondibus atris, Theb. 4.467) looks to the black leaves ( frondibus atris, Aen. 6.215) entwined in the pyre and the torch which is held beneath it (subiectam . . . / . . . facem, Aen. 6.223–4). After such preparations, ghosts are summoned by Tiresias and must cross back over the Styx with Charon (Theb. 4.479). Statius’ necromancy can thus be seen as a variation on the theme of perverted burial, a theme so favoured by the poem. This motif is then further developed through the figure of Laius. One of the ghosts called up in this warped ‘burial’, he goes on to prophesy Creon’s denial of funeral rites to the conquered Argives (ab igne supremo/sontes lege morae, ‘guilty ordinance delaying the final fire’, 4.640–61). This matter might be expected to be of interest to Laius, since he himself is stuck on the same side of the Underworld river as the unburied souls, despite his possession of a tomb at Phocis (2.64). It is on the wrong side of the infernal bank that Laius is standing in the necromancy scene, after he has been delivered back to the Underworld by Mercury (4.604–6). For, as we learn at Thebaid 1.296–7, he has been barred from crossing the river Lethe on account of some unspecified law of Erebus (1.298).23 However, Tiresias promises him passage and a home in Elysium: tunc ego et optata uetitam transmittere Lethen/puppe dabo placidumque pia tellure reponam/et Stygiis mandabo deis (‘Then shall I grant you to cross forbidden Lethe in the longed-for boat and place you at peace in pious earth and consign you to the gods of Styx’, 4.622–4). And since Laius is struck with the same desire for ‘the further shore’ (ulterior . . . ripa, Theb. 1.297) as the unburied souls met by Aeneas (ripae ulterioris, Aen. 6.314), he readily cooperates (Theb. 4.624–5). In a move

23 This may be a consequence of his violent death which is noted at Theb. 1.296, as Lactantius comments on Theb. 4.621; see Lesueur (2003: 1.149, n. 46).

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characteristic of the Thebaid, we thus see the promise of peace to one restless ghost at the same time as we learn of its forthcoming denial to the Argive side. Furthermore, this offer of eternal rest strikes a dissonant note. Laius’ angry, vengeful ghost hardly deserves a space in Elysium, which is a place marked out for the pious (4.482) and frequented by few Thebans (3.109–10 and 11.569). The seer’s offer, like Erichtho’s, is a bribe which runs foul of the law of the Underworld and the Virgilian Sibyl’s strictures. Statius’ inclusion of a necromantic episode also speaks to his poem’s interest in boundaries.24 The boundary separating the Under- and upper world of the epic is particularly permeable, with continual traffic between the two spheres.25 Statius may describe the ‘threshold of Taenarus’ gate’ (Taenariae limen . . . portae, 1.96) as one ‘past which none may return’ (irremeabile, 1.96), but in the Thebaid it is a barrier which is frequently shown being breached. It may on occasion be crossed by living humans. As we can see from Dis’ irritated comments at Thebaid 8.53–4, the figure of Theseus provides a past example of an epic character who has been able to make a return trip to the Underworld. In the course of the poem itself, we encounter Amphiaraus making the passage when he is swallowed by the gaping earth (7.794–823), and there is an instance of boundarycrossing on a metaphorical level in the case of the blind and tormented Oedipus pictured as hovering upon the threshold of Earth and Hades whilst suffering a kind of life-in-death26 (indeed, at 11.587–93, as he goes out to view his sons’ corpses, he is compared to Charon entering the world of the living). The boundary may also be crossed by Olympian deities in the case of Mercury: this god, who regularly flits between the worlds (1.307–8 and 8.48–9), is sent by Jupiter to bring Laius to Thebes (1.292– 311 and 2.1–70) and is one of the powers called upon to herd ghosts in the necromancy (4.482–3). But it is typically the denizens of Hades who are portrayed as making the trip.27 Emphasis is particularly laid upon the passage of the Furies, as we can see from Tisiphone’s taking of a ‘familiar’ route (1.101) in her journey up through the Underworld to Thebes (1.89– 102), and in the breach made in the earth by Megaera (abrupta terrarum mole, ‘breaking earth’s mass’, 11.72), who is summoned by Tisiphone in a

24

See Ahl (1986: 2902); Hardie (1993: 77–80). See Feeney (1991: 345, 347–8, 351–2, 358–9); Hardie (1993: 79–80). 26 Cf. Theb. 4.614: iacet ille in funere longo,/ . . . et iunctae sentit confinia mortis (‘He . . . lies in a long burial and feels death linked in close neighbourhood’). See Feeney (1991: 345); Hardie (1993: 63, 77–8). 27 Cf. Theb. 8.61–4, for Dis’ journey to the upper world to abduct Proserpina. 25

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chthonic ritual of her own.28 Additionally, there are a number of journeys made to the Upperworld by the dead. As well as Laius (2.1–127), the stream of phantom visitors includes the ghosts of ancestors (7.409) and Oenomaus (7.415–16), who portend war, the Earthborn men who haunt the plain of Cadmus at night (4.438–41), and the shades sent by Dis to view the fraternal duel (11.420–4). The barrier appears yet more porous if we also consider the numerous souls of unburied corpses who are unable to get past the infernal river bank and hence flit around the threshold: quos uetat igne Creon Stygiaeque a limine portae,/ceu sator Eumenidum Lethaei portitor amnis/summouet ac dubio caelique Erebique sub axe/detinet (‘Them does Creon forbid the fire and bar from the threshold of the Stygian gate, as though he were father of the Furies or ferryman of Lethe river, keeping them in doubt between heaven and Erebus’, 12.558–61). In light of such emphasis on the breaching of boundaries, particularly by the inhabitants of Hades, it thus comes as no surprise that the poem features a meeting between the living and the dead.

SUMMONING UP THE DEAD We have so far seen how Statius’ decision to incorporate a chthonic scene responds to his poem’s interest in hellish power, the fate of the dead, and the boundaries between worlds. We might in addition usefully consider how other choices involving the episode resonate with the wider concerns of the epic. The decision to feature a necromancy is by no means an automatic one. Instead of showing Eteocles speak to the shades on earth, Statius could have portrayed the king’s descent into the Underworld in the manner of the Virgilian Aeneas. And even if he had decided against a katabasis, he could have effected Eteocles’ conversation with the dead by means of corpse resurrection, as in Lucan’s book 6, rather than drawing ghosts up to the surface. Indeed, Statius seems to play with the variety of chthonic possibilities. The inclusion of a Theban necromancy performed by Tiresias may not be surprising in light of the precedent offered by the Senecan Tiresias, who had undertaken the rite on behalf of Eteocles’ father (Sen. Oed. 390–402 and 509–658).29 Prior to the fourth book, however, our expectations have been steered in different directions. The 28 This mock-necromancy similarly involves the digging of a ditch (Theb. 11.63; cf. 4.451) and a summoning (Theb. 11.63–4; cf. 4.473–87). 29 For an analysis of the role of ritual in Seneca’s and Statius’ necromancies, see Augoustakis (forthcoming a). On the exploitation of the Senecan theatrical apparatus by

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only previous explicit reference to chthonic practice is to the ritual of corpse resuscitation performed by Thessalian witches (Theb. 2.21–2, 3.140–46, 3.559) which conjures the possibility of Lucan-style rites. Furthermore, the prospect that Eteocles might go down to the Underworld is raised by a Virgilian intertext. In Thebaid 2 (89–119), Laius reveals himself to his sleeping grandson Eteocles amid claims that his appearance had been engineered by a compassionate Jupiter, a passage which in part reworks Anchises’ assertion to his dreaming son that the king of the gods had sent him out of pity.30 In the Virgilian scene, Anchises goes on to ask his son to visit him in the Underworld (Aen. 5.731–7), thereby setting up the events of Aeneid 6. The parallels drawn between the Virgilian Anchises and the Statian Laius raise the expectation of a subsequent, Underworld encounter between grandfather and grandson, following the exemplum of Aeneid 6. The prospect of a katabasis, however, is never realized. Although, as we have seen, the preliminaries to Aeneas’ descent are reworked in the necromantic preparations, it is made clear from the start of the episode31 that Eteocles does not go down to the Underworld.32 Instead, he sees the ghosts as they come up to him. This conspicuous rejection of the option of katabasis befits the poem’s exploration of boundaries. Whilst Statius draws attention to the permeability of the borders between his different worlds, the actual participants of the Argive–Theban war appear unable to pass successfully between these boundaries. For example, Tydeus loses the chance of an Olympian dwelling when Minerva withholds the boon of immortality in disgust at his cannibalism (8.758–64),33 and Capaneus is thrust down from the walls of Thebes in his gigantomachic climb towards the gods (10.921–39).34 Amphiaraus may be able to enter Hades, as we see in his ride down to Tartarus (7.816–23). However, his inability to return, and hence escape death, marks him out as a failure.35 The only Statius and the theatricality of Statius’ necromantic account, see Lovatt’s analysis in Ch. 3 above. 30 See Legras (1905: 40–41); Vessey (1973: 70). Cf. Theb. 2.115–16 (ipse deum genitor tibi me miseratus ab alto/mittit, ‘pitying from on high, the sire of the gods himself sends me to you’) with Aen. 5.727 (caelo tandem miseratus ab alto est, ‘at last has had pity from high heaven’). 31 E.g. the reference to the summoning of the ghosts from Death’s threshold (Theb. 4.413–14). 32 On Eteocles’ cleansing in the beginning of the episode, see Dee’s discussion in Ch. 10 below. 33 See Hubert’s and Dee’s discussion of the passage in Chs 6 above and 10 below. 34 See Hubert’s and Gibson’s discussion of the passage in Chs 6 and 7 above. 35 Here too echoes of Aeneid 6 pointedly evoke expectations of a katabasis which are ultimately disappointed. As Smolenaars (1994: 379–80) observes, the reaction of the

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living human character in the poem who has managed a return journey to Hades is in fact Theseus, although the epic lists five other heroes who make the trip back: Orpheus, Castor, Pollux, Hercules, and Pirithous. Tellingly, Amphiaraus refutes any parallels with these latter two characters (8.95–6), in response to Dis’ angry recollection of their arrival in Hades (8.53–6). Amphiaraus also fails to match up to the other figures. Despite the number of links made between the priest and Castor and Pollux,36 Amphiaraus is unable to emulate the brothers’ ability to leave the Underworld, to which Dis refers (8.49–50). Nor, for all his similarity,37 is the seer a true counterpart to the uates Orpheus. He may go down to the Underworld on account of his wife, but this is a result of her treachery. Far from showing his devotion, his actions, such as his request that she may be tormented (8.120–22), reveal his hate. It is Aeneas’ piety which makes it possible for him to go down to the Underworld. Damningly, Statius’ characters, participants in the fraternal war, do not possess the uirtus which would enable them to make the return trip. Through the inclusion of a ghostly summoning, Statius is able to reinforce the boundary limitations faced by those engaged in the fraternal war. In light of the emphasis placed upon permeable borders in the episode, it is all the more marked that the Thebans do not cross down into Hades. Chthonic ritual usually takes place in a liminal setting. Thus Odysseus performs his rites at the entrance of Hades in sight of a rock and the rivers Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus which converge and flow into Acheron (Od. 10.513–15); Aeneas descends to Hades through the established Underworld entrance of the cave of Avernus (Aen. 6.237–41), which is later the setting for the Silian evocation of ghosts (Sil. 13.421–8). Erichtho resuscitates the corpse in a cavern (Luc. 6.642–53), which is described as ‘the grim limit of the unseen world and ours’ (maestum mundi confine latentis/ac nostri, 6.649–50): indeed, the possibility is even raised that she is bringing up ghosts from Hades (6.652–3). In addition, chthonic ritual typically involves the crossing of borders. Usually ghosts are raised up, but the practitioner may himself go down into the Underworld, as we see in Aeneid 6. And where we encounter corpse resuscitation in the case of Lucan, we also find some violation: for Erichtho makes

landscape prior to the descent of the Sibyl and Aeneas (Aen. 6.255–7) is evoked in the earth’s reaction to Amphiaraus’ imminent descent (Theb. 7.794–6). 36 E.g. Amphiaraus’ troops include men from Amyclae (Theb. 4.223), closely associated with Castor and Pollux in the Roman poetic tradition, and the swan-bearing Eurotas (Theb. 4.227), site of Leda’s coupling with a swan-like Zeus (cf. Theb. 4.236). 37 Ahl (1986: 2868): ‘Like Orpheus, Amphiaraus is a prophetic singer destroyed by a woman—his wife, Eriphyle.’

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fissures in the earth (Luc 6.728) in order to menace the infernal powers into cooperating. Tellingly, Statius pushes this interest in borders much further. Liminality characterizes the necromancy’s location. Hic (‘here’, Theb. 4.443) sites the summoning of ghosts on the plain, described at Thebaid 4.434–42, but the phrase notaeque in limite siluae (‘at the edge of the familiar wood’, 4.450) specifically puts it at the border with the wood of Thebaid 4.419–33. Moreover, these two locations are themselves places which act as thresholds to the upper world: the wood is the haunt of Hecate–Diana when she ‘escapes her uncle’s threshold’ (ubi limina patrui/effugit, 4.429–30), whilst the plain is the venue for the combat of ghostly Earth-born men at noon and night (4.438–41). The very choice of a necromantic ritual allows the development of the boundary crossing motif, since the process involves the bringing up of ghosts to the earth’s surface. And Statius follows the precedent offered by Seneca’s Oedipus38 in emphasizing the physical violation involved: a new passageway between the upper and Underworld is created as the ground cleaves apart at the opening of Hades: panditur Elysium chaos, et telluris opertae/ dissilit umbra capax (‘The Elysian void is revealed, the capacious darkness of hidden earth bursts asunder’, 4.520–22).

MOTIVATION AND REVELATION IN THE UNDERWORLD Thus Statius’ choice of ghostly evocation allows him to further explore the important theme of boundaries. The inclusion of specific material in the necromancy also plays to key ideas of the poem, as can be seen in the revelations made to Eteocles. Chthonic adventures are traditionally episodes of learning: for instance, Odysseus hears a prophecy of his life (Od. 11.100–37), and Aeneas receives information relating to the Italian conflict in which he will become involved (Aen. 6.83–97 and 6.890–92). The protagonist may also learn valuable future lessons from the experience, as we can see in the case of Anchises’ speech to Aeneas (Aen. 6.756– 886), well described by Denis Feeney as ‘genealogical protreptic, using historical exempla and the promise of glory to steer Aeneas towards

38

Cf. rumpitur caecum chaos (‘Blind Chaos bursts open’, Oed. 572); subito dehiscit terra et immenso sinu/laxata patuit (‘Suddenly the earth gaped and split apart into a vast cavity’, Oed. 582–3).

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virtuous rule’.39 What is striking about the necromancy of Thebaid 4, in comparison with rival chthonic scenes, is just how little is learnt. Rather than offering new experiences, Statius’ Underworld engenders a sense of familiarity. Not only are its monsters and sinners known (4.533–40), so are the majority of the ghosts summoned by Tiresias. With the exception of five characters from Argos’ past (4.587–9), Eteocles encounters those he has either often heard about or actually met: ancestors such as Cadmus, Agave, and Niobe (4.553–78) who haunt Theban consciousness (3.179–200), the fifty ambushers he had sent against Tydeus (4.593–601), and his grandfather Laius whom he last came across drenching his couch with ghostly blood (2.123–5).40 Whereas Odysseus and Aeneas also come face to face with figures from the Theban epic cycle, those they meet include characters at some remove from their situation, such as the mother of Oedipus (Od. 11.271–80), Eriphyle (Od. 11.326–7), and Tydeus, Parthenopaeus, and Adrastus (Aen. 6.479–80). Statius’s scene, by contrast, lacks the bigger picture, focusing inwardly on the Argive– Theban war. Furthermore, little is learnt in the way of information. Eteocles has been driven to summon the dead out of fear fostered by the Bacchant’s cryptic comments on the forthcoming fraternal war (4.383–406).41 Yet the necromancy proves hardly more edifying. This scene looks to the precedent set by Lucan’s chthonic episode, where a limited amount of intelligence is provided and Erichtho’s grand prophetic claims fail to be fulfilled.42 Even less information, however, is given by the Statian uates. In an episode spanning 240 lines, Eteocles only receives eight lines of actual prophecy (4.637–44), and this will turn out to be less than helpful. Laius starts off by claiming that ‘war is coming, war’ (bellum, . . . uenit . . . bellum, 4.637), a statement which would hardly come as a surprise to Eteocles, since Tiresias had predicted bella horrida moments before (‘war’s horrors’, Theb. 4.601; cf. Aen. 6.86). Then when Laius moves onto specific future events (Theb. 4.639–41), his cryptic phraseology renders his prophecy useless. Laius makes two clear points: victory is ‘certain’ (certa, 4.641) 39 For further bibliography, see Feeney (1986: 1 n. 3). On the learning experience of Scipio in the Silian nekyia, see Marks (2005a: 133–4). 40 Statius uses the even more limited list of Theban ghosts summoned in the Oedipus necromancy as a base, omitting only Zethus and Amphion from Seneca’s cast; see Juhnke (1972: 274). 41 See also Gibson’s essay in Ch. 7 above. 42 See Ahl (1976: 146); Masters (1992: 196–204). Sextus learns that Caesar’s side will win (Luc. 6.784–805) and that Caesar will die after Pompey (Luc. 6.810–11). He is not, however, given any information about his own fate (Luc. 6.811–12) but is fobbed off with a promise of future prophecy (Luc. 6.813–16).

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for the Thebans, a fact which has previously been inferred from the saddened demeanour of the Argive ghosts (4.587–92); and Polynices will not gain the throne (4.642–3). But crucially, his further observations on the Furies’ possession of the kingdom and Oedipus’ victory are obscurely couched so as not to sway Eteocles from the belief that he will be triumphant. Like Lucan’s corpse, whose ambiguous prophecy seems designed to entice Sextus Pompey to the scenes of his defeat,43 Laius, who is tellingly modelled on Homer’s angry Ajax,44 says just enough to lure his grandson into destruction and fraternal warfare.45 Whilst technically a little more informative than the Bacchant’s speech, Laius’ prophecy is more harmful. The Maenadic prophecy, which ends with the vision of another bull in possession of the meadow (4.404), may be unclear but it is less misleading. As Helen Lovatt has observed, ‘Laius is marked by his hatred and deliberate deception, mixing the malevolence and resentment of Ajax and Dido with the role of the sponsoring ancestor. What he sponsors is a renewal of violence, destruction and intra–familial conflict.’ Comparison with other chthonic scenes reveals how restricted and negative is the learning experience provided by this necromancy episode. The limitations are in part due to the angry Laius’ thirst for vengeance which shapes his prophetic utterances,46 in part the result of Eteocles’ characterization (the king is unusually selfish in his motivation). In the wake of Odysseus’ nekyia, which, though undertaken in order to further the hero’s knowledge of his homecoming (Od. 11.100) also provides Odysseus with information about his family (Od. 11.181–203), a combination of pietas and a spirit of enquiry typically motivates literary chthonic episodes, as shown by Aeneas’ trip to the Underworld to see his father (Aen. 6.687–8) and learn about his race’s future (Aen. 5.737).47 Conversely, Eteocles wishes for knowledge but it is solely personal. There is no suggestion that he is interested in the shades from the Underworld, 43

Masters (1992: 200–201). See Juhnke (1972: 95, 275–6). As usual in the poem, family has the role of enemy. Contrast Sil. 13.732–4, where Hamilcar is the Ajax figure; Reitz (1982: 107). 45 For Laius’ encouragement, see Ganiban (2007: 68–9). 46 For Laius’ hostility and desire for revenge, see Bernstein (2003: 358–9); Ganiban (2007: 68–9). Cf. the Senecan Laius at Oed. 642–6. Note that Aeson’s call for vengeance against Pelias (V. Fl. 1.794–822) is justified, and that personal revenge is only part of Scipio’s motivation (Sil. 13.507–10). 47 Jason’s parents perform a necromancy in order to find out what will happen to their son (V. Fl. 1.730–32), the Senecan Oedipus wishes to discover the murderer of Laius in order to rid his city of the plague, and the Silian Scipio is motivated by a desire to know the future (Sil. 13.399) and a wish to meet again his newly deceased father and uncle (Sil. 13.505–6). 44

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as in the case of Odysseus. He is not driven by concern for his people, like Seneca’s Oedipus: indeed, his thirst for power and hatred for Polynices have imperilled them. Nor is he spurred on by familial love: his relatives, such as his grandfather Laius, are called up to inform him about the war he will wage with his brother. In wishing to learn the outcome of the war out of a cowardly concern for himself (Theb. 4.406–9), Eteocles recalls Sextus, whose thirst for future information is driven by selfish fear (Luc. 6.423–4).48 Yet, more damningly, Eteocles stands alone in desiring knowledge of a fraternal war he himself has helped start. A third reason for the limited learning experience lies in the Theban past and present propensity for internal conflict so evident in the poem. Warring relatives are only glanced at as a future prospect in Virgil’s reference to Caesar and Pompey49 but, as summoner and summoned, they appear centre stage in Statius’ necromancy. The Theban inclination towards kindred strife is reflected in the description of Eteocles’ ancestors, such as the warring Earth-born brothers (4.556–60) or the repenting Agave (4.566–7). There is little in the way of positive exempla for Eteocles, unlike Aeneas or Scipio, to follow.50 If anything, the parade of ghosts serves as negative protreptic, reinforcing the fratricidal urges of Eteocles. And it is precisely because of these fratricidal desires that the Statian necromancy shows only past ghosts and lacks a vision of the future.51 The Theban tendency towards infighting and self-destruction means that there is no long-term destiny for Eteocles’ house. The king will die in conflict and his son will be defeated in future battle, in the revenge of the Epigonoi. The predictions of war made by Tiresias (4.601) and Laius (4.637) echo the language of the Virgilian Sibyl. But whereas the Sibyl’s prophecy of battle for Aeneas (Aen. 6.86) is followed by Anchises’ vision of Roman glory to come, the focus of the Statian prophecy is just combat: a vista of Theban prosperity is conspicuously absent. Like Lucan’s Romans, the Thebans seem trapped in a cycle of kin/civil war. Enmeshed in ‘regressive repetition’, to borrow David Quint’s terminology, they are unable to build a future.52

48

For Sextus’ personal interest, see Ahl (1976: 133). Virg. Aen. 6.826–35; cf. Sil. 13.861–7. 50 For the overwhelmingly negative depiction of Statius’ Argive and Theban ghosts, see Grebe (1989: 111), who identifies the one positive adjective, mitis (‘mild’, 4.568 and 589). 51 Cf. the bleak future pictured in Lucan’s Underworld scene, with Ahl (1976: 148) and Ganiban (2007: 67). 52 Ganiban (2007), 67: ‘Whereas Anchises displays a teleological view of Rome, always working toward the greatness of Rome, Lucan’s corpse reveals a circular view of Rome, in which civil wars not only recur but also seem to be Rome’s ever-present fate’. 49

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In short, Statius’ chthonic episode is in some sense a microcosm of the Thebaid as a whole. The necromancy’s interest in the power of the Underworld, the fate of the dead, and boundaries is characteristic of the poem, whilst the motivation behind the necromancy and revelations received therein showcase the Thebans’ self-destructive tendencies, which are exemplified by the fraternal duel of the eleventh book and the regret of Oedipus, its instigator. Far from being an unthinking rehash of literary topoi, the necromancy captures the familial dysfunction and sense of inward-looking stasis which pervades Statius’ universe.

10 Wasted Water The Failure of Purification in the Thebaid Nicholas Dee

In recent years, scholars have advanced our understanding of such important themes in Statius’ Thebaid as furor,1 the overwhelming power of nefas,2 and the ultimate feebleness of the Olympian gods in the face of fate, evil, and the gods of the Underworld.3 It is in this context that I shall seek to establish the role of purification and pollution in the poem. Indeed, one encounters several references to the impurity—both literal and figurative—of landscapes, mortals, and even gods. The poem’s characters repeatedly attempt to rid their epic world of its pollutants, yet consistently fail to do so. Purification therefore constantly reveals itself to be an act of futility; it is incapable of accomplishing either meaningful or lasting change. Furthermore, it will be shown that the futility of purification and the dominance of pollution highlight the epic’s themes of nefas, impiety, sacrilege, and the breakdown of the divine order itself. Before turning to the Thebaid, it will be necessary to define what is meant by the terms ‘pollution’ and ‘purification’. Robert Parker’s work, among the most extensive to date on the subject, will serve as a framework for my subsequent analysis.4 There are, broadly speaking, two types of purification, according to Parker. The first involves ritual which does

1

Hershkowitz (1994; 1995). Ganiban (2007). See also the essays by Manolaraki, Hubert, and Gibson, and Manolaraki (Chs 5–7 above). 3 McNelis (2007). See also the essays by Bessone and Parkes (Chs 8 and 9 above). 4 Parker (1983). One must be cautious when applying Parker’s theory regarding Greek religion to Roman epic, culture, and religion. Yet Statius, the son of a Greek scholar from Naples, has several Greek literary models as influences. 2

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not seek to remedy specific impurities, but rather is a ritual which ‘marks off sacred places from profane, creates special occasions, and unites individuals into groups’.5 Only a few episodes in the Thebaid fit this category (and only partially). For example, Tiresias, in the preliminary stages of his necromancy in book 4, an episode analysed by Parkes’ preceding essay, marks out a circle presumably to serve as the sacred space of his ritual and then proceeds to purify it (purgat, Theb. 4.416–18). But, as we shall see, the lustration of Eteocles only a few lines before is primarily concerned with issues of impurity beyond the spatial and ceremonial. As one might expect, Statian ritual falls primarily into Parker’s second broad category: purificatory acts and rituals performed in response to specific pollutants, which for the purposes of this chapter include sacrilege, murder, and familial curses.6 We shall see that the vast majority of purifications in the Thebaid are performed in response to one or more of these three pollutants. Having sketched this general theoretical framework, let us now identify two types of purification in the Thebaid intended to remedy specific impurities—i.e. those that operate within Parker’s second general category of purification. The first is the ritual of lustration by water (and sometimes fire). Although it need not be in direct response to wrongdoing—such as Tiresias’ lustration of Eteocles before his necromancy (4.415) and Atalanta’s cleansing of her hair after a nightmare (9.572–4 and 602–7)—the issue of pollution remains always present. The second type of purification in the Thebaid to be discussed below is the atonement for sacrilege, which often comes in the form of an offering or sacrifice to the gods. René Girard posits a link between sacrifice and purification wherein ritual sacrifice serves as the harmless outlet through which otherwise harmful violence can escape. Thus, when an atoning sacrifice is performed correctly, the guilty parties are cleansed of any lingering miasmic violence.7 Statius’ poem perverts this constructive purpose of ritual atonement, to the point where atonement in the Thebaid only leads to further sacrilege and suffering. The first section of this chapter will discuss scenes of lustration,8 while the second will examine sacrilege and the seeking of atonement. The 5

Parker (1983: 23). Parker (1983) dedicates a chapter to each of these pollutants. Girard (1977: 36–9). 8 The verb lustro is seldom used in the Thebaid (with the meaning ‘to purify ceremonially’ (OLD s.v. 1a), only for Menoeceus at 10.777; on the episode and Menoeceus’ litamina, see Bernstein, Ch. 13 below). As we shall see, the more common verbs used to denote purification via lustration are purgo, mergo, and luo. Often, in fact, lustro is used in the sense of ‘to look around for, seek’ (OLD s.v. 6), as in 5.547, or ‘to roam, scour’ (OLD s.v. 5a), as in 6 7

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boundary between the two models is not absolute or clear-cut: in some cases, instances of lustration will contain clear instances of sacrilege, and vice versa.9 The third and final section will address the most significant question concerning purification at the end of the poem, namely whether Eteocles, Polynices, or anyone in the cursed house of Thebes can hope for eventual purity.

THE FUTILITY OF LUSTRATION AND THE BREAKDOWN OF THE DIVINE POWER STRUCTURE After the introduction and invocation of the Muses, the first word of the narrative proper is impia (1.46), a word which both sets the tone of the poem and establishes one of its central themes:10 impia iam merita scrutatus lumina dextra/merserat aeterna damnatum nocte pudorem/ Oedipodes . . . (‘Oedipus had already probed his impious eyes with guilty hand and sunk deep his shame condemned to everlasting night . . . ’, 1.46–8). The language is unmistakably associated with atonement. The verb merserat, which alludes to lustration elsewhere (1.696–8; 4.415–16; 9.602), invokes the image of Oedipus cleansing himself of his shame by gouging out his impious eyes. But there is more than a poetic connection between impiety and a need for cleansing. John Scheid observes that, for the Romans, ‘piety implied purity, which was essentially a bodily state not directly related to intentions or morality’.11 In the case of Statius’ Oedipus, however, impiety seems very much related to immorality, inasmuch as Oedipus’ impious crimes lay the groundwork for the unfolding of the epic’s nefarious plot of fratricide. Jupiter accepts Oedipus’ ‘lustral’ blinding as an act of atonement: ‘Oedipus has paid eternal atonement to the gods above’ (ille [Oedipus] tamen superis aeterna piacula soluit, 1.236). The word piacula defines the act which demands expiation (OLD s.v. 3), the act of atonement itself (OLD s.v. 2b), and the 8.512. The verb lustro refers to military rituals in which fire, not water, is the purifying agent, but eventually the term is used for purification generally; see Ogilvie (1961: 39). 9 For example, although Tydeus’ cannibalism is a heinous sacrilege, I shall focus on Athena’s lustration of her own eyes, hence the inclusion of the episode in the chapter’s first section. 10 In fact, the adjective is applied to Oedipus (2.10), Argia (2.303), Creon (3.98), Niobe (3.192) the Lemnian women (5.190, 300), and Eteocles (11.499), to name some. The opposite term, pius, plays an equally central role, but the epithet is hardly used as much as it is in the Aeneid ’s famous example of pius Aeneas. 11 Scheid (2003: 26).

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sacrificial and/or purificatory atonement for said offence (OLD s.v. 1), and in Oedipus’ case it combines all three meanings. The verb soluit is closely associated with purification. Perversely, then, Oedipus’ atonement helps persuade Jupiter to carry out Oedipus’ curse and destroy the exitiale genus (‘deadly stock’, 1.243), which itself will be a tremendous source of sacrilege and pollution for Thebes and Argos. Thus the precedent has been set for the spiralling destruction which attempts at purification can create in Statius’ poetic universe. Whereas Oedipus’ act of atonement in book 1 is presented in the language of lustration, the first actual instance of lustration in the epic occurs in book 4 at the beginning of Tiresias’ necromancy:12 Lethaeaque sacra et mersum Ismeni subter confinia ponto miscentis parat arte ducem, circumque bidentum uisceribus laceris et odori sulpuris aura graminibusque nouis et longo murmure purgat. (4.414–18) ‘He makes ready rites of Lethe and the ruler immersed below the confines of Ismenos as the river mingles with the sea, and purifies all around with mangled entrails of sheep and breath of odorous sulphur and fresh herbs and lengthy incantations.’

Hidden within the arcane description of elaborate ritual is the curious implication that Eteocles, the cursed king of a doomed city, has been purified. How can that be? Before turning to this central question, let us place the scene in literary context. This passage is remarkable for its adherence to a long tradition of necromancy in classical literature, and for its departure from that tradition, as Ruth Parkes has already noted (Chapter 9 above). Statius’ oldest model for this scene is the necromancy in Odyssey 11. David Vessey points out that the rites of libations in that famous Homeric episode are ‘basically purificatory’.13 Statius’ necromancy is more immediately modelled after several Roman writers—including Seneca and Lucan—but departs from the details of its predecessors in several ways: for example, the purification via the ‘sacrifice of sheep, fumigation by sulphur and herbs, and long incantation’ is an aspect not found in Seneca.14 Whereas Vessey sees in Statius’ necromancy ‘minute attention habitually paid . . . to detail and the Ungewohntheit in his search for variation and brilliance within a valued and coercive tradition’,15 Antony Augoustakis has identified profound intertextual engagement on Statius’ part with Seneca’s 12 13

On Tiresias’ role in the Menoeceus episode, see Bernstein, Ch. 13 below. 14 15 Vessey (1973: 239). Vessey (1973: 252–3). Vessey (1973: 257–8).

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Oedipus, which ‘the Flavian poet uses . . . to promote his text as a sequel to the Neronian tragedy’.16 Vessey argues, moreover, that whereas Lucan seems to have ‘scanned contemporary grimoires for authentic material’ to construct his necromancy, Statius ‘offers a purely literary creation’ that ‘exist[s] entirely in the world of fantasy’.17 Yet we should not deny the possibility that Statius is inspired by real rituals of his own time. It is perfectly possible, for instance, that Statius’ inclusion of sulphur in the cleansing ritual is motivated by the cleansing role it seems to have played in the cult of the Lares Augusti.18 In any case, since he does not blindly copy the stock scenes of his literary models, Statius’ necromancy and the preliminary purification rituals can be treated as conscious elements of the poetic design. David Vessey makes no mention of the detail that Eteocles undergoes lustration. Perhaps scholarly inattention to the matter in general can be excused by the reality that Eteocles’ purification seems perfectly meaningless. After all, it is only one of many arcane rites in a convoluted ceremony, and perhaps a purification of that kind would never carry any significance beyond perfunctory ritual. Yet I would argue that the apparent meaninglessness of the ritual is itself a deliberate literary choice, meant to convey the futility of purification in the face of the overwhelming nefas of the impending fraternas acies (‘fraternal warfare’, 1.1). In other words, the very strangeness and marginalization of the ritual itself suggests that it is performed in vain. For it is abundantly clear that the ritual has no meaningful or lasting effect. Eteocles remains a rex impius (‘impious king’, 11.499), and therefore never actually purified. In order to highlight the symbolic importance of Eteocles’ poetically marginalized lustration scene we might contrast the poetically emphasized salvific role which the Tiber River plays in Aeneid 9. At the end of the book, Turnus is being bombarded by a fierce Trojan cohort and is nearly subdued. But, on the brink of exhaustion, he leaps into the Tiber’s current and is swept away to his companions and to safety, absolved of sure death (abluta caede, ‘with the carnage washed away’, 9.818). To be sure, Turnus is not saved for long; his death at Aeneas’ hands awaits. However, unlike Eteocles’ encounter with the Ismenos River, Turnus’ washing qua ‘lustration’19 has a meaningful (if temporary) impact on the

16

Augoustakis (forthcoming a). On the theatricality of the episode, see Lovatt’s analysis in Ch. 3 above. 17 Vessey (1973: 250). 18 Beard et al. (1998: 1.203). 19 As Hardie (1994: 250) observes, ‘there is a suggestion of ritual washing . . . Turnus goes to the river to wash before prayer at [Aen.] 9.22–23.’

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narrative. Virgil places the scene at the end of the book to emphasize the Tiber’s power and importance. Conversely, Statius’ downplaying of the lustration by burying it amidst myriad arcane rituals and giving the passage no narrative significance suggests the inaccessibility of ritual lustration in the Thebaid as a whole. Moreover, Statius’ decision to place Eteocles’ purification in the Ismenos, and not in any other stream, is itself significant, given that the Ismenos has its own narrative of pollution that runs throughout the course of the epic, in which it is transformed for the worse, from a (failed) agent of lustration to a polluted body of water. The Ismenos certainly fails to cleanse Eteocles, but that is not to say that the river has always been unclean. In book 2, the anonymous shade who addresses Laius as he leaves the Underworld includes the rivers of Thebes among the beautiful sights that await the Theban patriarch: heu dulces uisure polos solemque relictum/et uirides terras et puros fontibus amnes (‘You shall see the sweet sky, alas, and the sun you left behind and the green earth and the pure founts of rivers’, 2.23–4).20 Yet a devastating war will soon mar the Theban landscape, and the shade’s description will no longer apply, as Carole Newlands suggests.21 The defilement of the landscape takes centre stage already by the end of the fourth book, when the Argive soldiers, parched and exhausted, finally slake their thirst in a Nemean river described as ‘with clean flow’ ( gurgite puro, 4.817). But the Argive army ‘dirties’ it (sordet, 4.825). The Ismenos fares no better. In book 9, with the war fully under way, the personified river laments his transformation. Once known for its purity, his ‘water breathes out evil’ (anhelat/unda nefas, 9.431–2) and is now tainted by the carnage of war. Set in opposition to purus, nefas unmistakably carries the connotation of pollution. Rivers are by nature capable of self-renewal. In Ovid, for instance, when the landscape needs assistance, the gods lend it.22 But in the Thebaid, the Ismenos receives no such help from Jupiter or any of the gods. In fact, when the river re-enters the narrative in the aftermath of the war in book 12, it is portrayed as ‘still polluted’ (turpatus adhuc,

20 See Dominik (1994b: 176) for this passage’s connection with the necromancy of book 4. 21 Newlands (2004: 133–4 and n. 3) points out that the language in the shade’s address echoes Ovid’s descriptions of the grove of Diana (Met. 3.155–62) and the grove of the Martian serpent (Met. 3.28–31). The shade’s words, she argues, ‘are prophetic, for Statius’ poem of civil war will depict the dissolution of that Ovidian paradise’ (134). 22 Jupiter restores the landscape, after the fire from Phaethon’s crashed chariot destroys the landscape (Met. 2.401–8); see Newlands (2004: 138).

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12.410). Nevertheless, Argia and Antigone wash Polynices’ corpse in the filthy waters (ut sanies purgata uado membrisque reuersus/Martis honos, ‘When the gore had been cleansed away in the water and the beauty of the warrior had returned to the limbs’, 12.416–17).23 These verses suggest that, despite the muddiness of the water, the purgatio has some positive, restorative effect: the warrior Polynices is not entirely ignoble. As Victoria Pagán explains, ‘[W]ar gives the soldier an opportunity to earn laus and gloria’, which the Martis honos here signifies.24 I shall address at the end of this chapter the question of whether the fratres ultimately remain polluted. Here let it suffice to note that Polynices’ purification hearkens back to that of Eteocles in book 4. Yet in books 11 and 12 the poet emphasizes the devastating increase in death and pollution that Thebes has experienced since the fourth book: whereas a living Eteocles is washed in a pure river, a dead Polynices (with Eteocles’ pyre still burning nearby) is being cleansed in a polluted river. The next episode of lustration to be considered is Atalanta’s purification of her hair, after she wakes up from a nightmare foretelling the death of her son Parthenopaeus: crine dato passim plantisque ex more solutis, ante diem gelidas ibat Ladonis ad undas purgatura malum fluvio uiuente soporem. (9.572–4) ‘[she] was on her way before dawn with hair flying in the wind and feet bare as of wont to the chill waters of Ladon to purge her sinister slumber in the living stream.’

Some type of cleansing ritual after dreams is commonplace in the epic tradition, for women especially. Medea, for instance, after dreaming of her impending exile, purifies herself in a river at dawn (V. Fl. 5.329– 62.).25 Statius uses the common epic theme of post-phantasmagoric lustration to accentuate the poem’s larger theme of the Olympian gods’ helplessness in the face of evil fate.26 For we see in this episode that two passages concerned with ritual purification frame a scene which expresses the futility of prayer, as Bruce Gibson and Ann Hubert have already demonstrated. After Statius relates the ritual of purgation quoted above, the reader is presented with an account of Atalanta’s dream. Next,

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I follow here Hall et al.’s (2007) emendation of mortis to Martis. Mortis honos (‘the beauty of death’) is awkward and unsatisfactory; Pollmann (2004: 186) admits ‘the sense here is unique.’ On Argia as Cybele in book 12, see Chinn’s analysis in Ch. 18 below. 24 Pagán (2000: 424). 25 Dewar (1991: 166). 26 For the inevitability of Parthenopaeus’ death, see Dominik (1994a: 29).

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Atalanta, desperate for her son’s safety, offers a prayer to Diana. But before the prayer begins, the poet returns to the subject of purification, and then shortly after offers an important (and prophetic) detail about Atalanta’s impending prayer: ergo ut in mane nefas merso ter crine piauit uerbaque sollicitas matrum solantia curas addidit, armatae ruit ad delubra Dianae rore sub Eoo notasque ex ordine siluas et quercum gauisa uidet. tunc limine diuae adstitit et tali nequiquam uoce precatur . . . (9.602–7) ‘So when she had dipped her hair thrice in the river to expiate the abomination and added words to comfort a mother’s anxious cares, she hastens in the dew of dawn to armed Diana’s shrine and rejoices to see the trees in their threshold, she prays in vain as thus . . . ’

The futility (nequiquam) of the prayer is indisputable. Diana wants to save Parthenopaeus, but, as Apollo tells her, the Heldenknabe is fated to die (9.652–3). The fact that Atalanta cleanses her hair is perhaps the best indication that we should also read the lustral act as indicative of Diana’s inability to change fate: Parthenopaeus in his death throes cuts off a lock of his hair and entreats Dorceus (Diana in disguise): ‘either burn it, or hang it up as a reproach to thankless Diana’ (9.907).27 Fate has driven a rift between mortal and immortal, Mount Olympus and Thebes. In sharp contrast to the youthful brashness of Parthenopaeus, let us now turn to battle-hardened Tydeus, whose final hour is steeped in the language of pollution and the ritual of purification. Indeed, even before Athena’s dramatic lustration, Tydeus’ aristeia is expressed in the language of purification and pollution. Statius’ description of his bloodlust recalls lustral submersion: magno furor est in sanguine mergi (‘his madness is to sink in mighty blood’, 8.595). Mergi recalls the lustration of Eteocles and forebodes Atalanta’s; furor anticipates the ensuing cannibalism, inasmuch as cannibalism is an intense manifestation of madness.28 As Tydeus’ aristeia nears its end and death draws near, his wish is fulfilled, namely to be covered in blood, but, in his wounded state, the blood is his own: iam cruor in galea, iam saucia proluit ater/pectora permixtus sudore et sanguine torrens (‘Now there is blood in his helm, a black torrent of mingled gore and sweat deluges his wounded chest’, 8.711–12). The verb proluit in this contest is likely a grim and bizarre allusion to lustration. The emphasis on Tydeus’ being drenched in gore 27 28

On the futility of prayer here, see Hubert, Ch. 6 above. Hershkowitz (1995: 58).

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looks forward to the hero’s abominable nefas and Athena’s abhorrence for it. Whereas fate prevents Diana from saving Parthenopaeus’ life, Minerva chooses not to save her favourite when the fury Tisiphone drives him to cannibalize the head of his killer (8.751–66).29 Thus Tisiphone, and her master, Dis, score a victory against the Olympians (8.65–79). Randall Ganiban rightly asserts that Tydeus’ ‘spectacular nefas’ is ‘pleasing to hell and horrifying to heaven’ and that ‘the ultimate revelation of his criminality to the horrified gods only underscores heaven’s lack of control in human affairs’.30 What is more, Minerva’s attempt to purify herself of what she has witnessed underscores the increasing inability of the Olympians to withstand the evils that Tisiphone, Dis, and Oedipus have unleashed. For although Tritonian Athena descends to the battlefield intending to bestow immortal glory upon her protégé, once she witnesses the nefas, the book ends with her disgust and selfpurification: nec prius astra subit quam mystica lampas et insons/Ilissos multa purgauit lumina lympha (‘nor ascends to the stars until the mystic torch and guiltless Ilissos had purged her eyes with plenteous water’, 8.765–6). The ‘mystic torch’ refers to a ritual (perhaps of mystery cults), in which both fire and water become agents of purification.31 Yet here Statius may have been influenced by more traditionally Roman purification rituals as well: Ovid, for example, records in the Fasti (4.721–862) that the Roman purification festival of the Parilia includes both water and fire as agents of symbolic cleansing (Fast. 4.727–8).32 Regardless of the cultural origin, here Athena is seen engaging in a ritual normally reserved for mortals. One of the most important roles of the Roman gods was to grant ‘effective purification’; they were not themselves the object of purification.33 Such humanizing of a great Olympian not only perverts the norms of purification rituals but also underscores the weakness of Statius’ Olympian gods in general. Furthermore, just as Atalanta’s hair, the object of her own purification, draws attention to that aspect of the plot, likewise in book 8 the emphasis on Minerva’s eyes as the object of her purification reflects the larger theme of divine neglect and weakness. The goddess’s eyes first garner attention when Tydeus begins to flag and the goddess becomes worried:

29 Cf. also Hubert’s analysis of the scene: ‘Pallas’ horror, as she imminently would have conferred divinity but ultimately refuses to do so, confirms her absence both in his hymn and in his death.’ 30 31 Ganiban (2007: 123). Joyce (2008: 411). 32 33 Rupke (2007: 114). Rupke (2007: 149).

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(8.713–15)

‘He looks back upon the comrades who urge him and faithful Pallas, who afar hides her eyes behind her shield; for she was on her way to sway her great father with her tears.’

Here Pallas shields her eyes because she is so fond of Tydeus and loyal ( fidam) to him. But when we next hear of her eyes, in the penultimate word of the book, she has not only averted her eyes in disgust but must purge them of the evil she has witnessed.34 Such a transformation anticipates the withdrawal of Jupiter and the rest of the Olympian gods from human affairs. Later in book 11 Jupiter ‘[takes] his eyes from the guilty fields’ (uisus . . . nocentibus aruis/abstulit, 11.134–5) and bids the other gods, including the three warrior deities Minerva, Mars, and Bellona, to ‘avert their gaze’ (auferte oculos, 11.126). William Dominik states: ‘Jupiter feigns horror at the prospect of such impious crime being committed (11.125–33), and declares that the gods must not be contaminated by the sight of the dual fratricide.’35 Whether or not Jupiter is truly disgusted notwithstanding, the reality of his concession of Thebes and Argos to the chthonic powers ought not to be de-emphasized. In fact, the Olympian gods become ineffective and destructive long before they avert their gaze, and therefore officially relinquish any responsibility for the war they have helped to create.36 The lacklustre Olympians indeed leave a power vacuum upon their departure, which is filled by the two ‘Stygian sisters’, Tisiphone and Megaera (11.415).37 In a dramatic final expression of retreat, Pietas, taunted by Tisiphone, ‘draws her cloak over her eyes and flees to complain to the great Thunderer’ (deiectam in lumina pallam/ . . . trahit magnoque fugit questura Tonanti, 11.495–6).

PIACULUM AND THE PERVERSION OF ATONEMENT Piaculum is a term of tremendous flexibility, since it signifies both a sacrilege for which one needs to atone and the purificatory act itself, as 34

The placement of this purification at the very end of the book highlights its importance and recalls the ending of Aeneid 9 (see above). 35 Dominik (1994a: 25) (emphasis mine). 36 See Feeney (1991: 357) on the moral failings of the gods; see Bernstein (2004: 64) on the failure of Jupiter’s authority; cf. Ch. 13 below. 37 On the failure of the divine, see Bessone’s analysis.

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we have seen above. Both the word and the concept(s) are integral to two separate scenes in the Thebaid which depict atonement sought for the slaying of serpents: at 1.562–9, Apollo slays Python, angered by his infant son Linus’ death; and again at 5.565–87, the Argives slay the serpent which kills Opheltes in Nemea.38 In both cases, the attempt at atonement fails to have any real purifying effect. Instead, as we shall see, atonement begets more sacrilege and suffering. After Apollo subdues Python, a sacred serpent, he is marked with blood-guilt that must be expunged:39 noua deinde piacula caedis/perquirens nostri tecta haud opulenta Crotopi/attigit (‘Then seeking to expiate his recent bloodshed, he came to the humble halls of our king Crotopus’, 1.569–71). Describing the piacula as noua suggests that, in this early stage of the world’s development, the practice of atonement for sacrilege had not yet been invented.40 Ovid tells us that Python was Apollo’s first kill outside of the hunt (Met. 1.441–4).41 Although Ovid includes no quest for atonement, his version of the myth is quickly followed by the attempted rape of Daphne (Met. 1.452–567). Similarly in the Thebaid the narrative swiftly shifts focus to Apollo’s sexual conquest. But Statius’ follow-up to the serpent-slaying is decidedly damning of the god’s nature:42 upon his arrival in Argos, Apollo encounters a maiden, Psamathe, who is ‘untried in bed’ (intemerata toris, 1.573). He rapes her and by so doing sires a son.43 Psamathe, ashamed and afraid of her father, Crotopus, abandons the child, who is then torn apart by dogs (1.575–90). Enraged and grieved, Apollo exacts vengeance, not on Psamathe or Crotopus, but on the entire city, by summoning a chthonic monster to devour the children of Argos. Scholars have tended to look to the rape of the girl Psamathe and the birth of the child Linus as the pivotal moment in the story that first begets destruction.44 I would suggest, however, that the chain of causality goes 38

On the connection between the two babies, see Ganiban’s analysis in Ch. 14 below. On Python and Poine, see Keith’s detailed analysis of the episode in Ch. 17. 40 Cf. Heuvel (1932: 246). Newlands (2009: 362 n. 39) suggests that noua explains that the ‘connection between the killing of the Python and the rape of Psamathe is not apparent in Callimachus’. 41 See Keith’s comparison of the Ovidian and Statian accounts in Ch. 17 below. 42 Cf. Newlands (2009: 361): ‘In Statius’ unsentimental reading of Ovid’s Apollo, the god is stripped of any endearing traits. Unlike Ovid’s Apollo (1.504–24), Statius’ Apollo does not woo his girl with honeyed words. And not only does he rape, impregnate, and abandon Psamathe, he completely forgets about her and her child. His sexual excess reveals the brutal and violent nature of this god by contrast with Ovid’s rather feckless deity, at least where love is concerned.’ 43 Cf. Daphne, who is saved from such a fate by being turned to a laurel (Met. 1.548–52). 44 Dominik (1994a: 67): ‘None of the events [in Adrastus’ tale] would have taken place if it had not been for Apollo’s rape of Crotopus’ daughter in the first instance.’ Cf. Dominik (1994b: 109–10). 39

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back a step further: the stage is set for the rape and the succeeding events only because of Apollo’s sacrilege and attempt to expiate his guilt. Thus, Apollo’s quest for purification is, somewhat ironically, the bridge between sacrilege and atrocity. Furthermore, the god’s actions set an early precedent for viewing the Olympian gods as unreliable and capricious.45 Let us turn now to the consequences of serpent-slaying in book 6 and the ominous death of another infant, Opheltes.46 While Opheltes’ bier is being prepared, an episode discussed by Randall Ganiban in Chapter 14 below, some Argive soldiers are involved in building an enormous one of their own to the gods in order to cleanse themselves of the sacrilegious killing of the serpent: parte alia gnari monitis exercitus instat auguris aeriam truncis nemorumque ruina, montis opus, cumulare pyram, quae crimina caesi anguis et infausti cremet atra piacula leti. (6.84–7) ‘Elsewhere at the bidding of the schooled augur the army presses to pile up an airy pyre, like a mountain, with tree trunks and forest wreckage, to burn up the sin of the snake’s slaying and dark offerings, of expiation for their illomened war.’

In this instance, piacula does not refer to the act of atonement but connotes the sacrilege itself.47 The verb cremet here carries the specialized meaning of offering a burnt sacrifice; the attempt at purification is implied, though far less clearly than elsewhere. And yet the means by which the Argives attempt to atone for their sacrilege are themselves sacrilegious: just as they offend the Nemean landscape by defiling the waters in book 4 (as discussed above), likewise here they commit a crime against the earth by chopping down a sacred forest—all in the name of atonement!48 The many scenes of sacrilege in books 5 and 6 of course all occur within the Nemean portion of the epic, which is centred around

45

McNelis (2007). Vessey (1970a: 325): ‘The death of both infants occurs at the beginning of important sections of the Thebaid; Linus is mentioned as the doom of Argos enters its first stage, at the arrival of Tydeus and Polynices. The baby Opheltes—thereafter known as Archemorus (nomen omen)—dies just before the Argive heroes set out on their final march to destruction.’ 47 Cf. Fortgens (1934: 71). As Shackleton Bailey (2003: 2.333 n. 8) comments in a note: ‘In atonement for the death of the sacred snake (cf. 5.511–13). But something wider may be adumbrated, as though the war were a crime in itself.’ 48 Newlands (2004: 144). 46

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Hypsipyle’s story.49 Given that her story demonstrates the irrelevance of pietas in the face of overwhelming nefas,50 it is no wonder that the Argives behave so sacrilegiously in Nemea. One passage in particular within Hypsipyle’s narrative demonstrates well the perversion of purification in the Nemean books. Polyxo, the ringleader of the Lemnian women who slaughter their husbands in cold blood, uses the language of lustration in her exhortation toward sacrilegious violence: age auersis thalamos purgate maritis (‘Come, purge your chambers of estranged husbands’, 5.137). Disturbingly, purgation is the nefas which pious Hypsipyle will resist.51 This perversion of the semantics of purgo anticipates Pallas’ and Atalanta’s desperate purifications in the face of overwhelming abhorrence and maternal dread respectively. The Argives’ apparent and astounding ignorance of the sacrilege they commit in book 6 by clearing a sacred grove is echoed in book 8. Thiodamas, the Argive seer who replaces Amphiaraus after the latter’s katabasis, offers a prayer to Tellus. In the prayer, Thiodamas betrays his obliviousness to the Argives’ sacrilege: ‘What crime, I pray, do we expiate unawares?’ (quod, precor, ignari luimus scelus? 8.318).52 The failure of mortals to understand their crimes against the gods is another indication of the breakdown of divine order. For not only do Jupiter and the other Olympians fail in the end to watch over the two warring cities, but the mortal warriors seem disconnected from the importance of sacred rites. In light of so many failed acts of atonement, René Girard’s analysis has bearing on Statius’ narrative: Girard argues that the constructive violence of purification rituals, such as sacrifice, is the only way to flush out the destructive violence within a society. The term he gives to this process is ‘sacrificial substitution’.53 Yet any attempt at sacrificial substitution in the Thebaid either fails or produces disastrous side-effects. When Apollo seeks atonement, the outlet for his sacrilegious violence becomes the innocent children of Argos. Similarly, when the Argives want to expiate their guilt, their burnt offering becomes the product of wrongful violence against nature. And finally, Thiodamas’ animal sacrifice (8.338–41) could not have pleased Tellus, since the seer does not understand for what wrongful act the sacrificial offering serves as a substitute.

49 For a discussion of Hypsipyle’s inadequacy as a mother, see Newlands (2006: 206–9) and most recently Augoustakis (2010: 37–61). On Hypsipyle’s saving of Thoas, see Bernstein, Ch. 13 below. 50 51 Ganiban (2007: 78). Ganiban (2007: 94). 52 53 Augoustakis (2010: 42–3). Girard (1977: 4–10).

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IS THE THEBAN HOUSE IRREDEEMABLY POLLUTED? An exchange between Adrastus and a messenger of Theseus’ army in Euripides’ Suppliant Women reveals a precedent for lustration in the myth of the Seven.54 The Athenian army has recovered the bodies of the Argive warriors and has brought them back to their city. Adrastus asks: `. Øł ÆP e H ƺÆØæø çƪ ; `ª. Œ¼ æø ª Pa ŒIŒ ºıł Æ Æ. (Eur. Supp. 765–6) ADRASTUS:

Did he himself [Theseus] wash the poor men’s wounds? Yes, and he spread out biers for them and covered their bodies.

MESSENGER:

For Theseus,55 Adrastus, and Euripides’ Athens, the concern is simply for proper funerary ritual;56 the redemption of Polynices and the Seven is not at issue here. Yet in the Thebaid, purificatory acts shortly before and after death exist to express a deeper pollution. In the final books of the epic (book 11 especially), many of the most polluted characters’ minds turn toward atonement and redemption. Nevertheless, with a few exceptions, atonement is denied them. Consequently the mood of pollution permeates the poem’s conclusion (pace Federica Bessone’s emphasis in Chapter 8 above on the redeeming role of Clementia). Statius is far more concerned with Polynices’ purity (or lack thereof ) than with Eteocles’. As a ruthless tyrant, Eteocles has no hope of redemption, whereas the unfairly disadvantaged Polynices has moments of self-awareness, and therefore has a slight chance at redemption.57 The miasmic cloud which hangs over Polynices’ head shows itself early and often. In the course the chariot race in the funeral games of Opheltes, Arion, Adrastus’ divine horse, throws Polynices to the dirt, since ‘in his innocence, [the horse] had dreaded the grim son of Oedipus’ (dirumque expauerat insons Oedipodioniden, 6.425–6). The patronymic Oedipodionides underscores the incest and patricide of Oedipus; the divine Arion senses those pollutants and is repulsed.58 Debra Hershkowitz couches the issue in more general terms: ‘Heredity is a miasmic force in the 54

On Euripides and Statius, see Bessone (2011: 20–22) and Ch. 8 above. Rehm (1994: 116 and n. 27) suggests that Theseus fulfils the female work of washing the corpses himself to spare the women further grief. ‘The model here may be Il. 24.582–6, where Achilles has his handmaidens wash and prepare Hektor’s corpse away from Priam’s sight . . . ’ On Theseus in the Thebaid, see Bessone’s discussion in Ch. 8 above. 56 Cf. Eur. Hec. 611, with Gregory (1999: 120): ‘A culminating feature of weddings and funerals alike was the ceremonial bath, for which water was drawn from a prescribed source.’ 57 Braund (2006: 269). 58 Nagel (1999: 386–7). 55

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Thebaid.’59 The members of the Theban royal family have committed heinous crimes against their own flesh and blood, and such crimes lead Oedipus’ sons to quarrel and fratricide. It is not until later in the poem, with the death of his comrade Tydeus, that Polynices expresses concern that he and the pollution he carries and creates are destructive:60 ‘I have expended Tydeus!’ he laments. ‘With what death shall I atone for this?’ (Tydea consumpsi! quanam hoc ego morte piabo?, 9.60). Polynices understands that the only way to end the Argives’ and his own suffering is to die. Evidence that Polynices knows of his own pollution and wants to expunge it appears again in book 11. When speaking to Adrastus before facing his brother in combat, he says, ‘I am he that, while you ruled in peace and righteousness (an ill-starred guest . . . )’ (ille ego sum qui te pacem et pia iura regentem/infelix . . . , 11.165–6). Later on the battlefield Polynices again speaks of his own death in terms of atonement—and this time his thoughts have turned toward the impending fratricide.61 In a prayer to the gods to whom Oedipus prayed in book 1, the exile exclaims: di, quos effosso non irritus ore rogauit Oedipodes flammare nefas, non improba posco uota: piabo manus et eodem pectora ferro rescindam . . . (11.504–7) ‘Gods whom gouged Oedipus asked not in vain to fan the flame of crime, I ask no excessive plea. I shall purify my hands and tear open my breast with the same steel . . . ’

There is impious, fratricidal anger behind this rhetoric of deuotio:62 Polynices admits that he will only kill himself if, upon their mutual destruction, he gains the kingly sceptre, and if Eteocles becomes a minor umbra (‘inferior shade’, 11.508). This is the first sign that their animosity will remain in death. Given the perverse nature of Polynices’ desire for an expiatory death, we should not be surprised that he does not achieve it. For the voice of the narrator, in his direct address to the brothers’ corpses, makes abundantly clear that their pollution will outlive them: ‘Go, fierce souls, and 59

Hershkowitz (1994: 128). See Coffee (2006: 440 and passim) for a good discussion of Polynices’ self-awareness. Lactantius explains piabo . . . excindam (11.506) as expiabo parricidium fratris mea morte (‘I will atone for the slaughter of my brother by my own death’); see Venini (1970: 133). 62 Cf. Coroebus’ selflessness and purity of intentions in his rhetoric of deuotio (1.643–61); see Dominik (1994b: 109–10) and Keith’s analysis of the episode in Ch. 17 below. On Menoeceus’ ‘failed’ deuotio, see Bernstein, Ch. 13 below. 60 61

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pollute grisly Tartarus with your death’ (ite truces animae funestaque Tartara leto/polluite, 11.574–5). The hyperbole of the sentiment is jarring: Eteocles and Polynices are so impure that their presence will defile even the Underworld! As I discussed in the first section above, Eteocles’ corpse undergoes ritual purification in book 4, yet the blazing apart of the flame on the shared funeral pyre (12.429–36) is the final demonstration that such acts of lustration are for naught. There ought to be no question that the conclusion of the fratres’ narrative exemplifies well the futility of purification and the permanence of pollution in the Thebaid. Victoria Pagán has argued that the arrival of Theseus has a cleansing effect on the city of Thebes, and that ‘through funeral rites, the survivors purify the slain and themselves’;63 and so does Federica Bessone in Chapter 8 above. But the poem’s main narrative of internecine war ends in pollution. Furthermore, there are indications, such as the descriptions of the captured Amazons (12.519–39), that Theseus will be no better than Eteocles.64 After the brothers’ joint pyre proves a failure, Statius then turns to the fates of the elder Thebans, Oedipus and Jocasta. One might consider there to be no better time for an attempt at expiation than the lament of Oedipus, yet we get nothing of the sort. Instead, Oedipus places all the blame on the Furies and Fates: furor illa et mouit Erinys/et pater et genetrix et regna oculique cadentes;/nil ego (‘It was madness that caused it and a Fury and my father and mother and throne and falling eyes— I had no part in it’, 11.619–21). It is true that Oedipus was driven by Tisiphone to call a curse down on his sons in book 1,65 but nevertheless Oedipus’ insistence on total victimhood is perverse. As Ann Hubert argues, ‘since Tisiphone and Jupiter respond separately to his prayer in the first book, Oedipus’ pointed and unexpectedly perceptive question betrays the chaos surrounding divine response to prayer in the Thebaid, at the same time that it exposes prayer itself as the source of this disorder.’ Polynices is equally tormented by the furies, equally subject to fate and the caprice of the gods, yet he at least recognizes the need for purification, unattainable though it may be. In a scene remarkably different from Oedipus’ lament, Jocasta commits suicide and performs (what appears, at least, to be) the only instance of effective and untainted lustration in the Thebaid: uenas perrumpit aniles/uulnus et infelix lustratur sanguine lectus (‘The wound breaks her 63

Pagán (2000: 448). Dietrich (1999: 45); Augoustakis (2010: 77–91). See also Bernstein’s conclusions in Ch. 13 below. 65 See also Hubert’s and Gibson’s analysis (Chs 6 and 7 above) of the prayer in book 1. 64

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aged veins and the hapless couch is purged with blood’, 11.640–41). Lactantius asserts that by her suicide Jocasta ‘has purified herself of her crime of incest on the unlucky bed’ (cruore suo infelicis lectuli purgauit incestum): the lectus, the sight of her crime, is the object of the lustration.66 In a sense, we can understand why Jocasta’s attempt at purification would succeed: her crime of incest is unwitting, and, unlike Oedipus, she is not a force spurring on the fratricide. In fact, Jocasta is one of few voices of reconciliation in the Thebaid:67 in a maternal plea to Polynices, she begs him to try talking with Eteocles before war is pursued further (7.506–9). Yet Statius also makes clear that she is not immune to the poem’s pervasive madness and nefas: she descends to the Theban fields ‘like the eldest of the Furies’ (Eumenidum uelut antiquissima, 7.477) and assumes considerable responsibility for the violence by calling herself the ‘impious mother of the war’ (impia belli/mater, 7.483–4).68 What has Jocasta actually achieved by her lustral suicide? The male offspring of her infelix lectus have succumbed to a level of impiety that earns them eternal pollution. Oedipus, the father/brother of her children, blind to his crimes, will not seek atonement. Thus I believe that we ought to interpret even Jocasta’s positive lustration through the lens of the wider theme of purification’s futility. Despite the clear pathos that the death scene invokes, Jocasta’s gesture is essentially empty. Her private lustration, away from the polluted battlefield, is too little, too late, and exemplifies the marginalization of purificatory ritual in the Thebaid.

CONCLUSION The concepts of pollution and purification would appear to be minor themes in the Thebaid, if one were to study them in isolation. This chapter, however, has argued that the pervasiveness of pollution and the futility of purification exist in the poem in order to highlight and enhance much larger themes, such as divine failure, sacrilege, and most importantly fraternal hatred. Indeed, pollution and purification demonstrate the gods’ neglect, helplessness, and even destructiveness: Athena washes her eyes, as she cannot bear to witness the horrific crimes of an 66

Cf. Venini (1970: 160–61). Together with Antigone; see the discussion of the two figures’ intervention in Augoustakis (2010: 62–75). 68 Newlands (2006: 204) convincingly argues that ‘there are no ideal mothers in Statius’s poetry’. 67

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accursed war; Atalanta cleans her hair before a desperate prayer to Diana, but the goddess’ hands are tied by fate; Diana’s brother, Apollo, becomes an agent of mass death by trying to atone for his own sacrilege. It is no wonder then that the ritual of purification is often useless and on occasion perversely destructive for the mortals too. Oedipus’ self-blinding, an act of atonement that helps mobilize the poem’s plot, as well as the Lemnian women’s mass murder of their husbands, are described in the language of lustration. As the Ismenos river courses through the poem, it changes from pure to defiled. And at opposite ends of the poem, both sons of Oedipus are washed in it, yet their souls go on to pollute the Underworld after death. In this way, water is wasted on the irredeemably polluted.69

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Antony Augoustakis, who first encouraged me to write the seminar paper that would later become this chapter, and who gave me indispensable guidance through every step of the process. Many thanks also to Daniel Abosso, Mathias Hanses, and Amy Oh for co-organizing the conference at which this essay was first presented, and to everyone at the conference for their helpful questions and suggestions. 69

11 Patterns of Darkness Chthonic Illusion, Gigantomachy, and Sacrificial Ritual in the Punica R. Joy Littlewood

At the literary heart of Rome’s civic religion lies her earliest foundation legend, Hercules’ conquest of Cacus, commemorated in the cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima.1 In this aetiological theoxeny the semidivine hero frees the land from the forces of evil, the eponymous Cacus, so that its ruler, Evander, a ‘good man’, may inaugurate a cult potently symbolic for the future Roman state.2 Virgil introduces the legend at a pivotal point in his epic, adumbrating comparisons with the crisis surmounted at Actium. The legend of the Ara Maxima inspires Aeneas with renewed courage to fulfil his destiny at a low point in his fortunes when, having survived the fall of Troy, near-fatal digression in Carthage, and katabasis, he must prepare himself for a bitter war in Latium. The hero is invited to have the courage to model himself on the god by accepting Evander’s modest hospitality: aude, hospes, contemnere opes et te quoque dignum/finge deo, (‘Have the courage, my guest, to scorn riches; make yourself, too, worthy of deity’, Virg. Aen. 8. 364–5). 1 Virg. Aen. 8.185–306; Liv. 1.7.4; Ov. Fast. 1.587; D. H. 1.39–40; Prop. 4.9.1–20. The symbolism of the myth of Hercules and Cacus is explored in Galinsky (1972: 142–6), Hardie (1986: 110–18), and Morgan (1998: 173–7). 2 In 29 bce Augustus chooses its anniversary, 12 August, as the most auspicious day on which to inaugurate his Triple Triumph (D. C. 51.21.1). Visualizing the text of Punica as a palimpsest laid over Aeneid 8, Pomeroy (2000: 152–62) demonstrates how Silius disperses through his epic the salient components of Aeneas’ visit to the site of Rome to prefigure significant crises in the war against Carthage. He highlights a different set of correspondences from those suggested here, illustrating the multi-faceted relevance of the myths of Rome’s prehistory to the later fortunes of the Aeneadae.

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Honed by adversity and furnished with Hercules’ exemplum, he shoulders his divinely wrought shield engraved with proleptic images showing his descendant exemplifying the essential values incorporated in Rome’s foundation legend: Augustus confronting at Actium Cleopatra’s monstrous Egyptian gods aiding Rome’s enemies and, victorious in Rome, performing the ritual of triumphal sacrifice. The mythical origins of Roman civic ideology, which were symbolically represented in Hercules’ defeat of Cacus, aligned traditional Roman values with the new form of monarchy that had emerged from political upheaval. They offered to subsequent writers of Roman historical epic two symbols for the conquest and annihilation of Rome’s enemies: monster-slaying and, by extension, gigantomachy; and the symbol of Roman victory, the triumphal sacrifice. Silius’ reappraisal of the civic ideology3 formulated in Virgil’s Augustan epic is sharpened by the civil chaos of 69 ce and Vespasian’s castigation of the corruption and luxuria of the previous dynasty. The ruinous consequences of luxuria, celebrated as a cornerstone of Flavian civic morality,4 is a leitmotiv of Silius’ historical epic. The poet interposed his symbolic and allusive re-enactment of Hercules’ conquest of Cacus, underlying Fabius’ rescue of Minucius in Punica 7, at a critical point in the conflict between the rapid succession of Roman defeats at the Trebia, Ticinus, Lake Trasimene, and the pivotal catastrophe at Cannae.5 This chapter aims to demonstrate how Silius elevates his Roman heroes and demonizes Hannibal by adapting or inverting the central themes of Virgil’s foundation legend of the Ara Maxima: monsterslaying, the cognate theme of gigantomachy, and Rome’s triumphal ritual of victory sacrifice. I shall first examine the significance for the hero of Punica 7 of his lineal ancestor, Hercules, in his conquest of the forces of darkness represented by Cacus and katabasis. Two subsequent lines of investigation will explore, first, the prominence of chthonic ritual and illusion in the poet’s portraits of Hannibal, his family and his supporters; and secondly, Punica’s recurrent allusions to the theme of gigantomachy, particularly as a symbolic frame for Punica 12, in which Hannibal mounts a sacrilegious assault on Rome itself. The final section returns to Punica 7 and Virgil’s foundation legend to suggest that Silius accentuates the sacrilege of Hannibal’s violation of Italy by constructing 3 The significance of Hercules and his gigantomachy in this story are recognized as essential elements in the configuration of Roman civic ideology by Feeney (1998: 53). 4 See Littlewood (2011: liv–lvi, 163–82). 5 In Ch. 12 below, Cowan interprets Fabius’ salvation of Minucius at the battle of Gerunium as a virtual katabasis.

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a monstrous subversion of the sacred Roman ritual of triumphal sacrifice.

THE DESCENDANT OF HERCULES, Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS The forging of ancestral links between past and present, between semidivine heroes and the ruling families, flourished during the Hellenistic Period. Through his direct descent from Hercules and Evander’s daughter, a union which followed directly the hero’s conquest of Cacus below the Palatine,6 Silius’ hero is inextricably bound to Virgil’s foundation myth. Throughout the Punica Fabius exhibits as his two salient virtues the moral strength of character (which the Stoics attributed to Hercules by allegorizing his physical endurance in accomplishing his labours) and the wisdom and foresight of Evander’s mother, Carmentis.7 These qualities empower Silius’ hero to maintain his policy of cunctatio in the face of legions mutinous at Hannibal’s devastation of Italy and, later, to endure with Stoic equanimity his loss of reputation and demotion to sharing the high command with the unscrupulous and ambitious Minucius. Strong Stoic resonances underline Fabius’ moral victory as he rises above fear, fury, and petty jealousy, heralding the Herculean resolution of the drama: omnia namque/dura simul devicta uiro, metus, Hannibal, irae,/inuidia, atque una fama et fortuna subactae (‘Simultaneously the hero surmounted every moral challenge—terror, Hannibal, anger, grudges—and was master of both his reputation and his fortunes’, Sil. 7.577–9).8 The poem is informed and coloured by the flamboyant imagery of epic dualism. The chthonic imagery which Silius uses to describe Minucius engulfed by the forces of Carthage identifies his rescuer, the heroic

6

Sil. 6.627–36 and 7.35–6. According to Polybius (3.87.6), because of the recognition of Fabius’ wisdom and farsightedness, his gens retains the cognomen, Maximus. Silius’ phrasing, when Fabius makes his first appearance in Punica, hints at prophetic gifts: cauta speculator mente futuri (‘peering warily into the future’, Sil. 1.679); prouidus haec, ritu uatis, fundebat ab alto/ pectore praemeditans Fabius surgentia bella (‘Mindful of the future and musing on the war to come, Fabius, prophet-like, uttered this advice from his lofty soul’, 1.685–6). 8 These lines, intentionally alluding to the moral strength attributed to Hercules by the Stoics, correspond directly to Apuleius’ description of the moral strength of the cynic Crates (Apul. Fl. 22). 7

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Fabius, not simply with Hercules conquering Cacus but also with Hercules braving the terrors of the Underworld. Fabius discovers the wounded Minucius praying for death and already visualizing himself making the infernal crossing: iam Styga et eternas intrarat mente tenebras (‘[he] had already crossed the Styx to the place of eternal darkness’, 7.586). Fabius himself, meanwhile, is compared to the dazzling light of the returning sun when, by smashing through their encirclement, he scatters the Carthaginians massing like a pall of Stygian darkness (Stygiae tenebrae, 7.724).9 Silius alludes not only to Hercules’ defeat of Cacus but to Hercules’ descent to the Underworld in the highly charged simile with which he describes Fabius’ rescue of Minucius and his legions from defeat by the Carthaginians: . . . subitisque bonis mens aegra natabat, ut, qui collapsa pressi iacuere ruina, eruta cum subito membra et nox atra recessit. coniuent solemque pauent agnoscere uisu. (Sil. 7.726–9) ‘Their minds swam helplessly at their sudden good fortune, like men who had been crushed under a falling house, when their limbs are dug out and the darkness recedes. Dazzled, they are afraid to open their eyes to the glare of the sun.’

In order to associate the darkness of Minucius’ treachery with the evil which symbolically accumulates, like the darkness of Cacus’ lair in the archetypal foundation legend, Silius’ Fabius appears to replay the scene when his ancestor, Hercules, rips off the roof of Cacus’ cave, exposing the stolen cattle, now accustomed to the murky darkness, to the painful glare of bright sunlight: umbrosae penitus patuere cauernae (‘deep below, the shadowy cave lay open’, Virg. Aen. 8.242). In order to align Fabius with his ancestor at the moment of his katabasis and to visualize Fabius snatching his legions from the very jaws of death, Silius likens the legionaries to men buried, without hope of rescue, recoiling from the brightness of sunlight as they are dug out of a ruined building. At the same time the poet also recalls Virgil’s image of the shades recoiling from light penetrating the infernal darkness through fissures in the earth’s crust: non secus ac si qua penitus ui terra dehiscens infernas reseret sedes et regna recludat

9 On the textual problems of 7.723–4, see Littlewood (2011: 242–3). For a discussion of the passage, see also Cowan, Ch. 12 below.

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pallida, dis inuisa, superque immane barathrum cernatur, trepident inmisso lumine Manes. (Aen. 8.243–6)10 ‘ . . . just as if, through some force, the earth, gaping open deep below, were to unlock the infernal abodes and disclose the pallid realms abhorred by the gods, and from above the vast abyss be seen, and the ghosts tremble at the inrushing light.’

Silius’ double Virgilian allusion to the darkness of the monster’s cave and to the startled shades when exposed to daylight conveys the idea that Fabius re-enacts both Hercules’ conquest of Cacus and his katabasis by overcoming the powers of darkness, i.e. the forces of Hannibal and sedition within his own legions. Following Hercules’ exemplum of valour, fides, and endurance, Fabius vindicates the validity of the Roman military ideals enshrined in Cicero’s De officiis and promoted by the Flavian emperors: the moral courage not to be deflected from an unpopular policy, magnanimity towards those morally weaker than himself, selfless patriotism, and paternal responsibility for the safety of his legions.11

CHTHONIC ILLUSION AND RITUAL The contrasting imagery of infernal darkness and natural sunlight formed a regular part of the dualism present in Roman epic. In the Punica too, Stygian darkness represents a suspension of reality symbolic of the misleading constructions devised by the perfidious Carthaginian, which may be overcome by the power of Roman uirtus and pietas. An example of this occurs in the early skirmishes of the Battle of Gerunium in the seventh book. Tunger, a Carthaginian warrior, sweeps towards the Roman lines in a chariot drawn by black horses, potently described as furuus (‘black’, 7.683), a word redolent of the Underworld and black sacrificial victims.12 His dusky equipage casts an unearthly shadow, nigrantem Stygia caligine currum (‘a chariot black with the darkness of hell’, 7.690), which strikes terror into the superstitious Roman infantry. 10 Silius recalls Virgil’s image of flashes of light penetrating the Underworld and startling the shades in his description of Hannibal’s journey through the Phlegraean fields: uicina palus . . . / . . . / . . . horrendos aperit telluris hiatus/interdumque nouo perturbat lumine manes (‘a neighbouring swamp . . . reveals hideous fissures in the earth, and sometimes startles the ghosts below by a flash of light’, 12.126–9). 11 On sources for Fabius’ character, see Littlewood (2011: lxiii–lxx). 12 Cf. V. Max. 2.4.5 and Var. Gram. 70. Cf. Cowan in this volume: ‘Both character and poet create an illusion that events on earth are taking place in the Underworld.’

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They are intimidated as much by his massive frame (mole pauenda, 7.681) as by his sable garb, and this poetic detail subtly evokes the theme of gigantomachy, which maximizes the power of the forces of evil in the epics of Virgil and his successors.13 Although his horse shudders and recoils from the sinister darkness, trepidat cassa sonipes exterritus umbra (‘stood trembling, terrified by the harmless shadow that Tunger cast’, 7.698), the boy Cato confronts the apparition ‘fearlessly’ (imperterritus, 7.695). He leaps into the infernal chariot and boldly decapitates the would-be lord of the Underworld, suffused now with oxymoronic pallor: tremiscens/palluit (‘dreading, he turned pale’, 7.702–3). Silius’ unsullied youth from Tusculum prefigures his biological descendant and literary ancestor, Lucan’s Cato of Utica, whose uncompromising Stoic patriotism presents the true moral contrast with his Caesar.14 Tunger’s defeat by the adolescent Cato illustrates in microcosm the conflict of light and darkness, which Silius uses to symbolize the military confrontation between Fabius and Hannibal, Roman and Carthaginian. Fabius makes his first appearance on the crest of the Apulian hills at the head of a Roman army which glitters in the rays of the rising sun (prima satis conspecta in montibus altis/signa procul fulsitque nouis exercitus armis, ‘the first Roman standards were distinctly seen on the heights, and the new weapons of the army glittered in the distance’, 7.96–7). At Gerunium, ‘his crested helmet flashes’ across the battlefield (scintillant cristae, 7.593) as he routs the Carthaginian forces, which are dissipated like ‘infernal darkness’ (Stygiae tenebrae, 7.724).15 Hannibal uses the hours of darkness to plot nocturnal ambushes (nunc nocturna parat caecae celantibus umbris/furta uiae, ‘now he plans secret marches under cover of night’, 7.135–6), sleeplessly fuelling his corrosive resentment against Fabius.16 Even his aristeia, a holocaust of Roman plough oxen designed to create the illusion of a vast army moving towards the Roman guard post, can only take place under cover of night. Hannibal’s literary association with gigantomachy and infernal darkness is accentuated by cumulative ‘evidence’ that he relies on chthonic 13

Hardie (1986: 85–119). Aligned intertextually with Cato, who offers to die if his death alone will save the republic, me solum inuadite ferro (‘with your sword attack me alone’, Luc. 2.315), Fabius demands that, for the sake of Rome winning the war, his mutinous army accept his policy of withholding battle, knowing that this will ruin his reputation as an effective general: me solum, quaeso, toti me opponite bello (‘ . . . and set me, me only, I beg, in opposition to the whole war’, Sil. 7.252). 15 On this passage, see also Cowan, Ch. 12 below. 16 Sil. 7.154–5 and 282–7. 14

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powers for military victory. The child Hannibal makes his solemn vow of eternal enmity towards Rome within the enshrouding gloom and bloodstained walls of Dido’s temple, which is consecrated to the worship of chthonic deities (1.91–103).17 To these powers sacrifice is made in order to determine the outcome of the war (1.119–22). In the epic’s final lines Rome’s moral victory is poetically underlined in Silius’ contrasting description of the triumph of Scipio, ablaze with gold and purple, illuminated by the cosmic radiance of Bacchus approaching from the east and mighty Hercules with his head touching the stars (17.645–50). Nocturnal darkness and chthonic ritual are also the variants distinguishing Silius’ dark and sinister version of Anna Perenna’s visit to Hannibal from Ovid’s lively aetiological narrative, which identifies the Roman goddess Anna Perenna with Dido’s sister.18 While Ovid explores, in the register of Roman erotic elegy, the eastern princess’s impact on Aeneas’ rustic home and the murderous jealousy of Lavinia, Silius emphasizes how Juno instigates Anna’s defection from her new loyalties to Rome. As a close relative of Hannibal (ego . . . uestri generata e sanguine Beli, ‘I was born of the seed of Belus, your ancestor’, 8.220– 21; cf. 8.30–31), she willingly contributes to her sister’s vengeance on the Aeneadae.19 In a narrative framed by speeches reiterating her loyalty to Carthage, the poet describes Anna performing the ancient rituals of the house of Belus, sacrifices to chthonic powers: a black sheep to avert a prophetic nightmare, with renewed offerings to Hades and Persephone to assuage her sister’s lovesickness (8.116–20). It is to Dido herself, the founder of Carthage, that the Flavian poet attributes the annual child sacrifice, which is construed by the Romans as the most abhorrent of all Carthage’s religious practices: mos fuit in populis, quos condidit aduena Dido, poscere caede deos ueniam ac flagrantibus aris, infandum dictum, paruos imponere natos. (4.765–7) ‘It was the custom of the race that Dido founded to appease the gods by sacrifice and, disgusting to relate, to place little children on blazing altars.’

17 The poet is probably alluding to Carthaginian child sacrifice in the ‘dread rites’ (diros ritus, 1.102), of Dido’s temple. On Dido’s death as a civic sacrifice or deuotio, which will demand the munera of Roman dead in the Second Punic War, see Hardie (1993: 29). 18 Ov. Fast. 3. 545–654. On Anna Perenna in the Punica, see also Fucecchi and Marks in this volume. 19 Cf. 8.41–2, where Anna asks Juno that she may retain the goodwill of her former country in implementing Dido’s curse.

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The barbarity of this practice is accentuated by the poet’s description of Imilce, Hannibal’s wife: when the priests select for sacrifice Hannibal’s baby son, she storms through Carthage in a Bacchic frenzy (4.774–9), rivalling Dido’s ungoverned fury at the departure of Aeneas (Aen. 4.300–3).20 Amid the chthonic or nocturnal darkness which engulfs the religious rituals practised by Hannibal and the Carthaginians there is a key exception—an episode, it might be argued, which marks the pivotal nadir of Roman fortunes in the Punica: in the fiery August dawn, when the Italian fields are flooded with radiance (claro perfundit lumine campos, 10.557), the victor of Cannae solemnly lights the funeral pyre of his heroic and now vanquished enemy, Paulus (10.540–75). Inverting the theme which underlines the impiety of Statius’ Theban conflict, denial of burial to dead warriors, Silius uses a powerful description of the myriad funeral pyres of Roman dead to signal closure after the cycle of Roman defeats culminating at Cannae. The poet suggests through the unease of the onlookers that the new phase of the conflict will bring tribulations for Carthage. As the flames rise in the dawn light, the Punic soldiers experience deep forebodings for the uncertainty of their continuing Italian campaign: subit horrida mentem/formido incerti casus (‘They felt a dreadful apprehension of the uncertain future’, 10.543–4). Concluding a funeral bereft of the traditional Roman gathering, Paulus’ family and ancestral imagines, and distinguished only by Hannibal’s tribute of a purple and gold mantle flung over the body, Hannibal himself pronounces to the departing spirit of Paulus these last words devoid of triumphalism and ominous for his own future: i, decus Ausoniae, quo fas est ire superbas uirtute et factis animas. tibi gloria leto iam parta insigni. nostros Fortuna labores uersat adhuc casusque iubet nescire futuros. (10.572–5) ‘Glory of Italy, go to the place ordained for heroes proud in deeds of valour! You have achieved a glorious death. I am still the plaything of Fortune who prevents me from knowing what will become of me.’

COSMIC FORCES AND GIGANTOMACHY IN SILIUS’ PORTRAYAL OF HANNIBAL Gigantomachy becomes a topical motif among the Flavian poets, for it mirrors the civil bloodshed of December 69 ce, when the forces of 20

On the episode, see Augoustakis (2010: 198–213).

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Vitellius stormed the Capitol and the 18-year-old Domitian only narrowly escaped the fate of his uncle, Flavius Sabinus, the city prefect.21 Domitian himself celebrates the Flavian victory in verse (Quint. Inst. 10.1.91; cf. Mart. 5.5.7). Silius, who applauds Domitian’s reconstruction of the Capitoline temple (3.623–4), uses Hannibal’s defiance of Jupiter not simply as a metaphor for his arrogance but as an illustration of Carthaginian perfidia: as Rome’s divine upholder of social order, Jupiter Feretrius is closely associated with binding oaths and the inviolability of treaties. Punica fides (‘Carthaginian trustworthiness’) encompassed a scant regard for the sacrosanctity of treaties, defined by Ennius: qui ius igitur iurandum uiolat, is Fidem uiolat (‘He who violates an oath violates Loyalty itself ’, Cic. Off. 3.104).22 In the epic conflict of cosmos and chaos, where infernal powers confront those of order and light, the monsters slain by ktistic heroes are surpassed in demonic impiety only by giants mounting an attack on the stronghold of the gods themselves. A powerful political metaphor in Hellenistic art and poetry, the imagery of gigantomachy colours Virgil’s and Horace’s descriptions of Actium where Minerva and Apollo assist the guardian gods of Rome in defending the Roman forces from the subhuman bestiality of Cleopatra’s Egyptian divinities.23 These two deities of intellectual enlightenment represent ‘reason or wisdom, fighting on the side of the legitimate champion of Rome’.24 The theme of gigantomachy supplies the ‘bookends’ of Punica 12, which opens, appropriately, with Hannibal being taken on a guided tour of the Phlegraean Fields by his new allies from Capua. Silius here contrasts the Carthaginian’s titanic arrogance with the humility of Virgil’s hero seeking enlightenment from the trial of katabasis.25 Aeneas is awed by the inexorable power of chthonic punishment visited on the rebellious giants consigned to the depths by Jupiter’s thunderbolt, which the Sibyl tells him she has witnessed with her own eyes (uidi, Aen. 6.582). Escorted in the steps of Hercules and Aeneas,26 Hannibal is unimpressed by Apollo’s temple at Cumae and impatiently resentful of time wasted sightseeing, which he 21 See Stat. Silu. 5.3.196–8. Cf. Stat. Theb. 8.41–7, 10.907–31, 11.7–11; V. Fl. 1.196–9, 2.16–24, 3.124–37, 3.223–8, 4.199–201, 4.235–8. Martial visualizes Domitian in the role of Hercules (9.101.13–14). 22 On Hannibal’s attitude to oath-breaking, see Littlewood (2011: lxxiii). 23 Virg. Aen. 8.698–705 and Hor. Carm. 3.4.49–64. 24 Hardie (1986: 98–9 and n. 36). 25 Virg. Aen. 6.103–213. 26 Sil. 12.85–157; on the scene, see Muecke (2007) and Manolaraki (2010). See Muecke (2007) for Hercules’ associations with the places exhibited to Hannibal, and Klaassen (2010: 107–12) for contrasts with Aeneas’ progress through the entrance to the Underworld.

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feels would be better spent mounting an attack on neighbouring Puteoli:27 ductor numerabat inertes/atque actos sine Marte dies ac stare pudebat (‘The general was counting the days spent idly without fighting and felt ashamed of his inactivity’, 12.104–5). He makes no comment when he is shown the legendary rivers leading to the Underworld, Cocytus (12.116–17), Avernus (12.120–21), and Acheron (12.126–9). Only when he witnesses the fumaroles, the hiss and rumble of subterranean fires, and mountains said to incarcerate the giants Mimas and Iapetus, does the Carthaginian’s interest awaken, as he marvels at the heaving earth and the sea threatening volcanic eruption: miratur pelagique minas terraeque labores (‘He looks with wonder at all the anger of the sea and the unrest of the land’, 12.157). Silius’ proleptic description of fire-spewing Iapetus, still unrepentantly longing to renew his assault on Jupiter’s kingdom, reflects Hannibal’s own smouldering ambition to carry his standards to the gates of Rome in defiance of the nightmare which checks him after Cannae. Describing Hannibal’s patriotic desire to free his country from the shameful treaty of the First Punic War, Silius pictures the young Carthaginian, drenched in sweat, breaking the peace of night with savage roars like one of the marauding giants as he imagines himself preparing to storm Jupiter’s Capitol, nocturno penetrat Capitolia uisu (‘in visions of the night, he penetrates the Capitoline hill with his gaze’, 1.64).28 It is significant that even before the conflict begins Hannibal defies simultaneously the gods, the inviolable power of Rome’s treaty with Carthage, and the barriers of both Alps and Tarpeian rock: non superi mihi, non Martem cohibentia pacta,/non celsae obstiterint Alpes Tarpeiaque saxa (‘Neither the gods nor peace treaties nor the vertiginous Alps nor the Tarpeian crag shall stand in my way’, 1.116–17). In Silius’ catalogue of high mountains, the juxtaposition of Pelion to Ossa (3.494–5)29 adds a subtle hint of gigantomachy to Hannibal’s progress through the Alps, where he exhorts his men to take a higher path than Hercules and to imagine that they already scale Jupiter’s Capitolium: nunc, o nunc, socii, dominantis moenia Romae/credite uos summumque Iouis conscendere culmen (‘Now, my friends, imagine that you are scaling the walls of the tyrant, Rome, and the high citadel of Jupiter’, 3.509–10). Here again the barrier of the Alps is likened to the walls of Rome and the challenge of the Capitol. 27 In 12.106–9, Silius summarizes Hannibal’s lacklustre military campaign which has failed to capture Naples (12.27–59) and Cumae (12.60–105). 28 See also Cowan, Ch. 12 below. 29 Cf. Virg. G. 1.281 and Ov. Fast. 1.307. See Fucecchi (1990: 40).

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The shadow of gigantomachy falls on Silius’ catalogue of portents before Cannae: the Tarpeian rock shudders until it is wrenched out of the ground, rivers of blood pour through Jupiter’s Capitoline temple, and Vesuvius roars like a rebellious giant, hurling rocks to the stars in a renewal of gigantomachy (8.643–5 and 653–5).30 The last of these ominously prefigures the climax of the battle when a massive rock, hurled from the Carthaginian lines, crushes and kills the Roman consul, Paulus (10.235–6). While in Punica 7 Fabius plays the role of Hercules, who mirrors in microcosm the gods’ victory over the giants when he destroys the monster, Cacus, Hannibal in Punica 12 attempts the gigantomachy, which would realize the painting celebrating Carthage’s victory, which he describes in the closing scene of the sixth book: flagrantem effinges facibus, Carthago, Libyssis/Romam et deiectum Tarpeia rupe Tonantem (‘You will depict Rome ablaze with Libyan firebrands and the Thunderer flung down from his Tarpeian crag’, 6.712–13). Highlighting Hannibal’s gigantomachic obsession with the Capitol,31 Silius reintroduces 6.713 as a dramatically cogent intratext in Punica 12 when the Carthaginian, encircled by three Roman armies blockading his ally Capua, rages through the night like a wild beast at bay.32 Not even his terrifying night vision of Jupiter poised to cast his bolt from the Tarpeian rock (10.360–62) has the power to check his madness. In the darkness before dawn Hannibal assembles his army, challenging them to expel Jupiter from his Capitoline fortress: eia, incute muris umbonem Iliacis Capuaeque repende ruinas. quam tanti fuerit cadere, ut Palatia cernas et demigrantem Tarpeia sede Tonantem. (12.514–17) ‘Go smash your shields against the walls of Rome! Avenge the fall of Capua! This is a price worth paying for the Thunderer’s flight from his Tarpeian seat!’

Silius’ Hannibal twice juxtaposes, as his greatest achievements, victory at Cannae and his ambition of successfully storming the Capitol. Facing imminent defeat, he laments that he was granted neither a hero’s death

30

For rock-hurling as a weapon of the giants, cf. Lucr. 4.138–41 and Virg. Aen. 2.608–9. See Fucecchi (1990: 24–5). 32 Similarly, in 7.282–309, Silius describes Hannibal’s anger and frustration at being encircled by Fabius’ army in the Ager Falernus in terms suggesting an almost bestial fretting through the night (cf. 1.64–9). These nocturnal scenes contrast with Scipio’s carefully pondered alliance with Massinissa in the morning sun (16.135–69). 31

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on the field of Cannae nor struck down by Jupiter himself as he stormed the Capitol: at mihi Cannarum campis, ubi Paulus, ubi illae egregiae occubuere animae, dimittere uitam non licitum uel, cum ferrem in Capitolia flammas, Tarpeio Iouis ad manes descendere telo. (17.264–7) ‘But I was not permitted to die on the field of Cannae, as Paulus died and those noble souls, nor was I struck down by Jupiter’s thunderbolts while firing the Capitol.’

The archetypal defiance and unrepentant impiety of the Giants underlies the Carthaginian’s vision of his immolation by an avenging Jupiter.33 In the final section of Punica 12 divine intervention brings about the Carthaginians’ withdrawal from the walls of Rome in a dramatic scene in which Juno reveals to Hannibal the armed might of Rome’s guardian gods in glorious array, each defending his own quarter of the sacred city. The epic conflict between reason and bestiality, civilization and barbarism, Rome and her enemies underlies the scene, which is poetically more compelling for Silius’ use of wit and gentle humour.34 The Carthaginian leader, seething sleepless through the night and exploding with renewed fury at daybreak, beats on his shield in arrogant imitation of Jupiter’s thunderbolt (12.680–85). Turning with dignified distaste from Hannibal’s noisy barbarity and secure in the knowledge that he has won this marital battle, Jupiter advises Juno, affectionately, that she would be wise to check her protégé, ‘whose insolence knows no limit’ (12.694–5), in his headlong career towards divine retribution. As the gloriously titanic Carthaginian demands torches to brandish in competition with Jupiter’s thunderbolts (12.699–700), Juno, uncharacteristically compliant, hastens to deflect him from his purpose with a nightmarish vision.35 She orders him bluntly: Titania desine bella! (‘Fight no more like the Giants!’, 12.725). The menacing spectacle of Rome’s armed gods daunts Hannibal’s frenzied belligerence. As he withdraws, the sun pours a symbolic flood of radiance from a cloudless sky: redditur extemplo flagrantior aethere lampas/et tremula infuse resplendent caerula

33 Fucecchi (1990: 30) connects this passage with Liv. 26.8.5, where an avenging Jupiter punishes Hannibal for his impiety in breaking the treaty with Rome made after the First Punic War. 34 Similarly in 7.409–93, Silius uses humour to revitalize with a topical slant the scene of the judgement of Paris. 35 This corresponds almost exactly to Hannibal’s nightmare after Cannae (10.360–62), which checks his march on Rome.

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Phoebo (‘At once the sun in heaven shone brighter, and the quivering blue of the sky glittered in the sunlight’, 12.731–2). It illuminates the joyful Romans thronging the temples, viewing the Carthaginian camp site and performing thanksgiving sacrifices to Jupiter, who has fulfilled the promise he made in 6.604–5: Tarpeium accedere collem/murisque aspirare ueto (‘I forbid you to approach the Tarpeian hill and to raise your hopes to the walls of Rome’). Hannibal, nonetheless, remains true to character: even as he gives the order for withdrawal, he mutters threats to return (12.730). A true titan, he defies Rome’s divine allies until the very end, at Zama: horrescamne ipsos ueniant si ad proelia diuos? (‘Shall I cringe before the gods themselves, even if they confront me in battle?’ 17.317). Confined beneath Mount Etna for his attack on the Olympians, the giant Enceladus and his brother Coeus have a sister, Fama,36 still at large, whose pernicious power plays a central role in Punica 7. Fama is Silius’ poetic expression for Livy’s recurrent observations on the damage caused by rumour in the class struggles of the middle republic. By exaggerating, popularibus auris (‘with the desire for popular favour’, 7.512),37 the success of Minucius’ ‘victory’ in Punica 7 and misrepresenting his disagreement with Fabius, she unleashes a potential disaster which is reversed only by the intervention of Hercules himself.38 Their conflict, re-enacting in a small way the struggle of the gods and giants, illustrates the pervasive presence of the allegory of gigantomachy in the Punica.

RITUALS OF SACRIFICE The historiographic narrative of Hannibal’s destruction of the Falernian vineyards and Italian plough oxen and Fabius’ refusal to retaliate with military action is reinterpreted in Punica 7 in the idiom of Roman religion.39 When Hannibal lays waste the Falernian vineyards, the poet simultaneously heightens the pathos and underlines the sacrilege by introducing an aetiological theoxeny, in which Bacchus creates the

36 It is significant that Virgil’s Fama wreaks havoc in Carthage (Aen. 4.178), precipitating the current crisis. 37 See Littlewood (2011: 192–4). 38 Cf. 7.591–2: maiorem surgere in arma/maiorem dedit cerni Tirynthius (‘By grace of Hercules, [Fabius] seemed to rise higher as he fought and to grow in stature’). 39 Hannibal’s incendiary attack on the Falernian vineyards is described in Liv. 22.14.3; Plb. 3.90.10 and 92.8.

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Falernian vine to reward for his rustic hospitality the old farmer Falernus, who struggles to till the barren slopes of Mount Massicus. Silius establishes a significant intertextual link with Virgil’s account of Hercules’ arrival in Evander’s settlement by introducing his theoxeny with the word attulit, governed by words of fortuitous happenstance, which has the effect of associating his Campanian theoxeny with the sacred destiny of early Rome: attulit hospitio pergentem ad litora Calpes/extremumque diem pes dexter et hora Lyaeum (‘Travelling westwards at close of day a lucky step and a propitious hour brought to this hospitable home— Lyaeus!’, 7.171–2). Virgil’s Evander, describing Hercules’ timely arrival, links attulit with aetas, the context reinforcing the sense of ‘the right time’ or ‘at a time ordained’: attulit et nobis aliquando optantibus aetas/ auxilium aduentumque dei (‘As we prayed [for deliverance], time duly brought the arrival of the god and his divine aid’, Aen. 8.200–1). By appearing to link Bacchus’ gift of the Falernian vines with Hercules’ cleansing of Evander’s settlement from the evil of Cacus, the poet aligns two divine gifts which are part of the sacred heritage of Rome. The theme of sacrifice is essential to the ancient theoxeny story, which is the literary form of a religious ritual in which sacrifice is made to the gods in the offering of a simple meal. The god’s acceptance of the offering is closely bound to the blessing which he then bestows, whether this is the killing of Cacus or the creation of the Falernian grape. Intertextual allusion to Virgil’s second and third Georgics enhances the emotive force of Silius’ account of Hannibal’s destruction of vines and cattle.40 The poetic message that Hannibal’s foreign horde threatens not only the land, but the religious piety which is the greatest strength of Virgil’s Roman farmers, plays an important role in his description of old Falernus. A contrast with the dark days of Hannibal’s invasion is accentuated by Silius’ witty anachronism that Falernus farmed his land in the Golden Age, before the invention of war (7.167). Nevertheless, Falernus is a true Roman who scrupulously observes the religious rituals of rural Italy. Unlike other legendary country folk, such as Philemon and Baucis (Ov. Met. 8.655–60) or old Hyreius (Ov. Fast. 5.519–20), who entertain the gods reclining on couches, old Falernus sits bolt upright at a table placed before the hearth, ritu pauperis aeui ante focos mensae (‘The meal was set, in the fashion of that simple age, in front of the hearth’, 7.175–6), like one of Ovid’s ancient Roman countrymen.41 He offers his visitor a lavish feast of garden produce washed down with spring water and 40

See Littlewood (2011: xxxviii–xliv). The Romans attached religious significance to the country habit of sitting at table close to and in full view of the family hearth and lares; cf. Col. 11.1.9. Possibly in the context 41

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selects the choicest morsels to toss into the fire as dutiful offerings to Vesta: primum Vestae decerpsit honorem (‘he first plucked a portion in honour of Vesta’, 7.184). Every detail of Silius’ description builds up an impression of the traditional rustic piety of the Roman farmers of Augustan literature. So that his Roman commander Fabius may also be identified with pious old Falernus as one of Rome’s archetypal farmer soldiers, Silius alludes, in conventional terms, to Fabius’ small ancestral estate devoted to the cultivation of Falernian wine: pauca atque haec ruris auiti/iugera (‘a small estate inherited from his ancestors’, 7.261–2).42 The patterns of darkness and light by means of which Silius demarcates good from evil, Roman from Carthaginian, contrast powerfully the beneficent theoxeny of Bacchus and Hannibal’s nocturnal holocaust of Roman plough oxen to escape from encirclement by Fabius’ legions in the Ager Falernus. Strong visual contrasts distinguish Falernus’ piety from Hannibal’s subversion of the sacred ritual of Roman sacrifice. Purple radiance fills Falernus’ cottage at the moment of Bacchus’ epiphany, and his new Falernian grapes gleam in the morning sun (7.194–5 and 205–8). This contrasts with the nocturnal darkness maintaining the delusion essential to the success of the Punic leader’s ingenious scheme, which depends on a Roman garrison mistaking for an attacking army the rapid approach of 2,000 oxen transformed by the Carthaginians into living torches.43 The context of sacrifice and stolen oxen invites the poet to revisit for a second time Virgil’s legend of the Ara Maxima, in which the archetypal cattle thief, Cacus, is outwitted and forced to relinquish his spoils on the site of Rome by Hercules, traditionally the guardian god of Italian cattle.44 Hannibal’s theft of the Roman plough oxen and their destruction by fire strengthens his role in Punica 7 as Cacus, the child of Vulcan,45 a monster destined to be overcome by Fabius in the role of Hercules. In 7.351–5, Silius’ description of the burning animals46 recalls not only pestilence, lues agit atra (‘driven by that dreadful scourge’, 7.356), but of a sodalician banquet, Ovid claims that in ancient times Romans sat at table before the hearth believing that the gods were present (Fast. 6.305–6). 42 On Roman pride in a small ancestral estate, see Virg. G. 4.127–8; Hor. Carm. 1.12.43; Ov. Fast. 5.499. On a statesman’s cultivation of his ancestral land, see Virg. G. 1.505–7; Luc. 1.167–70; Sen. Ep. 86.5. 43 This incident is variously recorded by both Liv. 22.16.7 and Plb. 3.93.3–10. 44 Morgan (2005). 45 Virg. Aen. 8.198. 46 The cattle dying of plague in Virgil’s third Georgic are consumed by a burning fever (G. 3.482–3 and 566).

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poetic descriptions of sizzling flesh intended to render more shocking the impious sacrifice of undeserving victims such as Ovid’s Itys (Met. 6.646–7) and Seneca’s children of Thyestes (Thy. 765–70). While Hannibal’s holocaust has affinities with chthonic ritual because it can only be effective if carried out under cover of darkness, the rocky mountain pass (7.356–7), flanked by dense and extensive woods, resembles the literary locus horridus, and the oxen’s wild gallop over rocks and precipices (7.357–8) suggests portentous vignettes of Bacchic madness which are themselves associated with imminent catastrophe, such as the fall of a mighty city.47 The startled Roman sentries watch aghast, fearing that they are assailed by Jupiter’s thunderbolts or supernatural fires spewed from the earth like those in the Phlegraean fields (7.371–4). These unpropitious resonances suggest that this incident, a mere detail in the historiographic tradition, owes its prominence to Silius’ literary intention: to depict the sacred ritual of the Roman triumph sacrifice sacrilegiously subverted by its performance under cover of darkness by Rome’s greatest enemy. The Roman ritual of triumphal sacrifice48 was traditionally represented in civic reliefs by a powerful bull, walking in procession or posed within a carefully choreographed ritual slaughter. The Roman ploughing oxen who shared the labour of Rome’s ancient farmer–soldier–senator represented the essential strength of Italy.49 No worthier animal could be offered to Jupiter at the culmination of a Roman triumph than their symbolic equivalent, the pure white bulls of the Clitumnus valley, which have never drawn a plough, raised simply to process along the triumphal route: iam nunc sollemnis ducere pompas/ad delubra iuuat caesosque uidere iuuencos (‘Even now it is a joy to lead the solemn procession to the sanctuary, and view the slaughter of the steers’, Virg. G. 3.22–3). The expression caesos iuuencos regularly designates the ritual sacrifice to Jupiter 50 which might also be suggested by burning flesh; the divine portion, in Roman ritual the exta,51 was burnt in the altar flames prior to the sacrificial banquet, such as the epulum Iouis or the banquet enjoyed by Roman senators on 12 August in celebration of Hercules’ victory over Cacus at the Ara Maxima. Whereas at a Roman triumph Jupiter’s portion of the white oxen, the exta (‘entrails’), 47

Cf. Virg. Aen. 2.314 and 316–17; Luc. 1. 493 and 496. See Scheid (2007: 263–9). D. H. 1.35.2. This is evident not only in the derivation of Italy from the Oscan Vitelliu, but also in the bull which symbolized Italy on coinage, in contrast to the wolf, the symbol of Rome. 50 Cf. Virg. G. 2.537 and 4.284–5, Aen. 8.719. Suetonius records that Domitian reacted to this line with such revulsion that he considered banning the sacrifice of oxen (Dom. 9.1). 51 Cf. Ov. Fast. 2.364 and 373. 48 49

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was consumed in the altar fires while the rest was laid aside for a ritual banquet, offerings to the gods of the Underworld were burnt in their entirety, the probable fate of Hannibal’s stolen oxen. There is one last religious anomaly: prayers accompanying a chthonic sacrifice specify who will benefit from the sacrifice. Both Hannibal, revealing his plan to his brother Mago, and Mago himself, when he relays its substance to Maraxes, conclude by stating what they hope to achieve: the dislodging of the Roman garrison (7.318–19 and 334). These formal similarities with chthonic sacrifice might be dismissed either as purely coincidental or as inevitable concomitants of the circumstances of Hannibal’s plan, but they accentuate Silius’ poetic suggestion that Hannibal’s holocaust of Roman oxen represents a perverted version of the sacrifice of oxen to Jupiter in thanksgiving for victory at the culmination of the Roman triumph.52

CONCLUSION Hercules’ symbolic idealization as an exemplum of Stoic fortitude, endurance, and imperviousness to human vanity is a natural heroic model for Fabius’ conduct of his campaign against Hannibal.53 Associating the legend of Fabius’ descent from Hercules with Virgil’s aetiological foundation legend of Hercules and the Ara Maxima, Silius compares, through a series of striking images, Hercules’ struggle with Cacus, the darknessloving son of the fire god, with Hannibal, whose Carthaginian perfidy attracts him to nocturnal action and the cult of chthonic powers. Patterns of darkness and light accentuate Punica’s ethical judgements. Silius epicizes the struggle and enhances the significance of Rome’s eventual victory by illuminating Rome’s defenders in natural and supernatural radiance, while demonizing Hannibal with chthonic and gigantomachic imagery in an unrelenting antithesis of Manichean chiaroscuro.

52

See Girard (1977: 49 and 159); Hardie (1993: 58–9). The original moral thrust of Fabius’ cunctatio appears to have been the commander’s nobility in accepting the stigma of cowardice and indecision by refusing, in the interests of Rome’s security, to engage with the Carthaginians (Enn. Ann. 255, 256–7, and 258–60 Skutsch). 53

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12 Back Out of Hell The Virtual Katabasis and Initiation of Silius’ Minucius Robert Cowan

Wenn er des Todes Schrecken überwinden kann, Schwingt er sich aus der Erde Himmel an. Erleuchtet wird er dann im Stande sein, Sich den Mysterien der Isis ganz zu weih’n. E. Schikaneder, Die Zauberflöte, ii.xxviii When the metal is hot and the engine is hungry And we’re all about to see the light J. Steinman, ‘Bat Out of Hell’

In the autumn of 217 bce, following the division of command between the Dictator, Q. Fabius Maximus, and his Master of Horse, M. Rufus Minucius, Hannibal drew the latter’s forces near Larinum into a rash engagement at Gerunium from which they were rescued by Fabius.1 The incident was a relatively minor one, though it did offer historians an opportunity to juxtapose the failure of one of Rome’s many hot-headed Punic War commanders directly with the success (in action rather than delay) of the embodiment of cunctatio.2 Silius, in contrast, devotes approximately the last third of Punica 7 to it, and structurally emphasizes

1 Plb. 2.104; Liv. 22.28–30; V. Max. 5.2.4; Plut. Fab. 11.3–12.4. On the historical background, see esp. Dorey (1955) and Sumner (1975). 2 On Minucius as an example of Livy’s ‘tragic “rise–and–fall” contour’, see Mader (1993: 221–2). Cf. Levene (2010: 79–81, 298–300).

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it as the climax of the book which brings Fabius to the foreground and precedes the build-up to Cannae.3 The study of post-Virgilian epic can often feel, to adapt A. N. Whitehead’s famous formulation, like a series of footnotes to Hardie. Yet the dense richness of The Epic Successors of Virgil means that on occasion it offers Hardie’s own ‘epigonoi’ the opportunity to engage with, expand on, and even offer corrections of its obiter dicta. One such is the brief mention of the Gerunium episode, in the context of the wider discussion of infernal imagery, ‘hell on earth’, in the epics. Hardie writes that ‘in [Punica] book 7 a rash engagement of Hannibal by Minucius is framed by Hellish allusion . . . These are incidental allusions’, before going on to an extended analysis of infernal imagery in the Saguntum episode.4 No one would deny the pervasive importance of infernal imagery in the Tisiphone-inspired mass suicide of the Spanish city, nor its programmatic significance for the Punica as a whole—a far greater significance than can possibly be claimed for Fabius’ rescue of Minucius.5 Yet the ‘Hellish allusions’ are more than just incidental: they form part of a coherent narrative of ‘virtual katabasis’, a symbolic journey to the Underworld by the Master of Horse and his troops from which he is rescued by the almost divine Fabius. This katabasis and rescue, in turn, form part of the system of imagery in which Minucius is ‘initiated’ into the ‘mysteries’ of Fabianism, a belief in the policy of delay, but also in the collective strength of the republic which is paradoxically undermined by its very embodiment in ‘one man’. Most important of all, however, is the subtle way in which Silius carefully draws attention to and exploits the episode’s status, not just as another epic katabasis, but specifically as a virtual katabasis.

HELL ON EARTH: VIRTUAL KATABASIS AT GERUNIUM Katabasis, the descent of the living hero to the Underworld and his return thence, can be traced as a characteristic epic motif at least as far

3 On Silius’ treatments of Gerunium, and of Fabius and Minucius more generally: von Albrecht (1964: 75–6); Kissel 1979: 118–20); Ahl et al. (1986: 2526–8); Williams (2004: 78–9); Marks (2005a: 25–6, 89); Tipping (2010: 107–37); Fucecchi (2010: 223–30); Littlewood (2011: lxxxviii–xci, 195–251). 4 Hardie (1993: 81–3, quoting from 81). 5 On this most widely studied episode in the Punica, see also von Albrecht (1964: 57–62, 181–3); Vessey (1974); Kissel (1979: 97–9); Küppers (1986: 107–70); McGuire (1990: 33–41; 1997: 207–19); Feeney (1991: 307–8); Dominik (2003; 2006); Augoustakis (2010: 113–36).

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back as Gilgamesh’s visit to the dead upon Enkidu’s demise.6 Yet Odysseus’ consultation of Teiresias and other shades in Odyssey 11, blending as it does an earthbound necromancy with elements of descent to the Underworld, (the pseudo-infernal setting beyond the land of the Cimmerians, Odysseus’ ambiguous position when viewing the heroes) firmly fixed katabasis in the Graeco-Roman tradition.7 In the Roman continuation of that tradition, the katabasis in Aeneid 6 established itself as simultaneously the definitive reception of the motif and in turn its new canonical instantiation.8 However, in addition to actual journeys to the Underworld, or necromantic consultations of the dead which share many features with them, there is a parallel tradition of ‘virtual’ or ‘symbolic’ katabaseis, in which a journey on earth is depicted using imagery which connects it and its thematic significance with a descent to Hades. Many have detected an early example of this already in Iliad 24, where Priam’s nocturnal journey to ransom the corpse of Hector, effectively bringing him back from the land of the dead, accompanied by Hermes in a capacity resembling his role of psychopompos (‘driver of the souls’), can be read (or heard) as a symbolic katabasis.9 On a larger scale, several scholars have argued that Apollonius depicts the entirety of the Argonauts’ adventures in the Black Sea and beyond as a virtual katabasis by allusions to the Odyssean nekyia, and that Virgil signalled his apprehension of this strategy by alluding to features of Jason’s virtual katabasis in Aeneas’ actual descent.10 Perhaps the most intriguing of these virtual katabaseis is that proposed by Tobias Reinhardt in his analysis of Lucretius’ Underworld (Lucr. 3.912–75), a katabasis which is, of course, in itself demythologized: ‘The very purpose of this katabasis is, paradoxically, to assure us of the non-existence of the underworld, by way of explanation or reinterpretation of some of the stages a visitor of the underworld would go through.’11 Although Lucretius’ project of demythologization in the diatribe against the fear of death is very different from 6 On the Near Eastern influence (including Gilgamesh) on the Graeco-Roman katabasis tradition, see now Louden (2011: 197–221). 7 Silius’ own (non-virtual) Underworld episode (13.381–895) is, of course, an Odyssean nekyia, albeit one heavily influenced by the katabasis tradition. See esp. Reitz (1982). On the lack of a katabasis episode in Statius and its replacement by the necromancy scene, see Parkes’ analysis in Ch. 9 above. 8 Among the immense bibliography on Aeneid 6, one might single out Feeney (1986) and Zetzel (1989). 9 De Jáuregui (2011) offers the most recent and comprehensive discussion, as well as surveying earlier interpretations. 10 See Kyriakou (1995); on allusion to the Homeric nekyia, see Dräger (2001: 80–84); on allusion in Virgilian katabasis, see Hunter (1993: 182–9) and Nelis (2001: 228–55). 11 Reinhardt (2004: 32).

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Silius’ technique in the last section of Punica 7, they share an almost explicit self-consciousness about the symbolic nature of their katabaseis, and an attendant exploitation of the particular qualities of a virtual, as opposed to an actual, descent to the Underworld. The opening of the Gerunium episode’s hellish ‘frame’ comes at the moment when Fabius’ reinforcements are arriving to save the day, as the narrator glances back to Minucius’ despair at his imminent annihilation by Hannibal’s surrounding forces: atque hic Dardanius prauo certamine ductor iam Styga et aeternas intrarat mente tenebras (nam Fabium auxiliumque uiri sperare pudebat), cum senior . . . (7.585–8) ‘And at this point the Dardanian general, because of the ill-judged battle, had already crossed the Styx and entered the eternal shadows in his mind (for he was ashamed to hope for help from Fabius), when the old man . . . ’

On one level the emphasis that this takes place ‘in Minucius’ mind’ simply means that he is suffering mental despair: he thinks he is as good as dead, and thus the references to the Underworld add a level of picturesque epic grandeur to those emotions. As R. Joy Littlewood puts it, ‘his feeling of utter hopelessness is poetically represented by a vision of the river Styx and the infernal regions’.12 Yet it is possible to invert the hierarchy of narrative and imagery, as Silius often does, not only by means of simile but also using the trope of cognitive processes. When the young Hannibal ‘penetrates the Capitol with his night-time vision’ (nocturno penetrat Capitolia uisu, 1.64), the reader certainly can take this as a peculiarly striking way of depicting vivid dreams, but it is also open to her to ‘see’, using the trope of vision, the youthful warrior’s desire simultaneously to invade Rome and to rape the personified city.13 When Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, at the sight of the dying L. Aemilius Paulus leaning against a rock at Cannae, ‘sees’ Rome in flames, Hannibal at the gates, the Aetolian plains sucking down Latium, this adds colour to his despair and foreboding, but it also invites the reader to ‘see’ Paulus, the synecdochic hero, the perverted deuotus, as (in Lentulus’ perception) the embodiment of Rome whose wilful refusal to survive might also doom the city to destruction (10.265–8).14 In a similar way, Minucius’

12

Littlewood (2011: 217). Cf. Augoustakis (2003: 240) and Cowan (2010: 349). See also Littlewood, Ch.11 above, on Hannibal’s gigantomachy. 14 On the scene, see von Albrecht (1964: 121–2); Niemann (1975: 241–4); Ahl et al. (1986: 2535–36); Ripoll (1998: 61). For Paulus as embodiment of Rome, see Cowan (2011: 78–93). 13

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crossing of the Styx ‘in his mind’ invites the reader to interpret the whole of the skirmish as a katabasis. More precisely it encourages her to read it as a virtual one, for its symbolic quality is not elided but rather reinforced by the emphasis that Minucius thinks of the skirmish as if it were a season in Hell and that the reader should do likewise. Of incidents in the course of the skirmish, it is the appearance of the Moor Tunger which most clearly—almost crudely—contributes to the infernal imagery, but this apparent crudity is again part of the point, as Silius does not merely depict the battle of Gerunium as a katabasis but self-consciously draws attention to the fact that he is depicting it as such, and hence to its nature as a virtual katabasis: iamque in palantis ac uersos terga feroces pugnabant Itali, subitus cum mole pauenda terrificis Maurus prorumpit Tunger in armis. nigra uiro membra, et furui iuga celsa trahebant cornipedes, totusque nouae formidinis arte concolor aequabat liuentia currus equorum terga, nec erectis similes imponere cristis cessarat pennas, aterque tegebat amictus, ceu quondam aeternae regnator noctis, ad imos cum fugeret thalamos Hennaea uirgine rapta, egit nigrantem Stygia caligine currum. (7.680–90) ‘And now the Italians were fighting fiercely against men who were dispersed and had turned their backs, when suddenly with fearsome bulk there burst forth the Moor Tunger in terrifying armour. He had black limbs and dusky were the steeds which pulled his lofty yoke, and, in a stratagem to inspire fear at the strangeness of the thing, entirely of the same colour did his chariot match the blue-black backs of his horses: nor had he held back from putting feathers of the same hue on his bristling crest, and a black garment covered him: just as, once, the ruler of eternal night, when he raped the maiden in Henna and fled to the wedding chamber far below, drove a chariot dark with Stygian shadow.’

Littlewood elegantly elucidates the implications of this passage as a depiction of Tunger’s ruse as ‘another manifestation of Punic trickery’, and she incisively shows how, although ‘his horse is terrified by this illusion of the supernatural’, Cato ‘penetrates the Carthaginian’s only defence, an “illusion” of Death’.15 Yet for all that the surface of the narrative is one of purely tactical trickery, the very use of the language of ars, of artistry and deception, also draws attention to a parallelism

15

Littlewood (2011: xc–xci). See also her discussion of the episode in Ch.11 above.

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between Tunger’s stratagem and Silius’. Both character and poet create an illusion that events on earth are taking place in the Underworld, for the implications of Tunger’s imitation of Dis are not limited to the tactical. The desperate situation in which Minucius and his men find themselves, the terror it invokes, its proximity to death which renders it like death, the negative depiction of the Carthaginian forces, the sense of almost supernatural salvation delivered by Fabius and his reinforcements, including Cato: all these derive from temporarily reading Tunger as Dis rather than as a tricky Moor pretending to be Dis. The reader is invited to let herself be deceived by Tunger’s and Silius’ stratagem.16 Littlewood herself implicitly acknowledges a degree of slippage in her telling comment that if ‘Tunger represents the powers of the Underworld, young Cato surely corresponds to the hero Hercules, whose ultimate labour was to descend to the infernal regions and return in triumph’.17 But before we allow the pendulum to swing too far the other way, we must remember that Silius does not allow his reader to be completely deceived: he tells her that this is an ars (7.684), that the black limbs belong to a ‘man’ (uiro, 7.683),18 and reminds her that, though Cato’s horse may continue to be duped, Tunger’s ‘shadow’ is ‘insubstantial’ (cassa . . . umbra, 7.698), a glorious and significant wordplay, since shadows are proverbially insubstantial.19 Cato and the reader are required to interpret further that this shadow is insubstantial in its pretence of being a shadow, that as such it is paradoxically substantial, and hence mortal, and hence can be killed. Silius, more successfully than Tunger, performs a careful balancing act, deceiving his reader enough to make the thematic points he wishes to from his virtual katabasis, but never letting her forget that she is being deceived. I shall reserve full discussion of the closing of the hellish ‘frame’, when Minucius and his men emerge from their virtual katabasis, since its main significance is for the depiction of the katabasis as a metaphor for initiation. The demarcated relationships of the narrative to katabasis and to initiation is also the reason for Silius’ careful emphasis on the 16 It is tempting to detect a further gesture towards the episode’s self-conscious artifice in the blatant absurdity of giving an explicitly dark-skinned Mauretanian warrior a name which evokes the stereotypically fair-skinned Germanic Tungri. This oddity may add a further dimension to the typically Silian paradox that, in contrast to the blackness which previously dominated Tunger’s person and accoutrements, palluit infelix subducto sanguine Maurus (‘the ill-fated Moor lost courage and turned pale’, 7.703). 17 Littlewood (2011: xc). 18 Silius routinely and unmarkedly uses the inflected forms of uir instead of the unpoetische forms of is, but we might still detect a certain added point to its use here. 19 Cf. Aesch. A. 839; Virg. Aen. 10.593; Sen. Her. F. 623–4; [Quint.] Decl. 10.19.18.

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virtual nature of the katabasis. Before exploring those relationships, we must establish that between katabasis and initiation themselves.

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR: KATABASIS AND INITIATION The association between katabasis and initiation is, like almost every aspect of mystery religions, very difficult to establish with any degree of certainty or of detail.20 Yet at the same time there are sufficient indications that, whatever the actual relationship might (or might not) have been between the myths of katabaseis by Hercules, Orpheus, Persephone, and others and the initiatory and other rituals of mystery cult, their association in the minds of Greek and Roman writers and readers is strong enough for depictions of descensus (‘descent’) to evoke, however vaguely, initiation. The passage of Plutarch, influentially discussed by Fritz Graf and Walter Burkert and frequently quoted in this context,21 is worth reproducing: In this world [the soul] is without knowledge, except when it is already at the point of death; but when that time comes, it has an experience like that of men who are undergoing initiation into great mysteries; and so the verbs ºı A (‘to die’) and ºEŁÆØ (‘to be initiated’), and the actions they denote, have a similarity. In the beginning there is straying and wandering, the weariness of running this way and that, and nervous journeys through darkness that reach no goal, and then immediately before the consummation every possible terror shivering and trembling and sweating and amazement. But after this a marvellous light meets the wanderer, and open country and meadowlands welcome him; and in that place there are voices and dancing and the solemn majesty of sacred music and holy visions. And amidst these, he walks at large in new freedom, now perfect and fully initiated, celebrating the sacred rites, a garland upon his head, and converses with pure and holy men. (Plut. De anima fr. 178 Sandbach)

While Plutarch’s testimony is at best problematic evidence for the actual experience of initiands or the rituals of mystery cults, it does show that the association between initiation and journeys to the Underworld was an established one in the popular, or at least the wider elite, imagination. 20 Of the considerable bibliography on mystery religion, see esp. Graf (1974); Burkert (1985); Bowden (2010). 21 Graf (1974: 132–8); Burkert (1987: 91–2). In relation to poetic katabaseis, Luck (1973: 163–5); Morgan (1999: 201–2); Reinhardt (2004: 36); De Jáuregui (2011: 53–4).

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As Reinhardt argues, in favour of his own proposed virtual katabasis, ‘for Lucretius’ katabasis to be contextualized by a reader with the initiation imagery at the beginning of book 3, a perception of an initiation ritual as displayed in [Plut. fr. 178] would perfectly suffice.’22 Certainly scholars have argued for the presence of initiatory associations in almost every poetic katabasis. De Jáuregui is appropriately cautious about ‘whether there were initiatory or funeral rites attached to poems of descent to the Underworld by the time Iliad 24 was composed’, but nevertheless makes a strong case for parallels between Priam’s experience and that described in later texts such as the Orphic gold leaves.23 More confidently, the two (not counting the Culex) Virgilian katabaseis, Orpheus’ in Georgics 4 and Aeneas’ in Aeneid 6, have frequently been connected with initiatory ritual.24 For our purposes, what is most important about these Virgilian initiatory katabaseis is that they have a thematic significance for their respective poems which extends far beyond a simple reflection back onto the mysteries themselves. In short, they use initiation as a metaphor (though we shall have call to problematize this formulation later). In Llewelyn Morgan’s reading of the katabasis in Georgics 4, ‘the intended implication of the suffering, death and dismemberment of Orpheus . . . is another instance of constructive death, derived from perhaps the most important ancient source for doctrines of the miraculous and paradoxical: mystery cult’, a metaphorical means of representing the renewal of Rome which comes, not simply after, but almost paradoxically as a result of, the horrors of civil war.25 Philip Hardie’s useful survey of scholarship on the Aeneid helpfully (and judiciously) sums up the implications of Aeneas’ ‘initiation’: ‘Hints that Aeneas’ Underworld journey is a kind of initiation into the mysteries reinforce the sense that here we are admitted to a specially authoritative form of knowledge.’26 In addition to the connection between katabasis and initiation, which a reader might be expected to make on the basis of her vague understanding of mystery cult, by Silius’ time (and probably considerably earlier) the connection had already been strongly made in these earlier texts. The Flavian poet can thus both exploit the recognizability of the connection and comment on it through creative imitation. In examining the initiatory associations of Minucius’ virtual katabasis, it will be important to keep in sight not only how Silius invites the reader to make these associations and their 22

23 Reinhardt (2004: 36). De Jáuregui (2011: passim, quoting from 43). Georgics: Chomarat (1974); Campbell (1982); Morgan (1999: 184–97); Aeneid: Luck (1973); Clark (1979). 25 26 Morgan (1999: 199; original emphasis). Hardie (1998: 96). 24

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thematic significance but also how he emphasizes the way that the associations are metaphorical and that they should be read as such. The closing of the Gerunium episode’s katabatic frame comes as Minucius’ men, rescued by Fabius, complete their metaphorical return to life: {tum demum, Tyriis quas circumfuderat atra tempestas, Stygiae tandem fugere tenebrae{. torpebant dextrae, et sese meruisse negabant seruari, subitisque bonis mens aegra natabat: ut, qui conlapsa pressi iacuere ruina, eruta cum subito membra et nox atra recessit, coniuent solemque pauent agnoscere uisu . . . ecce autem e media iam morte renata iuuentus . . .

(7.723–9, 732)

‘Then finally the Stygian shadows, which the black storm had poured around them, at last dispersed.27 Their right hands were sluggish, and they kept saying that they had not deserved to be saved, their troubled minds were swimming in the face of their sudden good fortune: just as men who have lain crushed by a collapsed building, when their limbs have been suddenly dug out and the black night has ebbed away, they blink and are wary of looking at the sun with their gaze . . . But see, the men just now reborn from the midst of death . . . ’

The parallels with the fragment of Plutarch’s de anima are clear. Quite apart from the general imagery of the transition from death back to life (e media iam morte renata), there is the initial emphasis on darkness (Stygiae . . . tenebrae, nox atra ~ Øa Œ ı ), the sense of confusion which precedes the moment of revelation (mens aegra natabat ~ çæŒÅ ŒÆd æ ŒÆd ƒæg ŒÆd Ł  ), and above all the characteristic initiatory emphasis on the appearance of dazzling light (solemque pauent agnoscere uisu ~ çø~ Ø ŁÆı Ø I Å).28 In addition, Silius refers to one element commonly associated with initiation, but not explicitly mentioned by Plutarch: salvation (sese meruisse negabant/seruari). For this element, we might cite the claim of Apuleius’ Isiac sacerdos primarius ‘that the initiation itself is performed by the imitation of a

27 I translate what is most probably the sense lying behind this corrupted couplet, assuming that some reference to Minucius’ Romans is concealed by ø’s Tyriis. 28 Cf. Minucius’ self-reference at 7.737 as ‘one recalled to the gift of light’ (reuocato ad lucis honorem). Fucecchi (2010: 225–7) makes a striking comparison, in keeping with his emphasis on Fabius’ Herculean quality in this episode, with Cacus’ dazzlement at Virg. Aen. 8.241–9. However, though he identifies the imagery of ‘living dead’, ‘blinding light’, and ‘resurrection . . . from near death’, he does not make the connection with either katabasis or initiation.

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voluntary death and granted salvation’ (ipsam . . . traditionem ad instar uoluntariae mortis et precariae salutis celebrari, Apul. Met. 11.21). Even if we adopt a cynical interpretation of Lucius’ Isiac initiation as a confidence trick, the aspects of that initiation which the priests and Apuleius employ to take in their respective victims (Lucius and the gullible reader) would if anything still better reflect the general, nonspecialized ideas of what it involves.29 Initiates of the Eleusinian or Isiac mysteries might well have been able to quibble and carp about what is probably a very distant approximation of their rituals and their significance, but it is all but certain the general reader would recognize enough of what they thought mystery-cult initiation involved and signified to make the connection between it and the katabasis. That general connection is not simply all Silius requires the reader to make. It is precisely what he requires her to make. Before we proceed to consider the thematic significance of these initiatory associations, it is worth returning to our consideration of the self-conscious way in which Silius carefully depicts the skirmish at Gerunium not as a katabasis but specifically as a virtual one. On one level, this is a sophisticated, almost Ovidian commentary on the poetic technique of Silius and his epic predecessors in exploiting—unambiguously but nonetheless implicitly—katabatic imagery: the art which reveals art.30 However, this distancing technique is peculiarly appropriate to Silius’ aims in the Gerunium episode. In order to interpret the katabaseis of Orpheus, Aeneas, and others as symbolizing the rite of initiation, the reader must—to some extent at least—read them allegorically, as existing on a metaphorical plane, and indeed a plane which corresponds (at least in the popular imagination) to that inhabited by the allegorical myths of Persephone, Orpheus, Dionysus, Isis, and others in relation to the actual rites of Eleusinian, Orphic, Bacchic, Isiac, and other mysteries. Silius makes the skirmish at Gerunium not a katabasis but, with its mental crossing of the Styx and its counterfeit Dis, a selfconsciously virtual descent, which maintains the clearly demarcated relationship between the literal narrative of events in 217 bce and its metaphorical, allegorical equivalent in the Underworld. This relationship in turn corresponds to that between initiatory rituals and their allegorical myths. Minucius, precisely like an initiate, has not performed a literal descent to the Underworld but has instead undergone an experience 29

The classic interpretation of Lucius’ initiation as confidence trick is Winkler (1985). I thought I had coined this term in my own undergraduate lectures on Ovid, but found myself anticipated by Barchiesi (1993: 350), with his formulation ars patet arte sua. For creative commentary on epic (specifically Virgilian) technique, see Hardie (1989). 30

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which was like a descent to the Underworld. Whereas the reader of Aeneid 6, in order to interpret Aeneas as an ‘initiate’ into the ‘mysteries’ of Rome’s manifest destiny, must conflate Aeneas as a mythical katabates with Aeneas as an initiand into a mystery whose mythology centres on that katabasis, the reader of the Punica can interpret Minucius as an initiate pure and simple. Pure and simple? It will be objected, of course, that the initiation of Minucius is itself metaphorical, since he no more enters a literal mystery cult than he descends to and returns from a literal Underworld. This is true, but the fact that it is a ritual, treated metaphorically, constitutes a further level of sophistication in Silius’ poetics. For ritual is itself a metaphor. Denis Feeney in particular has forcefully argued against interpreting ritual as something ‘real’ which is merely ‘represented’ in literature: ‘Ritual is not an unmediated encounter . . . or a trace of one, but already a representation . . . We are always trying to home in on what ritual is really saying; but ritual is not really saying anything . . . It can only be made to say things.’31 The relationship between Minucius’ rescue and katabasis is maintained strictly as that of narrative to allegory. However, the relationship between the rescue and the ritual of initiation is more complex. On one level there is a similar, though carefully unarticulated, relationship of literal rescue to metaphorical initiation; but because initiatory ritual is already a metaphorical representation of something else, something ineffable, it resists attempts to treat it as an identifiable entity on the metaphorical plane. By treating a metaphor metaphorically, Silius collapses the distance between tenor and vehicle, and shows how ‘literal’ initiation and ‘metaphorical’ initiation—if they are not quite identical—at least operate in virtually identical ways.

DIGRESSION? AN AMBIGUOUS PROPHET Silius’ decision to depict Fabius’ salvation of Minucius at the battle of Gerunium as a virtual katabasis and hence as an actual initiation is not an isolated jeu d’esprit, but must be read in the wider context of Punica 7 and of the poem as a whole. Since Punica 7 is centred on the figure of Fabius, it will be no surprise that he and what he stands for are of primary significance for Minucius’ initiation. However, before looking at Silius’ focus on the Cunctator, let us glance briefly at another figure 31

Feeney (1998: 118–20). Cf. Feeney (2004a).

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associated with initiation whose appearance in the poem is carefully juxtaposed to Gerunium. Immediately preceding the Gerunium episode, Silius moves his focus away from the interaction of Fabius, Hannibal, and Minucius for the only time in book 7 to describe the Campanian nymphs’ panic induced by the landing of Carthaginian ships at Caieta, their consultation of Proteus, and his response (7.409–93).32 The intertextual connection with Proteus in Georgic 4, consulted by Aristaeus following the comparable crisis of the death of his bees, is clear. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer a detailed analysis of this episode, but the importance of its juxtaposition with the Gerunium narrative is such that its significance must be briefly outlined. Critics such as Ekkehard Stärk and Alessandro Perutelli have argued that the Proteus episode is digressive, a selfcontained showpiece with scant connection to the surrounding narrative. It is worth remembering that many critics, from Servius onwards, have had a similarly superficial reaction to the epyllion in Virgil’s Georgics. However, just as the Aristaeus episode has been shown to continue and even provide a summation of the Georgics’ exploration of its various themes, be they the victory or futility of labor, the subordination of the individual to the collective or the mystery of constructive destruction,33 so the prophecy of Silius’ Proteus is closely linked to the themes of the Punica as a whole. Of course, this is not simply a parallel but an imitation, as Silius skilfully replicates and develops both the apparent digressive quality of Virgil’s episode and its actual thematic significance. For Silius, the tension is, as usual in the Punica, between the virtuous rigour which makes Rome great and the decadent luxury which leads to its decline. The ‘mannerism’ which Perutelli detects in the depiction of Venus at the Judgement of Paris is in fact stylistically and generically mimetic of the elegiac-pastoral decadence which leads to the Trojan War, which will act in Rome’s favour when the same Venus in similar manner emasculates Hannibal at Capua, and which will eventually ruin Rome, as prophesied to Scipio by the very Venus-like Voluptas.34 However, the main significance of this episode for understanding the katabatic and initiatory imagery at Gerunium is the way in which an imitation of Georgic 4’s cosmic prophet is juxtaposed with an imitation of the same poem’s initiatory katabasis. Silius’ very Georgic Proteus primes the reader to recognize the Aristaeus and Orpheus in his Minucius. 32

On this episode, see esp. Stärk (1993); Perutelli (1997); Littlewood (2011: 163–90). Again, the bibliography is immense, but see e.g. Thomas (1991) and Morgan (1999). 34 Venus at Capua: 11.385–431; Voluptas: 15.123–7. On decadence and genre in the Punica, see Barchiesi (2001b: 336–42) and Cowan (2009). 33

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THE CULT OF FABIUS AND ITS LIMITS The main significance of Minucius’ virtual katabasis and initiation derives from the fact that it is Fabius who rescues him from his virtual Underworld and it is into Fabius’ way of thinking that Minucius is ‘initiated’. Minucius’ gratitude to Fabius, hailing him as pater, is a key aspect of the episode, referred to in all the literary sources, and was even mentioned in the elogium for Fabius in the Forum of Augustus.35 Silius’ Minucius, however, takes this glorification of Fabius to a new level: ecce autem e media iam morte renata iuuentus clamorem tollens ad sidera et ordine longo ibat ouans Fabiumque decus Fabiumque salutem certatim et magna memorabant uoce parentem. tum qui partitis dissederat ante maniplis ‘sancte’ ait ‘o genitor, reuocato ad lucis honorem si fas uera queri, cur nobis castra uirosque diuidere est licitum? . . .’ (7.732–9) ‘But see, the men just now reborn from the midst of death raise a shout to the stars and march in long ranks yelling out in exultation and in competition they call Fabius their glory and Fabius their salvation, and father in a loud voice. Then he who had earlier seceded with his divided troops said: “O sanctified father, if indeed it is proper for one recalled to the beauty of the light to complain, why was it permitted for us to divide our camps and our men? . . . ” ’

We have already seen how this passage contributes to the depiction of Minucius and his army as initiates who have undergone a virtual katabasis, reborn from death, saved, and recalled to the light. However, it is also notable for the way in which it singles out Fabius as the pseudodivine agent of that salvation, and hence of their initiation.36 The gemination of his name in 7.734 suggests the anaphora of hymnic invocation, with the vocatives changed to accusatives in reported speech.37 Moreover, he is lauded as their ‘salvation’ (salutem), and Minucius’ traditional acclamation of him as ‘father’ is given the additional divine epithet 35 See n. 1 above for literary sources; for the inscription, see ILS 56 (a better-preserved copy from Arretium of the extremely fragmentary original). 36 The pseudo-divine quality of Fabius’ intervention may have taken its cue partly from Liv. 22.29.3: iam magna ex parte caesis aliis, aliis circumspectantibus fugam, Fabiana se acies repente uelut caelo demissa ad auxilium ostendit (‘Now while, of a large part of the army, some had been killed, others were looking around for a means of running away, Fabius’ line, suddenly as though sent down from heaven to come to their aid, revealed itself ’). 37 On gemination of vocatives in invocation, see Wills (1996: 50–52); this passage is a rare omission from his splendid index locorum.

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sanctus, recalling the poet’s description of him in the proem to book 7 as having a ‘mind more than a human’ (mens humana maior, 7.6) and invitation to ‘place his holy head in the heaven he has earned’ (emerito sacrum caput insere caelo, 7.19). This divine Fabius is thus in keeping with his depiction throughout the book, but his ‘divinity’ is not a vague one, nor is it associated with the Olympians. Rather, it is specifically connected with the divinity of the culture heroes and figures of katabatic myth, Bacchus and above all Fabius’ ancestor Hercules. The way in which Fabius enacts the role of his ancestor Hercules in book 7 is widely acknowledged.38 However, I wish to emphasize how the particular aspect of Hercules as katabates is of special importance for Fabius’ role as virtual katabates at Gerunium. The association with Bacchus is also established by the myth of Falernus (7.162–211), as the two benefactors of the Roman countryside stand opposed, one suggestively in myth, one explicitly in narrative, to its ravager, Hannibal.39 By the end of the epic, it is of course Scipio who will be the new Bacchus and Hercules (17.646– 50), but in book 7, Fabius’ book, the closing lines both link Fabius with Bacchus—and, significantly, in his role as Lyaeus, the Liberator or Saviour—and give the former precedence: haec ubi dicta dedit, mille hinc, uenerabile uisu, caespite de uiridi surgunt properantibus arae. nec prius aut epulas aut munera grata Lyaei fas cuiquam tetigisse fuit quam multa precatus in mensam Fabio sacrum libauit honorem. (7.746–50) ‘When [Minucius] had spoken these words, then—awesome to behold—a thousand altars of green turf arose as men hastened. And it was not proper for anyone to touch either the feast or the welcome gifts of Lyaeus before he had made many prayers and poured a sacred libation in honour of Fabius on the table.’

However, the pseudo-divinity of Fabius and his depiction as a bringer of salvation only account for his metaphorical role as saviour in the virtual katabasis. If Minucius’ initiation on the narrative plane is to have any meaning, then the role of Fabius must also have a ‘literal’ significance in the scheme of initiation to correspond to its allegorical significance in the ‘myth’. Once more, Silius has taken an established part of the historiographical tradition and depicted it in ritual terms. Minucius’ acclamation of Fabius is not merely one of gratitude and esteem, but of recognition that the Dictator’s policy of delay is the right one, and his own, of rash 38 39

E.g. Tipping (2010: 116); Littlewood (2011: esp. lxxxv); see also Ch. 11 above. See Littlewood (2011: 90–107) as well as Ch. 11 above.

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engagement with Hannibal, ruinous. Matthew Roller has recently shown how the epic and historiographical tradition depicts the way ‘that Fabius won this ethical and ideological battle—that his contemporaries and successors did finally revalue his actions and dispositions as morally positive, and those of his detractors as negative’.40 Roller’s passing comment that ‘Minucius changes his tune after being saved by Fabius’41 is, of course, a deliberately flippant way of describing the Master of Horse’s change of heart, his conversion, his initiation into the cult of Fabius and the ideology which it espouses. The link between salvation and initiation on the metaphorical level is further reinforced by the parallel, existing link between the emphasis in Fabius’ policy on (defensive) ‘safety’ or ‘salvation’ (salus) and the gradual approval which that policy gains, most famously formulated in Ennius’ assertion that ‘he did not put popular opinion ahead of [the] safety/salvation [of the state]’ (noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem, Ann. 364 Skutsch). Silius has skilfully combined the tradition’s existing motifs of near-destruction, salvation, glorification, and conversion into a coherent symbolic narrative of initiation. While Minucius’ initiation into the cult of cunctatio is complete, that strategic policy is only part of the wider complex of Fabian ideology. Fabius is also the Punica’s principal representative, even more than Paulus or Marcellus, of republican collective ideology. Yet there remains a tension, almost a contradiction, in the ability of this exceptional ‘one man’ to espouse collective values, just as there is in the need for him to perform a deed of military valour (even if it is one of ‘salvation’) in order to convert Minucius to the policy of cunctatio. Even as Minucius testifies to his initiation into Fabius’ belief system, he shows all the extremism of the convert in (however apologetically) complaining that Fabius allows the command to be divided and the situation to arise whereby the neardisaster at Gerunium could take place (si fas uera queri, 7.738–9). This complaint is comparable to the earlier indignation of Fabius’ own son at Minucius’ rashness (7.539–46), but at Gerunium Fabius has no opportunity to evoke the exemplum of Camillus and assert the precedence of the res publica over the prestige or interests of any individual (7.536–64).42 Both the younger Fabius and Minucius paradoxically deny Fabian values in the very act of glorifying Fabius. As Ben Tipping puts it: In one sense, Minucius’ question glorifies Fabius as the model republican, the one man who has shown by his selfless devotion to the many his fitness

40 42

41 Roller (2011: 201). Roller (2011: 202). See Bernstein (2008: 139–59; 2010: 382–3).

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to lead them. But given that division of authority had led to narrowly averted catastrophe, we might also regard Minucius’ voice as a challenge to republican values that Silius appears otherwise to extol.43

By casting Fabius as the divine saviour of mystery cult, a deified protoprinceps, Silius prises the inherent cracks in Fabianism even wider apart. For how can a god-like hero be part of a community of equals? Minucius appears once more in the Punica, at Cannae, when he encounters Hannibal for the second time: ‘quaenam Furiae quisue egit in hostem, en, Minuci, deus, ut rursus te credere nobis auderes?’ inquit ‘genitor tibi natus ab armis ille meis ubi nunc Fabius? semel, improbe, nostras sit satis euasisse manus’. atque inde superbis hasta comes dictis murali turbine pectus transforat et uoces uenturas occupat ictu. (9.563–9) ‘ “What Furies or what god drove you against—look at me—your enemy, Minucius, that you dare to entrust yourself to me a second time?” Hannibal said. “Where now is Fabius, that father born from my arms? Let it be enough, cheeky, to have escaped my hands once.” And then his spear, accompanying his arrogant words, with the force of a siege-engine made a gaping hole in Minucius’ chest and stopped the words which were about to emerge with its blow.’

The question of divided leadership has arisen again, with Paulus and Varro playing the roles of Fabius and Minucius, but to infinitely more disastrous effect. Where is your god now? Hannibal taunts the true believer. What is the result of your initiation into the Fabian cult of cunctatio? The response never comes. With a characteristic refusal to offer too conclusive an answer to the questions which his epic poses, Silius stops Minucius’ mouth, not Benedick-like with a kiss, but with the blow of Hannibal’s spear. The rest is silence.44

43

Tipping (2010: 129). Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at the 32nd annual conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies at the University of Auckland in January 2011, and at the Pacific Rim Latin Literature Conference ‘Silius Italicus and Flavian Culture’ at the University of Sydney in July 2011. I am grateful to both audiences for their helpful questions and comments. 44

13 Ritual Murder and Suicide in the Thebaid Neil W. Bernstein

Throughout Statius’ Thebaid, human beings pervert both the performance of religious ritual and the positive relationship with the gods that ritual is imagined to facilitate and extend, as the preceding essays in this volume have demonstrated. The Lemnian women prepare themselves for the massacre of their male relatives with the sacrifice of a young boy to Venus, Proserpina, and the Furies (5.152–63). Capaneus abuses the gods and their prophets on many occasions throughout the epic (3.602 and 9.550).1 At the end of his assault on the Theban walls in book 10, he threatens to storm Olympus and thereby becomes one of the few individuals in the epic to actually deserve a thunderbolt from Jupiter. At the end of book 11, the Argive invasion culminates with a duel between Eteocles and Polynices, spurred on by the Furies, that causes the personification of Pietas to flee from the earth and the gods to avert their eyes. Creon then brings on Theseus’ invasion by preventing the Argives from performing one of the most basic and necessary of human rituals, the burial of the dead. Yet ritual performance in the Thebaid also reveals a pattern of excessive and unmerited violence perpetrated by hostile gods, as has also already been discussed by other scholars in this volume.2 For instance, the Lemnian women engage in human sacrifice only because Venus has induced them to do so. Hypsipyle relates in detail how the angry goddess removes their powers of conscious decision-making. As he performs a 1

Capaneus kills Eunaeus, the priest of Bacchus, just as the latter claims that the Thebans are a holy people, related to the gods and not to be assaulted by violent hands (gens sacrata sumus, ‘we are a hallowed race’, 7.666). On the epitaph for Eunaeus, see Dinter, Ch. 15 below. 2 Dominik (1994a) offers the most comprehensive indictment of divine abuse of power in the poem.

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libation in honour of Apollo, Adrastus relates the angry god’s earlier devastation of his people in a plague.3 The narrator marks the occasions on which Apollo has deliberately withheld foreknowledge of the future from his favoured prophet Amphiaraus (1.398–400), and describes the prophet’s effort to foretell the future as a perversion (3.551–65). Even so, repeated omens warn the Argives of their impending destruction (3.440– 565, 6.934–46, 7.402–23).4 Bacchus’ efforts to intercede with Jupiter in order to prevent violence at Thebes are unsuccessful. He asks his father Jupiter what will become of their rituals if the Thebans become refugees.5 The gods do not provide the world of the Thebaid with any positive moral mandate that kings might observe as their human counterparts, as Federica Bessone correctly points out in Chapter 8 above. Jupiter takes pleasure in punishing entire cities for the crimes of a few (1.214–47), and the Olympian gods yield the battlefield to the Furies and cease to witness events on earth shortly before the brothers’ duel (11.122–35).6 In the vicious world of the Thebaid, four episodes initially appear to stand out as some of the few—and perhaps the only—positive examples of ritual violence. These are Maeon’s protest suicide in book 3; Hypsipyle’s fake funeral for her father in book 5; Menoeceus’ self-sacrifice in book 10; and Theseus’ ritualized murder of Creon in book 12. Maeon’s bold resistance to the tyrant aligns him with a lengthy tradition of Roman political suicides, from Cato to Seneca. Hypsipyle is the only woman in Lemnos who has not murdered her male relatives. Through

3 See Dominik (1992) and Gibson’s analysis in Ch. 7 above. On the episode of Psamathe, see Keith, Ch. 17 below. The evil omens associated with Harmonia’s necklace disrupt the wedding of Argia and Polynices and prefigure the later destruction of Amphiaraus’ household; cf. Chinn, Ch. 18 below. Eteocles commissions Tiresias to perform a necromantic ritual, in which he learns of his murdered grandfather Laius’ unyielding hatred of his descendants; cf. Parkes and Dee, Chs 9 and 10 above. 4 For discussion of omens, see in particular Tuttle and Manolaraki, Chs 4 and 5 above. Jupiter takes offence because the Argives have paused to celebrate the funeral games of Archemorus instead of proceeding directly to make war at Thebes (7.17–21). Soon afterwards, Mars’ servant, Pauor (‘Panic’), deceives the Argives with a false image of the Thebans marching through the plain, and causes them to share Jupiter’s disdainful view of funerary ritual (an dubitent, age, dum inferias et busta colamus? ‘Well, are they to wait, look you, while we attend to funerals and sepulchres?’ 7.126). 5 Bacchus’ speech only elicits false reassurance from Jupiter; see Smolenaars (1994: 73); Hershkowitz (1997); Ganiban (2007: 96–116). The failure of Bacchus’ intercession appears to invalidate Eunaeus’ claim that the Thebans are a holy people, and to indicate the irrelevance of their kinship with Bacchus, Mars, and Jupiter himself. Hypsipyle recalls an earlier, equally unsuccessful supplication of Jupiter by Bacchus in order to prevent the massacre at Lemnos (5.274–7). On Bacchus’ appearance in books 5 and 7, see also Chinn, Ch. 18 below. 6 Bernstein (2004) and Hubert’s discussion of the passage in Ch. 6 above.

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the fake funeral, she attempts to satisfy the demands of the vengeful Venus and the maddened Lemnians without breaking the universal taboo against parricide. For some earlier readers of the Menoeceus and Theseus episodes, a brave young man’s willingness to put his city before his own life and the punishment of the savage Theban tyrant by the good king of Athens offer inspiring exceptions to the general pattern of divine hostility and human venality.7 More recent scholarship on the epic has observed that the latter episodes in fact contribute to the epic’s generally pessimistic critique of divine and monarchal power.8 In this chapter, I argue these episodes and others in Flavian epic expose the contingency of the relationship between ritual performance, the claim of merit, and the exercise of power. Ritual practices negotiate between at least three parties: the ritual actors, the wider community, and the gods. In Roman epic, ritual most often undergirds a system of communication between powerful human beings and powerful gods.9 Epic narrative describes ritual performance as conducted for purposes such as thanking the gods for benefits, expiating prior crimes, and providing appropriate honour to human beings.10 Both human and divine parties profess to be interested in performing and rewarding meritorious behaviour. In these respects, Roman epic is similar to many of the other surviving textual sources that constitute the Romans’ means (and ours) of conceptually constituting and interrogating their religious practices.11 By narrating the actual circumstances and consequences of ritual performances in full detail, however, the Thebaid confounds any expectation either that ritual actors are meritorious or that the gods they address are themselves either virtuous or powerful.

MAEON’S SUICIDE At the beginning of Thebaid 3, the augur Maeon returns to Eteocles’ palace as the sole survivor of the failed effort to ambush Tydeus. In full view of the court, he rebukes the king and laments his lost comrades as 7 See Vessey (1973: 307–16); Braund (1996); Ripoll (1998: 221–2); Bessone (2011), and her analysis in Ch. 8 above. 8 See Dominik (1994a); Ganiban (2007: 212–32); Coffee (2009b); and Hubert, Ch. 6 above. 9 For ritual as a communicative system, see Rüpke (2001). 10 For gratitude to the gods in Livy, see Hickson Hahn (2004). 11 For literature as the formation rather than the reflection of Roman religious thought, see Feeney (1998) and the Introduction in this volume.

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the first casualties in an ‘unholy war, battle denied by omens’ (bellum infandum ominibusque negatam/ . . . aciem, 3.71–2). The augur then kills himself before Eteocles’ thugs can do so. Denying the ritual of burial to Maeon’s corpse is the only vengeance left to the tyrant Eteocles at this point, a crime against humanity that his successor Creon will repeat on a larger scale at the epic’s end, when he forbids burial to the Argive dead. The narrator explicitly marks Eteocles’ crime as both the product of ‘wild wrath’ (rabidae . . . irae, 3.96) and also ineffective, as the dead man remains unaware of his body’s fate (ignaris nequiquam manibus, ‘pointlessly to the unwitting ghost’, 3.98). A eulogy of Maeon follows, in which the narrator emphasizes the resistance to tyrannical rule by the heroic augur ‘who dared go flout monarchs face to face and hallow a path for ample freedom’ (qui comminus ausus/uadere contemptum reges, quaque ampla ueniret/libertas, sancire uiam, 3.100–2). Death represents passage to Elysium and freedom from Eteocles’ persecution (3.109–11). Through the episode of Maeon’s suicide and its aftermath, the Thebaid participates in contemporary debates regarding political suicide. Suicide becomes a strategy of aristocratic resistance to tyrannical rule from the fall of the republic through to the end of the first century ce. Cato’s suicide in opposition to Caesar, for example, prompts an immediate controversy among his political successors and opponents.12 Tacitus’s Annales record the suicides of numerous opponents of the Julio-Claudian emperors, among whom Seneca remains the most famous.13 Flavian epic makes suicide a type-scene.14 Maeon’s suicide invites immediate comparison with the conclusion of the first book of Valerius’ Argonautica, in which Aeson and Alcimede are granted entry into Elysium after suicide prompted by the tyrant Pelias.15 The reward for their uirtus and the confirmation they receive that their persecutor, Pelias, will suffer in the Underworld offer proof that their suicide was not in vain (V. Fl. 1.847–50). The Thebaid provides greater assurance regarding Eteocles’ punishment by narrating the duel that claims his life. Whether Maeon’s suicide has an actual political consequence, however, remains harder to determine. While he may capture the reader’s admiration, there is no resistance movement in Statius’ Thebes for him to inspire through his

12 E.g. Cicero (Att. 13.27), Brutus (Att. 13.46), Caesar (Plut. Caes. 3.4), and Octavian (Suet. Aug. 85.1). 13 Ker (2009). 14 McGuire (1997). 15 Zissos (2009: 366) characterizes the various rewards for uirtus available in Valerius’ Elysium as ‘an ingenious, subtly anti-imperial expression of republican nostalgia’. On the episode, see also Parkes, Ch. 9 above.

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virtuous example. By contrast, there apparently exists a nascent opposition to the tyrant Pelias in Valerius’ Iolcus. Before departing with the Argonauts, Jason briefly considers rallying the elders in sympathy with his father, Aeson, as the legitimate claimant against the usurper (V. Fl. 1.71–3). Whether these patres represent a full-blooded ‘senatorial’ opposition to tyrannical rule remains difficult to determine, as this passage marks their sole appearance in the epic. It is, however, more of a potential community of political support than exists for Maeon. As recent studies of Roman deathways have indicated, the passing of moral judgement by the victims’ peers is an essential component of the aristocratic Roman narrative of suicide.16 In his praise of Maeon, the narrator justifies his suicide as heroic resistance. Commendation on a level above mere human political conflict comes from the animals and the landscape, who remedy the augur’s lack of burial by protecting his corpse from abuse: durant habitus et membra cruentis/inuiolata feris, nudoque sub axe iacentem/et nemus et tristis uolucrum reuerentia seruat (‘Your garb and limbs endure untouched by bloody beasts, and the forest and the sad reverence of the birds keep you safe as you lie beneath the bare sky’, 3.111–13). Through the motif of a responsive landscape, the Thebaid evokes Roman pastoral, a genre in which the landscape typically mourns the deaths of beloved singers, such as Daphnis and Gallus (Virg. Ecl. 5.62–4 and 10.13–15). Like these pastoral singers, Maeon enjoys a close relationship with the gods (augur amate deis, ‘augur beloved of the gods’, 3.104) and instruction by Apollo (3.104–7).17 Though Maeon is fortunate enough not to miss the lack of burial, the Argives forbidden burial by Creon will rot on the battlefield until rescued by Theseus’ invasion. Maeon may have benefited from the gods’ love, but the gods in general and Apollo in particular are false friends to human beings. Apollo’s confession after the death of his favourite, Amphiaraus, ‘I am cruel and undeserving of worship’ (saeuus ego immeritusque coli, 9.657), epitomizes the dysfunctionality of the relationships between the gods and the human beings they are unable or unwilling to protect. As a genre, pastoral is generally incompatible with the Thebaid, where the landscape frequently stands in opposition to the heroes.18 The echo of pastoral therefore serves to emphasize the uniqueness of Maeon’s privilege.

16

See Hill (2004: 1–29); Edwards (2007); Erasmo (2008). Cf. Virg. Ecl. 5.64 and 10.17. On the associations of the pastoral genre with death in Flavian epic, in particular Silius, see Augoustakis (2012). 18 Newlands (2004). 17

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As in rituals described elsewhere in Roman literature, ritual actors in the Thebaid claim to act in good faith. Divine intervention may of course disrupt these acts of good faith: Eteocles’ attempt to thank Jupiter for destroying Capaneus, for example, never reaches the god’s ears because Tisiphone maliciously redirects it to Dis (11.205–9). Hypsipyle makes it clear to the Argives, however, that she self-consciously acts in bad faith both toward the gods and toward the women of Lemnos. Unlike the rest of the Lemnian women, she does not actually kill her father, Thoas, but conceals him on Bacchus’ orders in the hope of guaranteeing his survival. The funeral that she performs for him is therefore a ruse in order to ensure her standing as the new queen of Lemnos. Most observers would be inclined to agree with Hypsipyle that she makes the best choice available in a bad situation.19 Deceiving her community by performing a fake funeral is self-evidently a better choice than actually killing her father. Yet Hypsipyle repeatedly condemns herself for her act of deception: fraudemque et inania busta plango metu, si forte premam, cassumque parenti omen et hac dubios leti precor ire timores. his mihi pro meritis, ut falsi criminis astu parta fides, regna et solio considere patris (supplicium!) datur. anne illis obsessa negarem? (5.317–22) ‘I fearfully lament the cheat, the empty mound, hoping to cover up; and I pray that the omen bring no harm to my parent and that doubting fears of his death be so discharged. For these merits, when the trick of a false crime won credence, it was given me to reign and sit upon my father’s throne— punishment! So beset, was I to refuse them?’

Hypsipyle also fears that the performance of the ritual itself would endanger her father by creating a threatening omen: note her dubios . . . timores and her description of her ascent to the throne as a supplicium.20 Swearing to the gods as an attestation of her good faith only represents further deception of her subjects, behaviour associated elsewhere in the epic with the tyrants Eteocles and Creon.

19 For Hypsipyle’s intertextual relationship with Dido as fati nescia (‘unaware of her fate’), see Nugent (1996) and Ganiban (2007: 71–95). On the relationship between Statius and Valerius Flaccus’ accounts, see briefly Chinn, Ch. 18 below. On the Hypsipyle episode, see Augoustakis (2010: 37–61 and n. 25 for further bibliography). 20 On Hypsipyle’s Orphic enthronement, see Chinn, Ch. 18 below.

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The subsequent events of the narrative reveal that Hypsipyle’s ritual is inefficacious: it neither guarantees her claim to the throne nor certifies a positive relationship with the gods. The personified Fama brings news of Thoas’ survival and thus a sudden reversal of fortune for Hypsipyle. The Lemnian women turn against their queen; pirates capture her as she flees and sell her to the Nemean king, Lycurgus; and she becomes the fostermother of his infant son Opheltes (Theb. 5.486–98). When Jupiter’s serpent kills the infant placed under her care, Hypsipyle characterizes his death as the retribution for her earlier act of bad faith in performing the fake funeral of Thoas (5.628).21 As a ritual actor performing a public funeral, she cannot hope to succeed by acting in opposition to her community and gods. Publicly performed community-based ritual does not typically permit such individual acts of subversion. Hypsipyle has recognized that, as a Lemnian woman constrained by Venus’ curse, she could only defer and divert violence rather than avoid it entirely. In spite of Bacchus’s apparently supportive epiphany, there is in fact no good choice for her to make. Such ignorance of the fuller context of manipulation by putatively supportive gods also characterizes Menoeceus’ suicide, the next episode to be discussed.

MENOECEUS’ SELF-SACRIFICE Shortly before Capaneus’ assault on the walls of Thebes, Tiresias’ oracle nominates Menoeceus as a sacrifice to be made to the dragon killed by Cadmus in order to save the city (10.610–15). The personification of Virtus herself descends from Olympus, disguised as Tiresias’ daughter, Manto, in order to encourage Menoeceus to commit suicide (10.632–85). The young man deceives his father, Creon, by claiming that he intends to return to the battlefield to rescue his wounded brother Haemon. With his own blood, Menoeceus performs a ritual lustration of the walls of Thebes, then throws himself down from the walls and is escorted to Olympus by the personifications of Pietas and Virtus (10.686–782). For earlier readers, Menoeceus’ suicide exemplified an individual’s capacity to display moral heroism in a bleak and hostile world.22 My evaluation of Menoeceus’ suicide falls in line with more recent readings that have 21

On Hypsipyle’s guilt, see Ganiban’s analysis in Ch. 14 below. Menoeceus’ expression of uirtus forms the positive contrast in Thebaid 10 with Capaneus’ ‘valour beyond bounds’ (uirtus egressa modum, 10.834; cf. uirtutis iniquae, ‘of his excessive valour’, 11.1). See Vessey (1973: 116–31) and Ripoll (1998: 219–22). 22

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emphasized the negative aspects of the expression of uirtus, a pattern the Thebaid inherits in part from Lucan’s De bello ciuili.23 While Menoeceus’ willingness to sacrifice himself for what he perceives to be his patriotic duty may in itself be commendable, the larger context of the narrative indicates that he has been deceived concerning the purpose of his suicide. When various members of the Theban community pass moral judgement on Menoeceus’ suicide, furthermore, they reveal their fundamental misunderstanding of both its immediate context and its future import. Tiresias’ oracle demanding the death of the latest descendant of the terrigenae (‘earth-born men’) hides the name of the intended target and presents the sacrifice as atoning for the guilt of the entire community:24 audite, o sontes, extrema litamina diuum, Labdacidae: uenit alma salus, sed limite duro Martius inferias et saeua efflagitat anguis sacra: cadat generis quicumque nouissimus extat uiperei, datur hoc tantum uictoria pacto. felix qui tanta lucem mercede relinquet. (10.610–15) ‘Hear, guilty sons of Labdacus, the gods’ final sacrifice. Kind salvation comes, but by a hard road. Mars’ snake demands death offerings and a cruel rite. Whoever is youngest of the serpent race, let him fall. Thus only is victory vouchsafed. Happy he who shall quit the light for so great a guerdon!’

However impartially he appears to speak, Tiresias is in fact reprising his role of king-maker and unmaker, familiar from Greek tragedy.25 He reveals the gods’ will not as a disinterested mouthpiece, but as a power player who knows that his revelations palpably influence the Theban royal house. Tiresias displays similar self-interest in the earlier episode of necromancy requested by Eteocles.26 The prophet appears to exult in his

23

Fantham (1995); Heinrich (1999); Ganiban (2007: 136–44). On the role of atonement in the poem, see Dee, Ch. 10 above. 25 See Griffith (2009) for readings of Greek tragedy that emphasize Tiresias’ role as a self-interested ‘political player’ in his conflicts with several Theban monarchs. Creon in Euripides’ Phoenissae (834–976) does not argue with Tiresias when the prophet reveals to Creon the demand for Menoeceus’ sacrifice. Tiresias does not appear in Seneca’s Phoenissae. Sophocles’ Creon accuses Tiresias of seeking financial gain when the prophet urges burying Polynices (Soph. Ant. 1033–47). Sophocles’ Oedipus similarly accuses Tiresias of seeking financial gain and of conspiring with Creon to overthrow him (Soph. OT 380–403). Seneca’s Oedipus (Sen. Oed. 668–70) makes similar accusations, but addresses them only to Creon, not to Tiresias. Statius’ Creon appears later to suspect that he has been manipulated by Tiresias (Theb. 11.288–90), but never confronts the prophet in the Thebaid. 26 On the episode and Tiresias’ role, see the discussions by Parkes and Dee in Chs 9 and 10 above. 24

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control over Laius, the former king of Thebes, as he promises him the peace of the Underworld so longed for by Virgilian ghosts (4.622–4; cf. Virg. Aen. 6.295–336). Tiresias is a descendant of the terrigenae himself, and so his death sentence for Menoeceus constitutes an assault by one branch of Cadmus’ descendants against another.27 Tiresias’ prophecies predicting disaster for the royal house therefore contribute to the Thebaid’s main narrative trajectory. One more act of intrafamilial violence leads to one more lignée perdue. In Tiresias’ words, the Theban people are criminals (sontes), a description which echoes those applied to the Thebans by the narrator, Oedipus, and Jupiter at the beginning of the epic.28 They must repeatedly attempt to atone for the violence perpetrated by Cadmus at the founding of their city, and they are unable to escape from the destructive paradigm inaugurated by the civil war fought between the terrigenae.29 Tiresias specifies that Menoeceus’ death will be the ‘last sacrifice’ (extrema litamina) of their own people that the Thebans will need to perform in order to placate the angry dragon. The fact that the death occurs in the ritual context of sacrifice, however, tells against such assertions of finality. Note that Tiresias calls for the death of the latest-born descendant (nouissimus): such an individual is born every generation. As Denis Feeney has observed with regard to the bugonia (‘regeneration of bees’) of Virgil’s fourth Georgic: Is all this killing, in sacrifice or civil war, genuinely redemptive and constructive, or is it only a pattern of action that Romans are locked into? . . . The killings of the civil war are not necessarily the prologue to a definitive settlement, but may be only a replaying of a prototypical pattern of events. The institution of sacrifice would corroborate the claustrophobic power of this approach, since one of the keys to sacrifice is its repetitiveness: the same thing happens again and again, at the same time, in the same place. If we are looking for redemption, circularity may be counterproductive.30

We may further contrast, for example, the refusal of Silius’ Hannibal to permit Carthaginian priests to sacrifice his son in Punica 4 (763–829).

27 Apollodorus (3.6.7) makes Tiresias the grandson of Oudaeus, one of the Sown Men; see Gantz (1993: 530). 28 Cf. the narrator’s description of sontes . . . Thebas (‘guilty Thebes’, 1.2), Oedipus’ appeal to di, sontes animas . . . /qui regitis (‘Gods, you who rule guilty souls’, 1.56–7), and Jupiter’s proclamation noua sontibus arma/iniciam regnis (1.241–2, with Hubert’s discussion in Ch. 6 above). 29 Heinrich (1999). On ‘genetic determinism’ in the poem, see Davis (1994) and Bernstein (2008: 64–85). 30 Feeney (2004a: 10–11).

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This episode both adds one more factor to the overdetermination of Hannibal’s defeat and marks the difference between the religious life of the Carthaginians, who institutionalize human sacrifice, and Romans, who only sacrifice foreign captives under extraordinary circumstances.31 As with the murders committed by the Lemnian women, divine intervention compromises Menoeceus’ ability to make a free choice to undertake his suicide. The personification of Virtus assaults Menoeceus in a manner comparable to the Virgilian Allecto’s assault on Turnus. Randall Ganiban has accordingly termed her an ‘intertextual Fury’.32 Though Menoeceus initially appears to be a willing unus pro omnibus— unlike Virgil’s Palinurus, who resists the gods’ attempt to destroy him— his agency has in fact been similarly compromised. By implanting ‘the love of death’ in her victim (letique . . . amorem, 10.677), Virtus prevents him from making the calm and rational choice that the Stoics associate with suicide, and thereby vitiates the young man’s expression of uirtus.33 In her disguise as Manto, Virtus deceives the young man by turning suicide into a fraternal competition, challenging him to fulfil the oracle before his brother Haemon does.34 Menoeceus in turn lies when his father Creon attempts to dissuade him from the action, falsely claiming to be motivated by an illusory concern for his brother’s welfare (10.720– 34).35 He regrets this choice upon committing suicide, begging the gods to ‘appease the father I deceived’ (deceptum . . . exorate parentem, 10.773). The episode thereby replays on a smaller scale the same fraternal competition and conflict between generations, driven by susceptibility to the destructive passions, that causes the civil war at Thebes. As with Hypsipyle’s fake funeral, the suicide of Menoeceus features both limited efficacy in the short term and worse consequences in the long term. Creon urges his son to charge the enemy ranks, which would have resulted in a ‘correct’ deuotio on the model of the ritual performed 31

Várhelyi (2007). On the episode in Silius, see Augoustakis (2010: 198–213). Ganiban (2007: 142). 33 Virtus offers a similarly ambivalent gift to Amphiaraus during his aristeia: auertit morti contermina Virtus (‘Valour, close neighbour to death, distracts him’, 7.702). As a reward for his prophet’s self-sacrifice, Apollo grants him greater insight than he has previously experienced, but Virtus then renders such power unusable. We may compare the perversions of uirtus enacted by Lucan’s Scaeva (Luc. 6.253–4) and Silius’ Flaminius (Sil. 4.126–7). 34 Virtus’ injunction to Menoeceus tu prior (‘You are in the lead’, 10.655) inverts both (intratextually) the Bacchant’s injunction against Theban civil war (tu peior, tu cede, ‘you are the worse; give way’, 4.401) and (intertextually) Anchises’ injunction against Roman civil war (tuque prior, tu parce, ‘and you, you spare first’, Virg. Aen. 6.834); cf. Ganiban (2007: 64). 35 Ganiban (2007: 136–44). 32

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by the Roman general Decius Mus (10.714).36 Menoeceus’ retreat to the city walls marks his suicide as a ‘failed’ deuotio. The personifications of Pietas and Virtus further nullify its effects by preventing the ritually supercharged body of the would-be deuotus from coming in contact with the Argives (10.780–82).37 The self-sacrificing assaults of Amphiaraus and Capaneus both bring greater destruction on the enemy than Menoeceus’ retirement behind the lines.38 Afterwards, Creon’s vision of his son grieving if the Argives are permitted to bury their dead (12.696) impels his unjustifiable decision to reject Phegeus’ embassy requesting burial.39 Theseus’ invasion of Thebes follows as the immediate consequence of the rejection of this embassy. Creon’s effort to honour his son therefore results in yet further suffering for the people that Menoeceus is putatively attempting to protect through his self-sacrifice. The Theban community’s reactions to Menoeceus’ suicide demonstrate the moral limitations of the mandates expressed in Tiresias’ oracle and Virtus’ exhortation. Menoeceus’ fellow citizens hail him as a new conditor (‘founder’, 10.788) of Thebes. The epithet conditor, however, is decidedly ambivalent for the reader aware of Theban history. The foundation of Thebes by the conditor Cadmus gives rise both to an immediate civil war and to the necessity of expiating the dragon’s anger through human sacrifice. For their part, Menoeceus’ parents show that they perceive no connection between their son’s actions and the salvation of the city promised in the oracle. Menoeceus’ mother bitterly laments the dubious honour of having raised a deuotus.40 For her, the passion for death that Virtus implants in her son constitutes madness, not heroism to be celebrated (10.804). For his part, Creon manipulates his son’s memory in order to gain favour with the people and then forgets his son soon after ascending the throne (11.660). Menoeceus’ memory is made the basis of an excessive and morally unjustifiable ritual when his father sacrifices Argive captives at his son’s pyre (12.68–70). 36

For Decius, cf. Cic. Fin. 2.61; Liv. 8.9; Sen. Ep. 67.9. Heinrich (1999). 38 The narrator employs the ‘death-rush’ formula that Leigh (1993) associates with deuotio to describe Amphiaraus’ charge on the Theban ranks on the first day of combat (7.698–9). Capaneus’ assault on the walls concludes in a ‘reverse’ deuotio that draws the gods’ anger against the Argives instead of the Thebans. 39 Bernstein (2008: 171–9). 40 Self-sacrifice for the city, in her view, would be better performed by a commoner than a prince: ‘Was I rearing a devoted head as a mother of a commoner?’ (deuotumque caput uilis ceu mater alebam? 10.794; I read uilis as genitive with Shackleton Bailey (2003: 3.184 n. 60). The lament of her Virgilian counterpart, the mother of Euryalus, emphasizes her own grief and helplessness, not her son’s mistake (Virg. Aen. 9.481–97); cf. Wiltshire (1989: 38–55). 37

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Self-interested prophecy and deceptive divine intervention taint the heroism of Menoeceus’ suicide, and the deed itself is both ritually inefficacious and prone to manipulation by Menoeceus’ opportunistic father. Menoeceus’ suicide spurs on rather than forestalls the fratricidal duel of Eteocles and Polynices, marked repeatedly in the Thebaid as the worst of all crimes. Creon baits Eteocles with cowardice, and claims that he has lost his son in vain if Eteocles does not fight (11.283–8), a ruse which Eteocles sees through but cannot effectively resist after the Fury spurs him to fight. Creon then manipulates Menoeceus’ memory in order to gain popularity with the Theban people (11.653–4), but prevents the Argive burial in a misguided attempt to honour Menoeceus, which in turn invites Theseus’ invasion and thus a reprise of suffering for the Thebans. The suicide that Polynices almost undertakes upon the death of Tydeus, by contrast, would have actually stopped the war if his comrades had not prevented him (9.73–85). As the following section examines in further detail, the consequence of Menoeceus’ suicide is not in fact the salvation that Tiresias promised, but further suffering for the Theban people.

THESEUS’ MURDER OF CREON On the traditional reading, Theseus is a moral monarch whose exemplary leadership contrasts with the weakness of Adrastus. He is a righteous king who is the appropriate agent to punish the abominable Creon.41 As Federica Bessone, for instance, concludes in Chapter 8 above, ‘Statius has distributed between the god and the hero the tasks of destruction and of reconstruction, the punitive and the providential functions. Whereas the god professes a “negative” clementia to justify his chastisement, Theseus revitalizes clementia, the attitude of a power not only moderate in punishing, but also protective and beneficent, animated by the consciousness of a salvific mission.’ Other critics, however, have properly rejected efforts, in the words of Frederick Ahl, to ‘mold [Theseus] into a last-minute moral hero for the epic’, and have sought instead to place Theseus’ intervention within the wider context of the abuse of autocratic power in the Thebaid.42 Statius’ monarchs neither consult their subjects nor face any substantive challenge from them. Subjects

41

See n. 7 above.

42

Ahl (1986: 2896). Cf. Dominik (1994a: 92–8).

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can only hope that their monarch will happen to be just and beneficent.43 Though Theseus fortunately takes the right course of action in punishing Creon, Statius leaves the reader aware that he might have easily made a different decision. This king is subject to the same passions that give rise to the brothers’ destructive civil war.44 Statius aligns the avenger Theseus with the accursed Oedipus through references to the king’s rage, responsibility for the death of his father Aegeus, and eventual conflict with his son Hippolytus.45 Theseus’ duel with Creon replays the theme of ritual sacrifice from its Virgilian intertext, the duel of Aeneas and Turnus. Aeneas kills Turnus with the words: ‘Pallas, Pallas sacrifices you with this wound’ (Pallas te hoc uulnere, Pallas/immolat, Aen. 12.948–9), describing his enemy as a victim sacrificed for his beloved friend. Theseus similarly offers Creon as a sacrifice (hostia) to the ghosts of the unburied Argive dead: Argolici, quibus haec datur hostia, manes,/pandite Tartareum chaos ultricesque parate/Eumenidas, uenit ecce Creon!’ (‘Argive ghosts, to whom this victim is offered, open wide the void of Tartarus, make ready avenging Furies, for see, Creon comes!’ 12.771–3). Statius offers some apparent moral ‘corrections’ to the Virgilian duel. He describes Theseus’ anger at Creon as ‘righteous’ (iusta, 12.589), and the king promises his enemy burial where Aeneas is silent on the subject (12.781).46 Aeneas’ hesitation at Turnus’ supplication, however, shows that he is not simply a murder machine but capable of moral evaluation before action even while in the grip of anger. Theseus demonstrates no such propensity for reflection. Nor can it be argued that Creon’s actions have offended Theseus personally to the same degree as Turnus’ killing of Pallas and flaunting of his spoils do for Aeneas. As the burial of the Argive dead has been the impetus for his invasion, his promise of burial for Creon may be read not as the expression of heartfelt humanitas, but as a battlefield vaunt asserting a specious moral superiority. Focus on the ritual elements of the episode reveals further troubling aspects of the murder of Creon. Theseus’ description of Creon as a

43

Ganiban (2007: 212–32). According to Hershkowitz (1998a: 296–301), Theseus is subject to the same madness as the Theban characters: see esp. the bull simile (12.601–5). Cf. also Hershkowitz (1994: 144–7). 45 Rage: 12.588–9; Aegeus: 12.626; Hippolytus: 12.635–8. In general, see Pollmann (2004: 37–43). On Theseus’ affinities with Oedipus, see Dietrich (1999) and Sacerdoti (2008). 46 On Statius’ deliberate removal of Virgilian ambiguities, see McNelis (2007: 162–3) and Ganiban (2007: 227–8). 44

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sacrificial victim (hostia, 12.771)47 creates a punctual parallel with Menoeceus, who similarly views himself as a ‘sacrificial victim’ (hostia, 10.769). Yet Theseus’ murder of this sacrificial victim confirms that he is not acting (as he professes) in response to the Argive women’s request for clementia. Statius’ description of the goddess Clementia specifies that her altar at Athens receives no blood sacrifice.48 Theseus’ means of ending the Theban civil war does similar violence to clementia as an imperial virtue, as in Seneca’s famous definition: ‘mercy is a restraining of the mind in its power of taking vengeance or the leniency of a superior towards an inferior in determining punishment’ (clementia est temperantia animi in potestate ulciscendi uel lenitas superioris aduersus inferiorem in constituendis poenis, Sen. Cl. 2.3.1). Theseus’ vaunt, then, is best paralleled not by worship of Clementia but by Lucan’s account of the massacres committed under Sulla (Luc. 2.173–6), in which the narrator represents murder as a form of expiatory sacrifice made to the angry ghosts of the dead.49 We may again contrast Silius’ effort to ‘sanitize’ the typical Roman epic convention of representing human beings as ritual sacrifices. The human beings offered as hostiae and inferiae (‘sacrifices’) to angry ghosts in the Punica are the Romans whom Hannibal promises in lieu of his son’s sacrifice and the Carthaginians whom Scipio kills as sacrifices to his father.50 Theseus’ invocation of the Furies, his second so far (cf. 12.647), presents an additional disturbing element of the ritual murder: it makes it that much harder to justify the murder of Creon in moral or juridical terms. It is conceivable that Theseus might think of the Furies simply as impersonal abstractions to be invoked when revenge is to be exacted. If so, the invocation becomes another index of the king’s emotional instability. It is quite impossible, however, for the reader to make such a neutral identification at this point.51 Tisiphone has taken great joy in causing a vast amount of arbitrary and unjustified suffering throughout the Thebaid, to the point where even she confesses satiety

47 On the relationship between this episode and scenes of ritual in Senecan tragedy, see Augoustakis (forthcoming a). 48 As Coffee (2009b: 226) observes, ‘to seek some form of justice through Theseus, the Argive women must literally leave Clementia behind’. On the cult of Clemency and its crucial role for the ending of the poem, see the extensive discussions offered by Hubert and Bessone in Chs 6 and 8 above. 49 Cf. Sen. Dial. 11.16.2. 50 Hannibal’s son: Sil. 4.827; Scipio: Sil. 15.205–6 and 15.442–3. The Spanish brothers who kill each other at Scipio’s funeral games (Sil. 16.537–45) are marked as an egregious exception. 51 For such an identification, see Pollmann (2004: 274).

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and lassitude.52 Theseus’ invitation to the Fury to participate in the murder of Creon taints his effort to pose as a righteous avenger. Like all characters in the epic, Theseus’ knowledge of divine activity is partial and imperfect. He does not share the reader’s awareness that his very opportunity for vengeance has been manufactured by an angry Dis, who wants to create terrible sights on earth in order to give sadistic pleasure to his angry brother Jupiter (8.72–4). Yet unlike Menoeceus, whose actions are constrained through more extensive divine deception, Theseus enjoys the latitude of action that encourages a moral judge to hold him to higher standards of behaviour. He has the opportunity to act as a righteous peacemaker at Thebes, but declines this role and yields instead to the irrational impulses of the Furies.

RITUAL, AGENCY, AND POWER IN THE THEBAID The Thebaid presents its readers with a series of difficult questions regarding the relationship between ritual, agency, and power. What is the point of engaging in ritual if it cannot certify a positive relationship with the gods? What is the point of moral decision-making in a world where the gods (i) deliberately conceal essential facts from human beings and (ii) remove agency from human beings by manipulating their emotions to the point where they are no longer capable of making rational choices? As the ritual scholar Catherine Bell has observed, ‘ritualization always aligns one within a series of relationships linked to the ultimate sources of power. Whether ritual empowers or disempowers one in some practical sense, it always suggests the ultimate coherence of a cosmos in which one takes a particular place.’53 Statius’ ritual episodes reveal that such an image of coherence is illusory. A universe in which harsh Tisiphone, angry Dis, and vengeful Jupiter alternate control does not offer human beings opportunities for meaningful, let alone successful, ritual communication. Even Theseus’ intervention, intended as a morally high-minded action, offers few real causes for hope. It only further emphasizes human beings’ disconnection from the virtues: Pietas flees from the earth in book 11, and human beings choose to abandon Clementia in the epic’s supposedly more optimistic final book. The Thebaid indicates how human efforts to employ ritual in order to

52 53

Joy at 4.213 and lassitude at 11.57–112; see Hershkowitz (1998a: 267–8). Bell (1992: 141).

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appease the gods, expiate the crimes of ancestors, or consult them for moral guidance are irrelevant at best and ironically misguided at worst. The opening of Tacitus’ Histories conveys a ritual picture similar to the Thebaid in broad perspective if not in punctual detail, summed up in the epigram: ‘The gods are concerned not with our peace of mind, but rather with vengeance’ (non esse curae deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem, Tac. Hist. 1.3.2). In the first book of the Histories, Galba learns of threatening omens from a sacrifice (Hist. 1.27.1) and a short time later becomes a sacrificial victim himself, butchered in the Forum by the Othonian forces, whom Tacitus specifies are indifferent to the religio of the surrounding temples (Hist. 1.40.2). Vitellius celebrates his victory over Otho by sacrificing to Nero’s manes (‘ghost’, Hist. 2.95). The fighting on the Capitol in December 69 ce between the Flavians and Vitellians destroys the temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva (Hist. 3.72). If Statius’ epic set in mythical Greece reflects or shapes attitudes toward ritual in Flavian Rome, then the prospects for establishing a correct relationship with the gods seem bleak indeed. The Thebaid implies that much ritual work must be done in order to restore a proper relationship with the gods after the violence of the civil war.54

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My sincerest thanks to Antony Augoustakis for his supportive and indefatigable labours as conference organizer and volume editor. My thanks also to the other participants in the Illinois conference for many helpful suggestions. This chapter is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Gregory D. Levey ({1991, Amherst, Massachusetts).

14 The Death and Funeral Rites of Opheltes in the Thebaid Randall Ganiban

Thebaid 6 is devoted to the funeral rites and games of Opheltes, the infant killed by a serpent as the Argive army marches through Nemea (5.505–45). The aftermath of Opheltes’ death delays1 the Argives’ expedition against Thebes and threatens to reveal the immorality and devastating nature of their war. This chapter will examine how the funeral rites play out various conflicts between Greek and Roman, Argive and Nemean, and gods and mortals, as the Argives struggle to give Opheltes’ death an ideological meaning that various forces (religious, divine, intertextual, and thematic) continually resist. In the end, the Argives’ manipulation of the funerary rites only serves to underscore the troubling moral and political nature of their world.

THE DEATH OF OPHELTES: CONFLICTING PERSPECTIVES 2 As the Argives traverse Nemea, they are afflicted by a terrible drought and thirst, impetuously sent by the god Bacchus in his futile attempt to prevent the army from reaching his native city Thebes. Hypsipyle (former Lemnian princess, now slave and nursemaid to the infant prince 1 The theme of delay is an important one, but will not be specifically addressed here. See Vessey (1973: 165–7); Feeney (1991: 339); Ganiban (2007: 99, 101–2, 156–9); McNelis (2007: 86–91). 2 For overall interpretations of Opheltes, see esp. Vessey (1973: 187–95); Brown (1994); Augoustakis (2010: 54–61).

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Opheltes) encounters them and leads them to the river Langia. Unfortunately she first lays the infant down on the ground, and while she is away, he is killed by a wandering serpens. In describing the aftermath of this tragedy, Statius captures well the confusion and passions that nearly lead to more violence. Yet why the death occurs is a question never fully explained. In this section, I shall examine the various reactions to and interpretations of the infant’s death: those of the Argives, Hypsipyle, and the king and queen of Nemea, Lycurgus and Eurydice. As we shall see, the conflicting understandings of Opheltes’ death reveal important aspects of the world of the epic and provide the backdrop for analysing his funeral rites. From the Argive perspective the reasons for the tragic event are clear, as the Argive priest Amphiaraus reveals at the conclusion of book 5. According to Amphiaraus, the death of Opheltes (also called Archemorus at 5.739),3 the drought, and the deadly snake were all part of a larger plan of fate and the heavenly gods (5.735–40). Thus, implicitly, neither Hypsipyle nor the Argives are to blame. Moreover, the seer goes on to announce that the infant should be granted lasting honours (5.741), that Opheltes’ parents (Lycurgus and Eurydice) will be considered fortunate by succeeding generations (5.746–9), and that the infant’s death is cause for celebration, for he has become a god (nam deus iste, deus . . . , ‘for a god he is, a god’, 5.751).4 Because Statius concludes the book with this speech, no immediate reactions are given, and indeed it is Amphiaraus’ interpretation, as we shall see, that will effectively guide the Argives’ orchestration of the infant’s funeral rites and games in book 6. This is a powerful explanation of Opheltes’ death and is in many ways consistent with both the literary and religious traditions. In Euripides’ fragmentary Hypsipyle, the story of the Lemnian woman is linked to the Argive war against Thebes and Opheltes’ death.5 Moreover, Opheltes’ hero cult and worship at Nemea are centuries old by Statius’ time. Recent excavations have uncovered traces of a shrine to Opheltes (the Opheltion)

3

See below for the meaning and use of this name. An allusion to the deification of Daphnis in Virgil (deus, deus ille, ‘a god, he is a god’, Ecl. 5.64). On the pastoral genre and death/suicide in the Thebaid, see Bernstein, Ch.13 above. 5 Bond (1963) and Gantz (1993). Hypsipyle does not seem to have been part of the tradition of Opheltes before Euripides. Collard and Crop (2008: 251–2) observe that the tragedian ‘associate[s] Athens indirectly with the institution of the Nemean games, for Lemnos was an Athenian dependency and Hypsipyle’s son Euneos was regarded as the founder of the Athenian priestly family of the Euneidae’. For contrasting evaluations of the influence of the Hypsipyle on Statius, see Aricò (1961) and Vessey (1970b). 4

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in Nemea, adjacent to the temple of Zeus.6 But given the actual worship and the literary tradition of the myth, we might have expected greater certainty expressed by characters within the text about Amphiaraus’ claims and perhaps even additional confirmation from the divine realm, so that the Nemeans might be persuaded. Surprisingly, neither quite happens. Readers, to be sure, learn more about divine intention from Statius, but he is still intriguingly elusive. In describing Hypsipyle’s laying down of the infant on the ground before he is killed, Statius offers the parenthetic comment sic Parcae uoluere (‘so the Parcae ordained’, 4.787).7 This phrase suggests divine influence; however, the poet also provides a human motivation: Hypsipyle lays the baby down so that she, unencumbered, could lead the Argives quickly to water (4.785–6). Moreover, there is no indication that the snake kills Opheltes specifically as part of a divine plan; nor does Statius state that the Fates have any role in guiding the serpent to the baby (5.518–28). Indeed, when Statius explicitly ponders whether the gods or a larger plan is at work (5.534–7), he ultimately attributes Opheltes’ death to chance: the snake neither intends to kill the infant with its tail nor even realizes it has done so (ignaro serpente, ‘the snake is unaware’, 5.539). It is true, as we later learn, that Lycurgus had received a prophecy saying he would provide the first death of the war (5.647), but even so Statius plays down its significance. Lycurgus seems to have construed it as a threat to himself, not his son,8 and therefore refrains from the war (5.648–9), while the Nemeans (surprisingly) never quite connect the oracle to Opheltes.9 Indeed, despite Amphiaraus’ speech, at the beginning of book 6 they hold the Argives responsible for the crimen of Opheltes’ death (6.41–4). Finally, Amphiaraus’ claim concerning Opheltes’ status as deus (6.751) is never confirmed by the gods, and Adrastus’ treatment of the issue is a bit puzzling. When he seeks to comfort Lycurgus (6.46–50), he says nothing about the biennial games he will establish in honour of Opheltes or about the infant’s god-like status; later when he pours a libation at the closing rite of the funeral games in book 7, he seems to suggest that Opheltes’ worship as deus is not guaranteed but is contingent upon the Argives’ victory in the coming war (7.100–2). 6

Miller (1990: 25–8; 2004: 105–8); cf. Theb. 4.729. The parenthetical comment fides superum (‘The gods do not deceive!’, 5.650) also suggests that the death of Opheltes was fated. 8 Cf. also Eurydice’s words at 6.141–2. 9 Eurydice refers to Opheltes as primitias . . . caedis acerbae (‘first fruit . . . of untimely death’, 6.146) and primordia belli (‘beginnings of war’, 6.171), but this could just be a statement of fact—i.e. Opheltes is the first casualty of the war. Moreover, she continues to hold Hypsipyle responsible, not fate or the gods. 7

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Given this lack of overall clarity, perhaps it should not be surprising that Hypsipyle and her masters voice understandings of Opheltes’ death that conflict with Amphiaraus’ interpretation. When Hypsipyle discovers the baby’s corpse, she starts to blame the gods (5.610–11 and 620) but ultimately proclaims her own guilt: quos arguo diuos?/ipsa ego te (quid enim timeam moritura fateri?)/ exposui fatis (‘It was I myself—I am to die, so why fear to confess?—who exposed you to the fates’, 5.622–4).10 She connects Opheltes’ death not to the Argive war but to the infamous Lemnian massacre from at least a decade and a half earlier,11 in which she did not participate (exsolui tibi, Lemne, nefas, ‘I paid you, Lemnos, the crime I owed’, 5.628). Opheltes’ parents essentially agree with Hypsipyle’s assumption of guilt. When Lycurgus learns about the death and sees his son’s corpse, he is overpowered by insana . . . ira (‘furious anger’, 5.654–5) and desires to punish Hypsipyle on the spot (5.656–60). Later, he violently rejects Adrastus’ attempts to console him with claims about the necessity of fate (6.46–53), and he never expresses any belief in or takes any comfort from the argument that the death is part of a larger divine plan (cf. 6.47–8), which would have absolved Hypsipyle from (at least some) responsibility. Eurydice also blames Hypsipyle at the infant’s funeral, as will be discussed below. In short, Statius does not employ the divine realm to confirm Amphiaraus’ interpretation for the Nemeans, nor are they ever shown to accept it willingly. As a result, the perspectives of the Nemeans, Hypsipyle, and the Argives collide without any full resolution: the Nemeans focus on their personal and unjust suffering from the criminal war (cf. 5.683–7); Hypsipyle underscores her responsibility for Opheltes’ death and its close connection to her Lemnian past; and the Argives are ultimately concerned with the progress of their war. Moreover, Statius includes a number of details that differ from other extant versions of the myth and that enhance the overall confusion. First, in Euripides’ Hypsipyle, Amphiaraus’ revelation of fate ultimately wins over Eurydice, who decides against killing Hypsipyle;12 Statius’ Amphiaraus has no such ability to persuade. Second, the prophecy received by Lycurgus is not attested elsewhere and may be Statius’ invention, though a different one is recorded by Hyginus stating that the infant Opheltes should not be placed on the ground until he could

10

On Hypsipyle as Cybele, see Chinn’s analysis in Ch. 18 below. We may calculate the approximate time period, since her infant sons are grown up when they are reunited with her (5.710–30). On Hypsipyle’s saving of her father, Thoas, see Bernstein’s analysis in Ch. 13 above. 12 Bond (1963: 16–17); Collard and Cropp (2008: 253). The degree to which she is persuaded, however, is debated. 11

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walk.13 Such a prophecy would have clearly incriminated Hypsipyle but does not appear in Statius. Third, while in Euripides’ play Amphiaraus seeks water to make a sacrifice when he meets Hypsipyle,14 and the scholia on Pindar’s Nemean Odes mention a version in which the Argives suffer from thirst,15 nowhere is the thirst caused by Bacchus except in the Thebaid. Indeed, Statius’ creation of the Bacchus episode is central because it contributes to the unflattering portrayal of the gods and thus to the confusing morality of the epic’s world. And finally, Statius plays with the name Archemorus, ‘beginning of doom’, which is a traditional part of the story (Bacchyl. 9.14). Statius’ Amphiaraus utters this name at 5.738–9: puer, heu nostri signatus nomine fati,/Archemorus (‘and the boy marked, alas, by our destiny’s name, Archemorus’). Yet no character remarks upon this gloomy assessment for the Argives’ prospects. Statius also implies two other possible meanings of the name. In the same speech, Amphiaraus hopes for more such delays as the one in Nemea so that they would not fight Thebes (5.743–5), thus intimating that the name might be (wrongly) interpreted as meaning ‘Beginning of Delay’.16 And earlier, when Hypsipyle finds Opheltes’ body, she calls the baby Archemorus, and is the first character to do so in the epic—a feature unparalleled in the tradition. She does not take the name to involve the fate of the Argive expedition or imply a divine plan. Rather, she ties the death both to the Lemnian massacre (as already noted) and to the one she predicts for herself (5.607–28).17 Statius has recast the death of Opheltes in a way that heightens divine uncertainty. He has created a Nemea entirely consistent with the overall world of the Thebaid, where the heavenly gods have limited interest in promoting moral virtue, while humankind is left with inexplicable suffering at the hands of the gods and other mortals.18 These views will be on display in Statius’ description of the funeral rites.

THE FUNERAL PYRES Despite—or perhaps because of—the competing interpretations of Opheltes’ death, the Argive army takes control of the infant’s funeral. 13 Hyg. Fab. 74. This version could be behind the lavish description of Opheltes at 4.786–7 and would have clearly explained why he died. See Pache (2004: 106). 14 Eur. Hyps. fr. I.iv.29–30 Bond. 15 See Hypothesis 2 and 4; see Bond (1963: 148). 16 Brown (1994: 211). 17 See Augoustakis (2010: 55) on the misfortunes portended by Hypsipyle’s failure in book 5. 18 Ganiban (2007).

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At the beginning of Thebaid 6 the news goes out that the Argives will hold a funeral and games (6.1–3).19 They are acting upon Amphiaraus’ call (5.741), and in doing so they will promote their interpretation of the baby’s death. Statius diverges from Euripides, where Amphiaraus asks Eurydice, who has been persuaded by Amphiaraus’ interpretation of fate, to allow the Argives to bury Opheltes and hold games.20 No such interest in Nemean wishes is expressed in Statius by the Argives, who dominate the funeral in the first third of book 6. The details of the rites are somewhat impressionistic, but we see the laying out of the body (æŁØ ) on the day after the death (6.35–6), the procession carrying the body to the pyre (KŒçæ , 6.126–34), the lamentation (6.135–85), and the cremation (6.202–37); the collection of the ashes/bones and their burial are omitted.21 But Statius is less interested in representing an actual funeral than in creating a literary one, and indeed Opheltes’ funeral is deeply indebted to epic rites of the past, particularly those of Patroclus in Iliad 23, Misenus in Aeneid 6, and Pallas in Aeneid 11.22 To conduct the funeral of Opheltes, not one but two pyres are made. Opheltes’ pyre (or more precisely his bier) is built by the Nemeans seemingly alone (6.54–78). Then, quite unexpectedly, we learn that a second pyre is constructed by the Argives to expiate the killing of Jupiter’s serpent (6.84–117). The two pyres are of equal size but dedicated to different realms: Opheltes’ to the shades below, and the serpent’s to the gods above (6.118–19). Statius’ descriptions of the two pyres are highly intertextual, though they differ greatly in nature. Each one, as I shall argue, involves a different type of representation of the Argive war and the world of the poem.

Opheltes’ pyre Statius describes Opheltes’ feretrum (‘bier’), with gestures to the overall pyre,23 and the offerings placed around it.24 The bier contains four layers. The first (or bottom) consists of straw and greenery (6.56), the second of wreaths and flowers (6.57–8). The final two are of a different character: 19 Statius makes clear that these funeral games explain the origins of the Nemean Games. 20 Eur. Hyps. fr. 60.98–108 Bond. 21 For a description of funeral rites, see Garland (2001: 21–37). 22 Legras (1905: 74–9); Juhnke (1972: 105–8). 23 Cf. pyro (6.70). For a different interpretation, see Erasmo (2008: 131–2). 24 For discussion of the bier, see especially Brown (1994: 197–8) and Erasmo (2008: 129–32).

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the third (6.59–61) is made of various Eastern spices, incense, and objects of ‘Eastern wealth’ (Eoas . . . opes), while the fourth (6.62–6) is an elaborately woven tapestry that depicts the infant Linus and the dogs that killed him. In addition, the poet describes various offerings made by Lycurgus (6.67–78). Statius seemingly plays with the resulting extravagance. The structure is introduced as a puerile feretrum (‘boy’s bier’, 6.55), but, as its description moves beyond the first two levels and concludes with Lycurgus’ offerings, it becomes increasingly clear that this bier would be more appropriate for a warrior/hero.25 Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the bier’s layers is the presence of the infant Linus, who appears at the culmination of the description (6.62–6) and at the centre of the entire passage (6.54–78).26 He is portrayed in a tapestry rich with gold and jewels on top of the pyre/ bier: medio Linus intertextus acantho/letiferique canes (‘In the middle among acanthus is woven Linus and the deadly hounds’, 6.64–5). It is an arresting moment of self-referentiality, since Linus’ story is narrated in an important programmatic passage in book 1 (557–668), as Alison Keith points out in Chapter 17 below. Raped by Apollo, Psamathe gives birth to Linus, and (rightfully) fearing the wrath of her father, she abandons the baby, who is killed by a pack of dogs. Though Apollo does nothing to protect Psamathe or their son, he sends against Argos a childslaying monster, which is eventually killed by Coroebus. Statius invites us to ponder the Linus tapestry: he calls it an opus admirabile (‘work worthy of admiration’, 6.65), and we are even given one person’s reaction to it, Eurydice’s: semper/oderat atque oculos flectebat ab omine mater (‘The mother always hated [it] and averted her eyes from the omen’, 6.65–6).27 Moreover, the resonance of weaving (intertextus) as a metaphor for both representation and poetry is extremely strong and therefore suggestive. It is of particular importance for Callimachus,28 and indeed the stories of Linus and Opheltes are both recounted in his Aetia, although little remains of these treatments.29 Statius’ interest in these two infants surely reflects Callimachean influence, while his use of weaving to comment on other aspects of the poem is a device made important by Roman poets influenced by Callimachus, especially Catullus and Ovid.30 25

Erasmo (2008: 132). Lines 79–83 are generally considered to be spurious, and I have omitted them here from consideration; pace Hall et al. (2007). 27 For the Hellenistic tradition of ekphrasis and the idea of amazement, see Brown (1994: 162). 28 McNelis (2007: 39). 29 Pache (2004: 70–72, 103–5); McNelis (2007: 38–9, 92); cf. Keith, Ch. 17 below. 30 Brown (1994: 163–4). 26

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The tapestry and bier therefore have important ties to Alexandrian poetics, suggesting their broader interpretive significance for the poem. Indeed, as I shall argue, Opheltes’ bier must be read in relation to Linus’ story in Thebaid 1, as well as to the deaths of other young figures who are intertextually present in the passage.31 Statius had already connected Opheltes’ story to Linus’ by employing verbal parallels between the two stories (in addition to the obvious parallels of their violent deaths by animals) before he describes the tapestry. For example, both babies are described with the adjective sidereus: Linus, sidereum . . . nepotem (‘starlike grandson’, 1.577) and Opheltes, siderei vultus (‘starry face’, 5.613); both are shown playfully (and charmingly) gaping up at the sky: Linus, patulo caelum ore trahentem (‘wide–mouthed to drink the sky’, 1.588) and Opheltes, patulo trahit ore diem (‘with open mouth draws in the day’, 4.799). 32 And indeed in the description of Opheltes’ funeral bier, even before the Linus tapestry is mentioned, there are intratextual resonances to Linus and the idea of weaving from the first book: non tibi digna, puer, generis cunabula tanti gramineos dedit herba toros et uimine querno texta domus; clausa arbutei sub cortice libri membra tepent . . . (1.582–5) ‘The grass gave the boy his bed, cradle unworthy of his high birth, and his house was woven of oaken withies. His limbs were snug in a wrapping of arbutus bark . . . tristibus interea ramis teneraque cupresso’ damnatus flammae torus et puerile feretrum texitur: ima uirent agresti stramina cultu; proxima gramineis operosior area sertis et picturatus morituris floribus agger . . . (6.54–8) ‘Meanwhile a couch doomed to flame, a childish bier, is woven from sad branches of tender cypress. The lowest part is strewn with rustic greenery, next is a space more elaborate with herbal wreaths and a mound decked with flowers soon to die.’

Just as the puer Linus has a makeshift bed or cradle made out of grass (gramineos toros), and a woven (texta) home, so now the boy (cf. puerile)

31 Brown (1994: 182): ‘The heroic orientation of the Linus–Coroebus aetiology in Thebaid I competes with the pastoral-elegiac influence of Callimachus, mediated by Virgil.’ 32 Brown (1994: 183–4). For the Callimachean tradition of Linus, see ibid. 182 and Pache (2004: 70–72).

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Opheltes, in death, is given a funeral torus that is woven (texitur) and also contains wreaths of grass (gramineis sertis). These intratextual gestures, then, are given full, visual expression in the Linus tapestry resting on top of Opheltes’ bier. We are not told the positioning of the infant and the dogs, though presumably the actual moment of Linus’ violent rending is not described. Nonetheless, the tapestry alludes to the infant’s death, and Linus’ story clearly has a number of points of contact with Opheltes’:33 for example, both are given to a foster parent to be raised, both are placed on the ground, and both are killed by animals. But there is another aspect of the Linus myth that Statius omits but is important here: after his death, Linus receives hero cult; he is worshipped with prayers and a dirge performed by girls and women, and a month is named after him, Arneios (‘of the lamb’), since he ‘was raised among the lambs’.34 Both infants, then, become heroes, while Linus’ worship involves a special type of dirge that makes him an especially resonant figure for Opheltes’ funeral bier. The description of Opheltes’ pyre and of the tapestry, however, goes beyond the story of Linus to include intertextual references to other woven objects that involve the deaths of other youths. Opheltes’ bier and tapestry suggest a partial model in the funeral of Virgil’s Pallas. As Mario Erasmo has shown, Pallas’ pyre, like Opheltes’ (6.56), is described as strewn with agresti stramine (Aen. 11.67); the presence of the Linus tapestry on Opheltes’ bier recalls the robe that had been made by Dido and is placed on Pallas’ bier (Aen. 11.72–7); and the famous simile in which Pallas is compared to a flower plucked by a girl and doomed to die (Aen. 11.68–71) is suggested by the presence of flowers on Opheltes’ bier (6.58).35 There are still other connections. The phrase ab antiquo durantia cinnama Belo (‘and cinnamon lasting from ancient Belus’, 6.61) further activates the reference to the Carthaginian queen, since Belus was the name both of Dido’s father (Aen. 1.621) and of the founder of the Tyrian dynasty (Aen. 1.729–30). Moreover, the final line of the Virgilian flower simile bears particular significance: we are told that the flower, once plucked, is no longer nourished or protected by mother earth: non iam mater alit tellus uirisque ministrat (‘no more does its mother earth give strength and nurture’, Aen. 11.71). This detail resonates with the deaths of Opheltes and Linus. Both youths are transferred from the hands of their mothers to someone else to take care of them and ultimately laid 33

See also Brown (1994: 165–6, 183–4). For a discussion of the sources, see Taisne (1994: 245); Delarue (2000: 121–3); Pache (2004: 68); McNelis (2007: 33, 37–9). 35 Erasmo (2008: 129–31). See also Legras (1905: 74–9) and Lesueur (2003: 2.146). 34

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on the ground;36 as in the case of the flower, mother earth cannot protect the infants, when harmed by an external source (i.e. human, dogs, snake).37 Perhaps we might also recall descriptions of the Golden Age, such as in Eclogues 4.23–4, wherein flowers will form cradles (cunabula),38 and the serpens will die. The deaths of Statius’ Opheltes and Linus both would then suggest the opposite of a Golden Age.39 Flowers in turn have intertextual significance for weaving. The detail that Linus is surrounded by acanthus on the tapestry (medio Linus intertextus acantho, 6.64) recalls Virgil’s circumtextum croceo uelamen acantho (‘robe fringed with yellow acanthus’, Aen. 1.649), describing a robe or dress made by Leda and given to her daughter Helen; Cupid (disguised as Ascanius) will, on Aeneas’ behalf, later present Dido with the cloak, which she and the Carthaginians will view with wonder (mirantur, Aen. 1.709), making it another admirabile opus (Theb. 6.65).40 And finally, as already noted, Opheltes’ bier is decorated with flowers (picturatus . . . floribus, 6.58). Picturatus seems to be a Virgilian neologism, one also connected to weaving and, in this case, to two boys. In Aeneid 3, Andromache presents Aeneas’ son Ascanius with textilibus . . . donis (‘gifts from the loom’, Aen. 3.485) that include picturatas auri subtemine uestis (‘robes figured with in-woven gold’, Aen. 3.483). She does this in memory of her own son, Astyanax, violently killed at the fall of Troy. Here, weaving makes us recall another infant who dies tragically in war. Because the word picturatus is first used by Virgil (and in a passage involving textiles), and is not attested again in poetry until Statius,41 the Virgilian context gains in resonance. But this is only half of the description devoted to Opheltes’ bier (6.54– 66). The second half (6.67–78) is of somewhat different character, for it moves beyond the metaphor of weaving and the suffering especially of the baby’s mother, Eurydice,42 to the pain of his father, Lycurgus, and the various offerings with which he, in particular, surrounds the bier. This passage explores Lycurgus’ (now thwarted) hopes that his son would 36 Psamathe lays her son Linus on the ground for a herdsman to take in and raise (1.581), while Eurydice has handed over Opheltes to Hypsipyle, who in turn places the infant in gremio uernae telluris (‘in the bosom of the vernal earth’, 4.793). 37 Indeed, the earth will later open up and swallow the seer Amphiaraus, and thus will require special prayers and offerings in book 8; see Dee, Ch. 10 above. 38 Cf. cunabula in the description of Linus at 1.582. 39 Brown (1994: 203); Newlands (2004). 40 Brown (1994: 162–3). 41 Horsfall (2006: 347). 42 Cf. 6.65–6. As we have seen, other mothers are intertextually implicated (Leda, Andromache, Venus though Cupid, and Dido, a potential stepmother), with the addition of Evander, father of Pallas.

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grow into a great warrior and representative of his family and people. We learn of exuuias (‘trappings’) of their ancestors, and the weaponry and horses that Lycurgus had vowed, if Opheltes were to reach adulthood. With this vow now unfulfilled, the king places these around Opheltes’ bier (6.74–7). As a result, gifts appropriate not for an infant but for an adult will be part of Opheltes’ funeral, as he is metaphorically transformed into a warrior worthy of his magnificent funeral. The two halves of this passage (6.54–78) thus express different aspects of Opheltes’ story, though they are connected particularly by the theme of the relationship between parent and child, so central to the overall Thebaid as well. Most important, as I have argued, is the figure of Linus, whose relevance to Opheltes is great. Their stories share an important source in Callimachus’ Aetia, which suggests the Hellenistic or neoteric nature of the subject matter and allusiveness. In Statius, Opheltes’ death with its various intra- and inter-textual connections comes to encompass and perhaps even represent other important figures who suffer early or untimely deaths and are mourned by their parents. This complex web of allusions makes us stop and ponder the emotional and often tragic stories that the Linus tapestry is intertextually connected to and, in some sense, represents. The Argive war has resulted in the devastation of another family and of another royal line.

The snake’s pyre The preceding passage dealt only with Opheltes’ bier, not his pyre, which is never fully described but only mentioned in passing (6.69–70). Instead Statius, quite surprisingly,43 portrays the deforestation required for the construction of the serpent’s pyre, for which, conversely, a bier is never mentioned. This is an unforeseen development: up until 6.84, no reference is even made to the need for this second pyre, yet it is of equal size to Opheltes’ (6.118–19). As we learn (see below), the serpent’s pyre is mandated by the needs of the Argives alone. The idea of the funeral as being solely for Opheltes’ honour (cf. 6.1–3) is thus undermined by a larger act of self-interest. The Argives build a massive pyre under the direction of the seer Amphiaraus to atone for their criminal slaying of the serpent that had killed Opheltes (6.84–7).44 The serpent is sacred to Jupiter and is 43

Cf. Erasmo (2008: 129). An expiation for the criminal war may be implied in 6.87, as Dee also points out in his discussion of the snake’s pyre in Ch. 10 above. 44

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mourned by the nymphs and other inhabitants of the area (5.579–82). The fact that Capaneus, the most sacrilegious of the Argives (cf. 3.602), kills the serpent adds greatly to the criminality of the slaying—particularly since he himself says that he would kill the serpent even if it were loved by the gods, and he even hopes it is (5.568). Not surprisingly, he incites the wrath of Jupiter, who nearly kills him, but ultimately saves him for a different demise (5.583–7).45 Ironically, even though the pyre is meant to expiate this Argive wrongdoing, Statius’ description of the deforestation required for the pyre’s construction (6.90–117) contains problematic details, ones that are lacking in Statius’ important predecessors Homer, Ennius, and Virgil, but central to his depiction of the Argive episode. As scholars have well shown, Statius expands various details from his predecessors in the deforestation scene. Some view his innovations negatively,46 but Carole Newlands has convincingly argued that ‘the destruction of the grove is represented as a form of sacrilege’, and that what might be seen as calculated Statian excessiveness reflects ‘that war itself is excess’.47 Indeed, the Statian wood is an ancient one, untouched by mortals (6.90–91); it is also the home of nymphs and fauns (6.95–6). The solemnity of its description underscores its religiosity, and thus the potential sacrilege involved in its destruction. Moreover, Statius’ passage resonates with episodes of deforestation in Ovid and Lucan that are not connected with burial but represent acts of religious desecration.48 For example, while in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8.738–87), Erysichthon criminally cuts down a tree sacred to Ceres, Statius’ Argives cut down a forest with even more devastating ramifications for the displaced gods: linquunt flentes dilecta locorum,/otia cana,49 Pales Siluanusque arbiter umbrae/semideumque pecus . . . / . . . nec amplexae dimittunt robora Nymphae (‘Pales and Silvanus, lord of shade, and the demigod herd leave weeping the places they love, haunts of ancient peace, . . . while the Nymphs loose not oaks from their embrace’, Theb. 6.110–13). Statius’ mention of these figures seemingly alludes, in turn, to a deforestation episode at Lucan (3.399–452), where Caesar cuts down a forest, also 45 We do not know who kills the serpent in Euripides’ version, but we do learn at least that Amphiaraus ‘shoots’ at it (Kªg  K ı , Collard and Crop [2008], line 97). In Euripides, however, the sacredness of the serpent is not mentioned as a concern. 46 Williams (1968: 263–7) argues that the passage puts on display the excessiveness and thus the tastelessness of the Statian adaptation. 47 Newlands (2004: 144–5). See also Thomas (1988: 267–9) for ambivalence in Aen. 6.179–82 and its relation to Ovid’s Erysichthon episode. 48 On the intertexts, see Newlands (2004: 144–5). 49 I follow Shackleton Bailey’s punctuation with commas.

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inhabited by divine spirits, to obtain wood to build siege works. In Lucan’s episode, however, the gods are non-Roman, Druid spirits, and we are specifically told that gods like Pan, Silvanus, and the nymphs did not inhabit this forest: hunc non ruricolae Panes nemorumque potentes/ Siluani Nymphaeque tenent (‘In this grove there are no rustic Pans or Silvani, masters of the forests, or Nymphs’, Luc. 3.402–3). The Flavian poet has seemingly made use of Lucan’s deities but with two important changes: he has further Romanized these gods by substituting Pales (the Italian goddess of shepherds and cattle) for Lucan’s Panes, and, as Carole Newlands has noted,50 has increased the Argives’ criminality by making these Romanized divinities flee. The problematic nature of the Argives is captured by the simile in which the scene culminates: the Argives are compared to an army violently sacking a city (6.114–17). The Argives’ pyre for the snake thus reflects the problematic nature of their war, and it is particularly troubling for our understanding of Amphiaraus.51 By ordering the construction of the pyre and thus the consequent deforestation of the sacred wood in order to expiate their offence against Jupiter, Amphiaraus in a sense doubles the Argives’ sacrilege, even as he tries to atone for it, as Nick Dee has demonstrated in his analysis (Ch. 10 above). By incorporating elements from the Ovidian and Lucanian scenes of criminal deforestation into the more ‘traditional’ epic models, Statius indicates the inherent criminality of the Argive cause. The descriptions of these two pyres thus contrast significantly but must be read together: indeed, since technically Statius has depicted only Opheltes’ bier and the serpent’s pyre, the two make a whole structure but with different thematic concerns. While the deforestation for the serpent’s pyre involves the commission of a violent and sacrilegious act, Opheltes’ bier ruminates on past acts of terrible violence and suffering to individuals, families, and communities. The contrast is underscored by two different kinds of poetics. Opheltes’ bier focuses on the suffering caused by war and crime, on the small and Nemean (infant) over the big and Argive (war against Thebes), on reflection instead of action; we might say that this passage is neoteric or Alexandrian in approach. The serpent’s pyre, however, involves a deforestation, develops conventions in the spirit of more ‘traditional’ heroic epic (Homer, Ennius, and Virgil), and is concerned with a large-scale action, not a (comparatively) small, finely wrought product such as an infant’s bier. By setting these two

50 51

Newlands (2004: 144–6 with n. 39). On Amphiaraus, see Lovatt’s, Tuttle’s, and Manolaraki’s essays (Chs 3–5 above).

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funereal structures side by side, Statius perhaps puts us in mind of the contrasting tapestries in the weaving contest between Minerva and Arachne in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 6, or the differing views of Apollo in Adrastus’ narrative about Linus and Coroebus and his hymn to the god in book 1.52 The contrasting pyres and viewpoints reflect a conflict at the heart of the poem. In short, despite the failed (or at least inconclusive) attempts of the Argive army to justify their cause and simultaneously atone for their own transgressions, a destabilizing perspective of those suffering because of injustice is juxtaposed. In the process, the moral confusion and seeming criminality of both mortals and gods are brought to the fore.

The burning of the pyres With the pyres built, the funeral continues. A rite begun by Pelops for deceased youth and once used for Niobe’s children is performed (6.121–5). This is an inauspicious beginning for the cremation of Opheltes: Pelops is a notorious figure who suffers violence from his father, Tantalus, and commits crimes that bring a curse upon his own sons, Atreus and Thyestes, while Niobe’s fourteen children are killed by Diana and her brother Apollo, a reminder of the horrendous violence of Apollo against children in the Linus story. It is in this context that Opheltes’ body is brought to the pyre, and, as we shall see, the cremation rite underscores the troubling conflicts between the Nemeans and Argives that will not be resolved. Despite the presence of Opheltes’ parents, the Argives dominate these final rites. The Argive princes bring funeral offerings that attest to their individual families (6.127–8), giving the ceremony a particularly Argive—and not Nemean—emphasis. The Argive leader, Adrastus (not the Nemean king, Lycurgus),53 selects young men to carry Opheltes’ bier to the pyre (6.128–30). The Argives surround Hypsipyle protectively (6.132–3), presumably because of the hostility of the Nemeans (6.130– 2)—an important detail, since the role of Hypsipyle is still a vital area of contention between the Argives and Nemeans. Eurydice utters a provocative lament in which she calls Opheltes’ death a scelus (‘crime’, 6.144). She views her son as the first casualty of the Argive war (6.146 and 171), but, unlike Amphiaraus, she attributes it to human, not divine, causation 52

See Ganiban (2007: 22–3 with n. 112). On the hymn, see Gibson, Ch. 7 above. The dux here must refer to Adrastus as the leader of the Argive army. He is so called in the Nemean episode at 5.18, 6.129 (probably), 6.914, 7.104. Moreover, Lycurgus is never referred to as dux elsewhere in the epic. 53

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(6.144–5): she blames Hypsipyle, as if the nurse’s criminal role were fated as a result of her Lemnian past (6.160–61). The mother also complains that the Argives prevent her from exercising her right to punish her negligent slave-nurse (6.167–8 and 174–6), whom the Argives will not even expel from the funeral, much to the queen’s outrage (6.180–4). By taking control of the rites, the Argives undermine Lycurgus’ and Eurydice’s status as both rulers and parents, while they promote their view of Hypsipyle as the Argives’ saviour, who must therefore be protected. While Eurydice is focused particularly on Hypsipyle’s guilt, Lycurgus reveals his disillusion with the gods. Just before the pyre is set ablaze, he cuts his hair and places it over his son’s face, as he cries out that these tresses had originally been vowed to Jupiter.54 In his despair, Lycurgus rebukes Jupiter, whom he startlingly apostrophizes as perfide (‘perfidious’, 6.197). Lycurgus, priest of Jupiter, questions the god’s efficacy and trustworthiness, but this is not the first time he has done so. Just after Opheltes’ death, Lycurgus bitterly questioned Jupiter’s power and the morality of his world, since the god had both allowed his son to die and watched the Argives’ criminality without acting (5.688–9).55 Thus the Argives’ intrusion into Nemea has deep ramifications for Lycurgus: he is a priest of Jupiter who has given up on the god, and a king whose power has been circumscribed by the Argives. Finally, the Argive domination of the funeral is especially apparent with the cremation at 204–26.56 The Argives keep Lycurgus and Eurydice away (6.203), and surround the pyre with outstretched shields (signs of Argive power) to prevent the Nemeans and, we must assume, the king and queen from witnessing the prospectu . . . nefasto (‘unlawful view’, 6.205). The phrase prospectu nefasto probably refers to the idea that one is not supposed to watch as the soul escapes the body at cremation,57 but attendees at other epic funerals explicitly do observe at least part of the cremation.58 The rites are concluded with each of the seven Argive

54 The scene is powerfully modelled on Il. 23.138–51 (Achilles’ complaint to the river god Spercheius). 55 He thus echoes Oedipus’ complaint at the opening of the epic (1.79–80). On Jupiter in the poem, see Tuttle, Hubert, Gibson, and Bessone, Chs 4, 6, 7, and 8 above. 56 Lines 227–33 are generally regarded as spurious; Hall et al. (2007) consider them genuine but misplaced. 57 Cf. Aen. 6.224. 58 Cf. Aen. 11.199–202, where the soldiers watch their comrades being cremated; in Il. 23, Patroclus’ closest comrades are involved in the cremation, and Achilles (Il. 23.216–25) seems to spend the night at the pyre, while it burns, and wails like a father at the cremation of his son. See also Horsfall (2003: 153).

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leaders conducting a contingent of 100 horsemen around the pyre,59 thereby symbolically encircling it with military power and Argive meaning. Final sacrifices are offered, and Amphiaraus calls an end to the funeral, though he again senses ill omens (6.222–4). No explicit mention is made of the snake’s pyre. This is a surprising omission, given its elaborate construction (6.84–119) and the importance of the snake’s expiation for the Argive cause.60 The Argives have wrested control of the funeral from Opheltes’ parents, and have conducted it in ways that support and promote their own interests, while downplaying their troublesome actions.

CONCLUSION Although the death of Opheltes and his funeral rites are relatively small events within the larger devastation of the Argive war against Thebes, Statius has developed them into a significant episode. As I have argued, he has manipulated the literary tradition to maximize among Argives, Nemeans, and the Lemnian slave Hypsipyle the possibility of conflicting interpretations, which are never fully resolved and are manifested in various ways throughout the funeral rites. Central to Statius’ treatment of the rites are the construction and burning of the two pyres, which give voice to competing poetic aesthetics and experiences of the world of the epic. The funeral rites become another area harmed when touched by the Argive war against Thebes. The political situation at Nemea has been destabilized, with the king and queen suffering a seeming diminution in their domestic and political power as well as the loss of their child and heir. It is perhaps significant that once the pyres are lit (6.202–3), Eurydice and Lycurgus are never mentioned again, even though the remaining 700 lines of the book celebrate the funeral games for their son. The irony of the Argives’ orchestration of the funeral rites and expiation of their killing of the serpent is that they do nothing ultimately to help their cause. Jupiter becomes angry that they have delayed so long in Nemea, and expresses little concern for Opheltes’ burial and games or for the expiatory rites held for the serpent (7.1–33). By setting Nemean and 59 Surely the Graiugenae reges (‘Grecian kings’, 6.215) are the seven Argive leaders; pace Erasmo (2008: 138). On the Orphic elements of the last moments of the ritual, see Chinn, Ch. 18 below. 60 Erasmo (2008: 136–8).

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Argive interests against each other in the death and funeral rites of Opheltes, Statius shows the tragic situation of both the Nemeans and the Argives: the Nemeans may suffer because of the gods, fate, and the Argive war, but ultimately the Argives, spurred on by the gods, seek a war and military glory that can never be anything other than criminal and disastrous.61

61 I would like to thank Antony Augoustakis for his insightful comments on and editing of this chapter.

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15 Epitaphic Gestures in Statius and Silius Italicus Martin T. Dinter

The history of epigram is characterised by a progressive dissolution of its ties with its physical and communicative contexts. From the fifth century on, epigram started freeing itself first from its material support—to become a literary and then bookish genre—and then also from the obligation to treat real events and people; this is particularly clear in the case of funerary epigrams which soon started commemorating people who were long dead and people who never lived . . . . . . Elegy builds up a monument out of the memory of brave men and glorious acts past and present, a mnêma to be looked at as much as listened to, both by the immediate addressee and by those who will enjoy the poem in the future. Performance and inscription on physical objects converge in accomplishing this function . . . ; this is also the primary function of the inscribed epigram. (Aloni 2009: 180, 182)

This study adopts an avowedly methodological approach to interrogate Flavian epic’s engagement with epigram.1 I suggest that by moving on from its inscriptional roots to become a literary genre and thus an abstract concept, epigram opens up not only itself but also inscriptions for dissection and reception into other genres. Accordingly, I shall ask whether there are epigraphic markers in Latin poetry, i.e. formulas that bear the connotation of the inscriptional and thus combine and emphasize 1

I have used this methodological framework in Dinter (2011), with which there is some overlap. The materials are published with the permission of Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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the primal memorializing function of epigram, as suggested by Antonio Aloni in the epigraphs above. I shall therefore consider how the theoretical approach of intermediality (Intermedialität) can provide a framework for exploring the blurring of inscriptional and narrative modes. This framework helps us understand better the relationship between inscriptions and literature. In what follows, I shall argue that epigraphic markers are used to construct epitaphic gestures in Latin poetry.

INSCRIPTION AND TEXT: ASPECTS OF INTERMEDIALITY In her recent study of embedded inscriptions in Latin elegy, Teresa Ramsby begins by proposing that the Roman elegists wrest the elegiac genre from the epigraphers, who had made elegy the preferred medium of memorial, and add the spice of Hellenistic poetics.2 She then discusses Catullus’ lament for his deceased brother (Catul. 65), suggesting that his personal experience adds to the thematic development of Latin elegy, since the poem is intended as a monument for the brother.3 This then constitutes an important precursor for Propertius’ reflections on his literary legacy and his efforts to articulate a poetic career worth memorializing as an alternative to Roman politics and the military.4 In addition, Ramsby frequently links the elegists’ drive for (self-)memorialization to the political situation of Augustan Rome, in which public honours are reserved for the princeps. According to her interpretation, Propertius ‘utilizes . . . elegy to memoralize those whose voices were lost . . . in the age of Empire’—a reading that may equally apply to the two (and indeed further) voices in Virgil’s Aeneid and Flavian epic.5 I would like to supplement Ramsby’s important discussion by describing and defining the Latin poets’ use of inscriptions from the perspective of the theory of intermediality. Embedded inscriptions, which are products of the (inter)textual world of Roman elegists, are points where ‘two semiotic systems partially overlap’.6 Obviously, an embedded inscription can be explained as an effort to capture an inscription in words; but at the same time it also ‘denotes a kind of intermedial and self-reflexive 2 3 4 5 6

Ramsby (2007: 21–9). Ramsby (2007: 46–7). Ramsby (2007: 51). Ramsby (2007: 71). On ‘further voices’, see Lyne (1992). Barchiesi (1997: 278).

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relationship between two different media (stone and text in our case), which ponder their own material characteristics’.7 But what exactly is meant by the terms ‘intermedial’ and ‘intermediality’? I understand the term ‘medium’ as defined by Wolf: I here propose to use a broad concept of medium: not in the restricted sense of a technical or institutional channel of communication (e.g. letter, book, radio or poster) but as a conventionally distinct means of communication or expression characterized not only by particular channels or one channel for sending or receiving messages but also by the use of one or more semiotic systems.8

On the most basic level, intermediality is thus a hyperonym for all phenomena which cross the borders between media and are accordingly—as the prefix inter indicates—located in some way or other between media.9 In a recent attempt to define and systematize intermediality, three areas of research have been highlighted: the combination of media,10 the transformation of media,11 and intermedial connections,12 the last of which includes phenomena such as ekphrasis or embedded inscriptions.13 The term ‘intermedial connection’ describes the manner in which meaning is constituted through the (actual) connection, which a medial product (in our case, texts) can form with the product of another medium or a medial system itself. To create meaning in addition to its usual means, therefore, the medial product (i.e. text) also utilizes intermedial ones. This contact between media products or systems lets both of them—as well as their medial differences and equivalences—be absorbed by their consumer (i.e. the reader, in the case of texts).14 Intermedial connections thus participate in the creation of meaning differently from the standard means employed by texts. As texts remain the sole medium that is present, however, elements and structures of other media or another medium are thematized, simulated, and, as far as possible, reproduced with the means specific to texts.15 The only way in 7

Rippl (2010), quoting Bolter (1996: 264). Wolf (1999: 40; emphasis added). 9 Cf. Rajewsky (2002: 12). 10 Rajewsky (2002: 15), ‘Medienkombinationen’, such as ‘Photoroman’: the addition of two distinct systems of media. 11 Rajewsky (2002: 16), ‘Medienwechsel’, such as turning a book into a film. 12 Rajewsky (2002: 16–17), ‘intermediale Bezüge’. 13 As Rajewsky (2002) points out, a single medial product can fit several or even all these categories, they are not mutually exclusive. 14 Cf. Rajewsky (2002: 17). 15 Cf. Rajewsky (2002: 17 n. 26). As I will be discussing only texts in this piece, I have chosen the wording of this section accordingly. Rajewsky (ibid. 17) emphasizes that 8

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which a medium such as the literary text can make elements and structures of other media such as film, music, painting, or inscription its own—even though it only has its own media-typical literary means at its disposal—is by investing these elements and structures with an ‘as if ’ mode, which creates an illusion of the other, alien medium. To such an extent and in such a way it is actually possible to quote, reproduce, or incorporate a medial system, or medial product, within literary texts.16 These illusions are often marked and identified as medial connections by an explicit reference to the alien medium, which is incorporated for the purpose of directing the readers’ reception. It remains to raise the question of where the difference between intermediality and intertextuality lies. Julia Kristeva has proposed a concept of intertextuality in which ‘any text is a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.’17 Moreover, she has widened the term ‘text’ to include any cultural system or structure. Since literary scholars have employed the term ‘intertextuality’ to refer to literary texts only, for my study I will use the term in its most narrow meaning: intertextuality will thus only define the relation of one literary text to one or several other literary texts. Conversely, intermediality is ‘an intended and identifiable use or incorporation of at least two usually distinct media in one artefact’.18 Its ‘overt/direct’ form (i.e. the combination of media) is characterized by the fact that ‘at least in one instance more than one medium is present . . . whereby each medium appears with its typical or conventional signifiers, remains distinct and in principle “quotable”’.19 Intermedial connections, however, are distinguished by: intermedial connections are not additive combinations of media which lead to plurimedial products. 16 Much work has been done on how twentieth-century writers, such as Alfred Döblin, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, and John Dos Passos, have employed structures and techniques characteristic of the medium film to express the simultaneousness and fragmentation of city life, as well as the relativity of time, space, and visual perception. See e.g. Spiegel (1976) and Paech (1988). In addition both media and the culture of human perception change: the post-MTV video clip generation is used to extremely fast cuts and minimalist storylines and will be little surprised to find these mirrored in literature. While computer-simulated special effects and characters are currently still perceived as a relatively new addition to the medium film, they will most likely be seen as standard characteristics of this medium in the future; the aspect of historicity thus needs attention when drawing parallels between different media. 17 Kristeva (1980: 66). 18 Wolf (1998: 238; my translation). 19 This terminology has been defined by Wolf (1999: 42). Wolf sees the transformation of media as ‘werkextern’ and discusses it separately from the ‘werkinterne Intermedialität’, mentioned in Wolf (2002a) and (2002b).

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involvement of (at least) two conventionally distinct media in the signification of an artefact in which, however, only one (dominant) medium appears directly with its typical or conventional signifiers, the other one (the non– dominant medium) being only indirectly present ‘within’ the first medium as a signified (in some cases as a referent). It is, as it were ‘covered’ by the dominant medium (though the description of a statue in a novel, for instance, involves a visual art, it still remains literature), and hence the two media cannot be separated from each other, as in the case of the overt/ direct intermediality.20

While the theory of intertextuality uses the term ‘textual reference’ to describe how texts relate to each other, the theory of intermediality employs ‘systemic reference’ to refer to the relation between a text and one or several semiotic systems (such as genres or other types of discourse).21 Naturally, systemic references come in different shapes and sizes, but two subcategories will be of relevance to my discussion. One is the contamination of two semiotic systems (Systemkontamination), such as that entailed by full-blown ekphrasis, in which the reader witnesses the overlap of the visual and textual media.22 The ‘as if ’ mode of ekphrasis, which attempts an actualization and reproduction of the visual by means of the literary medium, creates an altermedially referenced illusion; this illusion is usually marked clearly by a systemic pointer to the referenced medium (explizite Systemerwähnung) with a statement such as ‘there is an object and on it we see’.23 Such a statement then directs the readers’ reception. In the same way, inscriptions tend to be signalled by a statement such as ‘there is or will be a stone and on it we read’. In modern editions of Greek and Latin texts, embedded inscriptions are also frequently flagged for the reader by being printed in capitalized letters. In cases where the medium referenced is less easily discernible or detectable (e.g. film), systemic pointers can serve as signals of intermediality. When the medium referenced is easily discernable and detectable, however, these systemic pointers may be just implicit. In my discussion, however, a further way of referencing a semiotic system will be of particular prominence. In addition to the contamination of two semiotic systems, which results in a full altermedial illusion, a medium can also be only partially reproduced by another medium; this leads to a partial

20

Wolf (1999: 44). Rajewsky (2002: 60) contrasts ‘Einzeltextreferenz’ with ‘Systemreferenz’, building on the work of Hempfer (1991) and Penzenstadler (1993). 22 Cf. Rajewsky (2002: 118–23). 23 Cf. Rajewsky (2002: 79–117). 21

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altermedial illusion (‘[teil-]reproduzierende Systemerwähnung’).24 Here components (or parts thereof) which are characteristic of another medium are reproduced, in our case in literature.25 It is important that these altermedial components, which before might have been signposted by systemic pointers, be recognized as such by the reader, who then associates with them those medial components that could not be reproduced by the text. As a result, the altermedial components reverberate with the other absent characteristics of the medium or genre to which they belong. This partial reproduction of a medium has also been dubbed ‘associative quotation’.26 In sum, a microform, such as an associative quotation, can evoke a macroform such as the genre of ekphrasis, the medium of film, or the format of inscription. The variety of ways in which a text may interact with another medium thus ranges from full-blown ekphrasis to inconspicuous ‘medial quotations’. As we shall see, what I call ‘medial quotation’ is a form of ‘associative quotation’ and poses a hermeneutic challenge to the reader, since it can be gleaned less easily from the surrounding text than an overt and clearly marked ekphrasis or an embedded inscription announced with the formula ‘here is a stone and on it we read’. Consequently, for the critic inspecting texts that parade their relation to inscriptions under the auspices of intermediality (as I shall do in the second half of this chapter), it is a defining feature ‘that the essential dimension of intermediality in these texts finds its dominant expression not necessarily on the structural or syntactical but rather on the semantic level of the narrative examined: images [or associative quotes] expand or even create the significance of these texts.’27 Hence, the dialogue structure (Dialogizität) of what has been imported from another medium (i.e. the associative quote) affects the meaning and thus the semantic aspects of a text. These quotes carry associations that impart significant meaning to the texts, and as a consequence inform the way in which the texts are read. Müller observes accordingly:

24 To stick with Rajewsky’s terminology both ‘Systemkontamination’ and ‘Systemerwähnung-qua-Transposition’ are subcategories of ‘intermediale Systemreferenz’. The ‘(teil-) reproduzierende Systemerwähnung’ here introduced is itself a subcategory of ‘Systemerwähnung-qua-Transposition’. 25 Often these components are specific to the histoire level (story), as opposed to the discours level (narrative), of the genre or discourse reproduced, and thus frequently refer to content rather than form. 26 Cf. Wolf (1999: 67–9), who cites examples, such as the (partial) quotation of a song text in a novel, which would then evoke the song’s melody in the readership. 27 Eicher (1994: 21).

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After all a medial product . . . achieves intermediality only if the multimedial juxtaposition of medial quotes and elements becomes a conceptual unity, whose (aesthetic) fractures and faults open up new dimensions of experience.28

As we shall see, then, the technique of employing medial quotes in Latin literature to evoke inscriptions showcases different aspects of intermediality. When applied to literary inscriptions, intermediality encourages us to ponder how inscriptions and literature interact and to treat these texts as hermeneutic ‘processes’ rather than ‘works’.29 It also invites us not to content ourselves with the analysis of literary inscriptions, where obvious embedded inscriptions fulfil the programmatic function of summing up a literary career or securing lasting fame, but rather to embrace ‘medial quotes’, which evoke the inscriptional and are less discrete or less easily discernible from the surrounding text. I shall focus on one formal epitaphic marker in order to demonstrate how Greek epigraphic formulae, such as ŒÆd / (‘and you’) are absorbed into Latin poetry. They then develop a life of their own: (over)emphasizing the sepulchral origin of ŒÆd , Latin authors develop a literary game in which the expression tu/te quoque (‘and you’) serves as an epitaphic gesture to death or future death.

EPITAPHIC GESTURE FROM VIRGIL TO SILIUS AND STATIUS Instances of ŒÆd / in Greek literary epitaphs abound; most prominent is the example of Anacreon’s epigram on Cleanorides, a youth who dies at sea (AP 7.263).30 In Greek epigram, the address in the second person singular becomes essential for creating the ‘voice’ of the epitaph that speaks to the deceased or the passer-by.31 For the Latin tradition, the influence of epigram on Virgil’s Aeneid has been well studied, and it is therefore from this text that I shall take my starting point. Reinhold Merkelbach has traced a famous example of the tu quoque formula at the beginning of Aeneid 7:32 28

Müller (1996: 127–8), also quoted in Paech (1998: 17). Cf. Eicher (1994). 30 Cf. AP 7.123, 7.130, and 7.132; see Horsfall (2000: 45–6) for further examples. 31 Cf. Tueller (2008: 32–6, 65–74). 32 See Merkelbach (1971); Barchiesi (1979); Kyriakidis (1998); Dinter (2005). Cf. Horsfall (1986) on the influence of inscription on Virgil and Virgil’s influence on inscriptions. 29

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Martin T. Dinter Tu quoque litoribus nostris, Aeneia nutrix, aeternam moriens famam, Caieta, dedisti; et nunc seruat honos sedem tuus ossaque nomen Hesperia in magna, siqua est ea gloria, signat. (Aen. 7.1–4)

‘You, too, Caieta, nurse of Aeneas, have by your death given eternal fame to our shores; and still your honour guards your resting place, and in great Hesperia, if that be glory, your name marks your dust!’

As precursors to Caieta’s epi(c)gram, Reinhold Merkelbach cites two epitaphs by Caesar and Cicero on the deceased Terence, preserved in Suetonius’ biography of the playwright (Vita Terenti 7), both of which feature tu quoque prominently at the beginning of the first line; Domitius Marsus 7 on Tibullus, also introduced by te quoque, offers a further parallel (Dom. Mars. Poet. 7.1).33 Merkelbach then suggests that we see tu quoque not narrowly as a feature of epigrams on poets—where one poet may address the other or where this formula may signal that the epigram is part of an enumeration, a list of poems on poets34—but also more generally as an echo of the address to the deceased in Roman funerary practice.35 He concludes that for the Roman reader, Virgil’s verses on Caieta must have combined Roman epitaph with Roman eulogy. It is, however, worth considering the use of personal pronouns in Latin poetry overall. Adams has suggested that the general belief that the use of the nominative first and second person personal pronouns ego and tu can be explained as either ‘emphatic’ or ‘unemphatic’ is misguided: ‘Certain structural conditions are among the determinants which may generate the use of a nominative pronoun, regardless of whether that pronoun in the context is emphatic or not. Ego and tu have a tendency to attach themselves to certain preferential terms, that is to say, terms which habitually are placed at the head of a colon.’36 The conjunction of tu quoque fits the pattern identified by Adams. Moreover, his suggestion explains the frequent and prominent position of the phrase at the beginning of a sentence, while also underlining the Roman perception

33

Merkelbach (1971: 349–50). Cf. Fraenkel (1964: 2.207), citing Leo, who states that the address tu quoque ‘die römischen Dichter Revue passieren ließ’ (cf. Leo 1913: 253). The address to Caieta, however, forms indeed part of an enumeration, and tu quoque might well here look back to the deaths of Misenus (Aen. 6.234) and Palinurus (Aen. 6.381). 35 Merkelbach (1971: 349–50) cites the examples of the Laudatio Turiae, Cic. de Orat. 3.12, and Tac. Ag. 45.3. He concludes: ‘Diese Anrede dürfte der traditionellen Form römischen Totenlobes entsprechen’ (350); cf. Horsfall (2000: 45–6). 36 Adams (1999: 132). 34

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of the pronoun tu as part of a two-word unit. Hence, despite the frequent use of ‘you’ and ‘also’ in any language, the combination of tu with quoque acquires formulaic status, mimicking the formulaic language of inscriptions—a language that Hellenistic epigram already studiously and frequently imitates, and which the epigraphic habit of Roman culture also cultivates in Latin.37 We can thus view tu quoque as a systemic marker for epitaphs bearing the defining features of the medium (inscription) and genre (epitaph): a connotation of death but also of memorialization, because of the durability of the medium that is stone. As I have suggested earlier, both these characteristics look back to the original functions of the epigram. Further systemic markers could be formulae such as hic iacet/iaces/occumbis (‘here lies/here you lie/you fall’), which adapts the Greek expression ŒE ÆØ /ŒEÆØ (‘lies/ you lie’); by contrast, a full systemic reference would need to contain information such as ‘there is/will be a stone/an inscription’ and thereby provide a frame for a full literary epitaph. In examining the epic genre, we also notice epitaphic gestures most frequently employed in the din of battle descriptions and the manifold casualties. Here a seemingly endless throng of so-called minor heroes is introduced to the reader, only to leave the narrative immediately. Their individual descriptions often read just like obituaries, and in some cases even come close to funerary epigrams. A direct address singles out a victim from the mass and makes his fate memorable to the reader. One of the prime examples is the fall of Aeolus in Virgil:38 te quoque Laurentes uiderunt, Aeole, campi oppetere et late terram consternere tergo. occidis, Argiuae quem non potuere phalanges sternere nec Priami regnorum euersor Achilles; hic tibi mortis erant metae, domus alta sub Ida, Lyrnesi domus alta, solo Laurente sepulcrum. (Aen. 12.542–7) ‘You also, Aeolus, the Laurentine plains saw sink, and spread your frame abroad over the ground. You fall, whom the Greek battalions could not lay low, nor Achilles, destroyer of Priam’s realms. This was the finishing line of your life. Your home was in the hills below Mt. Ida, a home in the hills of Lyrnesus, but your grave is in Laurentine soil.’

Here an epitaphic frame, consisting of the epitaphic address te quoque and the passage’s final word sepulcrum, embraces the minor hero Aeolus. Virgil models this address on an Iliadic scene, the death of Otrynteus, 37 38

Cf. Bettenworth (2007). For a detailed discussion of the passage, see Dinter (2005: 157).

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killed by Achilles (Il. 20.389–92), and he even acknowledges his model with a nod towards the Iliad ’s martial hero, Achilles (Aen. 12.545). But Virgil also gives this scene a distinct drive towards Italy in the two final verses: from Mount Ida and Lyrnesus we are led to a tomb on Italian soil. From this exemplary epitaphic use of the address te quoque we may feel tempted to derive the rule that, whenever this apostrophe occurs in a battle scene, it carries a death sentence for whomever it is used; it becomes a marker of ensuing death. In epitaphs but also in descriptions of death, authors strive to pair the information about the deceased (or soon to be deceased) with a memorable motif, in order to lend it visibility and make it memorable for the reader. The coincidence of some Homeric motifs with what will later become the repertoire of funerary epigram has been noticed previously.39 Many of these topoi refer to (premature) death and marriage, while we have an abundance of epigrams that provide variations of these themes: the newly-wed widowed (AP 7.475 and 627), the groom or bride who dies at the wedding (AP 7.367; AP 7.182 and 186). Further examples of a ‘bereaved family’ have been identified in both epic and epitaph and can be grouped under headings, such as ‘children buried by parents’, ‘youth and beauty brought low’, ‘the untimely dead’, and ‘death at sea or away from home’.40 Epic death notices, however, continuously move further away from the plain motifs of inscribed epigram, and even outdo the more elaborate ones of Buchepigramm. Particularly in the oeuvres of Virgil’s epic successors, the intentional link with the epitaphic (and thus indirectly inscriptional) tradition is often only signified by one or several epitaphic markers that then, when paired up to form an epitaphic gesture, combine with the original motifs. As Jean-Michel Hulls has most recently observed, ‘lapidary language and motifs filter through into more sophisticated and complex readings of Virgil and inform the intertextual practices of poets such as Statius and Silius . . . Silius allows himself to be drawn into the sculptural process, moulding himself into his own lasting cultural monument.’41 In what follows, I shall study the tu/te quoque gesture first in Silius Italicus’ Punica and then in Statius’ Thebaid. Whilst Statius’ epic is obsessed with funeral and burial due to its general storyline, Silius nevertheless provides a higher number of casualties in his frequent battle scenes and thus more material for scholars hunting for epitaphic markers and gestures.42 39 40 41 42

Cf. Griffin (1980: 106–42). Lattimore (1942: 187–202). Hulls (2011: 181). For a discussion of Valerius’ Argonautica in this context, see Dinter (2009).

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Silius’ first epitaphic address combines a whole range of motifs with the epitaphic marker tu quoque. Together with the verb (occumbis) and the name of the deceased, it frames the entire passage as an epitaph. Just as in a proper epitaph, we learn about the homeland and special attributes of the deceased. This is then paired up with the motif of the soldier cheated of a safe return. Albeit not a priest or prophet, Hiarbas constitutes a variation on the theme of those men who do or do not succeed in predicting their own demise: tu quoque fatidicis Garamanticus accola lucis, insignis flexo galeam per tempora cornu, heu frustra reditum sortes tibi saepe locutas mentitumque Iovem increpitans, occumbis, Hiarba.

(Sil. 1.414–17)

‘You too, Hiarbas, fall, who dwelt near the prophetic groves of the Garamantes, and whose helmet was conspicuous for the horn that curved over your temples; in vain, alas, you blame the oracle that had so often promised a safe return, and Jupiter for his breach of faith.’

Hiarbas forms the pinnacle and endpoint in the aristeia of Murrus, the Saguntine hero who is built up as the main opponent of Hannibal in the first book of the Punica. Hiarbas’ death thus serves to demonstrate that Murrus is a worthy opponent for Hannibal.43 Indeed, in subsequent verses, Murrus challenges Hannibal to a duel before the epic’s focus shifts to Hannibal and grants him an aristeia in his own right. Silius withholds Hiarbas’ name until the very end of the vignette, as if to demonstrate that he is the final victim of this section. Furthermore, with Hiarbas Silius imports a figure with its own literary tradition, the many layers and facets of which reflect back onto this entire vignette. For Hiarbas seems to be modelled on, and thus similar to, the Gaetulian king, Iarbas, the son of Jupiter and a Garamantian nymph. In Virgil’s Aeneid (4.174), the personified Fama informs him of Dido’s dalliance with Aeneas. Iarbas then blames his father, Jupiter, who sets in motion the end of the affair and thus lays the foundations for the Punic Wars, the very conflict Silius recounts in his epic. The shadow of Dido and her sister Anna looms large throughout the Punica, as Marco Fucecchi and Raymond Marks discuss in Chapters 1 and 16 of this volume. In addition, the Gaetulian/Garamantian Hiarbas himself is given an airing when Silius lists the people under his sway (Sil. 2.59–64) as part of the introduction of Absyte, a literary descendant of Virgil’s Camilla.44 Epic 43

On the two opponents Murrus and Hannibal, cf. Klaassen (2010: 100) and Asso (2010: 183–8). 44 Cf. Keith (2010: 366–7). On Asbyte, see Augoustakis (2010: 113–36).

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literary ancestry is never far off in the Punica. With the death of (H)Iarbas, Silius here not only connects his own epic to Virgil’s—as he does so often on levels of both style and content—but also portrays a namesake of one of the mythological culprits for the Punic wars being cut down by the hero Murrus as the highpoint of the latter’s aristeia. Moreover, Murrus’ aristeia is framed by two passages involving death, both of which feature epitaphic markers. Whilst Murrus’ last victim is sent off with a distinctive tu quoque and occumbis, he also taunts his first victim, Aradus, with words that sound just like an epitaphic archetype for any fallen Carthaginian soldier and recall the address to Aeolus (Aen. 12.542–7) and its Iliadic literary ancestry: prostratumque premens telo, uoce insuper urget: ‘fallax Poene, iaces; certe Capitolia primus scandebas uictor. quae tanta licentia uoti? nunc Stygio fer bella Ioui!’ (Sil. 1.383–6) ‘Then pinning him to the ground with his spear he taunted him as well: “False Carthaginian, you lie low; truly you were to be first in mounting the Capitol as a conqueror. Was ever ambition so presumptuous? Go now, and fight the Jupiter of the Underworld instead.” ’

Featuring the epigraphic marker iaces, Silius creates here his own version of the Homeric Protesilaus. Whilst the Homeric hero is the first man in the Iliad to step onto the Trojan shore and, fulfilling a prophecy, the first Greek to die, Silius inverts this motif so that the man who intends to scale the Capitoline first and ‘fight with Jupiter’ becomes the first to die by the hand of Murrus. Aradus is then literally sent down to Pluto, the Jupiter of the Underworld, to continue his fight there. In an epic context, the deaths of Hiarbas and Aradus ensure that the reader internalizes the deadliness of Murrus, who blazes his trail through the battlefield whilst uttering epitaphs in the making. Let me examine some further instances of the use of tu quoque in Silius. The formula returns in single verse apostrophe to Thapsus in book 4: tu quoque, Thapse, cadis tumulo post fata negato (‘You also, Thapsus, fell, and a grave is denied to you after death’, Sil. 4.635). Here Silius combines the epitaphic address tu quoque with an epitaphic motif usually applied to those lost at sea whose bodies could not be recovered and who therefore remain without a grave, or nameless bodies found shipwrecked. Cenotaphic inscriptions and literary epitaphs thus form a well-documented subgenre of the epigrammatic tradition.45 Silius,

45

On tombs without names, see Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004: 292–306).

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however, here provides the name of the deceased and thus lets his hexameter stand as a tombstone for Thapsus. In addition to this, the reader may detect a learned joke: the name Thapsus resembles a Latinized version of the future form of the Greek verb Ł  ø (‘to bury, to honour with funeral rites’). Silius would thus be presenting us with the following paradox: the warrior whose name indicates that he will honour others with funeral rites remains himself unhonoured. This single-line hero therefore embodies Hellenistic poetics by placing side by side etymological wordplay with an epitaphic motive prominent in Hellenistic epigram. Silius’ engagement with epitaphic gestures can also be traced in a final example, where he provides a literary monument for Syracuse’s most famous inhabitant, the scientist Archimedes. Indeed, the mathematician is deemed so famous that his name is never mentioned. The position of this quasi-obituary is telling, and exploits the one-for-many motif executed by Virgil in the Aeneid with the death of Aeneas’ helmsman, Palinurus. In Silius, the build-up consists of a laus urbis (‘praise of the city’), in which the city of Syracuse is both praised and described (Sil. 14.641–65). The city’s wealth and beauty then move the conquering general Marcellus to show mercy to it and its inhabitants. Archimedes’ death then comes as a surprise to the reader, and the Flavian poet presents it as if he were the one and only victim:46 tu quoque ductoris lacrimas, memorande, tulisti, defensor patriae, meditantem in puluere formas nec turbatum animi tanta feriente ruina. (Sil. 14.676–8) ‘You too, famous man, defender of your native city, won tears from the conqueror. The great disaster struck you, as you were calmly poring over a figure traced in the sand.’

True to the literary technique of an epitaph, Silius employs the epitaphic address tu quoque to mark the commemorative aspect of his verses and to add the paradoxical picture of a conqueror shedding tears. Thus the poet attracts the attention of the reader, just as a real epitaph would have done when read by a passer-by.47 In addition, Silius styles Archimedes as defensor patriae and thus elevates him to the status of a military hero worthy of being commemorated in the epic genre. In the end, Archimedes dies not unlike a Stoic sage (nec turbatum animi). What is more, Silius here places himself in the (literary) tradition of Cicero, who reports

46 47

On Archimedes in Silius, see Manolaraki (2010: 299–303). Cf. Tueller (2008).

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how as a young quaestor in Syracuse he rediscovers the exact location of the tomb of Archimedes, long forgotten by locals, and restores it to its former glory (Cic. Tusc. 5.64–6).48 Silius adds his share to Archimedes’ fame: whereas Cicero rebuilds the mathematician’s actual tombstone, the Flavian poet constructs a literary one. As this brief survey has indicated, by connecting Silius to his intermedial inscriptional heritage, we bring to light and strengthen the epitaphic connotations in his literary oeuvre. Let us now glance at Statius’ Thebaid, which on account of its obsession with burial is a poem that abounds in epitaphic qualities and as such lends itself to accommodating epitaphic gestures. A prime example is the death of Parthenopaeus, where the boy’s voice in his final speech turns into an epitaphic voice as if from the grave: frigidus et nuda iaceo tellure, nec usquam/tu prope, quae uultus efflantiaque ora teneres (‘Cold I lie on the bare earth, nor anywhere are you near to hold my face and parting breath’, Theb. 9.898–9).49 The epitaphic ‘far from home’ motif is employed here, and the entire passage is an example of ‘beauty brought low’. In particular, the use of the verb iaceo reminds the reader of tombstone inscriptions, in which the deceased addresses the passer-by and speaks of himself in the first person. The beauty of the victim, his youth, and the address to his mother enhance the pathos of the moment. Whilst a tombstone inscription by definition can only report the death that has occurred, in the case of Parthenopaeus his demise showcases the full social fabric of epic. Statius’ epitaphic gesture invites the reader to imagine the first part of his speech in lieu of a tombstone inscription, in which the child sends a final message to his mother. Parthenopaeus’ dying words actually embrace two subgenres of epigram. Following the epitaphic part, the speech proceeds to a dedicatory topos: first the boy’s lock for his mother, which will stand in for his body at his burial, and finally his shield. Both subgenres have a clear commemorative drive, and enhance the epic’s tendency towards memorialization. The uates Amphiaraus provides a further example of an epitaph when he enters the Underworld in the fashion of one lost at sea and therefore lacking funeral rites, as we have seen above: Amphiaraus’ body has been swallowed by the ground and does not remain for his family to bury. He thus enters the Underworld in his full corporeality, with all that should have been buried: non tumulo, non igne miser lacrimisque meorum/ productus, toto pariter tibi funere ueni/nil istis ausurus equis (‘I have no tomb, no fires or tears of my dear ones sent me forth, alas. I have come to 48

On the history of Archimedes’ tomb, see Simms (1990). On Parthenopaeus’ death and hair dedication, see Hubert and Dee, Chs 6 and 10 above. 49

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you with everything there is to bury, nor shall I attempt anything with those horses’, Theb. 8.114–16). The seer embodies one of the poem’s main themes: the desire to be buried. He is a rare example of a uates who can foresee his own demise.50 As he goes to war, nevertheless, he carries the expectation of certain death and thus personifies an epitaphic gesture. Statius adapts here a common motif from the funerary epigram, in which the dead laments his death far from home, to fit Amphiaraus’ rather special circumstance. In addition, the epitaphic address te quoque with its commemorative and inscriptional connotations appears at the end of the soldiers’ lament for Amphiaraus: iamque erit ille dies quo te quoque conscia fatis/templa colant reddatque tuus responsa sacerdos (‘And soon the day shall come when you also shall be worshipped by temples privy to the Fates, and your own priest shall give responses’, Theb. 8.206–7). The adverb iamque reminds the reader of the traditional funerary utterance iamque uale (‘and now farewell’), combined here with the epitaphic te quoque. These verses move towards enshrined commemoration and cult. Here the epitaphic markers prepare the reader for a future monumentum: the epitaphic gesture is manifested as a temple. Epitaphic motif and epitaphic address are in Amphiaraus’ case spread over the course of 100 lines, but in the end they add up to the material we would expect to read on the deceased’s tombstone. Let us look at another priest’s death in the Thebaid. The young and handsome Eunaeus, a priest of Bacchus killed by Capaneus,51 is addressed three times, a gesture that seems to mimic the usual epitaphic address tu quoque: marcida te fractis planxerunt Ismara thyrsis, te Tmolos, te Nysa ferax Theseaque Naxos et Thebana metu iuratus in orgia Ganges. (Theb. 7.685–7) ‘Drooping Ismara mourned you with broken wands, and Tmolus and fertile Nysa and Theseus’ Naxos and Ganges, pledged by terror to Theban mysteries.’

Statius combines this address with the motif of a homeland lamenting the death of its hero and enhances the triple address by means of the quadruple alliteration thyrsis/te Tmolos, te, which is then continued by Theseaque and Thebana. In a similar fashion, Capaneus’ widow enhances her address to Theseus with an epitaphic gesture as she begs him to put pressure on Creon

50 51

On Amphiaraus’ foreknowledge, see Tuttle and Manolaraki, Chs 4 and 5 above. On Eunaeus and Bacchus, see Bernstein’s brief discussion in Ch. 13 above.

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for the burial of the fallen Seven. Just like the death of Aeolus in Virgil, which we have considered earlier, this address forms an epitaphic frame: tu quoque, ut egregios fama cognouimus actus, non trucibus monstris Sinin infandumque dedisti Cercyona, et saeuum uelles Scirona crematum. (Theb. 12.575–7) ‘You also, as story tells us of your noble deeds, did not give Sinis or loathly Cercyon to fierce monsters and would fain have had savage Sciron cremated.’

Just as Theseus has piously granted burial even to his most wicked enemies, so he should ensure that this lawful right is granted to those fallen in the battle before the walls of Thebes.52 Her demand for a tomb and presumably a tomb inscription for her husband is neatly formatted to recall an actual epitaph. As a final example, let us consider Polynices’ speech to Adrastus before the fratricide. In self-epitaphic style, he employs the funerary iamque uale and gives directions for his burial: iamque uale, coniunx, dulcesque ualete Mycenae! at tu, care socer, (nec enim omnis culpa malorum me penes, et superi mecum Parcaeque nocentes) sis lenis cineri, meque haec post proelia raptum alitibus fratrique tegas urnamque reportes, hoc tantum, et natae melius conubia iungas. (Theb. 11.187–92) ‘And now farewell my wife and farewell sweet Mycenae. But you, (for not all the blame for our calamities is mine, the gods too and the Parcae are guilty with me), be kind to my ashes and after this battle seize me and protect me from the birds and my brother and bring back my urn—that is all—and make a better marriage for your daughter.’

Here the father-in-law and family of the soon-to-be-deceased are enlisted to take care of the corpses. Likewise, in actual and literary epitaphs the passer-by is frequently asked to pay respect to the deceased. In addition, Polynices expresses in no uncertain terms his desire to receive proper burial, and thus mobilizes the moral conflict of the final book of Statius’ epic. Furthermore, the phrase iamque uale is coupled with the command sis lenis cineri, a play with adjectives to allude to one of the commonest phrases in epitaphs, sit tibi terra leuis (‘may the earth be light upon you’).

52

On Evadne’s and the Argive women’s request, see Bessone, Ch. 8 above.

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In conclusion, Flavian epic’s interaction with actual or literary tomb inscriptions cannot be seen isolated from the many layers of literary shadows that have shaped these works. What has become apparent, however, is that epitaphic markers, namely formulas that evoke the inscription medium, are employed throughout the poems to create epitaphic gestures. These gestures often feature motifs known from Hellenistic epigram and thus demonstrate Flavian epic’s absorption of both the inscriptional—a medium that promises lasting fame—and the prestigious Hellenistic poetics of literary epigrams. The theoretical approach of intermediality makes us aware of the many interpretative layers and connotations evoked by these brief passages.

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Part III Ritual and the Female

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16 Reconcilable Differences Anna Perenna and the Battle of Cannae in the Punica Raymond Marks

In Punica 8, Juno calls upon Anna, a river nymph in Italy, and asks her to encourage Hannibal to march to Cannae; the goddess expects a Carthaginian victory there, as the Roman cause has been weakened by the departure of Fabius Maximus and by the election of the demagogue Varro to the consulship (8.25–38). Anna agrees to help (8.39–43), but before she follows through with her mission, we are treated to an excursus in which Silius recounts Anna’s story, how she flees Carthage after Dido’s death, travels to Cyrene, flees to Italy, is welcomed by Aeneas there, and finally is transformed into a nymph at the Numicius river (8.44–201). After this excursus we return to the narrative proper, in which Anna appears to Hannibal telling him to go to Cannae (8.202–25), and the Carthaginian leader gratefully obeys (8.226–41).1 Anna serves an obvious function in the epic’s plot development in that she facilitates its next major event, the battle at Cannae. But Silius surely could have got Hannibal to Cannae by other means. It is possible that he is influenced by Polybius, where Hannibal credits the gods for leading him to Cannae (3.111.3), but there is nothing in the tradition regarding the battle that motivates the choice of Anna, specifically, for this role.2 So why does Anna appear in the Punica at this point and in this way? It has been observed that Anna’s involvement is bound up with the mechanisms of myth and history that motivate Hannibal in the war: just 1 2

On the Additamentum Aldinum, see Fucecchi, Ch. 1 above, for further bibliography. The Polybian reference was brought to my attention by Frances Billot.

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as he is driven to avenge past wrongs done to Carthaginians, such as to Dido or to his own father, so it is fitting that his march to victory at Cannae is facilitated by a fellow Carthaginian.3 But the picture is more complicated than that: for Anna is no longer Carthaginian, or no longer just Carthaginian, but is now a nymph who is worshipped in Italy. How do we make sense of these two sides of Anna, the Carthaginian and the Italian? One common way has been to acknowledge her ambiguous position, but to emphasize, nevertheless, her Carthaginian ties at the expense of her Italian ones. This line of interpretation tends to privilege her Carthaginian ethnicity and her expressed devotion to Dido as motivating factors and to read her intervention on Hannibal’s behalf as an indication of her support for his cause and Carthage’s, more broadly, in the war.4 And yet there are good reasons to question this approach or to supplement it with another, one that views Anna’s actions as sympathetic to her Italian associations.5 For one, several details suggest that she willingly embraces her Trojan (or Italian) identity, before she knows about her transformation into a nymph. Second, although Anna intervenes on Hannibal’s behalf, it is not clear that she does so because she supports his cause: she is motivated by a sense of duty to Juno, Dido, and her Carthaginian homeland, but never speaks of Hannibal in these terms and never expresses a desire to harm the Romans. As Marco Fucecchi correctly observes in Chapter 1 above, ‘the first episode of the eighth book dramatizes the tension between Anna’s two identities and, at the same time, indirectly points out the impossibility of transferring gods to the Carthaginian side, no matter whence they originate’. Finally, Anna does not expect her actions to diminish her divinity in the eyes of the Italian faithful; this suggests that her help, though it may bring temporary benefits to Hannibal, will serve Rome’s long-term interests (as she can only remain an Italian divinity if Hannibal is defeated). In fact, for assisting Hannibal in the short term but Rome in the long term, her behaviour squares with that of the avowedly pro-Roman gods Jupiter and Minerva. 3 See e.g. Bruère (1959: 228–9); Kissel (1979: 193–6); Ahl et al. (1986: 2496–9); Santini (1991: 5–62; 1992: 390–92); Ariemma (2000: 39–95); Dietrich (2004: 2–6, 12–13, 16, 28); Dominik (2006: 117–19); Fernandelli (2006: 91–100; 2009); Manuwald (2006: 68–74); Augoustakis (2010: 136–44); Ganiban (2010: 91–6); Chiu (2011); and Fucecchi, Ch. 1 above, on the translatio of Anna to Latium. For Hannibal as motivated by devotion to his ancestors, see Bernstein (2008: 135–9). 4 So, e.g. Ahl (1985: 314); Ahl et al. (1986: 2496–9); Santini (1991: 25–31, 35–9, 41–2, 60–62); Dietrich (2004: 28); Dominik (2006: 118–19); Ciocarlie (2008: 560); Ganiban (2010: 92–5); Chiu (2011: 9–15, 18–19). 5 Augoustakis (2010: 142–3) points out, ‘the poet also exploits the Roman aspects of Anna, which we are inclined to dismiss because of her association with Dido.’ Also cf. Kissel (1979: 193, 196); Manuwald (2006: 73–4).

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Furthermore, we need to take into account the timing of Anna’s appearance. Why is she connected with the battle of Cannae? Surprisingly little in existing scholarship addresses this question, even though it has long been recognized that the place of the Cannae battle in the Punica, roughly at its midway point, is significant; the battle marks the central, transitional moment in the war, the event after which Hannibal’s fortunes steadily decline and Rome’s steadily rise.6 And as Anna is herself a figure of change or transition, the inference lies readily at hand that her appearance not only speaks to the conflict between Rome and Carthage in the war more broadly, but should inform the timing and function of the Cannae battle specifically.7 Anna is a figure of change or transition, as is evident in her personal story, in which she is transformed from a Carthaginian mortal into an Italian divinity. But she is a transitional figure in other ways too, as we know from Ovid’s treatment of the Ides of March in Fasti 3, one of the most important ancient sources of information about the cult of Anna Perenna (Fast. 3.543–656).8 On the Ides of March a festival is celebrated in Anna’s honour: plebeian couples would picnic, sing songs, and drink, making toasts to many years of good fortune (3.531–4). The emphasis on the year in these toasts is tied to the occurrence of the celebration in March, the first month in the ten-month, pre-Numan calendar (3.97–100, 145–6). Even in the twelve-month calendar, though, March would continue to be regarded as a month of beginnings; from 222 (or possibly 218) to 153 bce, consuls take office on the Ides of March (cf. 3.147–8), and in Ovid’s day the month still marks the beginning of the campaigning season.9 Anna’s association with the transition from the old year to the new is also signalled by the similarity of her name to For Cannae as ‘turning-point’ in the epic, see e.g. Tipping (2004: 363–70); Marks (2005a: 27–31, 55–60, 72 n. 27 with further literature). For recent assessments of the Punica’s structure and Cannae’s place in it, see von Albrecht (2006: 114–19) and Gärtner (2010). 7 Only Augoustakis (2010: 143–4, 234), it seems to me, has made an attempt to account in some way for Anna’s place in the central books. He suggests that Anna’s story near the middle of the epic and the advent of the Magna Mater toward its end, in book 17, play off one another and adverts to their status as foreigners brought to Rome and the issue of chastity, Claudia’s, which is resolved, in the latter instance and Anna’s, which is not, in the former, as points of comparison between them. 8 On Silius’ use of Ovid, see Bruère (1958; 1959: 228–9); Kissel (1979: 193–5); Spaltenstein (1986: 500–514); Santini (1991: 40–59); Brugnoli and Santini (1995: 17–48); Ariemma (2000: 38–95); Wilson (2004); Manuwald (2006: 69–73). For his use of Virgil’s Aeneid 4, see, in addition to those cited above, de Bustamante (1985: 44–6); Dietrich (2004: 4–6, 16); Fernandelli (2006: 91–100); Ganiban (2010: 91–6). 9 For consulships beginning on the Ides of March, see, most recently, Pina Polo (2011: 13–15). 6

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the noun annus (‘year’), a connection evident in Ovid and Silius.10 Anna’s identification with the moon, luna (3.657), underlines her role as a new year divinity too; for in the pre-Numan calendar the day of her festival marks the first full moon of the year.11 Of course, the moon is important in cycles of other sorts, not strictly tied to the new year, such as menstrual cycles and pregnancy. In fact, Ovid compares Anna with figures who underline this set of birthing or maternal associations, such as Io and a nurse of the baby Jupiter (3.658–60), and the participation of married couples (3.525–6) and unmarried girls (3.675–6) in her festival may even indicate her association with the passage of girls into adulthood or motherhood.12 I might also add that the aetiology with which Ovid accounts for the bawdy songs these girls sing further testifies to Anna’s association with change and mutability. As an old lady, he says, she plays a trick on Mars: when the war god asks her to arrange a romantic encounter between himself and Minerva, Anna shows up in disguise and is only discovered when Mars moves in for a kiss (3.677–96). But how does Anna represent change in the Punica? Obviously, the principal transition is her transformation from Carthaginian mortal to Italian divinity, although Silius is less interested in the shift from mortality to immortality than in the change from Carthaginian to Italian. Consider the question with which Silius begins the excursus: multa retro rerum iacet atque ambagibus aeui obtegitur densa caligine mersa uetustas, cur Sarrana dicent Oenotri numina templo regnisque Aeneadum germana colatur Elissae. (8.44–7) ‘Far back in history, and hidden in deep darkness by the uncertain report of antiquity, lies the answer to this question: why the Oenotrians dedicate a temple to a Sarranian deity, and why the sister of Elissa is worshipped in the kingdom of the Aeneadae.’

Silius foregrounds the categories of Carthaginian (Sarrana) and Italian (Oenotri) and finds in their compatibility in Anna’s case a pretext for telling her story; of course, the implication is that their compatibility is 10 See Fast. 3.145–6 (annos) and 653–4 (perenne) ~ Sil. 8.200–1 (anni); cf. Macr. 1.12.6. On Anna’s status as river nymph and the derivation of her name from amnis (‘river’), cf. Fast. 3.653–4 and Sil. 8.196–9 (cf. 8.125). For these and other plays on her name, see Ahl (1985: 309–15). 11 For Anna and the full moon, see Magini (2001: 46–59). 12 See Magini (2001: 57–9), which suggests that Anna’s festival may also be related to rite-of-passage festivals for boys. Wiseman (1998: 64–74) sees prostitution as the context for the episode. Also, cf. Wiseman (2006: 59–61), who discusses Martial’s reference to Anna’s grove, which ‘delights in virgin blood’ (Mart. 4.64.16).

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odd or unusual and that it would be more normal to view ‘Carthaginian’ and ‘Italian’ as incompatible or mutually exclusive categories.13 Silius’ interest in these terms of reference and their applicability to Anna is due, no doubt, to the wider context of her appearance, which is after all the war between Carthage and Rome. It should come as no surprise, then, that at issue is not simply whether Anna is Carthaginian or Italian, but with which side she identifies and to which she is loyal. In the framing narrative this preoccupation is evident in the exchanges between Juno and Anna and between Hannibal and Anna. Before and after Juno’s speech, we are reminded that Anna’s home is Latium: namque hac accitam stagnis Laurentibus Annam/affatur uoce (‘In this way she addresses Anna, summoned from her Laurentine pools’, 8.28–9); tum diua Indigetis castis contermina lucis (‘Then the goddess, who dwells next to the chaste groves of Indiges’, 8.39). But in her speech Juno ignores Anna’s Italian connections and emphasizes instead her blood relation to Hannibal, as Marco Fucecchi has already discussed (8.30–31).14 In her responding speech, though, Anna does not omit her presently Italian status even as she acknowledges her Carthaginian ties (8.40–43). As Fucecchi observes in his analysis of 8.43, ‘this last hexameter stresses the concessive clause, Anna’s consciousness of her new status: she is ready to pay a last homage to her origins, but not at the cost of losing the benefits of Roman citizenship.’ And when she appears to Hannibal after the excursus, she again acknowledges both sides of herself (8.220–21).15 As for Hannibal, he is happy to acknowledge her divinity, but like Juno sidesteps her Italian-ness, by calling Anna decus generis (‘glory of our people’, 8.227). He aims to undo this Italian-ness by repatriating her and by building a marble temple on Carthage’s citadel, ‘and next to it, dedicate an image of Dido, statues paired together in honour’ (8.231). Also, when addressing his men shortly hereafter, Hannibal again claims Anna for Carthage: en, numen patrium spondet maiora peractis (‘Look, a goddess of our country promises things greater

13 Note how the proximity of Aeneadum and Elissae in 8.47 sets Anna’s curious presence in Italy into even starker relief; so, Augoustakis (2010: 139); cf. Santini (1991: 39). The tension between the two sides is clearly marked throughout the passage: Sidonis ~ Latia (8.70); Aeneadas ~ Tyriosque (8.175); Aeneadae ~ Sidonida (8.193); Sidonis ~ Teucros (8.199). 14 Augoustakis (2010: 138): ‘Juno’s use of the deictic and possessive uestro emphasizes the forced connection between an already Romanised Anna and the Carthaginian general.’ Cf. Chiu (2011: 9). Compare Dido’s use of nostro (8.171), discussed below. 15 Differently, Santini (1991: 60): ‘Anna yet again proudly affirms her own Carthaginian origins.’ Cf. Chiu (2011: 13–15).

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than what we have already accomplished’, 8.239).16 It makes sense that Juno and Hannibal should emphasize Anna’s Carthaginian ties, given what is at stake for them in the war, and all the more so because Anna and her story show how unstable and fluid identity can be. The matter becomes still more fraught when we consider that in the war the distinction between Carthaginian and Italian correlates with a distinction between friend and foe. And yet it is not at all clear that Anna, by helping Hannibal, is really choosing his side over the Romans. For one, she does not seem entirely comfortable with what Juno asks her to do. In her reply to the goddess, Anna prays that it be ‘right’ ( fas) for her to get involved on Carthage’s behalf (8.41–2). This request implies that she is not sure it is right at all and that she needs Juno (or someone) to allay her fear that she may end up wronging her Italian adherents.17 Second, we are given no indication about Anna’s motivation for helping Hannibal other than what we read in these lines: she says that it is her ‘duty’ (ius, 8.40) to obey Juno, and in the prayer indicates that affection for Carthage, her ‘ancient homeland’ (antiquae patriae, 8.42), and for Dido (sororis, 8.42) motivates her. It is telling, though, that Anna never expresses, either here or in her later speech to Hannibal (8.202–25), any support for his cause against Rome in the war. Anna may have loyalties to Juno, Carthage, and Dido. But does that mean she must also be loyal to Hannibal and disloyal to Rome?18 Even Anna’s loyalty to Carthage is itself suspect, or suspect in a certain way; for her change from Carthaginian to Italian is not merely the consequence of her final transformation, but, as we learn in the excursus, comes in stages and reflects a conscious shift in her feelings toward Aeneas and the Trojans and her reconciliation with them. When she arrives in Italy, she is scared and afraid (trepidabat, 8.70; multa timentem, 8.73), but Aeneas’ hospitality allays her fears: atque ubi iam casus See Fucecchi’s remarks (Ch. 1 above) on Hannibal’s speech: ‘Poetic imagination blurs cultural boundaries, since Hannibal’s offer can be read as an indirect attempt to imitate prematurely the pattern of euocatio—in this case a reuocatio: while trying to reappropriate the goddess, he plays the conqueror and the “rescuer” at the same time.’ 17 As Anna’s hand is forced, her obedience to Juno need not imply a blanket endorsement of the goddess’s objectives; cf. Kissel (1979: 195 n. 99) and Häussler (1978: 205). For a more straightforwardly pro-Carthaginian reading of Anna’s response, see Ahl et al. (1986: 2497); Santini (1991: 35–6; 1992: 392); and Chiu (2011: 10). 18 Note that when Anna, after addressing Hannibal, departs, her face is said to be wet (8.225). On the peculiarity of the phrase umentia ora, see Fucecchi’s discussion in Ch. 1 above. It may be that Anna is saddened by the Romans’ coming defeat at Cannae. Contrast Juno, who, after instructing Anna to go to Hannibal, departs optatum Latii tandem potura cruorem (‘She hoped at last to gain her wish and drink the blood of Latium’, 8.204), a detail that recalls Hannibal’s thirst for human blood (1.59–60); so, Ganiban (2010: 95). 16

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aduersorumque pauorem/hospitii leniuit honos (‘And as soon as his hospitality alleviated her sufferings and calmed her fear of misfortune’, 8.76–7). And after Anna finishes her story, Aeneas shows her such kindness and compassion (8.160–61) that she casts aside all concern and makes herself at home in his Trojan household: iamque omnes luctus omnesque e pectore curas/dispulerat, Phrygiis nec iam amplius aduena tectis/illa uidebatur (‘And she had now dispelled all grief and worry from her heart and no longer seemed a stranger in the Trojan house’, 8.162–4).19 Here we perceive a contrast with Ovid’s version of the tale. His Anna reacts in a lukewarm manner to Aeneas’ hospitality, agreeing to trust him because she has no alternative: talia dicenti (neque enim spes altera restat)/credidit (‘She trusted him saying this; for no other hope remained for her’, Fast. 3.625–6). Also, whereas Silius tells us, immediately after Anna accepts Aeneas’ kind reception, that she became a member of his Trojan household, Ovid tells us that she related to Aeneas her story (3.626) and then entered his house dressed in Tyrian attire—a reminder that she is still Carthaginian and perhaps a hint that she is reluctant ever to be otherwise: utque domum intrauit Tyrios induta paratus (‘And when she entered his house, dressed in Tyrian attire’, 3.627). We are given no indication that she accepts her new Italian life and lot until she has been transformed into a nymph: placidi sum nympha Numici (‘I am a nymph of the gentle Numicius’, 3.653). But in Silius’ version, as we can see, she begins to embrace and assimilate to her Italian surroundings before her transformation.20 This fact also gives special point and purpose to Dido’s appearance in a dream shortly thereafter. Dido advises Anna to flee from Aeneas’ house because Lavinia is plotting against her, and reveals that when she arrives at the river Numicius, she will become a nymph and will be forever worshipped as a divinity in Italy (8.168–83). While the dream gives Anna the impetus to fulfil her destiny, it also lays bare the sensitive issue of her presently shifting identity. Consider Dido’s appeal in the following lines:

19 Some have detected in Anna’s speeches (8.81–103 and 116–59) signs of hostility toward Aeneas and suggestions of his faithlessness, and between their speeches—Aeneas addresses Anna as well (8.105–13)—disagreement over the nature of his relationship with Dido and the extent of his and Anna’s responsibility for her death; so, e.g. Dietrich (2004: 5–6, 12–13, 16); Ganiban (2010: 93–5); Chiu (2011: 11–12). Even if that should be so, they set aside the bad feelings and differences between them, as we can see in these lines. 20 Perhaps to lend further motivation to Anna’s willingness to accept her new home, Silius replaces Achates, who is with Aeneas when they first encounter her on the shore in Ovid’s version (Fast. 3.603–8), with Iulus, of whom she is clearly fond and trustful (8.71–5). For other ways of accounting for Iulus, see Bruère (1959: 229); Spaltenstein (1986: 503); Brugnoli (1991: 155–6); Manuwald (2006: 70).

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‘But do you not yet realize that the offspring of Laomedon’s land is hostile to our people and land? As long as the sky makes the stars revolve with rapid course, and the moon shines upon the land with her brother’s light, there will be no peace between the Aeneadae and the men of Tyre.’

In light of Anna’s evolving Trojan-ness, nostro (171) is emphatic, correcting any misapprehension that she may now be Trojan rather than Carthaginian.21 Furthermore, Dido insists that the Carthaginians and Trojans will forever be enemies (173–5). Replace ‘Trojans’ with ‘Romans’ in these lines, and Dido’s point of view looks a lot like Juno’s and Hannibal’s, as we saw above. She, like them, wishes to keep Anna Carthaginian or to make her Carthaginian again. There is no such emphasis on ethnic differences or incompatibilities in Ovid, whose Dido simply tells Anna to flee (Fast. 3.641).22 Anna obeys her sister and flees to the river, where she becomes a nymph (8.185–99). But if Dido’s intention is to sever Anna’s ties with her new homeland and Aeneas, she fails miserably.23 First, Anna’s obedience leads to her transformation into a nymph and thus to her permanent settlement in Italy. And what puts an ironic exclamation point on this outcome is that Anna previously asked that it be right ( fas) to abide by the mandata of her sister Dido (8.41–2). At the time, we might have understood mandata to refer to Dido’s hostility toward Aeneas, the Trojans, and their Roman descendants, but as we can now see, Dido’s 21 Note that in 8.174 Dido conceives of permanence in terms of sibling relations between the moon (luna) and her brother, the sun ( fraterno lumine), another way of reminding Anna of the blood relations between them. 22 Silius’ Dido informs Anna that Lavinia is plotting against her (8.168–70, 176–7). Ovid’s omission makes sense because he devotes six lines to it before Dido’s appearance (Fast. 3.633–8). And yet, as Silius has Dido report Lavinia’s plot and does not verify it himself, he raises the possibility that it is a ruse by which to ensure Anna’s flight; so, also Kissel (1979: 195); differently, Manuwald (2006: 72). If so, Dido concocts the story because she, not Lavinia, is jealous of Anna’s presently close relations with Aeneas and wants to separate them. On the latter possibility, note that, according to Servius, Varro holds that Anna, not Dido, is in love with Aeneas (Serv. ad Aen. 4.682; cf. Serv. ad Aen. 5.4). For other ways in which this variant may inform Anna’s story, see Ahl (1985: 311); Santini (1991: 34); Dietrich (2004: 6); and Ganiban (2010: 93 with n. 66). 23 Cf. Kissel (1979: 195 n. 99). Contra, Santini (1991: 57) and Dietrich (2004: 28), both of whom view the prospect of reconciliation between Anna and Aeneas as irretrievably deflected by the appearance of Dido’s ghost and Anna’s flight. Cf. Manuwald (2006: 72–4).

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mandata include her command that Anna flee from Aeneas’ house, a command that gives Anna the impetus and justification for remaining Italian. Second, because of this Anna ends up resembling and being forever connected with the cause of Dido’s hostility, Aeneas; for her abode is the Numicius, a river associated with the death and apotheosis of Aeneas, who is revered there as Indiges.24 Perhaps the greatest irony, however, is that when Anna relates Dido’s last days to Aeneas, she says that Dido had wished to accompany Aeneas when he left (comitemque tuae se imponere solam/orabat paterere rati, ‘and she begged that you suffer to put her alone, as your companion, on your ship’, 8.87–8) and that, when preparing to commit suicide, she had dressed up in Trojan garb (hic Phrygiam uestem et bacatum induta monile, ‘here she, having put on Trojan clothes and a pearl necklace’, 8.134). So, even Dido was once willing to move to Italy and to play a Trojan. It might be said, then, that Anna succeeds in realizing a desire that was Dido’s, but that Dido could not realize herself.25 As we can see, Anna and her story show how changeable one’s identity and loyalty can be, how easily the categories of ‘Carthaginian’ and ‘Trojan’ (or ‘Roman’) or friend and foe can become blurred. In this respect she prepares us well for the battle of Cannae, an event attended by many instances of and references to friends and foes or Carthaginians and Romans being confused and blurred together.26 Also, Silius repeatedly evokes civil war in the events leading up to and including the battle; one thinks of those Romans who allude by their names or through their actions to future civil war namesakes, or of Silius’ extensive programme of allusion to Lucan.27 One of the reasons why Silius portrays the Cannae battle in this way is so that he may bridge the gap between the past of the

24 Cf. Augoustakis (2010: 144), who suggests that when Anna immerses herself in the waters of the Numicius, this act ‘illustrates her future union with Aeneas’. Note that Silius earlier touches on this connection between them (8.39). For Anna, Aeneas, and their shared connection with the river, see Ahl (1985: 311–12); Brugnoli (1991: 149–51); Santini (1991: 32–5). 25 This puts an ironic twist on Anna’s identification with Dido in the excursus too. For parallels between them, see Brugnoli (1991: 152–67); Dietrich (2004: 6); Chiu (2011: 11–12, 15–18). There are also similarities between Anna’s and Aeneas’ stories, which set up and prepare us for their shared destinies. For these parallels, see Ahl (1985: 311–14) and Porte (1985: 144–50). 26 E.g. 8.300–1, 332–3, 671–3, with McGuire (1997: 133–4); Ariemma (2010: 268–72); and Marks (2010a: 136–7); 9.66–117 with Tipping (2004: 365–6); Marks (2005b: 133–4); and Tipping (2010: 37–8). 27 For the allusive names at Cannae, see McGuire (1995; 1997: 61–3, 85, 136–44); Mezzanotte (1995: 383–5). For allusions to Lucan and other references to civil war at Cannae, see Marks (2005b: 133–4; 2006; 2008: 70–74; 2010a: 135–9; 2010b: 41–5).

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Second Punic War and the Flavian present.28 Another reason, perhaps especially pertinent here, has to do with the religious logic of compensatory sacrifice or self-sacrifice with which Silius accounts for the transitional nature of the battle; in his version of the war the sluggish, old Rome destroys herself at Cannae so that a vibrant, new Rome may be born in her place, a Rome that will go on to become a world empire.29 Given the transitional nature of the Cannae battle, it is fitting that Anna, a figure who represents change and transition, should be connected with it. It is, furthermore, fitting that civil war is a prominent theme in the Cannae books; for Anna is herself associated with civil strife through the date of her festival, the Ides of March. After devoting most of the day to Anna in Fasti 3, Ovid concludes with the appearance of Vesta, who reminds the poet of Julius Caesar’ murder on this day and Octavian’s revenge at Philippi (Fast. 3.697–710).30 But if Anna represents the confusing aspects of change, she also represents its ordering aspects. Let us not forget that her festival occupies a fixed moment in the Roman calendar, and that while it is associated with various kinds of transitions, such as from the old year to the new, it also serves to demarcate the boundaries between them: the old year is over, the new year begins. One way in which this aspect of Anna is manifested in the Punica is in the timing of her appearance, and by this I am referring to her connection not only with the battle of Cannae but with Varro’s consulship, which crucially (and disastrously) leads to the battle. Note that after Anna tells Hannibal to march to Cannae, and Hannibal, in turn, relays this message to his men (8.210–41), we are introduced to Varro, who has just entered the consulship and is drumming up public support for his ill-fated encounter with the Carthaginian (8.243–5; cf. 8.253–6). This juxtaposition is telling, for (as noted earlier) the day of Anna’s festival, the Ides of March, is the day on which newly elected consuls entered office from 222 (or possibly 218) to 153 bce, and as Varro’s consulship falls in that period (consul in 216 bce), he enters office on that same day. Anna’s appearance in Punica 8, therefore, serves as a date-marker in the text by which Silius indicates to us that the Ides of March of 216 bce has arrived—the day that sees the beginning of Varro’s

28

Marks (2010a: 151–2). On this aspect of Cannae and the war, see Marks (2005b). 30 Note that in Silius’ version Anna considers committing suicide but fails (8.155–6). This detail further legitimizes her connection with the Cannae battle, in which Rome herself exhibits self-destructive behaviour. Moreover her failure not only sets her apart from Dido but suggests a parallel with Rome, which, after her collective, attempted ‘suicide’ at Cannae, lives on, reborn as a new, stronger Rome. 29

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consulship and thus marked the beginning of Rome’s march toward defeat at Cannae.31 Anna represents the ordering or defining aspects of change, as can also be seen in Silius’ emphasis on the permanence of her Italian cult. When Dido’s ghost tells Anna to flee, she asks her to go to the Numicius, where she will be received as a nymph and worshipped as such for ever: te sacra excipient hilares in flumina Nymphae/aeternumque Italis numen celebrabere in oris (‘The Nymphs will gladly welcome you to their sacred river, and you will be celebrated as an everlasting divinity on Italian shores’, 8.182–3). Then, when Anna addresses Hannibal, she identifies herself to him in similar terms: ego Oenotris aeternum numen in oris/concelebror (‘I am honoured in the land of Oenotria as an immortal goddess’, 8.220–21). It may be that these emphases on the permanence of Anna’s cult are to remind us of her full name, Anna Perenna, which echoes the adjective perennis. But they also remind us that Anna represents two sides of the same ‘transitional’ coin, so to speak: a transition or a transitional event marks a change of some sort, and therefore consists of a moment or series of moments in which things are unstable and in flux. Yet transitions also serve as ways of separating things out and drawing distinctions, and as such become boundary markers by which we give definition to things. There are, then, two seemingly contradictory, yet complementary aspects to a transitional event: as it happens, there prevails a disorienting sense of in-between-ness, but when viewed from some temporal distance, the event gives a sense of coherence and order to affairs. And so, an important thing to bear in mind about a transition or a transitional figure such as Anna is whether we are looking at it (or her) from a short-term or a long-term perspective. For, when viewed in the short term, Anna is shifty and unstable, now Carthaginian, now Italian, then back again, but when viewed in the long term, she represents permanence through change, her transformation leading to the enduring Italian cult of Anna Perenna. But what about the transitional event at Cannae, the battle itself ? When viewed up close and in the short term, it is a total Roman defeat that represents the civil-war confusion of friend and foe. But if we view it from some temporal distance and consider its long-term consequences, the battle looks quite different. As I noted earlier, Rome facilitates her 31 Dominik (2006: 117): ‘The significance of the roles of Anna and Varro becomes manifest: both are characters with Roman associations whose actions directly assist Hannibal in his mission against Rome.’ Both, incidentally, have plebeian ties as well. Cf. Anna’s in Fast. 3.525, 661–774 with Pfaff–Reydellet (2002: 959–62); and Varro’s in Sil. 8.243, 246–7, 249.

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rebirth through defeat there, paving the way for victory in the war and even her ultimate destiny of becoming a world power. The Cannae battle thus marks the beginning of a new and lasting phase in Rome’s existence. Now, whether Anna understands the full range of the short-term and long-term consequences of her involvement on Hannibal’s behalf, she at least understands, and is herself a representative of, the lasting and abiding fact of her own Italian divinity. But what is telling is that Juno and Hannibal do not understand the full range of these consequences, or perhaps prefer not to acknowledge them: Juno disregards Anna’s Italian ties altogether, and Hannibal promises to bring Anna back to Carthage and to worship her there; as Marco Fucecchi points out in Chapter 1, that will not happen, of course, because for it to happen, the Carthaginian would have to win the war, but he will not. Anna’s appearance, therefore, sets in stark relief Juno’s reluctance to accept Rome’s destiny and Hannibal’s blindness to it. In sum, Anna can help Hannibal win a victory in the short term (and in the short term can be viewed as Carthaginian once again), but in doing so she facilitates, rather than gets in the way of, the larger mechanisms of fate that lead to long-term results, such as Rome’s lasting empire or the continuation of her own cult in Italy.32 In these respects she perfectly suits the paradoxical aims of the Cannae battle itself, the central, pivotal event of the epic.33 As a figure who helps Hannibal in the short term but Rome in the long term, Anna is not alone: Jupiter and Minerva do so too.34 Jupiter’s

32

Similarly, Augoustakis (2010: 141 and 143). Helen Lovatt has suggested to me that Anna, being a shifty figure associated with a river, may have a counterpart in the Maeander, who appears in a simile in the middle book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8.159–68), incidentally, the same book in which Anna appears in the Punica. Another shifty river who figures prominently in that book is Achelous. For the Maeander, Achelous, and their central position in Ovid’s epic, see Hardie (2004: 169–73) and Boyd (2006). Anna’s place in the middle of the Punica is also fitting because, in Januslike fashion, she looks backwards and forwards, i.e. back to the Saguntum episode in the opening books (cf. Dominik 2006: 117–19) and forward to the advent of the Magna Mater in the last book (cf. Augoustakis 2010: 143–4, 234). 34 Dominik (2006: 117–18), Ganiban (2010: 91–2), and Chiu (2011: 7 n. 15) compare Anna to Allecto in Aeneid 7 (cf. Fernandelli 2006: 92–3) and Tisiphone in Punica 2 (cf. Augoustakis 2010: 140–41). But if considered apart from her role as Juno’s go-between, Anna has more in common with Jupiter and Minerva: they, like her, play not only destructive but constructive roles, are Italian/Roman gods, and are celestial gods. On this final point, note that Anna flies upwards when she departs after addressing Hannibal (8.225; cf. Fernandelli 2006: 95–6 and Fucecchi, Ch. 1 above, who compare Iris in Aeneid 9), whereas Allecto (Aen. 7.561–2) and Tisiphone (Sil. 2.693–5) descend to the Underworld after they complete their missions. Bruère (1959: 228), Santini (1991: 27), Fernandelli (2006: 91–2), and Chiu (2011: 7 n. 15) also compare Anna to Juturna in Aeneid 12. 33

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support of Hannibal’s war on Rome is first indicated in the third book, by sending Mercury to spur on Hannibal: tum pater omnipotens gentem exercere periclis Dardaniam et fama saeuorum tollere ad astra bellorum meditans priscosque referre labores praecipitat consulta uiri. (3.163–6) ‘Then the all-powerful father, pondering how to test the Dardanian people with dangers and to raise them to the stars with the glory of warfare and to bring back struggles of old, accelerates the man’s plans.’

In assisting Hannibal here, Jupiter hastens the Romans’ defeats in Italy but, as we can see, he does so ultimately to harden them and to help them win glory. Later in the book we are given a fuller explanation of Jupiter’s plan in his speech to Venus. There he says that, because the Romans have become lazy and sluggish and no longer thirst for glory in arms, he has designed the conflict to challenge them (3.574–81). His expectation is that the war will turn the Romans into a people worthy of their destiny of world empire: magnae molis opus multoque labore parandum/tot populos inter soli sibi poscere regna (‘But it is a mighty enterprise that must cost intense effort, to claim power for themselves alone among so many nations’, 3.582–3).35 Much like Anna then, Jupiter takes measures that harm Rome in the short term, but have beneficial long-term consequences. We are reminded of this fact in the Cannae battle too, when Hannibal faces off against Crista and his sons (10.92–169). There Silius portrays the Carthaginian as the agent of Jupiter; one of the ways in which he conveys this is by associating him with the god’s lightning, most notably at the end of the episode, when the deaths of Crista and his sons are compared to an oak that, when struck down by lightning, crushes its saplings (10.163–9).36 And it may be to prepare us for this very association that in her speech to Hannibal Silius has Anna refer to Juno in a way that reminds us of the god’s connection with lightning (summi matrona Tonantis, ‘the consort of the almighty Thunderer’, 8.219) and then has her advise him to wield fulmina (8.222).37 After Cannae, though, Jupiter will abandon Hannibal because the Carthaginian will have already served his purpose of forcing the Romans to change their ways. It is telling that Jupiter is not among the Roman gods who 35

For more on Jupiter’s plan, see Marks (2005a: 14–15, 211–17; 2005b: 128–9). See Marks (2006). It should be pointed out that the Barcids, Hannibal’s family, were associated with lightning too. For more on fulmina and its associations in the Punica, see Marks (2005a: 192–3, 195 n. 84). 36 37

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fight on Rome’s behalf at Cannae (9.290–95)—his Libyan counterpart, Hammon, does for the Carthaginians (9.298)—though he later defends Rome when Hannibal attacks the city in book 12.38 Minerva’s behaviour at Cannae parallels Anna’s as well in that the goddess opposes Rome in the battle, although her loyalty ultimately is to the city.39 She is listed among the gods fighting on the Carthaginian side (9.297)—the only other Roman god to do so is Juno (9.296)—and supports Hannibal in his encounter with the young Scipio later in the same book (9.438–69). Jupiter, though, eventually summons Minerva from the battlefield (9.470–85), and this gives her a chance to explain her involvement on Hannibal’s behalf: quamquam ego non Teucros (nostro cum pignore regnet Roma et Palladio sedes hac urbe locarim) non Teucros delere aderam, sed lumen alumnae Hannibalem Libyae pelli florentibus annis uita atque exstingui primordia tanta negabam. (9.530–34) ‘And yet I was not there to destroy Teucrians (let Rome rule with our sanction, and in this city let me establish an abode for the Palladium), but I was refusing to allow Hannibal, the light of Libya, to be killed in the flower of his youth and such great undertakings to be extinguished.’

For Minerva, as we can see, supporting Hannibal at Cannae does not conflict or interfere with her long-term support of Rome: both loyalties can coexist.40 And so, even some of Rome’s own gods ‘switch sides’ and are against the Romans in the topsy-turvy battle at Cannae. Yet throughout all of this we do not lose sight of their long-term loyalty to and support of Rome, or of the fact that Rome herself will survive and outlast Carthage. Even Juno herself, Hannibal’s staunchest supporter in the epic, will eventually come to terms with this reality but will do so without entirely abandoning him (17.357–69).41 This is precisely the message Silius conveys to us through Anna’s appearance in book 8: that differences between Carthaginian and Italian/Roman or friend and foe can be reconciled. But one participant in the battle who refuses to accept any such reconciliation is Hannibal, whose blindness in this respect, as I have 38

For Jupiter’s change in attitude toward Hannibal after Cannae, see Marks (2006: 403). Häussler (1978: 205) compares Anna and Minerva on similar grounds. 40 On the pre-existing connection between Anna and Minerva, cf. Ov. Fast. 3.677–94. 41 Also, note that Juno is cautiously protective of Hannibal at Cannae (10.42–71, 83–91), and several times after that battle (12.201–11 and 701–25, 17.522–80 and 597–617). For more on Juno and the shifts in her behaviour toward Hannibal, see Häussler (1978: 198–211); Laudizi (1989: 83–92); and Delarue (1992: 155–60). 39

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suggested, is set in stark relief by Anna’s intervention. This is further underlined by references and allusions to another figure closely associated with Cannae, Diomedes, whose story in fact shows several striking similarities with Anna’s.42 Like Anna, once hostile to Rome’s Trojan ancestors during the Trojan war, he settles in Italy (at Arpi, near Cannae), and makes peace with his former foe (on which occasion he also gives Aeneas the Palladium).43 And yet Hannibal is unaware of this significant, final step in Diomedes’ story; when he addresses his men after Anna’s visitation, he takes Diomedes’ historical association with Cannae to be advantageous to himself, an indication that he views the Greek in terms of his earlier hostility toward the Trojans rather than in terms of his later friendship and reconciliation with them: diua ducente petamus/infaustum Phrygibus Diomedis nomine campum (‘Let us follow the goddess to the field where the name of Diomedes is of ill omen to Trojans’, 8.240–41).44 Hannibal’s blindness here should not surprise us, however, as Anna has already prepared us for it: just as Hannibal fails to acknowledge that history has passed him by in her case—she set aside her hostility toward the Trojans long ago—so he fails to acknowledge that Diomedes also made peace with them long ago. And thus he cannot see the lasting consequences of their respective reconciliations with the Trojans either: as a divinity who will be worshipped by the Italians forever, Anna is no longer Carthaginian (or no longer just Carthaginian) and never will be, and as Diomedes passes the Palladium down to Aeneas, and Rome now possesses it, the city will not be taken. In light of these parallels, it is clear that the battle of Cannae is not simply a military conflict, but a struggle to stabilize and control shifting identities to one’s own advantage. For Hannibal, this involves repatriating Anna and appropriating her cult for Carthage. But, as we can see, he is doomed to fail; Rome already has her, just as she has the talismanic Palladium. And we are given every reason to believe that, long after Hannibal, the Romans will continue to enjoy the benefits of divine protection, whether those benefits take the form of an annual celebration on the Ides of March, the lasting inviolability of Rome herself, or the city’s emergence as a world power. 42 Hannibal will even ‘play’ Diomedes in his encounter with Scipio in the battle (9.411–59). For this encounter and other allusions and references to Diomedes in connection with Cannae, see Marks (2005a: 126–7). 43 See briefly Kissel (1979: 193 n. 92). 44 And it does appear that Hannibal does not know the full story yet; for later in the epic, after Dasius tells him the story (13.30–81), Hannibal is dismayed by the news (13.82). On the story and its significance in the Punica, see Ripoll (2001) and the extensive discussion by Fucecchi in Ch. 1 above.

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17 Medusa, Python, and Poine in Argive Religious Ritual Alison Keith

At the end of the first book of the Thebaid, Statius heightens the atmosphere of foreboding that attends the preparations for the fratricidal war between the sons of Oedipus by introducing into the epic three monsters familiar from the mythological tradition: Medusa, Python, and Poine. Although none of these figures is central to Theban myth, Statius draws them into his narrative through Polynices’ alliance with Adrastus, king of Argos, who recounts the origins of an Argive festival for Apollo (1.557–668) that memorializes the death of Apollo’s infant son Linus by Psamathe, the daughter of an earlier Argive king, Crotopus;1 the god’s decision to punish Crotopus’ people by sending the monstrous incarnation of ‘punishment’ (Ø, Poine) to devour their offspring; and the subsequent heroism of Coroebus, who kills the monster and redeems his people from Apollo’s wrath. Medusa and the Python slain by Apollo at Delphi receive less extensive treatment from Statius, perhaps because their more famous tales require little elaboration. Taken together, however, all three myths combine, through the imagery of the monsters’ cannibalism and mesmerizing effect, to foreshadow the violent end of Cadmus’ inward-looking and self-consuming Theban dynasty. This chapter explores the role of female pollution in the imagery Statius deploys in connection with the ritual worship and aetiological narrative of the Argive court, with a particular focus on the intertextual relationship between the Ovidian Medusa and Python of Metamorphoses

1

For the story of Linus in Thebaid 1, cf. Conon Narr. 19 and Pausanias 1.43.7–8 and 2.19.8; see Vessey (1970a); Brown (1994: 166–74); Pache (2004: 66–73). On Linus and Opheltes, see the extensive discussion by Ganiban in Ch. 14 above.

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4 and 1 respectively, and Statius’ ‘monstrous regiment’ of snakes, women, and snake-women in Thebaid 1: Python (Stat. Theb. 1.562–74; cf. Ov. Met. 1.437–60), Medusa (Stat. Theb. 1.544–7; cf. Met. 4.612–24 and 794– 803), and Poine (Stat. Theb. 1.596–626). Statius’ characterization of all three monsters is heavily indebted to the literary tradition, as has been admirably shown by a succession of critics and commentators.2 I draw on these findings throughout my study, and endeavour to augment them by detailing Statius’ sustained use of Ovidian intertexts. In addition, I am concerned to document a shared pattern of female representation in Statius’ treatment of these monsters and to connect them, through the figure of Poine, with the ancient figure of the reproductive demon, who characteristically kills newborn infants and/or pregnant, parturient, or newly delivered women, and is customarily regarded with dread and superstition by many Mediterranean cultures in antiquity.3 We may begin by considering the figure of Medusa, in whose characterization Statius draws on Virgilian and Ovidian epic to contextualize the Callimachean aetiology of Poine (Callim. Aet. F 28–34 M), as Charlie McNelis has ably shown.4 The simultaneous arrival of the Theban exile Polynices and the Calydonian exile Tydeus at the palace of the Argive king Adrastus occurs on the very evening that the Argive court celebrates a festival in honour of Apollo. When the exiles’ quarrel on his doorstep interrupts the ritual proceedings within, Adrastus recognizes the pair as his fated sons-in-law and, inviting them to join the celebration, offers them an account of the Argive festival. An earlier generation of scholars questioned the relevance of the episode to the poem and characterized it as a ‘digression’,5 but more recent scholarship has documented the close thematic overlap it shares with the overarching themes of Statius’ epic, such as the nature of theodicy, pietas, and clementia in a post-Virgilian (and post-Augustan) world.6 In the welcome Adrastus extends to Polynices and Tydeus, Statius alludes to multiple models in Virgil’s Aeneid, first and foremost that of Evander’s reception of Aeneas and the Trojans in Aeneid 8.7 Both poets’ 2 Legras (1905: 38–9); Kytzler (1955: 186); Aricò (1960); Vessey (1973: 101); Taisne (1994: 245); Delarue (2000: 121–3); Ganiban (2007: 9–23); McNelis (2007: 25–49); Newlands (2009: 355–64, with emphasis on Apollo); Walter (2010). 3 On the figure of the ‘reproductive demon’, see Johnston (1994: 140–48; 1997: 57–61), both with further bibliography. 4 McNelis (2007: 25–49). 5 Legras (1905: 152, 277); Butler (1909: 211–12); Aricò (1960: 277). 6 Kytzler (1955: 186; 1986: 2916–24); Ahl (1986: 2853–5); Vessey (1973: 102); Burgess (1972); Dominik (1994a: 63–8); Ganiban (2007: 9–23); McNelis (2007: 25–49). 7 Ganiban (2007: 9–23).

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hospitality scenes, moreover, precede religious aetiologies, and Adrastus’ narrative specifically evokes that of Evander, who narrates Hercules’ punishment of Cacus for his theft of the cattle of Geryon.8 But in the introduction of Adrastus’ daughters to the heroes (Theb. 1.533–47) Statius also recalls the disastrous context and consequences of Dido’s banquet for Aeneas in Aeneid 1, at which the Carthaginian queen ‘drinks deep draughts of love’ (longumque bibebat amorem, Aen. 1.749) from a precious ancestral cup:9 hic regina grauem gemmis auroque poposcit/ impleuitque mero pateram, quam Belus et omnes/a Belo soliti (‘Here the queen demanded the cup, heavy with gems and gold, and filled it with unmixed wine—a cup which Belus and all his descendants had been accustomed to use’, Aen. 1.728–30). So too Adrastus offers his first libation to the god Apollo from a family heirloom: . . . signis perfectam auroque nitentem/Iasides pateram famulos ex more poposcit,/qua Danaus libare deis seniorque Phoroneus/adsueti (‘Iasus’ scion, as was his custom, demanded from his attendants a bowl wrought with reliefs and shining with gold, with which Danaus and the elder Phoroneus had been accustomed to pour libations to the gods’, Theb. 1.540–43). Statius’ description of the bowl’s decoration, however, finds no analogue in the Virgilian banquet scene: . . . tenet haec operum caelata figuras: aureus anguicomam praesecto Gorgona collo ales habet, iam iamque uagas (ita uisus) in auras exilit; illa graues oculos languentiaque ora paene mouet uiuoque etiam pallescit in auro. (Theb. 1.543–7) ‘This cup, embossed, holds images: a golden, winged figure holds the snakehaired Gorgon head, severed from her neck, and now already wandering, as it seemed, he leapt into the breezes; she nearly moves her heavy eyes and drooping countenance, and even grows pale in the living gold.’

Instead, the image of Perseus bearing aloft the Gorgon’s head embossed on the cup points specifically to the beginning of Ovid’s ‘Perseid’, where the poet turns from the Argive king Acrisius’ rejection of the godhead of Dionysus (which concludes his Theban narrative of Met. 3.1–4.603) to his subsequent failure to recognize his grandson Perseus:10

8

Ganiban (2007: 13–15). See also Littlewood, Ch. 11 above, for the influence on Silius. Heuvel (1932: 283) notes the model that Dido’s reception of Aeneas in Aeneid 1 affords Statius in this passage; cf. Caviglia (1973: 147) on Theb. 1.543; Bernstein (2008: 76–7). Caviglia also notes Statius’ debt at Theb. 1.541–51 to Aen. 1.728–56 (misprinted as ‘782’). 10 Cf. Heuvel (1932: 239–40). 9

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‘Soon, however, Acrisius will regret having profaned the god—such is the presence of the truth—as much as not having recognized his grandson. The former has now been installed in heaven, while the latter was snatching the slender breezes with hissing wings, bearing the renowned prize of the snaky monster. And when the conquering hero hovered above the sands of Libya some bloody drops fell from the Gorgon’s head, which the earth received and brought to life in the form of a variety of snakes; whence that land is teeming and infested with asps.’

The Argive narrative in Ovid’s Metamorphoses supplies an important mythological foundation for the Statian Adrastus’ aetiology, in the description of Perseus’ flight over Libya bearing aloft the memorable prize of his victory over the Medusa, her bloody head. On the one hand, Adrastus’ recognition of Tydeus and Polynices as his predestined sonsin-law corrects the Ovidian Acrisius’ failure to recognize his own grandson Perseus. But Statius also refashions Ovid’s introduction of the Argive hero Perseus as buffeted by the winds as he flies around the Mediterranean (inde per immensum uentis discordibus actus/nunc huc, nunc illuc exemplo nubis aquosae/fertur, ‘from there, driven by discordant winds through the great immensity, in the manner of a watery cloud he is carried now here, now there’, Met. 4.621–3) in his own reference to the hero’s leap ‘into the wandering breezes’ (Theb. 1.545) in order to characterize Adrastus’ ancestor as another wandering exile like the Theban Polynices (1.312–14). Statius thereby adapts the Argive Perseus to fit the Cadmean paradigm (a Theban wandering in exile) so prominent in Ovid’s Theban narrative—and his own.11 In so doing, moreover, Statius also draws extensively on Ovid’s depiction of the monstrous Medusa—part-woman, part-snake, and mother of the winged horse Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor, father of another of Hercules’ victims, the monster Geryon whose cattle Cacus rashly steals in Evander’s aetion of Aeneid 8 (201–12). Again it is to the Ovidian 11 See Keith (2004/5), on the importance of Ovid’s Theban narrative in Metamorphoses 3–4, to Statius’ Thebaid.

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narrative, reported in the voice of Perseus himself (in oratio obliqua), that Statius looks in his brief ekphrasis: dumque grauis somnus colubrasque ipsamque tenebat/eripuisse caput collo (‘And while heavy sleep held her and her snakes, he severed her head from her neck’, Met. 4.784–5). Once a beautiful mortal maiden courted by numerous suitors, the Ovidian Perseus explains, Medusa is transformed by an outraged Minerva into the monstrous Gorgon figure—with hideous face, glaring eyes, and serpents in her hair and girdle—depicted on the shields of mythological heroes to frighten their foes: . . . clarissima forma multorumque fuit spes inuidiosa procorum illa, neque in tota conspectior ulla capillis pars fuit; inueni, qui se uidisse referret. hanc pelagi rector templo uitiasse Mineruae dicitur; auersa est et castos aegide uultus nata Iouis texit, neue hoc impune fuisset, Gorgoneum crinem turpes mutauit in hydros. nunc quoque, ut attonitos formidine terreat hostes, pectore in aduerso, quos fecit, sustinet angues. (Met. 4.794–803) ‘She was once the most beautiful in form, and the envious goal of many suitors. In all her features, none was more remarkable than her hair—for so I learned from one who said he had seen her. Neptune, the ocean’s lord, is said to have ravished her in Minerva’s temple: Jove’s daughter turned away and covered her pure gaze with her aegis; and lest this go unpunished, she transformed the Gorgon’s hair into filthy snakes. And even now, to strike fear into her foes, she wears the snakes, which she made, upon her opposing breast.’

The Ovidian Perseus’ emphasis on Medusa’s shocking transformation from beautiful maiden to terrifying monster, more snake than woman (hydros, 4.801; angues, 4.803),12 furnishes thematically significant background material for Adrastus’ aetiological narrative in the Thebaid as well. For the Gorgon’s snaky head not only functions as the emblem of Perseus’ victory embossed on the Argive heirloom (itself a figure for the status of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a literary artefact in Statius’ day) but also foreshadows the death of the monstrous Python, the symbol of 12 Significantly, the origin of the snakes in Libya is explained as deriving from the blood that dripped from Medusa’s head as Perseus flies over the landscape (Met. 4.716–20, quoted in text). The aetiology appears already in Apollonius’ Argonautica (4.1513–17), and was no doubt inspired in dialogue with Callimachus’ Aetia. On the Apollonian passage, see Livrea (1973: 422–3); on aetiology in the Metamorphoses, see Myers (1994).

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Apollo’s cosmological victory which in turn prompts his visit to the Argive court (1.562–71).13 It is therefore worth considering briefly the opening of Adrastus’ tale, where the Argive king summarizes Apollo’s conquest of the dragon at Delphi: postquam caerulei sinuosa uolumina monstri, terrigenam Pythona, deus, septem orbibus atris amplexum Delphos squamisque annosa terentem robora, Castaliis dum fontibus ore trisulco fusus hiat nigro sitiens alimenta ueneno, perculit, absumptis numerosa in uulnera telis, Cirrhaeique dedit centum per iugera campi uix tandem explicitum, noua deinde piacula caedis perquirens nostri tecta haud opulenta Crotopi attigit. huic primis et pubem ineuntibus annis mira decore pios seruabat nata penates intemerata toris. felix, si Delia numquam furta nec occultum Phoebo sociasset amorem! (Theb. 1.562–74) ‘The god had struck down earthborn Python, dark monster of the slithering coils, who embraced Delphi with his seven black circlets and was grinding ancient oaks with his scales, even as he sprawled by the Castalian spring and opened his triple-cleft mouth in thirst of nourishment for his black venom. Many the wound on which the god spent his darts, till finally he left the creature outspread over a hundred acres of Cirrha’s plain. Then seeking to expiate his recent bloodshed, he came to the humble halls of our king Crotopus. His daughter, in the first years of youth and wonderfully beautiful, though untried in bed, kept his pious home. Happy, if she had never kept the Delian god’s secret trysts nor shared hidden love with Phoebus!’

Once again, Statius’ diction and geographical setting retrieve minute details of an Ovidian exemplar. For in Metamorphoses 1, Ovid features Apollo’s victory over the Python as prelude to the aetiology he offers for the laurel tree in Apollo’s rape of Daphne:14 illa (sc. terra) quidem nollet, sed te quoque, maxime Python, tum genuit populisque nouis incognita serpens terror eras; tantum spatii de monte tenebas. hunc deus arquitenens, numquam letalibus armis ante nisi in dammis capreisque fugacibus usus, mille grauem telis, exhausta paene pharetra, perdidit effuso per uulnera nigra ueneno. neue operis famam possit delere uetustas, 13 14

The passage is well discussed in McNelis (2007: 29–30), with further bibliography. Heuvel (1932: 242–5).

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instituit sacros celebri certamine ludos, Pythia perdomitae serpentis nomine dictos . . . primus amor Phoebi Daphne Peneia . . . Delius . . . dixerat; ‘ista decent umeros gestamina nostros, qui dare certa ferae, dare uulnera possumus hosti, qui modo pestifero tot iugera uentre prementem strauimus innumeris tumidum Pythona sagittis . . . ’ (Met. 1.438–47, 452, 454, 457–60) ‘Indeed, mother Earth would have wished not to do so, but she bore you too then, greatest Python, a snake unknown before, and you were a cause of terror to newly created people—you held so much space on the mountain. The bow-wielding god destroyed him with deadly weapons, which he had never used before, except on does and fleet wild goats, crushing him with a thousand darts, his quiver nearly emptied, and the snake’s venom bled out his black wounds. And lest time should be able to destroy the fame of the god’s deed, he established sacred games at a thronged contest, called “Pythian” after the name of the vanquished snake . . . Phoebus’ first love was Peneus’ daughter Daphne . . . The Delian god spoke: “These weapons of yours befit my shoulders, since I can give unerring wounds to wild beasts and my foes; and recently I laid low the Python, swollen with countless arrows, which covered so many acres with his plague-bearing belly . . . ” ’

Statius follows Ovid in his description of Python as Earth’s offspring (Theb. 1.173 ~ Met. 1.437–8),15 endowing him with black poison (Theb. 1.166 ~ Met. 1.143) and such huge size (iugera, Theb 1.168 ~ Met. 1.157) that Apollo must use numerous arrows to kill him (absumptis numerosa in uulnera telis, Theb. 1.167 ~ innumeris sagittis, Met. 1.158). Thus if Callimachus is the ‘source’ model for Adrastus’ larger aetiological tale, and if Virgil (and behind him Homer) is the ‘code’ model for the epic hospitality scene, Ovid is clearly the ‘immediate’ model for both the Pythian aetiology and its thematic complement in the severed head of the emblematic tale of Perseus’ conquest of Medusa, embossed on Adrastus’ cup.16 As Adrastus’ tale continues, moreover, the serpentine 15 Heuvel (1932: 245); McNelis (2007: 29–30). Although both Lucretius (5.1411) and Cicero (Diu. 2.133) employ the noun terrigena, it is Ovid who popularizes its use in mythological epic (Met. 3.118, 5.325; cf. Her. 12.99), blazing the trail for the imperial Roman epicists (Luc. 3.316; V. Fl. 7.505; Stat. Theb. 6.894, 8.601; Sil. 6.254); the word does not appear in Virgil. 16 Cf. Heuvel (1932: 244), who notes that Statius’ Python is not only recognizably related to Ovid’s Delphic interloper but also, even more ominously, to the snake of Mars, which Cadmus kills to found the city of Thebes at the outset of Ovid’s ‘Thebaid’ (Met. 3.31–49). Again, therefore, we may identify the pressure Ovid’s Theban narrative exerts on the design of Statius’ introductory movement in what we might call a Theban deformation of Argos (or Delphi in this case).

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threat introduced by the Ovidian Medusa (and reanimated in the reworking of Apollo’s conquest of the Ovidian Python) continues to exert narrative pressure on his Argive narrative. For just as Ovid’s aetiology of the Pythian games introduces a tale of Apolline lust, so Adrastus explains that Apollo, after killing the Python, goes to Argos seeking purification,17 as we have seen in the Thebaid passage quoted above. There he accepts the hospitality of Crotopus, then king of Argos, whose virginal daughter Psamathe is both beautiful and the victim of divine lust, like Medusa (and Daphne) before her. The Ovidian resonances are clear: perquirens (1.570), Delia (1.574), Phoebo sociasset amorem (1.575). As Carole Newlands has pointed out, ‘the myth of Apollo in Book 1 blurs the boundaries between martial epic and empathetic elegy; epic deeds and human suffering, martial combat and narrative delay are all on an exaggerated scale that exposes the tragic cost of war’.18 Undoubtedly, ‘the stage is set for the rape and the succeeding events only because of Apollo’s sacrilege and attempt to expiate his guilt,’ as Nick Dee has pointed out in Chapter 10 above. The ominous convergence of beauty and virginity is, of course, hardly unusual in Greek mythology, where the ‘girls’ tragedy’, as Walter Burkert has dubbed it,19 has long been recognized as a structural feature of heroic genealogies (e.g. in Hesiod’s Ehoiae). But in Statius’ hands Psamathe’s death, along with that of her infant, inspires Apollo to a vengeance that, though late, is horrifyingly appropriate: sero memor thalami maestae solacia morti, Phoebe, paras monstrum infandis Acheronte sub imo conceptum Eumenidum thalamis, cui uirginis ora pectoraque; aeternum stridens a uertice surgit et ferrugineam frontem discriminat anguis. haec tum dira lues nocturno squalida passu

Ovid’s Theban snake, unlike the Python, lives by a spring (Met. 3.31–2), which he defends with a threefold mouth (3.33–4; cf. 3.56–7) and poisonous breath (3.48–9; cf. 73–6); he is also blue (3.38) and notable for the extent of his scaly coils (3.41–2; cf. 3.63–4 and 77–8) with which he embraces his victims (3.48); and he finally meets his death when Cadmus pins him to an oak (3.90–94). Thus both the Theban and Argive settings of Statius’ Thebaid—if we may assign the Delphic terrain on the Argive cup to its descendants’ domain—evoke the deadly landscapes of Ovid’s Thebes. As the site of a foundation that goes awry, Ovid’s Thebes is prey to repeated incursions of the wilds upon its citizens, and provides a potent model for Statius’ exploration of the dissolution of civic order in civil war. 17 18 19

See Dee’s detailed analysis in Ch. 10 above of the phrase noua . . . piacula (1.569). Newlands (2009: 360). Burkert (1979: 6–7).

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inlabi thalamis, animasque a stirpe recentes abripere altricum gremiis morsuque cruento deuesci et multum patrio pinguescere luctu. (Theb. 1.596–604) ‘Mindful too late of your sexual union, Phoebus, you prepare as a consolation for her sad death a monster, conceived beneath deep Acheron in the unspeakable chambers of the Furies, with the face and breast of a maiden; from her head rises an ever-hissing snake which divides her iron face in half. Then this dread scourge slipped into bedchambers by night, filthy on unseen step; she snatched newly born babes from their nurses’ breasts, devoured them with bloody jaws, and fattened on the country’s grief.’

It is particularly unfortunate that we lack Callimachus’ version in the Aetia and so are unable to tell how he treats the narrative.20 Nonetheless, we can ascertain from extant references to the tale in the mythographers that Statius does not diverge from the tradition the Hellenistic poet seems to have established.21 Elsewhere called Poine, the monster Apollo sends is the offspring of those other unspeakable chthonic creatures, the snake-haired Furies (1.597–8), who preside over the destruction of Oedipus’ house in the Thebaid (invoked by Oedipus, at 1.57–87, for his sons’ destruction).22 But Poine also shares a number of features with Medusa: both she and the Furies are distinguished for their serpentine locks; and she shares with Psamathe the face and torso of a maiden (1.598–9). Moreover Poine’s function, like that of Medusa and the Furies, is to bring death to mortals, whom she terrifies by the hissing and menacing visage of the snakes that rise from her head (1.599–600); in this guise, she would seem to correspond closely to Medusa. But as her particular purview is to bring death to newborns, in reprisal for the death of Apollo’s son, she takes on the characteristic features of the reproductive demon familiar to anthropologists and historians of religion.23 This type of demon, documented in a wide range of Near Eastern and Greek material from antiquity to the present, is conventionally explained as arising from the souls of women who die before marriage or childbirth, in childbed, or shortly after the death of their own child and, as restless spirits, are responsible for the death of infants and women in childbed. As Sarah Iles Johnston explains, ‘they fail to complete the reproductive cycle and, becoming demons after death as a result of this incompleteness, seek to inflict the same fate as they had suffered 20 21 22 23

See Callim. Aet. 1 Frr. 28–34 M, with Massimilla (1996: 299–307). Conon, Narr. 19; Paus. 1.43.7–8; Myth. Vat. 1.168; cf. Ov. Ib. 573–7. On Oedipus’ curse, see the essays by Hubert and Gibson in Chs 6 and 7 above. See Herter (1950); Burkert (1992: 82–7); Johnston (1995).

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upon other women.’24 Fifty years ago, Joseph Fontenrose discussed the demon’s division, in Statius’ ‘composite’ Callimachean tale, into Psamathe and the child-killing demon, Poine, that avenges her death, and he connected both to the monstrous mythological figure of Lamia who, having lost her own child, devours other women’s infants.25 The Apollo–Psamathe story was either derived from or fitted to a story of the seductive Lamia—the hero entered the demon woman’s bed in the demon’s house; she aided him against the demon, whom the hero finally killed. In the composite legend Apollo as hero in the second story becomes the appeasing oracular god of the first. His vengeance becomes the Lamia’s visitation, which is followed by a plague—the Lamia in another form.26

Thus the dead Psamathe metaphorically rises from the Underworld to wreak vengeance, in the form of Poine, not on her persecutors but on her peers. Statius thereby links the former’s sexual violation to the latter’s monstrous form and pestilential assault on Argive society, and he extends the threat Poine embodies beyond Medusa’s battlefield menace, to represent her as a filthy contagion (1.601) that seeps into the most intimate recesses of the Argives’ homes. The language of gore and contagion the poet employs here goes well beyond that associated with the Dirae (with whom Poine is implicitly compared through Statius’ application to her of the adjective dira, 1.601), Furies, and Medusa in the Latin epic tradition, to evoke in addition the defilement and pollution that characterize Virgil’s Harpies: at subitae horrifico lapsu de montibus adsunt Harpyiae et magnis quatiunt clangoribus alas, diripiuntque dapes contactuque omnia foedant immundo; tum uox taetrum dira inter odorem . . . turba sonans praedam pedibus circumuolat uncis, polluit ore dapes . . . . . . inuadunt socii et noua proelia temptant, obscenas pelagi ferro foedare uolucris. sed neque uim plumis ullam nec uulnera tergo accipiunt, celerique fuga sub sidera lapsae semesam praedam et uestigia foeda relinquunt. (Aen. 3.225–8, 233–4, 240–44) ‘But suddenly, with a fearful swoop, there come from the mountains the Harpies, and they strike their wings with loud clanging. They plunder the

24

25 Johnston (1994: 140). Fontenrose (1959: 104–15). Fontenrose (1959: 114). On Lamia, whose story survives in its fullest form in Diodorus Siculus (20.41.3–5), see Johnston (1994: 140). 26

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feast and foul everything with their unclean touch; then amid the foul stench arises a hideous screeching . . . The noisy crowd flies round their prey with hooked talons and pollutes the feast with their mouths . . . Our comrades attack and undertake a strange kind of battle, to befoul the filthy birds of the sea with their steel. Yet they neither receive any blow to their feathers nor wounds to their backs, and slipping off in swift flight beneath the stars they abandon their half-eaten prey and leave behind foul traces of their presence.’

The appetite which leads to pollution that animates the Harpies’ assault on the Trojans’ feast, is paralleled by that with which Poine devours Argive children in Adrastus’ tale: . . . illa nouos ibat populata penates portarum in biuio; lateri duo corpora paruum dependent, et iam unca manus uitalibus haeret ferratique ungues tenero sub corde tepescunt. (Theb. 1.608–11) ‘Having ravaged new houses she was on her way at the gateway of two roads—two small bodies hung at her side, and already her clawed hand clings to their vitals, and her corroded talons grow warm beneath a tender heart.’

Poine’s curved hands and talons assimilate her to the avian form the Harpies take in post-archaic Classical literature and art where, for example, they are depicted as birds with the faces of women.27 Thus Apollonius Rhodius portrays them in his Argonautica as stinking, ravenous bird-like creatures, which defile and snatch away Phineus’ food: Iººa Øa çø ¼çø ºÆ IıÆØ  AæıØÆØ  Æ  åØæH ’ Ie ªÆçźB fi Ø ıåø læÆÇ, Kº  ’ ¼ºº  çæB P’ ‹· ¼ºº  ı Ł, ¥ Æ Çø IŒ åØ , ŒÆd ’ Kd ıƺÅ Oc å· P Ø ºÅ c ŒÆd ºıŒÆÅ çæ Iºº’ I źF  Å , E ƒ I ºłÆÆ ÆØ  . (A. R. 2.187–93) ‘But swooping suddenly through the clouds to his side, the Harpies continually snatched the food from his mouth and hands with their beaks. Sometimes not even a morsel of food was left, at other times just enough for him to stay alive and suffer. Furthermore, they would shed a putrid stench upon it: no one could bear even to stand at a distance, let

27 Although Homer and Hesiod represent them as personified winds, the Harpies are depicted as bird-women already in archaic Greek art; see Vermeule (1979: 168–70, 201–2).

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alone bring it up to his mouth—so terribly did the remains of his meal reek.’

Like Virgil’s Trojans in Aeneid 3 and Apollonius’ Boreads in Argonautica 2, who attack the Harpies, a band of Argives under Coroebus’ leadership attacks the monstrous Poine.28 Unlike both mythological models, however, who fail to catch their monstrous avian foes, Coroebus kills Poine, sending her spirit back to the netherworld and leaving her monstrous body open to the Argives’ view: . . . ferrumque ingens sub pectore duro condidit, atque imas animae mucrone corusco scrutatus latebras tandem sua monstra profundo reddit habere Ioui. iuuat ire et uisere iuxta liuentes in morte oculos uterique nefandam proluuiem et crasso squalentia pectora tabo . . . hi trabibus duris (solacia uana dolori) proterere exanimos artus asprosque molares deculcare genis . . . ’ (Theb. 1.613–18, 621–3) ‘[Coroebus] plunged his huge sword beneath her hard breast, and having probed deep within the spirit’s lair with his flashing steel, at last he returned to nether Jove his own monster. It delights the Argives to go and see at close hand her eyes, livid in death, and the unspeakable discharge from her womb, and her breasts, filthy with thick gore . . . Some crush her lifeless limbs with hard stakes, vain comfort for their grief, and grind down the sharp teeth from her jaws.’

The dead monster offers a terrifying spectacle: on the one hand, the manner of her death recalls the living death of Oedipus, who by probing out his eyes plunges himself into eternal darkness and condemns himself to the recesses of Cadmus’ house (1.46–52); on the other hand, her corpse incarnates bestial aggression and female pollution in her staring eyes (reminiscent of Medusa), stinking womb, filthy breast, and sharp teeth. In her classic discussion of women’s porous bodies in Classical thought, ‘Putting Her in Her Place: Woman, Dirt, and Desire’, Anne Carson invokes the findings of anthropologists, such as Mary Douglas in Purity and Danger, to argue that, in a society such as ancient Greece where ‘contact is crisis’, those who possess ‘special talents and opportunities for confounding the boundaries of others’—like the female monsters of Greek mythology, the Furies, Medusa, and the Harpies—evoke

28

On Coroebus’ prayer to Apollo, see Gibson, Ch. 7 above.

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fear in the rest of society.29 She links this fear to women’s mobility in societies that practise patrilocal marriage, and her brilliant analysis of ‘the logic of female pollution’30 illuminates the crisis that Apollo initiates in our tale, first by his incursion into the heart of Crotopus’ house through his assault on Psamathe and then, in reaction to Crotopus’ murder of his defiled daughter, by his dispatch of the vengeful Poine into the deepest recesses of the Argives’ homes. An important aspect of the ‘logic of female pollution’ in ancient thought to which Carson calls attention is the mutability of women’s boundaries in Classical mythology. Moreover, her summary of the deformations that attend the female body in Greek myth reads like a summary of Ovid’s Metamorphoses: The women of mythology regularly lose their form in monstrosity. Io turns into a heifer [cf. Ov. Met. 1.601–21], Kallisto becomes a bear [Met. 2.466– 95], Medusa sprouts snakes from her head [Met. 4.790–803] and Skylla yelping dogs from her waist [Met. 14.55–67]. The Sirens [Met. 5.551–63] and the Sphinx [Met. 7.759–61] accumulate unmatching bestial parts, while Daphne passes into leaf [Met. 1.548–67] and Pasiphae into a mechanical cow [Met. 8.152–76]. The Graiai make themselves repellent by sharing one human form amongst them, passing an eye and a tooth back and forth as needed [Met. 4.774–7]. Salmakis merges her form with that of Hermaphroditos to produce a bisexual monster [Met. 4.368–88].31

Poine is all too easily absorbed into such an Ovidian regiment of monstrous mythological women, who are distinguished for their confusion of categories (human and animal, human and vegetable) and transgression of boundaries.32 Anne Carson has shown that ‘for the ancients, as for many other cultures with complex systems of pollution belief, impurity is mixture’,33 and Poine, like Medusa and the Harpies, both embodies this crisis of contagion and spreads it around. As Anne Carson puts it, ‘women are pollutable, polluted, and polluting in several ways at once’.34 Adrastus’ aetiological tale focuses this nexus of pollution in the narrative chain that leads from Medusa’s snakes to those of Python and Poine and links Psamathe’s sexual violation to Poine’s monstrous form and pestilential assault on Argive society. Adrastus himself comprehensively misunderstands the ominous warning encoded in his own aetiological narrative, as recent critics

29 30 32 33

Carson (1990: 135), citing Douglas (1966). 31 Carson (1990: 156). Carson (1990: 154). On transgressive women in Statius’ Achilleid, see Panoussi, Ch. 19 below. 34 Carson (1990: 158; her italics). Carson (1990: 158).

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have demonstrated.35 He fails to perceive ‘that the plague and monster are forewarnings of a far greater disaster to come’; ‘pietas is ultimately an irrelevant concept, unappreciated and unrewarded’ in this epic; and Apollo’s cosmogonic struggle with the Python, which initiates the action of the aetion, far from leading to human benefit, ‘begins a cycle of violence and destruction’ that will enfold Argos in the fate of Thebes.36 But it remains to connect the aetion with its immediate narrative context, Adrastus’ hospitable reception of his fated sons-in-law and their meeting with his virginal daughters Argia and Deipyle, both of which momentous events precede the king’s account of the origins of the Argive ritual. In view of the figurative relationship that we have traced between Psamathe/Poine and the reproductive demon, however, it will be clear that the Argive rites can portend no good for the marriages and offspring of Adrastus’ nubile daughters. By marrying them to the exiled youths, whose violence on his threshold symbolizes the fratricidal war to come between Thebes and Argos, Adrastus embroils Argos in the recurrent violence to which Thebes is subject. The crisis of contagion that the female monsters of Adrastus’ aetiological narrative embody thus spills into the embedding narrative and pollutes his household. The Flavian poet’s thematization of this crisis of contagion—by now a very well-known reflex of Classical myth exemplified in particular in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and manifestly at work in Statius’ thematically pointed introduction of Medusa and the Ovidian Python into the Callimachean aetiology—extends to the literary level as well.37 For the self-reflexive and intertextual hybridity that is the hallmark of Statian poetic style here (and elsewhere in the epic) finds a compelling analogue in the corporeal hybridity that the monstrous female embodies in the Argive narrative. As is often remarked, ancient literary criticism deployed the vocabulary of the body (corpus) and its limbs (membra) in the analysis of texts and their parts,38 and in this context the hybrid bodies of the snake-women Medusa and Poine may be seen to reflect Statius’ (Ovidian) compositional practice in the Thebaid of mixing even such ‘antithetical’ genres as (Callimachean) elegy and (Virgilian) epic in his narrative of Theban fratricide. Gender too comes in two ‘kinds’, and

35 Bernstein (2008: 76–7). On the failure of warnings in the Thebaid, see Tuttle and Manolaraki, Chs 4 and 5 above. 36 Quotations respectively from Dominik (1994a: 69); Ganiban (2007: 13); McNelis (2007: 36). 37 On Statius’ poetic commitments in the Thebaid, see Gossage (1959); Davis (1994); Hardie (1989; 1993: 88–119); Keith (2002; 2004/5); McNelis (2007). 38 See Most (1992) and Keith (1999), both with further bibliography.

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notoriously informs the Classical hierarchy of genres at Rome in the characterization of epic as ‘masculine’ and elegy as ‘feminine’.39 The crisis of contagion associated in mythic thought with the female body and incarnated in Statius’ Argive aetiology in the monstrous Medusa and Poine thus furnishes another suggestive model for the intergenerational violence that plagues Cadmus and his descendants in the Thebaid.40

39 On the masculinity of epic, see Hinds (2000) and Keith (2000: 1–35); on the femininity of elegy, see Wyke (2002: 11–191). On Statius’ hybrid feminization of epic in the Achilleid, see Hinds (2000) and Heslin (2005). 40 I am grateful to Antony Augoustakis for the invitation to participate in the original conference and for his constructive editorial hand; to Helen Lovatt and the participants of the Flavian Epic Network Statius Workshop at Nottingham in January 2010 for discussion of the issues raised in this paper; to my research assistant Jen Oliver for compiling and locating bibliography; and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for generous support of this research.

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18 Orphic Ritual and Myth in the Thebaid Christopher Chinn

Orphic religion and ritual appear in Latin epic, even in a rather superficial form, from at least the time of Virgil,1 and therefore it is not surprising to detect Orphic allusions in Statius’ Thebaid.2 This chapter examines how Statius refers to Orphic mythology and how he enacts Orphic rituals within the narrative. I first analyse Statius’ description of Harmonia’s necklace in Thebaid 2, and show how this programmatic passage evokes the Orphic theogony. Then I demonstrate how the passage both anticipates and recalls pivotal moments in the narrative where further references to Orphic rituals and stories appear. Finally I offer some readings of these ‘Orphic’ passages within the narrative context of the Thebaid as a whole. As we shall see, the Thebaid ’s references to Orphic mythology and its enactment of Orphic ritual serve to undermine and contradict the arguments and motivations of various central characters in the poem. Thus Statius is able to provide multiple narrative expectations and exploit the potential conflicts that arise between these various expectations.

HARMONIA’S NECKLACE AND ORPHIC RITUAL In the second book, Statius narrates the wedding of Polynices and Argia. Here the poet pauses to describe a necklace given by the Theban exile to 1 On Orphism/Pythagoreanism in Aeneid 6, see Molyviati-Toptsis (1994). Torjussen (2008) is sceptical of Orphic elements in Virgil. O’Hara (2007: 93–4) sees Orphism as at least a superficial element in the Aeneid. 2 I use the term ‘Orphic’ loosely to refer to religious and quasi-religious phenomena associated with Orpheus or supposedly Orphic texts. On the difficulty of an exact definition, see Guthrie (1966: 6–23); Burkert (1982; 1985: 296); West (1983: 1–3). Cf. Lovatt (2007) on Orpheus as a metapoetic figure in Statius’ Siluae.

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his bride as a wedding present. The necklace is an heirloom of the Theban house, originally worn by Harmonia, Cadmus’ wife: Lemnius haec, ut prisca fides, Mauortia longum furta dolens, capto postquam nil obstat amori poena nec ultrices castigauere catenae, Harmoniae dotale decus sub luce iugali struxerat. hoc, docti quamquam maiora, laborant Cyclopes, notique operum Telchines amica certatim iuuere manu; sed plurimus ipsi sudor. ibi arcano florentes igne zmaragdos cingit et infaustas percussum adamanta figuras Gorgoneosque orbes Siculaque incude relictos fulminis extremi cineres uiridumque draconum lucentes a fronte iubas; hic flebile germen Hesperidum3 et dirum Phrixei uelleris aurum; tum uarias pestes raptumque interplicat atro Tisiphones de crine ducem, et quae pessima ceston uis probat; haec circum spumis lunaribus unguit callidus atque hilari perfundit cuncta ueneno. non hoc Pasithea blandarum prima sororum, non Decor Idaliusque puer, sed Luctus et Irae et Dolor et tota pressit Discordia dextra. (2.269–88) ‘The Lemnian, as the old belief goes, who had long resented Mars’ stolen pleasures, when punishment failed to hinder detected love and avenging chains to castigate, had wrought this for Harmonia, dotal adornment on her wedding day. The Cyclopes worked on it, though they were used to greater labours, and the skilled Telchines lent friendly hands in emulation. But he himself sweated most of all. Around it he sets a circle of emeralds flowering with hidden fire, adamant stamped with ill-omened shapes, Gorgon eyes, ashes of a thunderbolt end left on Sicilian anvil, crests shining from the heads of green serpents. Here is tearful fruit of the Hesperides and the dire gold of the Phrixus’ fleece. Then he entwines various harms, a chieftain torn from Tisiphone’s black hair and the most noxious of the powers that attest the girdle. These he cunningly smears about with lunar foam and over the whole spreads gay poison. Not Pasithea, first of the lovely sisters, nor Beauty, nor the Idalian boy shaped it, but Mourning and Anger and Grief and Strife.’

This passage contains several metaliterary references, and invites a metaliterary interpretation.4 Here, however, I would like to focus on 3

Poynton (1963: 259), followed by Hall et al. (2007), emends P’s Hesperidum to Heliadum. McNelis (2007: 68–75). See also my extensive discussion of the Orphic and Homeric intertexts (2011). 4

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how the scene evokes Orphic myth and ritual. My argument rests upon a constellation of obscure references within the scene that, taken together, point to the Orphic stories of the deaths of Zeus and Dionysus, and to the role of the groups of daimones in those stories.5 To begin, I examine an allusion to Homer’s tale of Hera’s seduction of Zeus in Iliad 14. Statius provides two references that point to this story. The first is his reference to the cestos, a ‘girdle’ or charm owned by Aphrodite–Venus (Theb. 2.283).6 The second is the negative reference to Pasithea, one of the Graces (2.286). In the Iliad Hera borrows Aphrodite’s cestos in order to implement her plan of seducing Zeus (Il. 14.214–15). Later she agrees to allow Sleep to marry Pasithea as a reward for his complicity in her scheme (14.275–6). One memorable aspect of the story is the lie Hera tells first to Aphrodite, then to Zeus, about her intentions to visit Oceanus and Tethys in order to reconcile them (14.200–1; cf. 14.301–2). Hera’s lie offers an alternative cosmology, in which Oceanus and Tethys are a primeval couple ( ŒÆ , ŁH ªØ, ŒÆd Å æÆ ÅŁ, ‘Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys’, 14.201). Scholars have long noted how Hera’s cosmological lie appears to have an Orphic flavour, and point to a passage in Plato where the comparison between Homer and the Orphic texts is explicitly made: after quoting Hera’s words, Plato goes on to cite an Orphic poem, in which Oceanus is the first to marry and chooses his sister Tethys (Pl. Cra. 402b = OF 15 Kern).7 Statius’ necklace episode alludes to the Iliad 14 story as a way to emphasize the theme of marital strife. Statius’ Vulcan makes the necklace in order to take revenge upon his wife and her lover (Theb. 2.269–71). In Homer, marital strife is present both in Hera’s plans to seduce her husband and in the alleged marital difficulties experienced by Oceanus and Tethys. Furthermore, Statius’ necklace invites other theogonic/ cosmological associations which reinforce the intertext (via Homer) with the Orphic theogony. First, the reference to the Cyclopes and their creation of Jupiter’s thunderbolts (2.278–9) evokes the gigantomachy, a prevalent episode in most Greek theogonies. Second, by having Vulcan make a necklace to trouble the female line of the Theban house, Statius alludes to the story of Pandora, whom Hephaestus creates (Hes. Op. 60–3) to trouble humankind, and who is also adorned with a necklace that is given by the Graces (73–4). Thus it seems that Statius means for us to read his allusions to Iliad 14 both in terms of their 5 6 7

On the daimones, see Blakely (2006: 13–31). On Aphrodite’s cestos, see Faraone (1990: 220–29). Janko (1985: 180–81); cf. also West (1983: 116–21).

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employment of the theme of marital strife and in terms of its Orphic and theogonic associations. An allusion to Iliad 14 in Catullus illustrates another aspect of Statius’ reference. Catullus connects the god Sleep and his wife Pasithea to the story of Attis (Catul. 63.42–3).8 This allusion serves to link the Iliad with the ecstatic rituals associated with Cybele and Corybantic dancing, both of which are prominent in the Attis story. Orphic mythology is also concerned with ritual dancing and noise, particularly in the story of the Curetes and the infant Zeus (cf. OF 151 Kern).9 The similarity between the Cretan Curetes and the Phrygian Corybantes seems to have caused confusion in antiquity, as is best seen in Strabo’s discussion (Str. 10.3.7). Strabo also points out that the names of the various groups of daimones (Curetes, Corybantes, Dactyls, Cabiri, and Telchines) are often used interchangeably. An example of this conflation in Roman poetry may be seen in Lucretius, who compares the worshippers of the Great Mother (properly named Corybantes) to the Curetes (Lucr. 2.629–39).10 As we shall see, Statius evokes this same set of associations in his necklace scene. In particular, there is a series of references, both in Statius’ necklace scene and in the Thebaid more generally, to the Curetes and their role either in the story of Jupiter’s birth on Crete or in one of the doublets of the story. Statius emphasizes the role of the Telchines in the creation of Harmonia’s necklace (2.274–5).11 The Telchines in particular have many religious and ritualistic associations,12 one of which may be found in Strabo (Str. 10.3.19): the geographer connects the Telchines, not the Curetes, with Zeus’ birth on Crete. This association is supported by Diodorus, who claims that the Telchines help raise the infant Poseidon (D. S. 5.55.1), a doublet of the story of Zeus’ Cretan birth. Thus Statius’ own reference to the Telchines at the outset of the necklace description could by itself indicate a reference to the Cretan story. By including the Telchines and the Hesperides (2.274 and 280–81), Statius’ necklace description refers to a further doublet of Cretan mythology, namely the death of Dionysus at the hands of the Titans—a

8

On this passage see Clay (1995: 152–3); Takács (1996: 379–80); Harder (2004: 584–5). West (1983: 127). 10 On this passage, see Summers (1996). 11 McNelis (2007: 68–75). 12 On the ritual and mythological associations of the Telchines, see Blakely (2006: 15–16). On their Callimachean associations, see Cameron (1995: 185–232) and Spanoudakis (2001: 433–7). 9

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distinctly Orphic tale, as Olympiodorus attests (Olymp. In Phd. 1.3).13 Clement of Alexandria (OF 34 Kern) paraphrases and then quotes from an Orphic poem in which the Titans lure the infant Dionysus from the protection of the Curetes by using, among other objects and toys, the apples of the Hesperides.14 In addition, Statius exploits the story of Dionysus and the Titans by means of the following. First, the names of the daimones are interchangeable once again. Himerius gives a version of the death of Dionysus in which the Titans themselves are called Telchines (Him. Or. 45). Although Himerius does not replace the dancing Curetes with the Telchines, his reference suggests a connection between the Dionysus story and the Telchines. This connection is significant for Statius’ readers because, as we have seen, the Flavian poet emphasizes the role of the Telchines in the creation of Harmonia’s necklace. Second, in his list of toys for the baby Dionysus, Clement includes a mirror, made by Hephaestus, according to Proclus (OF 209 Kern). In Statius, Vulcan is the creator of another harmful object, which has Orphic associations also. Moreover, the necklace alludes to another group of daimones, the Dactyls, in connection with Orpheus and the story of Zeus’ death on Crete. These allusions are activated primarily through an oblique reference to the names of the three original Dactyls. Specifically, the anonymous epic Phoronis (Schol. ad A. R. 1.1126) lists the names of the Dactyls as Celmis, Damnameneus, and Acmon; they are linked to Hephaestus. Vulcan/Hephaestus is obviously crucial to Statius’ necklace description, which itself alludes to the names of the Dactyls: as Heinsius points out, Statius’ use of the word adamas (2.277) could be a reference to the Dactyl Celmis,15 who turns into iron after outraging the goddess Hera. For instance, Ovid (Met. 4.281–4) mentions Celmis’ transformation into adamas. Furthermore, Statius adds the adjective percussum (‘stamped’) to modify adamanta (2.277), thus alluding to the action implied by the name of the second Dactyl, Damnameneus (‘Hammerer’). Finally, Statius’ reference to anvils (2.278) suggests the name of the third Dactyl, Acmon (‘Anvil’). As Diodorus informs us, Orpheus used to be a pupil of the Dactyls (D. S. 5.64.4). The Orphic connection to the Dactyls may further be seen in a strange story involving the death of Zeus on Crete. Porphyry (Porph. VP 17) cites the initiation of Pythagoras by the Dactyl Morgus into a type of mystery.16 Pythagoras descends into the cave at 13 See Graf and Johnston (2007: 66–8). For further bibliography, see Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal (2008: 41 n. 137) and Edmonds (2009). 14 See Levaniouk (2007). 15 See the apparatus criticus in Hill’s edn; cf. Ov. Met. 4.281–4. 16 West (1983: 167 n. 90); Blakely (2007: 56–69).

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Mount Ida, stays there for a period of twenty-seven days, sees the throne annually made for the god,17 and finally inscribes an epigram on Zeus’ tomb. In Porphyry’s account it is implied that the Dactyls play the role of the protecting daimones. Statius himself conflates the Dactyls and the Telchines elsewhere in his poetry when he refers to the Telchines as dwelling in ‘Idaean caves’ (Silu. 4.6.47–9). Here Statius seems to be conflating the Idaean Dactyls and Rhodian Telchines and, what is more, does so in the context of a workshop scene involving the Cyclopes and Vulcan. Statius’ references to both the Dactyls and the Telchines add up to a series of allusions to the Orphic Cretan tale. As we have seen thus far, Statius’ necklace description comprises numerous allusions that may be construed as Orphic in nature. These include the references to the Orphic theogony in Iliad 14, to the Telchines (understood in their mythological as opposed to their Callimachean context), to the Hesperides, and to the Idaean Dactyls. It appears that the story of the death of a god (either Zeus or Dionysus) lurks in the background. Furthermore, all these tales involve ritual. Likewise Statius’ necklace description invokes mystic ritual associations, as we can see, for instance, in the description of the emeralds as arcano florentes igne. The adjective arcanus is often associated with mystery cults.18 As we have noted, the necklace scene is programmatic, since it anticipates events in the narrative. Hence the Orphic undertones of the necklace scene may also be understood as participating in the poem’s larger framework. There are several allusions to Orphic ritual in the Thebaid, to which I shall now turn: the council of the gods, Bacchus’ speech to Jupiter, the Hypsipyle episode, and the final book of the poem.

THE CONCILIUM DEORUM The council (1.197–302) opens with a description of the celestial meeting place of the gods and the entrance of Jupiter (1.197–213). A topos in the epic tradition, this episode has direct models in Virgil and Ovid.19 The passage anticipates the necklace ekphrasis by describing the doors to

17

Enthronement is also an important element of the Orphic story of Dionysus’ death; see Graf and Johnston (2007: 67 and n. 3). 18 TLL 2.435.64–436.44. 19 Vessey (1973: 82); Dominik (1994a: 4–7); Taisne (1994: 307. Statius’ description has also been compared to the entrance of an emperor into the Senate house; see Caviglia (1973: 112–13).

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the celestial palace ‘blooming with mystic light’ (arcano florentes lumine, 1.210), a phrase that looks forward to the emeralds on the necklace arcano florentes igne (2.276), as we saw above. Not only does this lexical similarity link the two passages, but the adjective arcanus once again lays stress on the mysterious and possibly ritualistic nature of each of the described objects. With its emphasis on the bright light of the sky, the ‘mystic light’ of the doorposts also provides a striking contrast (sub omni/ . . . die, ‘under every heaven’, 1.200–1; radiant maiore sereno/culmina, ‘the towers shine in a larger blue’, 1.209–10). Furthermore, Jupiter enters the room and sits upon a throne: stellantique . . . solio (‘starry throne’, 1.203). The ritual context of the scene and its concomitant intratextual link to the necklace suggest that Jupiter’s enthronement has ritual qualities also. Enthronement is a common type of ritual initiation,20 and is associated with the story of the death of Zeus on Crete, as we have seen above.21 Moreover, the Orphic version of Dionysus’ death portrays Zeus enthroning Dionysus just before his death at the hands of the Titans (OF 208 and 214 Kern). Finally, ritual enthronement is frequently associated with the daimones, the Curetes and Corybantes in particular,22 and with the Cretan story more generally.23 Upon his entrance, Jupiter declares that he will punish Argos and Thebes for their past misdeeds (1.214–47), to which Juno quickly (1.250– 82) offers a list of nations that should be punished before the Argives.24 Among the list are the Cretans, who are said to lie about Jupiter’s death on their island: placet Ida nocens mentitaque manes/Creta tuos (‘guilty Ide and Crete that tells falsely of your death is to your liking’, 1.278–9). Juno’s allusion to a story involving the Curetes has significance within the context of recurrent references to the daimones in the poem. Even more striking, however, is Juno’s conflation of myth and ritual: the goddess alludes to the story of Jupiter’s death (the content of the Cretans’ lie) and the people’s continuing use of the myth in actual practice. Juno’s conflation of myth and ritual is also apparent in the list of sinful nations to be punished by Jupiter: the Arcadians are said to place shrines in ‘abominable ground’ (1.273–4), while there is a temple to Jove in Olympia, where Oenomaus had once performed his wicked deeds (1.274–8). In all these instances, the ongoing ritual practices are spoiled. Juno’s

20 21 22 23 24

On enthronement, see D. Chr. 12.33 with Clinton (2003: 63). Guthrie (1966: 213); West (1983: 27, 167–8). Pl. Euthd. 277d. Cf. Clinton (2003: 62–5). Sibylline Oracles 8.43–9. See Edmonds (2006: 350). On Juno’s rhetoric, see Dominik (1994a: 11–13) and Hubert, Ch. 6 above.

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speech in general, and her reference to the Cretan story in particular, add to the ambience of ritual and mystery of the concilium deorum.

BACCHUS’ SPEECH Bacchus’ appeal to Jupiter (7.155–92) mirrors Juno’s appeal in book 1. In both instances Jupiter is asked to spare one of the cities that is about to be destroyed. Juno seeks to save Argos, while Bacchus seeks to save Thebes. During his appeal, Bacchus refers to the Curetes and their protection of the infant Jupiter. First he alludes in some detail to elements of the ecstatic rites celebrated by the Thebans (7.168–73) and concludes that the Thebans are not suited to fighting. As a parallel, he mentions the Curetes: quid si ille tuos Curetes in arma/ducat et innocuis iubeat decernere peltis? (‘What if he [Mars] were to lead your Curetes to arms and bid them try the issue with their harmless bucklers?’, 7.173–4). This is a reference to the story of Jupiter’s birth on Crete, as may be gleaned from the emphasis on the adjective tuos. Indeed, Bacchus points to Cretan Ide later in his speech (Minoaue . . . /Ida, ‘Minoan Ide’, 7.187–8) as a place favoured by Jove, as opposed to Thebes, threatened to be destroyed in the upcoming expedition. Although Bacchus’ main point here is to bring up Minos and Rhadamanthys, two more illegitimate sons of Jupiter,25 the reference to the toponym also evokes the story of Jupiter’s birth. But Bacchus’ reference to the Curetes also contains an allusion to the story of Jupiter’s death on Crete: he implies that the Curetes, as weak warriors, had ultimately been unable to protect Jupiter from the Titans (innocuis . . . peltis). Moreover, Bacchus equates Curetic ritual with the Bacchic rituals he describes earlier in this speech: these rituals include ecstatic dancing (ad inspirata rotari/buxa, ‘whirl to the blowing of pipes’, 7.170–71), which, as we have seen, is one of the hallmarks of Curetic ritual. We have also examined how Bacchic and Orphic rituals share Corybantic elements. Statius goes out of his way to establish continuity between the Curetes in the allusion and the description of the Bacchic dancing, and hence evokes Curetic ritual dancing through the comparison. Bacchus’ reference to the Curetes and the Cretan story, however, unlike Juno’s, affirms the truth of the tale, and hence acknowledges the Orphic undercurrents in the narrative. At the same time, however, the

25

Smolenaars (1994: 95).

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reference to the Curetes contradicts some of Bacchus’ basic arguments. Bacchus claims kinship with Epaphus, Minos, and Rhadamanthys, insofar as all of them are children of Jupiter and mortal women (7.185–8).26 Indeed, earlier in his speech Bacchus refers to the famous death of his mother Semele (7.158–9). And yet by affirming the Orphic version of Jupiter’s birth, Bacchus implicitly acknowledges the Orphic version of his own parentage. In Orphic lore Dionysus is born on Crete as the son of Zeus and Persephone, not at Thebes as the son of Zeus and Semele (OF 58 and 303 Kern). Hence Statius’ Bacchus contradicts himself by acknowledging the Cretan story of Jupiter’s birth, while simultaneously claiming that he is the son of Semele. Furthermore, Bacchus’ reference to the Curetes constitutes an implicit acknowledgement of the Orphic version of his own death as an infant, a story which, as we have seen, functions as a doublet of the Jupiter story. In terms of theogonic narratives, Bacchus wants to have it both ways. On the one hand the Theban story of his birth is convenient because it provides a parallel to Epaphus, Minos, and Rhadamanthys and thus serves his arguments. On the other hand, he employs the Cretan story of Jupiter’s (and his own) birth in order to emphasize the weakness of the Thebans.

THE NEMEAN EPISODE In the Nemean episode, the reader is exposed to three instances linked to Curetic ritual and the deaths of Zeus and Dionysus. Both the framing narrative and Hypsipyle’s embedded tale point either directly or indirectly to aspects of mystery religion.27 As the Argive army marches towards Thebes, Bacchus causes all the sources of water to dry up (4.652–729). Desperately thirsty, the Argive army finally (near the end of book 4) encounters Hypsipyle, who directs them to the last remaining river in the area. The former queen of Lemnos has been reduced to the status of nursemaid and is taking care of the infant son of King Lycurgus. It is in this role that she is compared to the goddess Cybele: qualis Berecyntia mater, dum paruum circa iubet exultare Tonantem Curetas trepidos; illi certantia plaudunt orgia, sed magnis resonat uagitibus Ide. (4.789–92) 26

Bacchus does not employ Hercules (cf. 7.189–90) as an example in his kinship argument. Given Hercules’ parentage, however, it does serve to reinforce that argument. 27 On the Hypsipyle episode, see Hubert, Bernstein, and Ganiban, Chs 6, 13, and 14 above.

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‘Like the Berecyntian Mother, when she bids the trembling Curetes dance around the infant Thunderer. They strike their mystic drums in competition, but Ide resounds with his mighty wails.’

Here we can discern a conflation of the role of the Curetes in the Cretan story of Jupiter’s birth and the ecstatic rituals involving the worshippers of Cybele, the Corybantes.28 From as early as Hellenistic times Orpheus is considered to be the founder of the Corybantic rituals in honour of the Great Mother, herself conflated with Rhea (whose connections with the Curetes have been noted).29 Hence Statius’ connection between the Curetes and Cybele constitutes an Orphic gesture. The Flavian poet also describes the Curetes here as timid, and asserts that the infant Jupiter’s cries are heard despite the Curetes’ noisy dancing. As such, the reference points to the version of the story in which the Curetes fail to protect Jupiter from the Titans. The subsequent narrative reinforces this interpretation, as we are faced with the death of an infant: nominally under Hypsipyle’s protection, Opheltes is killed, albeit inadvertently, by a giant snake (5.538–40). In addition, Statius’ description of the funeral rites for Opheltes contains parallels to Curetic ritual, inasmuch as the latter involves the clashing of arms.30 The Argive soldiers march around the infant’s pyre and clash their weapons: inlisaque telis/tela sonant, quater horrendum pepulere fragorem/arma (‘Weapons clash on weapons, four times shields beat out a fearsome din’, 6.217–19). In addition, Hypsipyle’s embedded narration of the Lemnian slaughter contains a number of connections to the Thebaid ’s Orphic concerns and several direct references to ritual practices. First, we may note that Statius stresses both the traditional association of Lemnos with Vulcan (5.49– 50) and Venus’ responsibility for the atrocity perpetrated by the Lemnian women (5.58–74). The combination of Vulcan and Venus here reminds the reader of the necklace scene,31 and hence the ritual references there. Moreover, there are further direct connections between the Lemnian story and ritual. Philostratus (Philostr. Her. 53.5–8) informs us that the story of the Lemnian women and the Argonauts is associated with a particular kind of fire ritual on Lemnos, which Burkert has connected

28 On the relationships between Corybantic, Bacchic, and Orphic rituals, see Robertson (2003: 221–2). 29 A. R. 1.1143–9. Cf. West (1983: 27). On the various names assigned to the Great Mother, see Pachis (1996: 199). On Medea as Cybele, see Fucecchi’s discussion in Ch. 1 above. On an important intertext with Statius’ Achilleid (1.828–32) and the dancing ritual there involving Cybele, the Curetes, and the Corybantes, see Panoussi, Ch. 19 below. 30 Cf. A. R. 1.1123–39, where Orpheus organizes an armed dance in honour of the Dactyls. 31 Cf. McNelis (2007: 91).

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with Hephaestus.32 Although the Lemnian fire ritual has no direct connection to Orphic rites or myth, the link between Lemnos, rituals, and Hephaestus/Vulcan in the Thebaid invites such a comparison. The ritualistic impression of Statius’ Lemnian episode is reinforced by several aspects of the narrative itself. In relating the slaughter of the Lemnian men, Hypsipyle narrates her father’s escape and her performance of a false funeral rite. Her description of the ‘funeral’ exploits the Orphic intertexts present in the Thebaid and resembles a ritual of enthronement: ipsa quoque arcanis tecti in penetralibus alto molior igne pyram, sceptrum super armaque patris inicio et notas regum uelamina uestes, ac prope maesta rogum confusis crinibus asto ense cruentato, fraudemque et inania busta plango metu . . . . . . regna et solio considere patris (supplicium!) datur. (5.313–18, 321–2) ‘I too fashion a pyre with high flames in my secret chambers. I cast upon it my father’s weapons, sceptre, and his famous clothes, the coverings of kings. Grieving, I stand near the pyre with dishevelled hair and bloody sword. I fearfully lament the cheat, the empty mound . . . It was given me to reign and sit upon my father’s throne—punishment!’

At the opening of this passage Hypsipyle describes the location in which she constructs the pyre in terms that recall both the necklace description and the concilium deorum. The phrase arcanis . . . in penetralibus recalls the arcano . . . igne of the necklace (2.276) and the arcano . . . lumine emanating from the doors of the gods’ palace (1.210).33 As we have seen, both these passages allude to the Cretan story, and the concilium episode in particular evokes ritual enthronement. Hypsipyle not only performs a funeral ritual here but also describes the event as leading immediately to her enthronement as the monarch of Lemnos (solio considere patris/ . . . datur). Furthermore, there are numerous references to Orphic ritual throughout the Lemnian episode,34 inasmuch as Orphic and Bacchic rituals share many features in common.35 Specifically, the Bacchic allusions in the Lemnian episode comprise elements that may be associated with rituals involving Cybele, whose Orphic connections we have already noted. In terms of ritual, Valerius Flaccus is Statius’ model for the 32

Burkert (1970: 3–6; 1983: 190–96). Vessey (1970b: 47) connects this scene with the funeral for Opheltes. For the relationship between Bacchic rituals and rituals in honour of Cybele (in the context of Catul. 63), see Takács (1996: 379). 35 Robertson (2003). 33 34

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Lemnian episode: Valerius portrays Hypsipyle engaging in a mockBacchic purification rite, while she attempts to save her father Thoas (V. Fl. 2.257–76).36 Statius takes his cue from Valerius and introduces several Bacchic ritual elements into his Lemnian narration. Instead of having Hypsipyle engage in a mock ritual, Statius introduces an actual epiphany of Bacchus (Theb. 5.265–86),37 while Hypsipyle later engages in a mock funeral. Moreover, Statius’ Polyxo, the instigator of the massacre, is compared to a Bacchant (5.92–4) who is summoned by the ‘Idaean boxwood instrument’ (Idaeaque . . . /buxus, 5.93–4). The detail suggests Cybele’s rites38 and alludes to the cymbals and drums with which Valerius’ Hypsipyle conceals her father (V. Fl. 2.266–7).39 After comparing her to a Bacchant, Statius portrays Polyxo haranguing the Lemnian women and then summoning them to a grove (5.152–4), where they seal their pact with the sacrifice of a young boy (5.155–63). The sacrifice recalls both Bacchic myth and the Bacchic sparagmos (‘tearing of flesh’) ritual,40 as well as the Orphic stories in which the infant Zeus/Dionysus is killed. There are also links between the ritualistic behaviour of the Lemnian women and Hypsipyle’s own actions. Hypsipyle at first hides her father within a sacred grove (5.250), a setting that recalls the human sacrifice scene. The passage in which Hypsipyle builds a pyre for her (now absent) father (5.313–19) also exploits the human sacrifice scene, since Hypsipyle ritually enacts the killing of her father (ense cruentato). It has been pointed out that there is a certain amount of ambiguity as to whether Hypsipyle actually does rescue her father.41 Hypsipyle’s bloody sword and her strange self-identification with Alcimede (5.236–41), coupled with ambiguous statements by both Hypsipyle42 and Bacchus,43 suggest that Thoas might actually have been killed. The issue is meant to remain ambiguous, as there are also indications that Thoas does manage to escape the slaughter.44 However, compared

36

On all the models of this scene see Taisne (1994: 238–44). On the ritual disguises of Thoas and Hypsipyle in Valerius, see Poortvliet (1991: 159–63). 37 On this connection, see Vessey (1970b: 47). 38 Cf. Aen. 9.617–20; Bremmer (2004: 562–3). Cf. Bacchic boxwood flutes elsewhere in the Thebaid (7.170–71 and 8.221–2). 39 Cf. Hershkowitz (1998a: 47–8). 40 Hershkowitz (1998a: 47–8). Cf. 11.315–20 and 12.786–94. 41 Nugent (1996). 42 Cf. 5.318–19: ‘I pray that the omen bring no harm to my parent and that doubting fears of his death be so discharged.’ 43 Cf. 5.277: infandam natae concessit honorem (‘To his daughter he has given a heinous privilege’). By natae does Bacchus mean Venus (= Jupiter’s daughter) or Hypsipyle (= Thoas’ daughter) herself? 44 With Bacchus’ help Hypsipyle manages to lead Thoas to the sea and set him adrift (5.284–95).

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with Valerius’ account, in which Thoas’ escape to Italy is explicitly documented and in which Hypsipyle is unambiguously praised, Statius’ account is ambivalent. Hypsipyle’s ‘funeral’ for her father contributes to the overall ritualistic character of the episode. As we have observed, Statius’ Nemean episode engages with the Orphic strand in the Thebaid in manifold ways. First of all, the digression comprises a series of ritual initiations. The death and burial of Opheltes is embellished by the comparison of Hypsipyle to Cybele, surrounded by the Curetes, and by the lament of the Argives’ clashing of arms. The Lemnian women’s human sacrifice and Hypsipyle’s ‘enthronement’ also resemble initiation rites. These ‘initiations’ point both to the narrative of the death of Jupiter/Bacchus on Crete and to the Curetic rituals associated with it. Second, there is an emphasis on Curetic and Bacchic noisy dancing both in the frame and in the embedded narrative. In addition to the Cybele simile and the Curetic-style dancing of the Argives, there is the reference to Bacchic ecstatic dancing in the simile that describes Polyxo. Third, Statius emphasizes the horror of the rituals in the Lemnian episode in accordance with the frightening aspects of initiations, such as enthronement.45 Both the real human sacrifice of the boy during the Lemnian women’s tryst and Hypsipyle’s own substitute immolation of her father lay stress on the violence of each of these quasi-ritual acts. Fourth, there is the connection between the Lemnian episode and the pair of Vulcan and Venus, which serves to link the Lemnian episode to the necklace scene and, by extension, to the Orphic elements of that scene. Finally, there is the role of Bacchus himself in the Nemean episode. Not only does he instigate the encounter between the Argives and Hypsipyle, but he also brings the episode to a close with his speech in book 7, a speech that includes references to the Curetes and the Cretan story. We also encounter in the Nemean episode several paradoxes with regard to the Orphic references. The first may be seen in connection with the roles of Venus and Vulcan. Vulcan’s Orphic ‘intentions’ are clearly present in both the Nemean episode and in the embedded Lemnian tale. The necklace description is activated in the Lemnian story through references to Venus and Vulcan, since Lemnos is Vulcan’s island, and the necklace’s Orphic allusions are enacted within the story in the form of its strange rituals. And yet it is principally Venus who lies behind the acts narrated in the Lemnian massacre. Just as Vulcan employs Venus’ cestos in the making of his necklace in book 2, so does

45

On the frightening aspects of enthronement, see Edmonds (2006: 352–8).

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Venus seem to encourage Vulcan’s Orphic rituals in the acts in the Lemnian tale in book 5. Indeed, Venus’ actions serve partially to delay the narrative outcome that Vulcan promotes earlier in the poem.46 This symmetry reflects a larger contamination of motive in the Thebaid. It has long been recognized that the Lemnian episode replays and anticipates many aspects of the larger narrative of the Thebaid.47 In terms of narrative cause and effect, two of the principal motivators of the action in the poem, Jupiter and Tisiphone, are now represented by Venus in the Lemnian story. Venus’ anger is the cause of the terrible acts on Lemnos (5.57–60), just as Jupiter’s anger motivates the war (1.214–47). On the other hand, Venus in her anger is said to take the form of a Fury in the Lemnian story (5.64–9), paralleling the role of Tisiphone throughout the poem. In the main narrative, however, there is also a third level of motivation, namely Vulcan’s anger:48 Opheltes’ tragic death is the indirect result of Vulcan’s actions, inasmuch as Vulcan and his necklace lie, at least partially, behind the slide into war. Finally, the Nemean episode is motivated by Bacchus, who causes the drought that leads to the encounter between Hypsipyle and the Argives. We have seen how Bacchus affirms the Cretan story in his speech in book 7. As a motivator of the Nemean episode, however, he is partially responsible for the Curetic rituals in it. We have already noted how Bacchus’ appropriation of Orphic themes in his speech implies a contradiction between these themes and his employment of the standard stories concerning his birth. Hence Bacchus’ involvement in the Nemean episode enacts an Orphic context in the narrative that paves the way for the mythological contradictions in his speech. The Nemean episode emphasizes the paradoxes in Bacchus’ argument, which we have discussed in the previous section.

ARGIA We have noted above how Statius, when he compares Hypsipyle to the Great Mother, associates the Curetes with Cybele. We have also discussed how this association links the Corybantic rituals of the Great Mother to the Orphic Cretan story. In the final book of the poem, we find

46 48

47 McNelis (2007: 76–7). Vessey (1973: 173–5). McNelis (2007: 11–12, 61–8).

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another reference to the rituals of the Great mother. During her search for the body of Polynices, Argia is compared to a Corybant:49 nocte uelut Phrygia cum lamentata resultant Dindyma, pinigeri rapitur Simoentis ad amnem dux uesana chori, cuius dea sanguine lecto ipsa dedit ferrum et uittata fronde notauit. (12.224–7) ‘Just as when, during a Phrygian night, Dindymus resounds with lamentation, the maddened leader of the band whirls to the streams of pine-bearing Simois. The goddess herself gives the knife that draws the blood she chose, and she marks her devotee with wool-bound wreath.’

The ecstatic dancing described here occurs over a wide geographic context within Phrygia. At first we are invited to visualize Mount Dindymus in central Phrygia, a natural association for the cult of Cybele. The toponyms are quickly followed by a reference to the Simois river, which flows from Mount Ida near Troy (nearer the coast). This association is also expected, since Attis castrates himself near Trojan Ida. Indeed, the reference to the dux uesana chori recalls Catullus 63 and the madness of Attis described there.50 But the toponym also suggests Mount Ide on Crete, the ‘Orphic’ birthplace of Zeus. The use of the feminine adjective uesana points to Argia herself, but also refers to Catullus’ grammatical gender-bending Attis, who has been transformed into a female.51 Since Statius portrays the goddess providing her worshipper with a knife ( ferrum), a direct comparison with Attis is implied. Myth and ritual are thus mixed again, as we are presented on the one hand with ritual action, the presence of a group of worshippers, and, on the other hand, with allusions to the Attis story itself. In light of the Hypsipyle simile in book 4, and the subsequent Curetic references, the reference to a chorus of worshippers of Cybele in the final book suggests again the Orphic Cretan story. The habitual conflation of daimones (the Corybantes and Curetes), of Cybele and Rhea,52 and of the various forms of ritual dancing serve to evince an Orphic context here. The comparison of Argia to a Corybant places the heroine also within the Orphic metanarrative of the Thebaid. Argia’s principal act in the final book is an actual ritual, specifically the cremation of Polynices’ body

49

Pollmann (2004: 143). The simile is modelled on Virg. Aen. 9.617–20; cf. Theb. 4.378– 82. On Argia in general, see most recently Augoustakis (2010: 75–91) and Bessone (2011: 200–23) for further bibliography. 50 Attis participates in a Corybantic chorus (Catul. 63.30) and is named as its furibunda . . . / . . . dux (‘maddened female leader’, Catul. 63.31–2). 51 52 Pollmann (2004: 143). Robertson (2003: 239).

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(12.409–36).53 As David Vessey has pointed out, Statius hints that there is a connection between Argia’s cremation of Polynices and Hypsipyle’s false cremation of Thoas in book 5.54 But the comparison of Argia to a maddened worshipper of Cybele suggests an affinity to Polyxo (who is compared to a Bacchant) rather than Hypsipyle (who is compared to Cybele herself) in the Lemnian episode. This negative association serves partially to undermine the pietas of Argia’s act (cf. 12.186). In addition to resembling Hypsipyle’s false cremation of Thoas, Argia’s cremation of Polynices begins to approximate the human sacrifice instigated by Polyxo. Within the Orphic subtext, Argia’s actions serve as much as an example of continuing strife as of piety.

CONCLUSION Statius deploys allusions to Orphic myth to provide an alternative narrative background to the Thebaid, while at the same time exploiting allusions to Orphic ritual in a way that re-enacts these Orphic myths. Orphic stories that involve the deaths of deities and that feature the daimones constitute a type of alternative theogony in the poem. On the one hand, these stories are enacted in the narrative through references to rituals associated with the Orphic tales. On the other, there are times when the narrative itself assumes the form of the various ritual patterns to which it alludes. Taken together, the allusions in the Thebaid to Orphic ritual and myth serve to create a cosmological backdrop against which characters’ intentions may be measured. As we have seen, Orphic stories and rituals are related to the intentions of Jupiter and Vulcan. When other characters allude to the Orphic stories, their own intentions may be evaluated. Furthermore, as we have seen frequently, Orphic ritual lends narrative validity to the intentions of Jupiter and Vulcan. Statius exploits the potential for narrative conflict by showcasing the contradictions between characters’ intentions and the ‘Orphic’ expectations of the narrative.55

53 On the burning of Polynices’ body and pollution, see Dee, Ch. 10 above; on Argia’s prayer to Adrastus in book 3, see Hubert, Ch. 6 above. 54 Vessey (1970b: 47). 55 This chapter is the companion to an earlier article (Chinn 2011), with which there is some overlap. I would like to the thank the participants of the 2010 conference at the University of Illinois for their helpful comments and suggestions. Above all, I would like to thank Antony Augoustakis for organizing the conference and editing this volume.

19 Dancing in Scyros Masculinity and Young Women’s Rituals in the Achilleid Vassiliki Panoussi

Statius’ Achilleid presents Achilles in the remote island of Scyros, wearing a dress, and confined to the company of young women. Scholars have identified Achilles’ stint in Scyros as part of a larger narrative strategy dramatizing his transition from adolescent boy to adult warrior.1 In this chapter, I shift the focus of analysis from Achilles to the rituals of the girls of Scyros, and argue that female ritual activity is used to express and emphasize female agency and power. The performance of rituals, especially dances, serves as a marker of the power of the girls’ sexuality and desirability. Their association with the Amazons in this context also enhances their representation as resistant of traditional gender roles and hierarchies. The girls’ power, however, does not appear to threaten the essence of masculinity: Achilles is represented as a male through a repeated narrative focus on his tremendous physicality. Nevertheless, the girls’ ritual dance performance succeeds in manipulating and even thwarting the manifestation of Achilles’ bursting masculinity and by extension its successful correlation with martial prowess, an important indicator of true manliness. Ritual activity in literature is often used as a marker of gender, and Statius’ Achilleid is no exception.2 Ephebic rituals provide girls with the necessary preparation for their religious duties, domestic and civic, which they will be performing throughout their lives as wives and 1 2

See, most recently, Heslin (2005: 205–36). See Panoussi (2007b: 114–34).

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mothers;3 these rituals constitute a medium through which some aspects of female socialization are inculcated, while being also a way of containing and controlling emerging female sexuality. Religious activities, however, also offer the girls opportunities for social participation, which brings them into contact with men and thus entails risks for the preservation of their chastity and threatens to upset social protocols which demand that the husband be the sole proprietor of a woman’s sexual abilities and powers. For example, in the Achilleid, as in other genres and in comedy in particular, religious festivals afford opportunities for respectable girls to get into trouble.4 In Statius’ Achilleid (1.285–92), the girls are first presented as a group making offerings to ‘Pallas of the Beach’ (Palladi litoreae, 1.285). When a little later in the narrative Thetis asks Lycomedes to accept Achilles as his ward, she provides a description of the appropriate activities that will keep Achilles, who is now metamorphosed into a girl, ‘in her sex’ (sexu . . . tene, 1.356), effectively making the argument that gender is constructed through a repeated series of performative actions and not simply through biology.5 Indeed, as we shall see, the poem repeatedly confirms this notion by pitting Achilles’ amazing, overwhelming physicality against the girls’ ritual performance and having the latter succeed in overpowering it every time. The girls are themselves depicted as doing their own gender-bending, inasmuch as they are consistently portrayed through references to the Amazons (1.353, 1.760, 1.833). Amazons are the quintessential emblem of female power and thus underscore the girls’ agency through their participation in and performance of religious duties. Furthermore, by making the girls engage in rites which are mostly Bacchic in nature, Statius further reinforces the theme of gender-bending, as Maenadism routinely involves negation of social protocols.6 In the Achilleid, then, the girls’ role underscores the rather modern notion that masculinity is constructed and performed socially and is not simply determined through biology. Achilles’ physicality and maleoriented education are introduced early on in the poem and are never truly endangered in Scyros. Quite the opposite: Achilles manages to impregnate Deidamia, an act that proclaims his masculinity. Achilles, however, is effectively hidden by the dancing girls repeatedly; the poem 3

Dillon (2002: 4). See Heslin (2005: 147 and n. 9), on Menander’s Epitrepontes and Terence’s Hecyra, where rape takes place during a Dionysiac festival at night. 5 Butler (1990). 6 See Panoussi (2003: 102–3, 105–6). 4

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thus shows female ritual activity as capable of containing (or at least delaying) even an overwhelming physicality, such as Achilles’, and of obstructing the performance of gender.7 In what follows, I shall argue that the girls’ power and agency are indicated through three main areas: the power of their beauty/sexuality to attract and potentially dominate men; their association with Amazons; and their performance of Bacchic rituals. An analysis of these narrative strategies demonstrates that Statius puts to unique and interesting use what are considered traditional and rather typical motifs surrounding the activities of women, investing them with an exceptional power and agency that appears capable of posing a real threat to the full articulation of masculinity.

GENDER AS PERFORMANCE Statius’ constructionist view of gender as performance is vividly outlined in Thetis’ speech to King Lycomedes as she seeks to convince him to take Achilles into his custody: ‘hanc tibi’ ait ‘nostri germanam, rector, Achillis— nonne uides ut torua genas aequandaque fratri?— tradimus. arma umeris arcumque animosa petebat ferre et Amazonio conubia pellere ritu, sed mihi curarum satis est pro stirpe uirili. haec calathos et sacra ferat, tu frange regendo indocilem sexuque tene, dum nubilis aetas soluendusque pudor. neue exercere proteruas gymnadas aut lustris nemorum concede uagari. intus ale et similes inter seclude puellas . . . ’ (1.350–59) ‘I give this girl, oh king, the sister of Achilles (see you not how fierce she looks, how like her brother?) into your keeping. High-mettled, she asked for weapons on her shoulders and a bow, asked to shun wedlock Amazon fashion. But I have enough to worry about on my man-child’s account. Let her convey the baskets and the holy things, do you rule and tame the forward wench and keep her in her sex, till it is time for marriage and relaxing of modesty. Do not let her practise wanton races or wander in woodland wilds. Raise her indoors, shut her among girls like herself . . . ’

7

The girls’ performative power also indicates a power of artistry of a feminine artistic voice that is pitted against the epic male voice. So the role of women reflects not only social tensions but also generic and metapoetic ones.

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Thetis enumerates the activities of girls of premarital age: one of their duties is to carry various ‘religious items’ (sacra) needed for cult rituals and baskets in particular. ‘Girls bearing baskets’ (ŒÆÅçæØ) are mentioned in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (641–6), where a young Athenian girl’s ritual duties are enumerated; this then becomes a topos in the literature and iconography of young girls, in addition to dancing and singing. The girls in Lycomedes’ court engage in all these activities. In his monograph on the religious roles of Classical Greek girls and women, Matthew Dillon rightly posits: ‘these roles were open to girls and adolescent women partly because as they were unmarried they had no other responsibilities; once married, public roles as these, particularly in a city such as Athens, were presumably thought inappropriate for them as wives of Athenian citizens. But the virgin status of girls must have been a factor in their filling these roles: in serving as attendants bringing the sacrificial items their purity was doubtless important.’8 Not only is their purity significant, but also, I would add, it is visually reinforced and emphasized. The tension between ‘nature’ vs. ‘culture’ or between the essence and performance of gender is also revealed in the emphasis Thetis places on the safeguarding of the chastity and virginity of Achilles-as-a-girl. This tension is expressed in terms that also typically describe girls of premarital age in Greek and Roman literature as inherently wild and in need of taming ( frange regendo; indocilis): marriage is, of course, the medium through which this taming will take place and which will ensure their complete integration in society as wives and mothers.9 Thetis portrays the performance of ritual duty as constitutive of this containment of Achilles-as-a-girl’s wild nature, in that both these strategies will ‘keep her in her sex’ (sexu . . . tene) until marriage. The goddess’ remarks, however, reveal some of the tensions those ritual activities entail: she refers to them as gymnadas, a word first attested in Statius,10 and one that describes athletic contests of various sorts including not only wrestling (which may be perceived as more appropriate for adolescent boys) but also boxing or racing; it could also be describing the contestants collectively.11 To be sure, athletic contests are important in various cult activities of young girls, especially in Sparta.12 Yet evidence exists of what are believed to be

8

Dillon (2002: 37). On these ideas about girls, see Panoussi (2003; 2007a) on Catullus and marriage rituals. 10 Statius uses the word five times (Silu. 2.2.8, 3.1.44, 4.2.48; Theb. 4.106), elsewhere in the singular, though. 11 Dilke (2005: 109). 12 Cf. Prop. 3.14.4 and Ov. Her. 16.151–2; see Ripoll and Soubiran (2008: 205). 9

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mock ritual races in Attica that involve nudity, in the context of the ritual of IæŒ EÆ (‘she-bears’) for Artemis at Brauron.13 The risks that a display of such activities poses for the girls’ chastity is obvious in Thetis’ use of the adjective proteruas (‘impudent’, ‘shameless’, ‘forward’; cf. OLD s.v. 2) to describe them and her injunction to Lycomedes not to allow them to tend to such practices (neue exercere . . . concede). The importance of performance of specific roles as determinant of sex resurfaces in the ‘courting’ scene between Achilles, now a woman, and the unsuspecting Deidamia: nunc nimius lateri non euitantis inhaeret, nunc leuibus sertis nunc lapsis sponte canistris nunc thyrso parcente ferit, modo dulcia notae fila lyrae tenuesque modos et carmina monstrat Chironis ducitque manum digitosque sonanti infringit citharae, nunc occupat ora canentis et ligat amplexus et mille per oscula laudat. illa libens discit quo uertice Pelion et quis Aeacides puerique auditum nomen et actus adsidue stupet et praesentem cantat Achillem. inque uicem et ualidos proferre modestius artus et tenuare rudes attrito pollice lanas demonstrat reficitque colus et perdita dura pensa manu; (1.570–83) ‘Now he clings too closely to her side (nor does she avoid him), now hits her with light garlands, now with baskets that fall over on purpose, now with gentle thyrsus. Now he shows her the familiar lyre’s sweet strings, the slender measures of Chiron’s songs, guiding her hand and making her fingers strike the sounding instrument. Now he seizes her lips as she sings and twines embraces and praises her in a thousand kisses. Willingly she learns what peak is Pelion, who is Aeacides, wondering and wondering at the boy’s name and deeds as she hears them and sings of Achilles to his face. She in her turn shows him how to advance his strong limbs more decorously and how to draw out raw wool with his thumb’s friction, repairing the distaff and the skeins that his rough hand has spoiled.’

Once again the ritual setting (in the midst of garlands, baskets, and a Bacchic thyrsus) is exploited by the poet to showcase Deidamia ‘teaching’ Achilles the feminine activities of dancing and handling the wool, while he introduces her to the more ‘masculine’ pursuits of singing (epic)14 and 13

Dillon (2002: 220–21). I believe that Deidamia is singing epic because she sings of Achilles’ deeds—yet another metapoetic hint in this deeply self-conscious poem. 14

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playing the cithara.15 But the contrast between Achilles’ and Deidamia’s abilities to carry out their respective activities is also remarkable: while Deidamia’s singing appears to be so good as to inspire ever greater displays of affection on the part of Achilles, he himself appears to be not very good at them and in need of her help (reficitque colus et perdita dura/pensa manu).16 This inability of Achilles to perform convincingly as a woman will prove to be a problem throughout his appearances as a girl in the first book, while, by contrast, Deidamia’s masculine attributes are a constitutive part of the construction of her identity.

VIRGINITY AND SEXUALITY The dangerous potential of the combination of virginity and wild sexuality (to which Thetis’ request to Lycomedes alludes) proves for the girls a source of empowerment, which they successfully manipulate throughout the first book of the poem. In Greek and Roman thought, virginity exudes a strong sexual appeal that has great potency over the male, as is obvious in the first appearance of the girls of Scyros in the Achilleid: omnibus eximium formae decus, omnibus idem cultus et expleto teneri iam fine pudoris uirginitas matura toris annique tumentes. (1.290–92) ‘All possessed surpassing beauty, all were dressed alike; they had reached the term of tender modesty, their maidenhood, their burgeoning years, were ripe for the marriage bed.’

The girls’ exit from the domestic to the public space of the temple of Pallas of the Beach reveals their beauty, which in the text is directly linked to their pudor, uirginitas, and readiness for marriage (toris annique tumentes). The powerful sexual appeal of these qualities for the men who are in the ‘audience’, as it were, is underscored by the following double simile likening Deidamia and the girls to Venus, the sea Nymphs, Diana, and the Naiads (1.293–300). In addition to the obviously sexual connotations of the reference to Venus, Diana’s sexual magnetism is also conveyed through this image, as it recalls the setting of her heavily 15 This reversal of sexual performance also corresponds to the generic tensions within the poem between epic and elegy. 16 Cf. Heslin (2005), 145: ‘What is distinctive about Statius’ presentation of Achilles’ transvestite clumsiness is that, in addition to this typical kind of private display, he puts it on show before a much broader public.’

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eroticized encounter with Actaeon in Ovid (Met. 3.165–205). Moreover, the allusions of the passage to Virgil’s Dido (Aen. 1.498–504) only serve to intensify the attraction of Achilles, whose falling for Deidamia thus emerges as almost predetermined.17 To be sure, the greatest effect of the sexual power of the girls, and Deidamia in particular, is none other than Achilles’ reaction which is described as feminizing him both figuratively, in the scene of his blushing (1.302–6), and literally, in that he subsequently agrees to be dressed as a woman:18 hanc ubi ducentem longe socia agmina uidit trux puer et nullo temeratus pectora motu deriguit totisque nouum bibit ossibus ignem. nec latet haustus amor sed fax uibrata medullis in uultus atque ora redit lucemque genarum tinguit et inpulsam tenui sudore pererrat . . . (1.301–6) ‘When the truculent boy, whose heat no stirring had ever assailed, saw her leading her attendant column form far ahead, he stiffened and drank novel flame in all his bones. Nor does his draught of love stay hidden; the brand waving in his inmost parts goes to his face and tinges the brightness of his cheeks, wandering over then with a light sweat as they feel the impulse . . . ’

Furthermore, the same power of the dancing girls of premarital age over the men receives elaborate attention in the exchanges between Ulysses and Lycomedes, where once again ritual performance is described as enhancing the girls’ desirability: ‘at tu tranquillus in alta pace mane carisque para conubia natis, quas tibi sidereis diuarum uultibus aequas Fors dedit. ut me olim tacitum reuerentia tangit! is decor et formae species permixta uirili.’ occurrit genitor: ‘quid si aut Bacchea ferentes orgia Palladias aut circum uideris aras? et dabimus, si forte nouus cunctabitur Auster.’ excipiunt cupidi et tacitis spes addita uotis. (1.807–15)

17 On the intertextual canvas of this episode, see also Feeney (2004b: 90) and Heslin (2005: 93–101). 18 Thetis’ shaping of Achilles into a girl (1.325–37) is yet another example of the performative notion of gender operative in the Achilleid, as well as its explicit correlation with artistic creation. On the latter, see Hinds (1998: 138–40). It is also relevant in the poem’s articulation of tensions between the genres of epic and elegy. Achilles here is analogous to the elegiac seruus amoris (‘slave of love’), who foregoes male duties in order to be with his girl (puella).

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‘[Ulysses says] “But do you stay tranquil in peace profound, preparing marriages for your beloved daughters, Fortune’s gift, whose starry countenances equal goddesses. How silent reverence touches me this while! What charm, what beauty mingled with manly shape!” The father answers: “What if you see them bearing Bacchus’ sacred emblems or surrounding Pallas’ altar? And we shall let you see, if a new South Wind shall tarry.” Eagerly they take him up and hope joins their silent prayer.’

Ulysses’ praise of Lycomedes’ daughters betrays that the dance they have just performed (1.755–60) provides testimony regarding their beauty and suitability as brides.19 Lycomedes’ response to Ulysses that their virtues would become even more apparent if the guests saw them perform ritual duties, followed by his proposal to allow his guests to witness them, reveals Lycomedes’ desire to secure perhaps one of his guests as a spouse.20 The eagerness of Ulysses and Diomedes to agree to such a viewing (1.819–20) also testifies to the pleasure that the spectacle of the girls’ ritual performance provides to the male viewing audience, even as in terms of the plot it ostensibly gives them another chance to detect Achilles.

GIRL POWER: AMAZONS AND PALLAS The power that the girls of Scyros are portrayed as exerting through their performance of ritual acts and dancing in particular may help shed light on their consistent connection to Amazons accompanying all three of their ‘public’ appearances in the Achilleid. Each capitalizes on the previous one to express the girls’ empowerment through the exercise of their religious duties. As we have seen, the first Amazon reference occurs in the scene of Thetis’ orders to the king of Scyros, Lycomedes. There Thetis’ comparison of Achilles-as-a-girl to an Amazon is a convenient way for her to hide from Lycomedes her son’s masculinity, and aptly encapsulates the actual crossing of gender boundaries that he perpetrates. At the same time, however, Thetis’ portrait of Achilles-as-a-girl is convincing precisely because it presents him as possessing a trait that, as we have already seen, is commonly associated with virgins and is exploited here 19 Heslin (2005: 147): ‘Ulysses apparently intends this as an ambiguous token of his potential interest in Lycomedes’ daughters.’ 20 On the public aspect of this Bacchic orgia and the private/exclusive character of the rites in 1.593 (forbidden to men, 1.603), see Heslin (2005: 148).

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with great irony: a virgin’s wild, uncivilized nature that resists marriage. The Amazon metaphor thus encapsulates the inherent tension between society’s need to keep girls chaste, confined, and away from the presence of men and their nature, which at once defies this confinement and relishes in it, as it offers a means of resisting male domination altogether. The Amazons exemplify this tension, since they are transgressive women in both appearance and lifestyle and often pose a threat to men.21 As such, they live in the fringes of civilization, thus embodying a menacing ‘other’ that stirs in men the desire to conquer and tame them.22 At the same time, Amazons are fierce and feared warriors and thus constitute the perfect medium that reflects the power to which the girls lay claim when they make public appearances: iamque atria feruent regali strepitu et picto discumbitur auro. tum pater ire iubet natas comitesque pudicas natarum. subeunt, quales Maeotide ripa cum Scythicas rapuere domos et capta Getarum moenia sepositis epulantur Amazones armis. (1.755–60) ‘And now the halls are alive with regal noise and they lie down on embroidered gold. Then the father gives order for his daughters and his daughters’ chaste companions to come in. They enter like Amazons on Maeotis’ bank, when they feast with weapons laid aside after plundering Scythian homes and captured towns of the Getae.’23

The image of the Amazons feasting after a victorious battle is undeniably one emphasizing their ‘masculine’ power, and relates very well with the use of the Amazon metaphor in the previous passage to denote female resistance to marriage.24 Once again, this metaphor showcases the sexual On transgressive, monstrous female figures in Statius’ Thebaid, see Keith, Ch. 17 above. Compare e.g. the image of the pregnant Hippolyte in Theseus’ triumphal procession in the Thebaid: Hippolyte, iam blanda genas patiensque mariti/foederis (‘Hippolyte, now bland of eye and patient of the marriage bond’, 12.534–5). As Augoustakis (2010: 79) observes, ‘although the Amazons still remain fierce and do not show any signs of weakness (such as lament . . . ) . . . their queen seems subdued.’ On Theseus as the king who imposes civilization (in this case, on the barbarian Amazons), see Augoustakis (2010: 78 n. 111) for further bibliography, and Bessone, Ch. 8 above. 23 Hinds (2000: 239) argues that the girls’ femininity is compromised by their absorption of the cross-dressed Achilles. See also Heslin (2005: 153), who connects their transgressive participation in the banquet as appropriately compared to the behaviour of Amazons: ‘If we consider that the women at this banquet are not matronae associating with friends and family, but unmarried girls reclining in the company of male strangers, then we may begin to understand how odd and outrageous their behavior here is—like Amazons, indeed.’ 24 Hinds (2000: 239–40) notes that the image of the Amazons occurs at a moment when they are temporarily dissociated from their weaponry. Yet I believe the texts’ reference of 21 22

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power of the girls over the men, who constitute the audience of the banquet, as well as the transgressive potential of their defying traditional gender roles. The emphasis on the girls’ empowerment in this regard is reinforced by Deidamia’s subsequent successful concealment of Achilles’ bursting masculinity from Ulysses’ discerning gaze (1.767–71).25 I will return to the idea of female power and the concealment of masculinity shortly, as it is also related to the poem’s use of the girls’ rituals and their engagement in Bacchic rites specifically. The link between the girls’ potential (or actual) empowerment and the power exerted by the Amazons is also reinforced through their connection with the goddess Pallas. In Greece, young girls, and especially ŒÆÅçæØ, become associated with rituals of Athena and Artemis, as I have already mentioned. Female offerings to Pallas are an epic topos, although it usually involves married women, as well as girls during the time of war (Hom. Il. 6.297–311; Virg. Aen. 1.479–82 and 11.475–85). In addition, the island of Scyros is famously linked with Athens since the fifth century bce, via the Theseus myth: Theseus is believed to have died on Scyros; and Cimon transfers the legendary hero’s bones from Scyros to Athens, thus claiming a close connection between the city and the island and legitimizing Athenian interests in the area.26 At the same time, however, there are other narrative reasons for the use of Pallas: as a virgin warrior, she is both an emblem of chastity and a formidable female presence; as such, she combines precisely the attributes that Statius bestows on his girls. She is worshipped by the girls in a liminal place, the shore, the island’s boundary, as we have seen above (Palladi litoreae, 1.285), while there is a statue of the goddess there too (placidique super Tritonia custos/litoris, ‘and Tritonia above, guardian of the tranquil shore’, 1.696–7). As P. J. Heslin correctly observes, however, ‘the virgin goddess presides, not without irony, over the arousal of Achilles’ interest at his first sight of Deidamia: Pallas the virgin goddess who guards the

their previous battle and plundering (Scythicas rapuere domos et capta Getarum/moenia, 1.759–60) evokes and stresses their potentially dangerous power as warriors and conquerors. 25 On the Amazons as creating the possibility for Achilles’ ultimate manifestation, see Feeney (2004b: 95). On Deidamia’s protective gaze and surveillance of Achilles, see Heslin (2005: 154–5), and cf. ‘Statius represents womanliness as a performative construct, not just for transvestites, but for women, too’ (155). 26 Cf. Plu. Thes. 36. I believe that there is a layer of political and ideological implications in Statius’ connection between Scyros with Athens and by extension its empire. Given the poem’s address to Domitian, these connections would obviously pertain to Rome. On the transfer of empires from the East to the West, see Augoustakis (forthcoming b).

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kingdom’s boundary, will prove an ineffectual guardian of her ministrant’s virginity.’27 Like the Amazons, Pallas is mentioned three times in the Achilleid, in the first public appearance of the girls,28 in Lycomedes’ description of the maidens to Ulysses (1.813), and in the description of Achilles’ and the girls’ ritual performance ( feroxque Pallas, ‘and bold Pallas’, 1.825–6). As Dennis Feeney notes, this last instance draws some explicit parallels between Achilles and the first appearance of Deidamia in the epic, thus underscoring the feminization of the hero.29 At the same time, it provides yet another example of the poem’s systematic link between the girls’ virginity and ‘masculinity’. This connection has also surfaced earlier in Ulysses’ comments to Lycomedes that the girls’ beauty has a masculine quality (is decor et formae species permixta uirili, 1.811). Aside from the obvious humour and irony, Ulysses’ statement is congruent with the depiction of the girls as possessing a sort of masculine agency and power. This agency and power over the male reaches its climax in the girls’ performance of Bacchic rituals, to which my discussion will now turn.

MAENADISM AND SEX Maenadism in literature is synonymous with female negation of civilized values and resistance to the male. Most notably in Greek tragedy but also in Roman epic, Bacchic rituals are used to showcase female crossing of traditional gender boundaries, with disastrous results for men and women alike.30 Since Bacchic rites in literature are portrayed as a means of female empowerment, it is not surprising to see them figure prominently in Statius’ portrait of the girls of Scyros. In addition to their initial exit to the temple of Pallas, Bacchic rites are the main ritual activity the girls perform. Unlike many of his famous predecessors who have engaged in the depiction of Bacchic rites, in the Achilleid Statius manipulates the

27

Heslin (2005: 237). Hinds (2000: 237) correctly notes that the girls revise Pallas in this scene by making her more feminine. Yet the subsequent comparison of Deidamia with Diana provides a further connection between virginity and rather masculine pursuits. 29 Feeney (2004b: 89–91). 30 On Maenadism in Greek myth and cult, the Bacchic mysteries at Rome, and their connection with the poem, see Heslin (2005: 243–51). 28

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usual themes associated with Maenadism—negation of marriage, resistance to the male, and crossing of gender boundaries—to display the power of femininity not only to encroach upon but also to eclipse the performance of masculinity. In the Achilleid, as Achilles continuously threatens to expose his bursting manliness, the women’s Bacchic rites are very effective in repeatedly preventing him from doing so. Achilles’ physicality surfaces in all the descriptions of Maenadic activity in the poem. We see it first in the Bacchic rite the women perform in the woods:31 illum uirgineae ducentem signa cateruae magnaque difficili soluentem bracchia motu et sexus pariter decet et mendacia matris. mirantur comites, nec iam pulcherrima turbae Deidamia suae tantumque admota superbo uincitur Aeacidae quantum premit ipsa sorores. ut uero e tereti demisit nebrida collo errantesque sinus hedera collegit et alte cinxit purpureis flauentia tempora uittis uibrauitque graui redimitum missile dextra, attonito stat turba metu sacrisque relictis illum ambire libet pronosque attollere uultus. talis ubi ad Thebas uultumque animumque remisit Euhius et patrio satiauit pectora luxu, serta comis mitramque leuat thyrsumque uirentem armat et hostiles inuisit fortior Indos. (1.603–18) ‘As he leads the standard of a virgin troop and clumsily waves his great arms, his sex and his mother’s lies are equally becoming. His companions marvel; no more is Deidamia the fairest of her throng, beside proud Aeacides her stature is surpassed by as much as she herself out-tops her sisters. But when he dropped the fawn-skin from his rounded neck, collecting the straying folds with ivy and binding his flaxen temples with purple fillets and brandishing the wreathed missile with heavy hand, the throng stood amazed and afraid; leaving their rites, they are fain to gather round him and lift their downcast faces. Even as Euhius at Thebes has relaxed countenance and spirit and satisfied his heart with his native luxury, he lifts garland and headband from his locks and arms the green wand and visits his Indian foes stronger than ever.’

Achilles’ description provokes humour for the reader (as he dances difficili . . . motu), but he inspires fear in the maidens: his size, together

31 On the passage’s mobilization of the intertext of Euripides’ Bacchae, see Heslin (2005: 253–5).

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with the aggressiveness of his thyrsus, cause them to be amazed and afraid (attonito stat turba metu) and to abandon their rites. The fearsome image of Achilles is intensified by the military language used to describe his size (uincitur) and the thyrsus as weapon (missile). Although a staple in Maenadic descriptions and indicative of the women’s transgressive actions, military language is here put to use to convey the potency of lurking masculinity. The subsequent comparison of Achilles to Dionysus continues and reinforces this theme. The god’s power is once again stressed through military language (armat, hostiles, fortior), even as he is presented in non-threatening or effeminate terms (uultumque animumque remisit; patrio satiauit pectora luxu), foreshadowing the rape of Deidamia that follows.32 Yet Achilles’ powerful masculinity meets its match twice in the course of Bacchic rites, first during the rape of Deidamia and then in the court of Lycomedes. Deidamia’s rape occurs in the context of Maenadic activity: . . . densa noctis gauisus in umbra tempestiua suis torpere silentia furtis ui potitur uotis et toto pectore ueros admouet amplexus: uidit chorus omnis ab alto astrorum et tenerae rubuerunt cornua Lunae. illa quidem clamore nemus montemque repleuit sed Bacchi comites, discussa nube soporis, signa choris indicta putant: fragor undique notus tollitur, et thyrsos iterum uibrabat Achilles. (1.640–48) ‘And happy that in the night’s thick darkness timely silence lies inert upon his dalliance, he gains his desire by force, launching veritable embraces with all his heart. All the choir of stars saw it from on high and the young Moon’s horns blushed red. The girl filled wood and mountain with her cries, but Bacchus’ companions shake aside their cloud of slumber and think it a signal for the dance. From all sides the familiar shout is raised and Achilles once more brandishes the thyrsus.’

Achilles’ rape of Deidamia is described in no uncertain terms as violent (ui potitur), while her resistance is vividly noted. P. J. Heslin interprets the rape as a symbolic aetiology (humorous or serious) of the ritual unveiling of the phallus, which presumably takes place during Bacchic 32

The image of a powerful individual at a moment where they have laid aside their weapons is recalled in the description of the girls as Amazons during Lycomedes’ banquet. I believe it encapsulates the ambiguity of feminine power, both threatening and nonthreatening at the same time. Cf. Heslin (2005: 256): ‘The adoption of male roles by women makes maenadism well suited to being the ironic backdrop for Achilles’ symmetrically opposite gender inversion.’ For a different view, see Hinds (2000).

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rites.33 I argue, however, that in this passage the opposite occurs, as once again the exposure of Achilles’ masculine power is thwarted. As the rape takes place, Deidamia’s cries merge with the other girls’ ritual clamour and Achilles-as-a-girl is shown to participate in the ritual by brandishing the thyrsus and by resuming the orgiastic activity in the context of the ritual. As Deidamia’s pregnancy is subsequently hidden, so Achilles’ male identity remains hidden within the thiasos of Bacchants, who misconstrue the rape as a sign for celebrations to commence anew.34 Thus within the Maenadic context the girls emerge as capable of controlling the manifestation of manliness, if not its essence or physicality, while the poet underscores the fallibility of the chorus in its Maenadic state of mind. Bacchic rites have a similar function at the court of Lycomedes, where Deidamia successfully hides Achilles during the banquet (1.802–5) and during the girls’ ritual dance:35 nec minus egressae thalamo Scyreides ibant ostentare choros promissaque sacra uerendis hospitibus. nitet ante alias regina comesque Pelides: qualis Siculae sub rupibus Aetnae Naidas Hennaeas inter Diana feroxque Pallas et Elysii lucebat sponsa tyranni. iamque mouent gressus thiasisque Ismenia buxus signa dedit, quater aera Rheae quater enthea pulsant terga manu uariosque quater legere recursus, tum thyrsos pariterque leuant pariterque reponunt multiplicantque gradum, modo quo Curetes in actu quoque pii Samothraces eunt, tunc obuia uersae pectine Amazonio, modo quo citat orbe Lacaenas Delia plaudentesque suis intorquet Amyclis. tunc uero, tunc praecipue manifestus Achilles nec seruare uices nec bracchia iungere curat: tum molles gressus tunc aspernatur amictus plus solito rumpitque choros et plurima turbat. sic indignantem thyrsos acceptaque matris tympana iam tristes spectabant Penthea Thebae. (1.821–40) ‘The maidens of Scyros left their chamber and came to show their dances and promised rites to the honoured guests. Before them all glistens the princess and her companion, Peleus’ son; even as under Sicilian Aetna’s 33

Heslin (2005: 253–5). Heslin (2005: 253 n. 61) notes, ‘Statius leaves it for us to decide whether Deidamia cries out of pleasure or terror.’ 35 Analysed by Heslin (2005: 232–6) as an initiation ritual. 34

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crags among the Naiads of Henna shone Diana and bold Pallas and the spouse of the Elysian king. Now they are on the move and the Ismenian boxwood gives signals to the choirs. Four times they clash Rhea’s cymbals, four times beat the frenzied drums, four times wind their shifting movements back. Then together they raise their wands, together lower them, and multiply their steps. Sometimes they move in the manner of the Curetes or pious Samothracians, now they turn to face each other in an Amazonian comb, now ply the ring in which Diana summons the girls of Laconia and twists them clapping in her own Amyclae. Then, ay then above all is Achilles manifest. He cares not to keep turns or link arms; more than usual he scorns womanish steps and dress, disrupting the choirs and causing untold confusion. So Thebes already sad watched Pentheus indignant at his mother’s wands and the drums he had accepted.’

As in other Bacchic narratives, here too we encounter a mixture of ritual elements. The maidens’ ritual dance (sacra) is explicitly Bacchic: the girls form a thiasos, the signal is given with the Ismenian boxwood (Ismenia buxus), that is, the Theban flute used by Bacchants, and the Maenads brandish the thyrsos as they dance. Furthermore, Statius’ conflation of various mystery rites in this description is actually typical of such narratives (e.g. Eur. Ba. 73–87 and 120–34). He specifically includes the rites of Rhea/Magna Mater, those of the Curetes, and the mysteries of Samothrace, among others, creating a mosaic of exotic and transgressive behaviour.36 Finally, the role of Achilles and Deidamia as protagonists is emphasized by the special mention of their position in the thiasos (nitet ante alias regina comesque/Pelides), another common motif that accompanies descriptions of the leader of Bacchic rites (e.g., Eur. Ba. 681–2 and 689–91; Virg. Aen. 7.396–400). Statius’ faithful adherence to the protocols of Maenadic portrayal reveals that Achilles successfully fulfils the role of a Bacchant. The delay in Achilles’ masculinity being exposed, even as he fails equally miserably to dance as a girl, is of paramount importance. The comic elements of the scene do not obscure the reality of the girls’ power during the performance of the dance.37 It is not a coincidence that the imagery that has so far accompanied them in the poem comes together in this scene, with Bacchus, Pallas, Diana, and the Amazons making an 36 See extensively Heslin (2005: 233–4, 257–61) on the role of the Magna Mater and the Curetes/Corybantes. On the Magna Mater elsewhere in Flavian epic, see Fucecchi and Chinn, Chs 1 and 18 above. Chinn also offers an extensive discussion of the role of Cybele, the Curetes, the Corybantes, and Orphic ritual in general in the Thebaid, an important intertext for this passage. 37 The power of their sexuality is also analysed by Heslin (2005: 145–7), who notes instances of rape during dancing elsewhere in literature.

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appearance in the description of the dance.38 Bacchic rites, whether they take place in the wild or in a domesticated space, afford the women the power to dominate the men, and in this case to prevent the performance of masculinity and its successful correlation with martial prowess. This interpretation also helps explain Achilles’ puzzling comparison to Pentheus: just as the Theban prince is ultimately conquered by the Maenads, so Achilles’ masculinity has been once again thwarted by the dancing girls of Scyros and contrasts neatly with his earlier likening to the powerful Dionysus. To be sure, the girls are only temporarily successful. Achilles will eventually present himself as a man to Ulysses, will marry Deidamia, and the book will end with all the social roles falling into their normative place. Achilles-as-a-man will forego the feminizing (and elegiac) role of lover in order to assume that of the male (epic) warrior. Yet the exposure of his masculinity is itself rendered in feminine terms, as it occurs during the girls’ excited perusal of their shiny gifts. The shield catches Achilles’ attention mainly because of its brilliance (radiantem . . . orbem, ‘the shining round’, 1.852; note also the description of the shield as a mirror: luxque aemula, ‘the rival radiance’, 1.864), while the gore on it seems almost like an afterthought (saeuis et forte rubentem/bellorum maculis, ‘and by chance it was ruddy with cruel spots of war’, 1.853–4). The attraction to shiny, beautiful objects is of course a standard trait of women (e.g. Livy’s Tarpeia, 1.11.5–9) and can be treacherous for warriors (e.g. in Virgil’s Camilla, Aen. 11.854, or Euryalus, Aen. 9.359–66). Achilles’ attraction to the shield’s glow is both a reminder of his tragic fate in battle39 and a comment on the fragility of his masculinity.40 In the Achilleid, ritual activity is used to relate female power and agency to virginity, sexuality, and potential resistance to the male. Ritual

38

Heslin (2005: 234–5 and n. 166) also notes that the Amazonian dance (pectine Amazonio) is otherwise unknown. This is yet another element supporting the importance of the Amazonian motif in the portrayal of the girls of Scyros. 39 As Augoustakis (forthcoming b), observes, ‘through his own cross-dressing and the impregnation of Deidamia, marked in the text as a violent attack, Achilles comes of age on the liminally other island of Scyros by replicating Paris’ . . . kidnapping of the queen of Sparta. Therefore, the “European” Achilles incorporates both the effeminate traits of the East and the warlike manliness of the West, but also he ultimately embodies the “Asian” other, which he is destined to overcome and annihilate by sacrificing his own life.’ 40 The previous observations can also be used to help frame questions regarding the generic tensions within the Achilleid, since the girls’ role can be said to articulate an alternative mode of expression that complicates the poem’s other generic voices, elegiac and epic. In other words, the transgressive girls match the transgressive character of the poem.

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renders the girls successful in thwarting, even only temporarily, Achilles’ trajectory to fulfil his role of male warrior. In addition, the performance of ritual, and of Maenadism in particular, affords women of pre-marital age a space in which they can exert agency and power.41

41 I would like to express my warm thanks to the editor, Antony Augoustakis, for inviting me to participate at a highly stimulating conference at the University of Illinois and for his thoughtful and meticulous help on the final draft of this chapter.

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Index Locorum AESCHYLUS Agamemnon 839 222 n.19 Septem 24 103 n.48 ANTHOLOGIA PALATINA 7.123 273 n.28 7.130 273 n.28 7.132 273 n.28 7.182 276 7.186 276 7.263 273 7.367 276 7.475 276 7.627 276 APOLLODORUS Library 3.6.7 241 n.27 APOLLONIUS RHODIUS Argonautica 1.1–7 35 1.1–4 36 1.22 35 1.440–94 91 1.460–95 61 1.1123–39 328 n.30 1.1143–9 328 n.29 2.178–96 38 2.187–93 313–14 2.311–425 38 3.6–166 46 3.275–98 46 3.616–32 45 3.932–7 104 3.1029–41 165 n.1 4.1513–17 307 n.12 APULEIUS Florida 22 201 n.8 Metamorphoses 11.21 226 ARATUS Phaenomena 1 131 ARISTOPHANES Lysistrata 641–6 338

BACCHYLIDES Epinicians 9.14 253 CALLIMACHUS Aetia 28–34 M 304, 311 n.20 Hymns 1 131 n.23 2.17 134 4.266–73 134 5.33 129 5.137 129 CALPURNIUS SICULUS Eclogae 4.82–6 131 n.24 CATULLUS Carmina 63 329 n.34, 333 and n.50 63.42–3 322 64.405–6 152 65 268 CICERO Brutus 1 90 n.3 De Diuinatione 1.34 92 1.37–71 73 1.77 63 and n.20 2.54 89 2.70–83 89 2.133 309 n.15 De Finibus 2.61 243 n.36 De Haruspicum Responso 19 1 n.3 De Natura Deorum 3.5 1 De Officiis 1.37 97 n.33 3.104 207 De Oratore 3.12 274 n.33 De Republica 2.31.10 97 n.33 Epistulae ad Familiares 6.6.6 106

382

Index Locorum

Epistulae ad Atticum 13.27 236 n.12 Philippicae 2.4 90 n.3 Pro Archia 14.11 98 Pro Caelio 7.4 97 n.33 Pro Cluentio 1.1 97 n.33 Pro Marcello 18 152 n.16 Tusculanae Disputationes 1.108 97 n.33 5.64–6 280 CLAUDIAN De Consulatu Stilichonis 2.12–13 155 COLUMELLA De Re Rustica 11.1.9 212 n.41 CONON Narratives 19 303 n.1, 311 n.21 DIO CASSIUS Roman History 44.10.3 107 n.66 51.21.1 199 n.1 DIODORUS SICULUS Library 5.55.1 322 5.64.4 323 20.41.3–5 312 n.26 DIOMEDES GRAMMATICUS 1.483.27 (GKL) 146 n.4 DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS Antiquitates Romanae 1.39.40 199 n.1 1.35.2 214 n.49 13.3.3 22 n.14 DOMITIUS MARSUS 7.1 274 ENNIUS Annales 2–3 (Skutsch) 36 n.10 11 36 n.10 203 135 n.42 255–60 215 n.53 364 231 EURIPIDES Bacchae 73–87 349 120–34 349

347 103 n.48 681–2 349 689–91 349 Hecuba 611 194 n.56 Hypsipyle Hypothesis 2–4 253 n.15 I.iv.29–30 (Bond) 253 n.14 60.98–108 254 n.20 97 (Collard and Cropp) 260 n.45 Phoenissae 884–5 59 n.13 834–976 240 n.25 Supplices 765–6 194 GELLIUS Noctes Atticae 17.21.45 36 n.10 GERMANICUS Aratea 1–2 131 n.24 HERODOTUS Histories 8.41 28 HESIOD Works and Days 60–3 321 73–4 321 HIMERIUS Orations 45 323 HOMER Iliad 1.37–42 138 1.59–120 61 2.322–9 90 n.8 2.326 97 n.31 2.328 97 n.31 6.288–31 18 n.4 6.297–311 344 6.311 138 11.72–83 65 12.195–257 61 12.243 104 14.200–1 321 14.214–15 321 14.275–6 321 14.301–2 321 20.389–92 276 23.71–4 168 23.138–51 263 n.54 23.216–25 263 n.58 24.582–6 194 n.55

Index Locorum Odyssey 8.429 127 n.3 10.513–15 175 11.13–640 165 n.2 11.46–7 167 n.5 11.71–80 168 11.100–37 176 11.100 178 11.181–203 178 11.271–80 177 11.326–7 177 12.524–34 90 n.8 12.531–2 97 n.31 15.160–64 94 n.22 15.172–8 90 n.8, 94 n.22 15.174 97 n.31 15.176 97 n.31 15.531–4 94 n.22 HOMERIC HYMNS 1.1–9 142 2.495 136 n.49 3.50–88 133–4 3.375–87 134 3.545–6 136 n.49 4.579–80 136 n.49 HORACE Carmina 1.2.25–6 152 n.16 1.2.29–30 152 n.16 1.2.47–9 152 1.12.43 213 n.42 1.12.50 135 n.41 3.1.5–6 135 n.41 3.4.49–64 207 n.23 3.5.1–4 158 n.27 3.6.7–8 151 n.15 3.6.13–14 151 n.15 HYGINUS Fabulae 74 253 n.13 INSCRIPTIONES GRAECAE XIV.1389 129 n.13 INSCRIPTIONES LATINAE SELECTAE 56 229 n.35 LACTANTIUS In Thebaida 4.621 171 n.23 11.506 195 n.61 LETTER OF ARISTEAS 188 157 n.25 190 157 n.26 LIVY Ab Vrbe Condita

1.7.4 199 n.1 1.11.5–9 350 5.19–23 19 5.21.3 20 n.11 5.22.5–6 22 n.14 5.49–55 19 5.52.7 19 8.9 243 n.36 21.63.13–14 63 n.20 22.1.8–13 63–4 22.3.11–13 64 22.14.3 211 n.39 22.16.7 213 n.43 22.28–30 217 n.1 22.29.3 229 n.36 26.8.5 210 n.33 26.27.14 22 n.17 LUCAN De Bello Ciuili 1.38–66 136 n.51 1.45–62 135 n.48 1.167–70 213 n.42 1.183–212 75 1.233–5 75 n.18 1.262–5 49 1.493 214 n.47 1.496 214 n.47 1.522–83 75 n.18 1.599–600 32 n.39 1.612–15 75 1.618–22 75 1.626–30 75 1.635–8 76 1.673 76 1.674–95 69 1.678–94 141 2.1–4 75 n.18 2.4–15 50 2.173–6 246 2.315 204 n.14 2.699–701 49 3.36 75 n.18 3.211–12 75 n.18 3.294–4 49 3.316 309 n.15 3.399–452 260 3.402–3 261 3.417–25 75 n.18 3.585–91 66 5.114–57 56 5.157–61 57 5.198–208 57 5.225 57 5.227 57 6.253–4 242 n.33

383

384 6.419–830 57 6.423–830 165 n.2 6.423–4 179 6.425–34 166 n.3 6.513–15 169 6.525–68 169 6.582–7 169 6.619–41 169 6.642–53 175 6.695–718 167 6.695 167 n.7 6.704–5 169 6.728 176 6.730–49 167 6.730–35 167 n.7 6.762–70 170 6.784–805 177 n.42 6.807–20 169 6.810–16 177 n.42 6.822–5 170 6.824–5 169 7.151–84 63 and n.20 7.445–55 150 7.454–5 75 n.19 7.485–8 50 9.890–91 49 LUCRETIUS De Rerum Natura 2.629–39 322 3.45 97 n.33 3.181 97 n.33 3.912–75 219 4.138–41 209 n.30 4.812 97 n.33 5.8 134 n.40 5.1411 309 n.15 MACROBIUS Saturnalia 1.12.6 290 n.10 3.9.1–15 17, 18 n.2 and 5 MARTIAL Epigrammata 2.91.1–2 158 n.27 4.64.16 290 n.12 5.5.7 207 7.60.1–2 158 n.27 9.101.13–14 207 n.21 MENANDER RHETOR 331.18–332.19 (Russell and Wilson) 127 333.24–6 128 445.26–446.6 140 n.72 MYTHOGRAPHI VATICANI 1.168 311 n.21

Index Locorum OLYMPIODORUS In Platonis Phaedonem Commentaria 1.3 323 ORPHICA FRAGMENTA 15 (Kern) 321 34 323 58 327 151 322 208 325 209 323 214 325 303 327 OVID Fasti 1.307 208 n.29 1.587 199 n.1 1.609–12 105 n.56 2.364 214 n.51 2.373 214 n.51 3.97–100 289 3.145–8 289, 290 n.10 3.525–6 290 3.525 297 n.31 3.531–4 289 3.543–656 289 3.545–654 23 n.20, 205 n.18 3.603–8 293 n.20 3.625–7 293 3.633–8 294 3.641 294 3.653–4 290 n.10 3.653 293 3.657–60 290 3.661–774 297 n.31 3.675–96 290 3.677–94 300 n.40 3.697–710 296 4.269–70 21 4.337–42 32 n.39 4.721–862 189 5.499 213 n.42 5.519–20 212 6.305–6 213 n.41 6.431–2 21 Heroides 12.99 309 n.15 16.151–2 338 n.12 Ibis 573–7 311 n.21 Metamorphoses 1.4 102 1.143 309 1.157–8 309 1.441–4 191 1.437–60 304

Index Locorum 1.437–47 308–9 1.452–567 191 1.452 309 1.454 309 1.457–60 309 1.504–24 191 n.42 1.548–67 315 1.548–52 191 n.43 1.601–21 315 2.401–8 186 n.22 2.466–95 315 3.1–4.603 305 3.28–31 186 n.21 3.31–4 310 n.16 3.39–49 309 n.16 3.41–2 310 n.16 3.48–9 310 n.16 3.56–7 310 n.16 3.63–4 310 n.16 3.73–6 310 n.16 3.77–8 310 n.16 3.90–94 310 n.16 3.118 309 n.15 3.155–62 186 n.21 3.165–205 341 4.281–4 323 and n.15 4.368–88 315 4.612–24 304, 306 4.716–20 307 n.12 4.774–7 315 4.784–5 307 4.790–803 315 4.794–803 304, 307 5.325 309 n.15 5.551–63 315 6.646–7 214 7.7–99 46 7.759–61 315 8.152–76 315 8.159–68 298 n.33 8.655–60 212 8.738–87 260 12.13–21 90 n.8 12.13–17 94 n.22 12.18–19 97 n.31 13.18–21 94 n.22 14.55–67 315 15.658 21 15.669–96 28 15.674 28 n.34 15.684–5 28 n.34 15.689 28 n.34 15.697–9 30 15.832 97 n.33 15.871–2 133

Remedia Amoris 359–60 98 Tristia 2.33–42 131 n.25 2.533 145 5.2.47–8 158 n.27 PAULUS DIACONUS Epitoma Festi 268 L. 18 n.3 PAUSANIAS Description of Greece 1.43.7–8 303 n.1, 311 n.21 2.19.8 303 n.1 PHILOSTRATUS Heroicus 53.5–8 328 PLATO Cratylus 402b 321 Euthydemus 277d 325 n.22 Republic 10.607a4 127 PLINY THE ELDER Naturalis Historia 2.18 158 2.18.1 152 n.16 22.2.3 97 n.33 25.5.4 97 n.33 PLINY THE YOUNGER Epistulae 7.33.1 99 n.38 Panegyricus 1 156 n.24 80.1 157 80.3 157 80.4 156–7 PLUTARCH Caesar 3.4 236 n.12 Camillus 6.1 22 n.14 Cicero 36.1 90 n.3 De Anima fr. 178 (Sandbach) 223–4 Fabius 11.3–12.4 217 n.1 Theseus 36.1 344 n.26 POLYBIUS Histories 2.104 217 n.1 3.87.6 201 n.7

385

386 3.90.10 211 n.39 3.92.8 211 n.39 3.93.3–10 213 n.43 3.111.2 287 PORPHYRY Vita Pythagorae 17 323 PROPERTIUS Elegiae 3.14.4 338 n.12 4.9.1–20 199 n.1 [QUINTILIAN] Declamationes Maiores 10.19.18 222 n.19 QUINTILIAN Institutio Oratoria 3.7.4 128 3.7.6–10 127 6.2.29 98 8.3.63–4 99 10.1.46 131 n.24 10.1.91 207 11.3.62 98 RHETORICA AD HERENNIUM 4.67.17 97 n.33 SCHOLIA AD APOLLONIUM RHODIUM 1.1126 323 SCHOLIA AD PERSIUM Prol. 2–3 36 n.10 6.11 36 n.10 SENECA THE YOUNGER Apocolocyntosis 4.23–4 152 n.16 De Clementia 1.1.2 156 n.24 1.7.1–2 157 n.25 1.19.8–9 157 n.25 2.3.1 246 Dialogi 1.5.8–9 50 11.12.3 157 11.13.2–4 158 11.16.2 246 n.49 Epistulae Morales 67.9 243 n.36 86.5 213 n.42 107.7–11 50 Hercules Furens 623–4 222 n.19 Naturales Quaestiones 2.45 50

Index Locorum Octauia 487–8 156 n.24 Oedipus 293–389 58 390–402 173 390–94 166 n.3 509–658 173 530–658 58, 165 n.2, 167 572 176 n.38 582–3 176 n.38 642–6 178 n.46 668–70 240 n.25 Thyestes 765–70 214 SERVIUS Ad Aeneida 2.166 20 n.6 2.351 18 n.5 4.682 294 n.22 5.4 294 n.22 SIBYLLINE ORACLES 8.43–9 325 n.23 SILIUS ITALICUS Punica 1.59–60 292 n.18 1.64–9 209 n.32 1.64 208, 220 1.91–103 205 1.102 205 n.17 1.116–17 208 1.119–22 205 1.383–6 278 1.414–17 277 1.679 201 n.7 1.685–6 201 n.7 2.59–64 277 2.584–94 27 2.586–9 28 n.34 2.590 28 2.693–5 298 n.34 3.163–6 299 3.494–5 208 3.509–10 208 3.574–83 299 3.593–629 67 4.101–4 65 4.103–33 94 n.22 4.120–42 66 4.120–33 90 n.8 4.120 76 4.126–7 242 n.33 4.126 67 4.134–5 67, 76 4.136 67 n.26 4.152–6 68

Index Locorum 4.635 278 4.763–829 241 4.765–7 205 4.774–9 206 5.1–207 63 and n.20 5.61–2 64 5.75–6 65 5.101–4 64 5.114–16 64 5.118–20 64 5.125–9 64 5.130–48 68 5.201–7 65 5.376–409 63 5.401–9 68 n.29 6.254 309 n.15 6.604–5 211 6.627–36 201 n.6 6.698–716 24 n.22 6.712–13 209 7.6 230 7.19 230 7.35–6 201 n.6 7.96–7 204 7.135–6 204 7.154–5 204 n.16 7.162–211 230 7.167 212 7.171–2 212 7.175–6 212 7.184 213 7.194–5 213 7.205–8 213 7.252 204 n.14 7.261–2 213 7.282–309 209 n.32 7.282–7 204 n.14 7.318–19 215 7.334 215 7.356–8 214 7.356 213 7.371–4 214 7.409–93 210 n.34, 228 7.512 211 7.536–64 231 7.577–9 201 7.585–8 220 7.586 202 7.591–2 211 n.38 7.593 204 7.680–90 221 7.681 204 7.683–4 222 7.683 203 7.690 203

7.695 204 7.698 204, 222 7.702–3 204 7.703 222 n.16 7.723–9 225 7.723–4 202 n.9 7.724 202 7.726–9 202, 204 7.732–9 229 7.732 225 7.737 225 n.28 7.738–9 231 7.746–50 230 8.25–241 287 8.28–31 291 8.30–31 205 8.39–43 291 8.39 295 n.24 8.40–43 24 and n.24 8.40–42 292 8.41–2 205 n.19, 294 8.44–201 23 n.20 8.44–7 290 8.47 291 n.13 8.70 291 n.13, 292 8.71–5 293 n.20 8.73 292 8.76–7 293 8.81–113 293 n.19 8.87–8 295 8.116–59 293 n.19 8.116–20 205 8.125 290 n.10 8.134 295 8.144–223 26 8.155–6 296 n.30 8.160–64 293 8.168–83 293 8.168–70 294 n.22 8.171–5 294 8.171 291 n.14 8.174 294 n.21 8.175 291 n.13 8.176–7 294 n.22 8.182–3 297 8.185–99 294 8.193 291 n.13 8.196–9 290 n.10 8.199 291 n.13 8.200–1 24 n.24, 290 n.10 8.202–41 23 8.202–25 292 and n.18 8.205 24 n.25 8.210–41 296 8.211–12 25 n.27

387

388 8.213–21 25 8.219 299 8.220–21 24 n.24, 205, 291, 297 8.222 299 8.225 26, 298 n.34 8.227–31 26 8.227 291 8.231 291 8.239 292 8.240–41 25 n.27, 301 8.243–5 296 8.243 297 n.31 8.246–7 297 n.31 8.249 297 n.31 8.253–6 296 8.300–1 295 n.26 8.332–3 295 n.26 8.362–3 32 n.39 8.643–5 209 8.653–5 209 8.671–3 295 n.26 9.30 26 9.66–117 295 n.26 9.290–98 300 9.411–59 301 n.42 9.438–85 300 9.530–34 300 9.563–9 232 10.42–71 300 n.41 10.83–91 300 n.41 10.92–169 299 10.235–6 209 10.265–8 220 10.360–62 209, 210 n.35 10.540–75 206 11.385–431 228 n.34 12.27–105 208 n.27 12.85–157 207 n.26 12.104–5 208 12.106–9 208 n.27 12.116–17 208 12.120–21 208 12.126–9 203 n.10, 208 12.201–11 300 n.41 12.514–17 209 12.680–85 210 12.694–5 210 12.699–700 210 12.701–25 300 n.41 12.725 210 12.730 211 12.731–2 211 13.30–82 301 n.44 13.36–81 20 n.6 13.38 25 n.27

Index Locorum 13.55 20 n.8 13.57 22 13.58–62 20 13.77–8 30 13.79–81 22 13.381–895 219 n.7 13.399 178 n.47 13.421–8 175 13.432–3 167 n.7 13.445–87 169 n.16 13.494–506 48 13.505–6 178 n.47 13.507–10 178 n.46 13.732–4 178 n.44 13.760–61 169 n.16 13.850–69 68 13.861–7 179 n.49 14.641–65 279 14.676–8 279 15.1–130 46 15.123–7 228 n.34 15.205–6 246 n.50 15.442–3 246 n.50 16.135–69 209 n.32 16.537–45 246 n.50 17.264–7 210 17.317 211 17.357–69 300 17.522–80 300 n.41 17.597–617 300 n.41 17.645–50 205 17.646–50 230 SOLINUS Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium 2.14 20 n.6 SOPHOCLES Antigone 988–1090 61 988–90 61 n.16 994–5 61 n.16 999 103 n.48 1033–47 240 n.25 1033–5 61 n.16 1084–6 61 n.16 Oedipus Tyrannus 284–6 61 n.16 300–462 61 302–3 61 n.16 324 61 n.16 350–56 62 367 61 n.16 371 61 n.16 374–5 61 n.16 380–403 240 n.25 388–9 61 n.16

Index Locorum 411–12 61 n.16 454 61 n.16 Trachiniae 1266 155 n.21 STATIUS Achilleid 1.1–7 136 1.14–19 136 1.285–92 336 1.285 344 1.290–300 340 1.301–6 341 1.325–37 341 n.18 1.350–59 337 1.353 336 1.356 336 1.570–83 339 1.593 342 n.20 1.603–18 346 1.603 342 n.20 1.640–48 347 1.696–7 344 1.755–60 342–3 1.760 336 1.767–71 344 1.807–15 341–2 1.811 345 1.813 345 1.819–20 342 1.821–40 348–9 1.825–6 345 1.828–32 328 n.29 1.833 336 1.852–4 350 1.864 350 Siluae 1 praef. 158 1 pr. 16–19 131 1.1.74–83 132 1.1.91 132 2.2.8 338 n.10 3.1.1–7 129 3.1.23–51 129 3.1.32 130 3.1.34–6 130 3.1.44 338 n.10 3.1.154–62 129 3.2.101–26 130 3.5.31–3 128 4 pr. 2–3 132 4.1.2–4 133 4.1.17–18 133 4.1.23 133 4.2.48 338 n.10 4.2.65–7 128

4.3.72–94 133 4.3.114–20 134 4.3.128 134 4.3.134–6 135 4.3.139 135 4.6.47–9 324 5.1 ep. 8–10 132 n.27 5.1.223 32 n.39 5.2.164–5 104 n.49 5.3.181–2 105 n.59 5.3.195–9 132 n.31 5.3.196–8 207 n.21 5.3.231–3 128 5.3.233–7 102 n.45 5.4 129 n.12, 131 Thebais 1.1 185 1.2 241 n.28 1.16–33 135 1.21–2 132 n.31 1.46–52 314 1.46–8 183 1.56–87 137 1.56–7 241 n.28 1.57–87 311 1.58 167 1.59 111 1.60–61 112 1.68–70 112 1.70 138 1.73–87 111 1.74 112 1.79–80 112, 263 n.55 1.81 138 1.85–6 112, 138 1.88–9 138 1.89–102 172 1.92 115 1.96 172 1.101 138 n.60, 167 1.124 167 n.8 1.166–8 309 1.173 309 1.197–302 140, 324 1.197–213 42 n.28, 324 1.200–1 325 1.203 325 1.209–10 325 1.210 325, 329 1.214–47 87, 234, 325, 332 1.214 160 1.216–18 115 1.216–17 62 1.219 62 n.18 1.224–6 80

389

390 1.224–5 113 1.227 114 1.228–9 167 n.8 1.236 183 1.240–43 79 1.241–3 113 1.241–2 241 n.28 1.243 184 1.245–7 114 1.246 62 n.18 1.250–82 325 1.266–70 116 1.270–79 113–14 1.279–80 114 1.290–92 80 1.290 115 1.292–311 172 1.296–8 171 1.296 171 n.23 1.307–8 172 1.312–14 306 1.314–15 99 1.398–400 234 1.408–34 141 1.498–510 139 n.62 1.533–47 305 1.543–51 139, 305 n.9 1.544–77 304 1.545 306 1.557–672 139 1.557–668 255, 303 1.562–74 304, 308 1.562–71 191 1.569–70 310 and n.17 1.573 191 1.574–5 310 1.575–90 191 1.577 256 1.581 258 n.36 1.582–5 256 1.588 256 1.596–626 304 1.596–604 310–11 1.608–11 313 1.613–18 314 1.621–3 314 1.648–50 154 1.696–8 183 1.705–8 118 1.707 118 n.30 2.1–127 173 2.1–70 172 2.10 183 n.10 2.21–2 174 2.23–4 186

Index Locorum 2.64 171 2.89–119 174 2.115–16 174 n.30 2.123–5 177 2.256–61 81 2.269–88 320 2.269–71 321 2.274–5 322 2.276 325, 329 2.277–8 323 2.278–9 321 2.280–81 322 2.283 321 2.286 321 2.303 183 n.10 2.527–681 141 2.690–96 90 n.5 2.707–12 141 2.715–42 140 2.715–17 141 n.75 2.719 141 2.725–31 118 2.732–5 119 3.71–2 236 3.96 236 3.97–8 168 3.98 183 n.10, 236 3.100–2 236 3.104–7 237 3.109–11 236 3.109–10 172 3.111–13 168, 237 3.140–46 174 3.174–8 168 3.179–200 177 3.192 183 n.10 3.220–35 78 3.235–6 79 3.324–86 78 3.420–39 78 3.440–565 234 3.440–51 105 3.443–4 78 3.449–51 78 3.456–9 78 3.456–8 105 3.460–565 90 3.471–96 93, 106 3.471–4 78 3.491–6 78 3.491 105 n.60 3.493 106 3.495 105 n.60 3.499–647 53 n.1 3.502–15 93

Index Locorum 3.520–21 79 n.30 3.522–3 79 3.524–33 93–4 3.524 97 3.526–7 95 3.527 100 3.528 98 3.530–33 80 3.530 97, 102 3.533 98 and n.36, 99 3.537–8 96 3.539–47 93 3.539–45 80 3.547–51 80 3.547–50 93–4 3.547 96 3.548 98 3.551–65 50, 234 3.552–65 93, 106 3.559 174 3.566–8 61 3.570–72 61 3.570–73 80 3.574 61 n.17 3.577–93 80 3.598–647 91 3.602 233, 260 3.611–16 61 3.623–4 62 3.623 61 3.625 62 n.18 3.631 62 3.634 62 3.635–7 81 3.637 62 3.639–41 62 3.640–44 80 3.643–4 62, 81 3.645–7 81 3.657–9 62 3.661 62 3.668 61 3.669–70 62 3.696–8 121 3.706–10 121–2 4.16–23 82 4.57 167 n.8 4.75 82 4.106 338 n.10 4.213 247 n.52 4.218 100 n.40 4.223 175 n.36 4.227 100 n.40, 175 n.36 4.236 100 n.40, 175 n.36 4.378–82 333 n.49

4.383–406 177 4.383–404 141 4.383–4 142 4.392 142 4.401–5 142 4.401 242 n.34 4.404 178 4.406–9 179 4.409–14 58 4.409 166 4.413–14 166, 174 n.31 4.414–18 184 4.415–18 182 4.415–16 183 4.419–68 58 4.419–42 176 4.438–41 173, 176 4.443 176 4.445–6 166 4.450 176 4.451 173 n.28 4.455–61 166 4.455 171 4.460–61 171 4.461–2 166 4.464–7 166 4.467–8 171 4.473–87 58, 139 n.62, 167, 173 n.28 4.479 171 4.482–3 172 4.500–18 58 4.501–18 167 4.520–22 176 4.553–645 167 4.553–78 58, 177 4.553–40 177 4.556–60 179 4.566–7 179 4.568 179 n.50 4.587–92 178 4.587–9 177 4.589–92 58 4.589 179 n.50 4.593–602 59 4.593–601 177 4.601 177, 179 4.604–6 171 4.614 172 n.26 4.622–4 241 4.622–5 171 4.629 59 4.637–44 177 4.637 179 4.640–61 171 4.642–3 178

391

392 4.652–729 327 4.664–5 59 4.729 251 n.6 4.785–7 251 4.786–7 253 n.13 4.789–92 327–8 4.793 258 n.36 4.799 256 4.817 185 4.825 186 4.831 120 4.840 120 5.11–14 100 5.18 262 n.53 5.49–50 328 5.57–60 332 5.58–74 328 5.64–9 332 5.93–4 330 5.137 193 5.152–63 233 5.190 183 n.10 5.236–41 330 5.250 330 5.265–86 330 5.274–7 234 n.5 5.277 330 n.43 5.284–95 330 n.44 5.300 183 n.10 5.313–19 329–30 5.317–22 238 5.318–19 330 n.42 5.321–2 329 5.486–98 239 5.505–45 249 5.511–13 192 n.47 5.518–28 251 5.534–7 251 5.538–40 328 5.539 251 5.546 99 5.547 182 n.8 5.565–82 191 5.565–74 121 5.568 260 5.579–87 260 5.607–28 253 5.610–11 252 5.613 256 5.620 252 5.622–4 252 5.628 239, 252 5.647–9 251 5.650 251 n.7 5.654–60 252

Index Locorum 5.683–7 252 5.688–9 263 5.710–30 252 n.11 5.733–52 123 5.735–41 250 5.738–9 253 5.741 254 5.743–5 253 5.746–9 250 5.751 250 6.1–3 254 6.35–6 254 6.41–4 251 6.46–53 252 6.46–50 251 6.54–78 254–5, 258–9 and n.42 6.54–8 256 6.56 257 6.58 257 6.61 257 6.67–70 168 and n.23 6.79–83 255 n.26 6.84–119 264 6.84–117 254 6.84–7 192, 259 and n.44 6.90–117 260 6.114–17 261 6.118–19 254, 259 6.121–5 262 6.126–85 254 6.127–33 262 6.129 262 n.53 6.141–2 251 n.8 6.144–5 262–3 6.146 251 n.9, 262 6.160–61 263 6.167–8 263 6.171 251 n.9, 262 6.174–6 263 6.180–4 263 6.197 263 6.202–37 254 6.202–3 264 6.204–26 263 6.215 264 n.59 6.217–19 328 6.222–4 264 6.227–33 263 n.56 6.326–31 100 n.40 6.383 100 n.40 6.425–6 194 6.524 100 n.40 6.607–10 122–3 6.750–51 121 6.751 251

Index Locorum 6.894 309 n.15 6.914 262 n.53 6.934–46 126, 234 6.934–7 48 6.934–5 82 6.938–46 82 6.944–5 83 7.1–33 264 7.17–21 234 n.4 7.126 234 n.4 7.100–2 251 7.104 262 n.53 7.155–92 326 7.158–9 327 7.170–71 330 n.38 7.185–8 327 7.189–90 327 n.26 7.199–218 160 7.241 102 7.243–373 101 7.281 102 7.282–9 92, 101–2 7.285–6 102 7.289 102 7.402–23 234 7.409 173 7.415–16 173 7.477 197 7.483–4 197 7.506–9 197 7.666 233 n.1 7.685–7 281 7.698–9 243 n.38 7.702 242 n.33 7.789 118 7.794–823 172 7.794–6 175 n.35 7.816–23 174 8.1–8 168 8.41–7 207 n.21 8.48–50 172 8.53–6 175 8.53–4 172 8.61–4 172 n.27 8.65–83 115 8.65–79 189 8.72–4 247 8.95–6 175 8.114–16 280–81 8.120–22 175 8.162–207 99 8.206–7 281 8.221–2 330 n.38 8.318 193 8.338–41 193

8.512 183 n.8 8.595 188 8.601 309 n.15 8.711–12 188 8.713–15 190 8.751–66 189 8.758–66 119–20 8.758–64 174 8.765–6 189 9.60 195 9.73–85 244 9.431–2 186 9.506–21 123 9.518–19 148 9.546–69 120 9.548–50 120, 137 9.550 233 9.562–5 168 9.572–4 182, 187 9.602–7 182, 188 9.602 183 9.652–3 188 9.657 237 9.818 185 9.857–60 100 9.858–9 86 9.898–9 280 9.900–7 122 9.907 188 10.192–3 90 n.5 10.201 90 n.5 10.441 168 10.445–8 102 n.45 10.488 90 n.5 10.592–3 59 10.594–5 59 n.13 10.599–600 60 10.610–15 239, 240 10.618–20 60 10.632–85 239 10.655 242 n.34 10.677 242 10.686–782 239 10.714 243 10.720–34 242 10.773 242 10.777 182 n.8 10.780–82 243 10.788 243 10.794 243 n.40 10.804 243 10.834 239 n.22 10.880–82 121 10.907–31 207 n.21 10.921–39 174

393

394 10.927–38 168 10.938–9 121 11.1 239 n.22 11.7–11 207 n.21 11.57–112 247 n.52 11.63–4 173 n.28 11.72 172 11.122–35 234 11.125–33 190 11.126–9 150 11.126–8 114 11.134–5 190 11.165–6 195 11.187–92 282 11.205–9 238 11.209 115 11.283–8 244 11.288–90 240 n.25 11.315–20 330 n.40 11.339–40 99 11.415 190 11.420–4 173 11.457–96 46 11.457–64 150 11.483 115 11.486 150 11.495–6 190 11.499 183 n.10, 185 11.504–8 195 11.569 172 11.573 168 11.574–5 196 11.587–93 172 11.605–7 150 11.614–15 112 11.616–19 110 11.619–21 196 11.633 114 11.640–41 197 11.653–4 244 11.660 243 11.662–3 167 11.684 153 11.708–54 123 12.68–70 243 12.50–56 168 12.58–92 168 12.94–103 168 12.134–6 151 12.186 334 12.191–2 99 12.204 99 12.224–7 333 12.291–311 151 12.410 187

Index Locorum 12.416–17 187 12.420–46 168 12.429–46 125 12.429–36 196 12.442 147 12.456–61 125 12.481–511 123 12.481–505 143 12.481–96 153–4 12.483 153 12.494 155 12.497–513 155 12.499–500 124 12.503–5 152 12.503–4 124 12.504–5 154 12.509–10 125 12.515–18 100 12.519–39 196 12.532–9 125 12.534–5 343 n.22 12.540–41 143 n.85 12.545 143 12.546–86 142 12.558–61 173 12.561–2 124, 161 12.575–7 282 12.586 143 12.588–9 245 and n.45 12.594 143 n.82 12.601–5 245 n.44 12.606–10 151 12.626 245 n.45 12.635–8 125, 245 n.45 12.642–8 160 12.645 151 12.647 246 12.649–55 151 12.650–55 143 12.650–54 124 12.696 243 12.730–36 151 12.733–5 143 12.771–3 245 12.771 246 12.781 245 12.782 151 12.786–94 330 n.40 12.797–807 167 12.810–19 126 12.816–17 146 STRABO Geography 4.1.4 20 n.10 10.3.7 322

Index Locorum 10.3.19 322 SUETONIUS Augustus 85.1 236 n.12 Domitianus 9.1 214 n.50 Vespasianus 5.1 107 n.66 Vita Terenti 7 274 TACITUS Agricola 45.3 274 n.33 Historiae 1.3.2 151, 248 1.10.3 107 n.66 1.27.1 248 1.40.2 248 2.50 107 n.66 2.95 248 3.72 248 4.83.2 97 n.33 TERTULLIAN De Testimonio Animae 33.8 36 n.10 THEOCRITUS Idylls 16.1–2 127 n.3 17.1 131 n.23 17.135–7 136 VALERIUS FLACCUS Argonautica 1.1–21 35–6 1.5–7 40 1.7–21 136 n.51 1.26–30 43 1.71–3 237 1.73–4 43 1.75–8 42 1.79–90 41 1.79–80 43 1.80–95 36 1.91–9 41, 43 1.156–83 34 1.156–62 39 n.20 1.184–203 54 1.188–204 42 1.196–9 207 n.21 1.205–39 77 1.205–28 91 1.205–10 53 1.207–39 39 1.207 54

1.211–12 54 1.214–18 54 1.220–21 54 1.223–8 54 1.228 40 1.236 54 1.234–8 41 1.234 40 1.245–7 39 1.300–10 36 1.360–61 39 1.383–4 40 1.531–60 33 1.534 50 1.542–54 45 1.544–5 37 1.546–51 47 1.574–607 41 1.641–80 42 1.659–80 41 1.730–826 165 n.2 1.730–51 57 1.730–32 178 n.47 1.747 170 1.774–821 57 1.783–4 170 1.793–4 170 1.794–822 178 n.46 1.813–14 170 1.823–5 57 1.847–50 236 2.16–24 207 n.21 2.257–76 330 2.266–7 330 2.316–25 42 2.316 40 2.322–4 34 n.3 2.322 42 n.30 2.356–60 42 2.356 34 n.3 2.371–92 42 2.445–6 34 n.3 2.485–6 35 n.8 2.486 34 n.3 2.592–7 41 2.594 49 n.49 3.19–31 41, 47 3.124–37 207 n.21 3.223–8 207 n.21 3.249–52 41 3.293 49 n.49 3.299–302 40 3.372 40 3.374–5 40 3.377–416 40

395

396 3.426–7 40 n.22 3.352–6 47 3.619–21 47 3.620 50 4.1–21 41 4.114–32 42 4.199–201 207 n.21 4.235–8 207 n.21 4.431–64 38 4.445–6 40 4.460–61 38 4.477–82 37 4.483–5 34 n.3, 38 4.501–28 38 4.538–46 40 4.557–60 38 4.577–86 38 4.623–5 38 5.1–12 39 5.63–6 37 5.113 49 n.49 5.210–13 37 5.236–40 29 5.236–7 43 5.237 44 n.39 5.244–58 43 5.250–5 41 5.253–5 29, 44 5.259–65 44 5.259–62 29 5.269–75 44 5.277 44 5.278–99 41 5.278–96 45 5.329–98 45 5.329–62 187 5.363–72 46 n.41 5.399–401 46 n.41 5.408–55 39 n.17 5.528–41 45 5.672–89 41 5.683–7 29 6.28–30 41 6.427–506 33 6.427–94 46 6.427–55 45 6.490–91 46 6.498 47 6.575–601 46 6.602–8 46 n.41 6.621–30 42 6.657–80 46 6.680 46 7.153–406 46 7.153–322 33

Index Locorum 7.153–299 45 7.160–61 46 7.268–75 31 7.292–9 34, 47 n.44 7.309–24 34, 47 n.44 7.371–2 34, 47 n.44 7.446 47 n.44 7.461–2 34, 47 n.44 7.498–500 31 7.635–6 31 7.705 309 n.15 8.39–40 30 8.129–30 37 n.13 8.202–6 30 n.37 8.237–42 31 8.247–51 39 n.16 8.312 99 n.39 8.395–9 39 n.16 8.461–3 30 VALERIUS MAXIMUS Facta et Dicta Memorabilia 1.8 18 1.8.3 22 n.14 1.8.7 21 n.13 2.4.5 203 n.12 5.2.4 217 n.1 8.9.ext.3 98 VARRO Grammaticorum Romanorum Fragmenta 70 203 n.12 VERRIUS FLACCUS ap. Plin. Nat. 28.18 20 n.11 VIRGIL Aeneis 1.77 24 1.96–7 25 n.27 1.164 55 1.337 55 1.393–400 74, 90 n.8 1.393 98 n.34 1.397 97 n.31 1.399 97 n.31 1.401 74 n.15 1.427–9 55 1.479–82 344 1.479 18 1.482 138–9 1.498–504 341 1.621 257 1.649 258 1.709 258 1.728–56 305 n.9 1.728–30 305 1.729–30 257 1.749 305

Index Locorum 2.162–75 18 2.170–75 22 2.172–5 20 n.9 2.223–4 63 n.20 2.314 214 n.47 2.316–17 214 n.47 2.350–52 18 2.351–2 17 n.1 2.602–3 155 and n.21 2.608–9 209 n.30 2.617–18 155 3.225–8 312–13 3.233–4 312–13 3.240–44 312–13 3.374–462 62 3.483 258 3.485 258 4.174 277 4.178 211 n.36 4.300–3 56, 206 4.340–47 46 n.43 4.469–73 56 4.494–7 56 4.504–21 56 4.586–8 56 4.663–5 56 5.84–9 28 5.727 174 5.731–7 174 5.737 178 6.14–44 56 6.46 134 6.54–5 56 6.56–76 134 6.80 56, 61 n.17 6.83–97 176 6.86 177, 179 6.103–13 207 n.25 6.136–235 169 6.149–84 169 6.182 171 6.214–15 169 6.215–18 171 6.223–4 171 6.224 263 n.57 6.234 274 n.32 6.236–898 165 n.2 6.237–41 175 6.243–9 166 6.247 167 6.249–54 166 6.250 167 n.7 6.255–7 175 n.35 6.264–7 137–8 6.295–336 241

6.314 171 6.325–30 169 6.365–6 169 6.370–71 169 6.373–6 170 6.373 169 6.376 169 6.381 274 n.32 6.479–80 177 6.582 207 6.687–8 178 6.756–886 176 6.791 134 n.40 6.826–35 179 n.49 6.834 142 n.79, 242 n.34 6.890–92 176 6.893–9 56 7.1–4 274 7.331–40 138 7.396–400 349 7.561–2 298 n.34 7.698–705 102 8.40–41 25 n.28 8.102–12 129 8.185–306 199 n.1 8.185–275 130 8.198 213 n.45 8.200–1 212 8.201–12 306 8.241–9 224 n.28 8.242 202 8.243–6 203 8.278–9 139 8.287–302 139 8.293–302 130 8.364–5 199 8.630–34 68 8.659–61 68 8.698–705 207 n.23 8.719 214 n.50 9.5–24 23 n.21 9.14–15 26 9.22–23 185 n.19 9.184–7 40 n.21 9.359–66 350 9.446–9 102 9.481–97 243 n.40 9.590–637 67 9.617–20 330 n.38, 333 n.49 9.625–9 67 10.111–13 49 n.51 10.466–72 42 n.28 10.593 222 n.19 10.773–4 137 11.67–77 257

397

398 11.199–202 263 n.58 11.255–68 22 11.278–93 22 n.16 11.475–85 344 11.854 350 12.138–40 24 n.25 12.152–3 24 n.25 12.154–5 24 12.159–60 24 12.244–69 67 12.244–64 94 n.22 12.245–56 74 12.257–64 90 n.8 12.262 97 n.31 12.270 67 n.26 12.503–4 149 12.542–7 275, 278 12.545 276 12.720–21 142 n.79 12.800–28 49 n.51

Index Locorum 12.886 26 12.948–9 245 Eclogae 3.60 131 n.24 4.23–4 258 5.62–4 237 and n.17 5.64 250 n.4 10.13–15 237 10.17 237 n.17 Georgica 1.281 208 n.29 1.403–5 152 1.500–1 152 n.16 1.505–7 213 n.42 2.537 214 n.50 3.22–3 214 3.482–3 213 n.46 3.566 213 n.46 4.127–8 213 n.42 4.284–5 214 n.50

General Index This index is selective in references to religion and ritual, since these terms are discussed with frequency and passim throughout the volume. Acheron, River 175, 208 Achilles 13, 61, 136, 275–6 transvestism of 13, 335–51 Acmon 323 Acrisius 305–6 Actaeon 341 Actium 199–200, 207 Additamentum Aldinum 26 Adrastus 81–4, 86, 105, 110, 115, 117–18, 121–2, 125–6, 139–41, 177, 194–5, 244, 251–2, 262, 282, 303–4, 306–10, 313, 315–16 Aea 29 Aeetes 29–30, 41, 43–5 Aegeus 245 Aeneas 55–6, 59, 68, 74, 129, 134–5, 166, 169, 171, 173–9, 199, 207, 219, 224, 226–7, 245, 277, 279, 292–5, 301, 304–5 Aeolus 275, 278, 282 Aesculapius 21, 28–9 Aeson 57, 170, 236 Agamemnon 61 Agave 177, 179 Ajax 59, 178 Alcidamas 121 Alcimede 57, 170, 236, 330 Alexandrian, see Hellenistic poetics Allecto 8, 138, 242 Almo, River 31 Alps 67, 208 altermedial illusion 272 see also intermediality Amazons 13, 153, 196, 335–7, 342–5, 349 see also Asbyte; Camilla Amphiaraus 6–7, 55, 61–2, 78–80, 83–4, 89–107, 109, 117–18, 123, 168, 172, 174–5, 193, 233, 237, 243, 250–4, 259, 261–2, 264, 280–81 Amycus 42 Anacreon 273 Anchises 28, 174, 176, 179 Anna Perenna 5, 11, 23–27, 277 and Hannibal 23–27, 205 and rites of passage 12 as symbol of cultural interpenetration

and negotiation 24, 287–301 double identity of 11–12, 25, 287–301 festival of 289–90 Antigone 102–3, 114, 117, 123, 187 Aphrodite, see Venus Apollo 8, 40, 42, 48, 56, 58, 61, 65, 83–4, 87, 110, 115–18, 133–4, 136, 138–40, 154–5, 188, 191–2, 198, 207, 233, 237, 255, 262, 303–17 apotheosis 2, 69 Appius (Claudius Pulcher) 56–7, 61 Apulia 204 Ara Maxima 9, 130, 139, 199–200, 213–15 Arachne 262 Aradus 278 Arcadia 114, 129, 325 Archemorus, see Opheltes Archimedes 279–80 Argia 99, 117, 121–2, 187, 316, 319, 332–4 Argo 30, 36–7, 40, 48 Argos 71–87, 99, 114–16, 121, 148, 177, 184, 190–91, 193, 255, 303–17, 325–6 women of 87, 99–101, 123–5, 142, 153 Argyripa 20 Arion 194 Aristaeus 228 Arneios 257 Arpi 301 Arruns 75, 82 Artemis, see Diana cult of at Brauron 339, 344 Asbyte 277 Ascanius 66–7, 258 Astyanax 258 Atalanta 122, 182, 187–9, 193, 198 Athena, see Minerva Athens 100–1, 123–5, 143, 148, 153, 155–6, 194, 246, 344 atonement 190–93 Atreus 262 Attalus of Pergamum 21 Attis 32, 322, 333 augury 33–107 hermeneutics of 90 see also prophecy Augustus 69, 73, 105, 136, 200, 296

400

General Index

auspicy, see augury Avernus, Lake 166, 175, 208 Bacchants 13, 141, 177, 330, 334, 336, 339 thiasos of 348 Bacchus 10, 12, 141–2, 205, 211, 213, 226, 230, 234, 238–9, 249, 281, 321–32 banquet sacrificial 214 Baucis 212 Belus 205, 257, 305 Bellah, Robert 145 Bellona 31, 190 Bogus 6, 55, 63, 65–7, 70, 76 Boreads 314 Boreas 41 burial, see ritual, funeral Cabiri 322 Cacus 9, 139–40, 199–203, 209, 212–15, 305–6 Cadmus 173, 177, 239, 241, 243, 303, 314, 317, 320 Caesar, C. Julius 11, 68, 75, 81, 84, 104–5, 179, 236, 260–61, 274 assassination of 12, 296 Caieta 228, 274 Calchas 61 Callimachus influence of 255–6, 259, 304, 309, 311–12, 316, 324 Calliope 129 Camilla 277, 350 Camillus, M. Furius 19 Cannae, battle of 22, 25–6, 200, 206, 208–9, 217, 232, 287–301 Capaneus 6, 8, 55, 60–62, 64, 80, 83–4, 91, 117, 120–21, 137, 161, 168, 233, 238, 243, 260, 281 Capua 207, 209, 228 Carmentis 201 Carthage 199–215, 287, 291–4, 300 see also trickery Cassandra 61 Castor 175 Cato the Elder 204, 221–2 Cato the Younger 204 Catus 66–7 Celaeneus 40 Celmis 323 Cerberus 167 Ceres 260 Chalciope 29, 46 Charon 169, 171–2 Chrysaor 306

Chryses 138 Cicero and Roman theorizing of divination 104–7 Cimmerians 219 Cimon 344 Circe 31, 46 Cleanorides 273 Clement of Alexandria 323 Clementia 8, 100, 147, 150–52, 156–61, 194, 244–7, 304 altar (ara) of 8, 100–1, 123–5, 143, 151, 153–6 Cleopatra 200, 207 Clitumnus 214 Cocytus, River 175, 208 Coeus 211 Colaxes 42 Colchis 29, 37, 39–41, 43 civil war in 45 Coroebus 12, 115, 139–40, 154, 255, 262, 303–17 Corvinus 6, 55, 63–5 Corybantes 322, 325–6, 328, 332–3 council of the gods 5, 12, 324–6 Creon 8, 10, 58, 60–61, 86–7, 117, 123, 142, 147, 153, 155, 167, 171, 173, 233–4, 236, 238–47, 281 Cretheus 170 Crista 299 Crixus 68–9 Crotopus 139, 191, 303–17 cult imperial 3 Cumae 207 Curetes 13, 322–3, 325–8, 331–3, 349 Cybele, see Magna Mater Cyclopes 320–21 Cyrene 287 Cyzicus 40–41, 47 Dactyls 322–4 Daedalus 56 Damnameneus 323 Daphne 191, 308–9 Daphnis 237 Dasius 20–22 Decimus Mus, P. 243 deforestation as religious desecration 260–61 Deidamia 336, 339–41, 344, 347–50 Deipyle 316 deixis 128, 133 Delos 133–4

General Index Delphi 303, 308 demon reproductive 12, 304 deuotio, deuotus, see Menoeceus; Paulus Dialogizität (dialogue structure) 272 Diana 58, 117, 122–3, 176, 188–9, 262, 340 Dido 23, 55–6, 59, 178, 205–6, 257, 277, 287–8, 291–5, 297, 341 Dindymus, Mt. 333 Diomedes 18, 22, 25, 301 Dionysus, see Bacchus Dirae 312 Dis, see Pluto divination, see prophecy divine apparatus collapse of in Statius 72, 85–7, 149–50, 183–90, 234 in Lucan 146 in Valerius Flaccus 34 divine intervention and deeper psychological processes 35 direct 45–7 divine messages 5, 49–51 and human actions 5, 33–51 divine providence negation of 146 in the Thebaid 145–61 see also emperor Dodona 36 Domitian, Titus Flavius 8, 67, 105, 128, 130–36, 143, 207 campaigns of 128, 135 Dorceus 122, 188 double motivation 42–5 Douglas, Mary 314–15 dreams 5 Druids 261 Dymas 168 Earth-born men 31, 173, 176, 179, 240 ekphrasis 11, 56, 103, 269, 271 elegy 268 Elpenor 168–9 Elysium 170, 172, 236 emperor as guarantor of providence 156–8 Enceladus 211 Encidu 219 encomium 127–9 Ennius 36, 260–61 Epaphus 327 epic and political discourse 145–61 Epicurus 62 Epidaurus 28

401

epideictic 127 Epigonoi 179 epigram 267 funerary 273, 276 epiphany 131, 142, 213 epitaph and epitaphic gestures 11, 267–83 Erato 21 Erebus 171, 173 Erichtho 57–8, 169–70, 172, 175–7 Eriphyle, mother of Oedipus 177 Eriphyle, wife of Amphiaraus 109 Eris 65 Eros 46 Erysichthon 11, 260 Eteocles 59–60, 99–100, 113–14, 125, 142, 168, 173–4, 176–9, 182–7, 194–6, 233, 235–8, 240, 244 Etna, Mt. 211 Eunaeus 281 euocatio, see ritual Euryalus 102, 350 Eurydice, mother of Opheltes 250, 252, 254, 258, 262–4 Eurydice, wife of Orpheus 10 Evadne 124, 142–3, 153, 161 Evander 130, 139–40, 199, 201, 212, 304–6 Fabius Maximus, Q. 9–10, 200–15, 217–32, 287 as republican and synecdochic hero 10 cult of 229–32 cunctatio of 217, 232 Falernus 211–13, 230 Fama 211 fate role of in Statius’ Thebaid 71–2, 196 role of in Valerius Flaccus 48–50 and free decisions 48–9 fatum, see fate Fides 27 Figulus, Nigidius 76 Flaminius 6, 55, 63–5 Flavius Sabinus 207 Furies 59, 149, 166, 172, 196–7, 233, 311–12 see also Tisiphone Galba, Servius Sulpicius 248 Gallus, C. Cornelius 237 Garganus, Mt. 20 gender as performance 337–40 Gerunium, battle of 203–4, 217–18, 225–9 Geryon 305–6 gigantomachy 9, 132, 199–215

402

General Index

Gilgamesh 219 Girard, René 182, 193 Golden Age 212, 258 Golden Fleece 29–30, 41, 44 Gorgon, see Medusa Graces 321 Hades 166–8, 170, 172–3, 175–6 see also Pluto; Underworld Haemon 242 Hannibal 63, 65–7, 76, 84, 199–215, 228, 230–32, 241–2, 246, 277–8, 287–301 see also Anna Perenna Harmonia 12 necklace of 12, 81, 319–34 Harpies 12, 37–8, 312–15 haruspicy 75, 105 Hecate 46, 166–7, 176 Hector 61, 104 Helen 258 Helenus 62 Hellenistic poetics 261, 279, 283 Hephaestus, see Vulcan Hera, see Juno Hercules 27, 42, 47, 129–32, 139–40, 143, 175, 199–203, 205, 207–9, 212–15, 222–3, 230, 305–6 Hermes, see Mercury Hesiod burial ground of 91 Hesperides 320, 322–4 Hiarbas 277–8 Himerius 323 Hippolyte 124 Hippolytus 245 Hippomedon 123, 137, 168 hymn 8, 127–44 kletic 129–30, 135, 137 Hypseus 120 Hypsipyle 10, 12, 99, 125, 193, 233–4, 238–9, 242, 249–65, 324, 327–34 Hyrieus 212 Iapetus 208 Iarbas 277 Ida, Mt. (Asia Minor and Crete) 276, 324, 326, 333 Idas 61, 91 Idmon in Apollonius Rhodius 61, 91 in Valerius Flaccus 6, 39–40, 53–5, 57, 66, 69–70, 77–8, 91 Imilce 206 inscriptions 267–83 cenotaphic 278–9

intermediality 11, 267–83 Io 290 Iolcus 237 Iris 23, 26 Isis 130–31, 143, 225–6 Ismenos, River 184–6 Itys 214 Janus 133 Jason 31, 33–51, 53–4, 59, 219 and lack of confidence in the gods 41 and religio 41 and striving for glory 42 Jocasta 99, 112, 138, 196–7 Juno 8, 31, 40, 42–3, 45–7, 65, 138, 148, 151, 209–11, 287–8, 291–2, 294, 300, 326 and seduction of Jupiter 321 Regina 19 Jupiter 30, 48 and acceptance of fate 42 birth on Crete 322, 333 Capitoline temple of 207–9, 220, 248 death of on Crete 114, 323–5, 330 in the Aeneid 55, 74 in the Punica 209–11, 214, 288, 298–9 in the Siluae 131–2 in the Thebaid 71, 78–81, 84–7, 113–16, 118, 121, 123–4, 140, 148–52, 156–61, 172, 186, 190, 233–4, 238, 241, 260–61, 263–4, 324–7, 332 world plan of in Valerius Flaccus 33, 36, 41–2, 47–9 see also Theseus Juturna 24–6, 67 katabasis 4, 9–10, 67, 167, 174, 199, 202, 217–32 and initiation 223–7 kingship treatises on 152, 160 Kristeva, Julia 270 Lacus Curtius 132 Laius 57, 59, 70, 138, 171–4, 177–9, 186, 241 Lamia 312 Langia, River 250 Lares Augusti 185 Latinus 83 Lavinia 205, 293 Lavinium 20 Leda 258 Lemnos 42, 252–3, 263, 328–32 women of 42, 193, 198, 233, 238–9, 242, 328–31

General Index Lentulus, Cn. Cornelius 220 Lethe, River 171, 173 Leto 133 Liger 6, 55, 63, 65–7, 76 Linus 12, 191, 255–9, 262, 303–17 lustration, see ritual purification Lycaon 114 Lycomedes 336–7, 340–42, 345, 347–8 Lycurgus 239, 249, 251, 255, 258, 262–4, 327 Lyrnesus 276 Maecius Celer 130 Maenads, Maenadism, see Bacchants; Bacchic ritual Maeon 10, 140, 168, 234–7 Magna Mater 5, 12, 21, 31–2, 41, 322, 327–9, 331–4, 349 sacred lion of 47–8 Mago 215 Manlius Curtius 132–3 Manto 58, 239, 242 Marcellus, M. Claudius 231 Marius, C. 68 Mars 29, 41, 43, 65, 78, 80–82, 84, 123, 143, 151, 190, 290 masculinity 335–51 Massicus, Mt. 212 Medea 5, 29–32, 33–51, 187 and murder of brother 45 and murder of children 39, 45 medial quotation 272 Medus 29 Medusa 12, 303–17 Megaera 172, 190 see also Furies Melampus 61, 78–80, 84, 92–6, 102 Melanippus 120, 141 Menoeceus 10, 60, 168, 234–5, 239–44, 246 as deuotus 242–3 Mercury 167, 171–2, 299 as psychopompos 219 Messapus 102 Mezentius 8, 137 miasma 182 Mimas 208 Minerva 5, 8, 13, 30–32, 40, 42–3, 45, 87, 117–20, 129, 138–41, 151, 174, 189–90, 193, 197, 207, 262, 288, 290, 298, 336, 340, 342–5 Minos 326–7 Minucius 9–10, 200–15, 217–32 Misenus 169–71, 254 Mithras 140 monarchy good and bad 8

403

Mopsus 6, 39–40, 53–5, 57, 69, 77–8, 91, 104 Morgus 323 murder 10 Murrus 277–8 Mysia 47 mysteries Eleusinian 226 Isiac 225–6 Naevius 36 Naiads 340 Natura 150–51, 161 necromancy 4, 6, 8–9, 55, 57–60, 165–80, 182, 184 nekyia 178 Nemea 117, 120, 191, 193, 249–65, 327–32 Neptune 41–2, 53 Nero, Claudius Caesar 248 Niobe 177, 262 Nisus 102 Nox 8 Numanus Remulus 66–7 Numicius, River 287, 293, 295, 297 Obama, Barack 145 Oceanus 321 Octavian, see Augustus Odysseus, see Ulysses Oedipus atonement of 183–4, 197 curse of 59, 111–16, 118, 137–9, 167, 189, 196, 241, 245, 311, 314 in Sophocles 61 lament of 196 prayer of 7, 109–16, 125, 137–9, 195 Oenomaus 173, 325 oionoscopeia, oionoskopos, see augury; prophecy omens and poetic communication 7, 89–107 as narrative visualization 99 textualization of 7, 89–107 Opheltes 10, 99, 117, 121, 123, 168, 191–2, 194, 239, 249–65, 328 see also Eurydice, snake Opheltion 250 oracles 5 Orestes 56 ornithomancy, see augury, prophecy Orpheus 54, 175, 223–4, 226, 228 Orphic, Orphism, see ritual; theogony; Zeus Osiris 140 Ossa, Mt. 208 Otho, Marcus Salvius 248 Otrynteus 275

404

General Index

Palamedes 91 Pales 260–61 Palinurus 169–70, 242, 279 Palladium 5 abduction of 18 return of 19–23, 30, 301 Pallas, Evander’s son 245, 254, 257 Pallas, see Minerva Pandora 321 Panes 261 Parcae 251 Parilia 189 Paris 228 Parthenopaeus 86, 100, 117, 122–3, 168, 177, 187–9, 280 Pasithea 320–22 Patroclus 168, 254 Paulus, L. Aemilius 206, 209, 231 as deuotus 220 Pegasus 306 Pelias 39, 41–3, 170, 236–7 Pelion, Mt. 208 Pelops 262 Pentheus 56 Persephone, see Proserpina Perses 29–30, 44 Perseus 305–7, 309 hill of 90, 99, 107 phantasia 98 Pharsalus 63, 150 Phegeus 243 Phemonoe 56–7, 61, 69 Philemon 212 Philippi, battle at 296 Phineus 37–8, 40, 313 Phlegraean Fields 207, 214 Phocis 171 Phorbas 92, 101–3 Phrixus 29, 43–4, 320 piaculum, see atonement Pietas 46, 150–51, 233, 239, 243, 247 Pindar 253 Pirithous 175 Pluto 86, 115, 166–7, 172–3, 175, 189, 205, 222, 226, 238, 246–7, 278 Poine 12, 303–17 Pollius Felix 129–30 pollution 181–98 female 315 Pollux 175 Polydamas 61 Polynices 81–2, 99–100, 113–15, 123, 125, 139, 142, 168, 179, 183, 187, 194–6, 233, 244, 282, 303–4, 306, 319, 333–4 Polyxo 40, 42, 193, 330–31, 334

Pompey, Gn. Magnus 68, 75, 105, 179 portents 71–87 prayer 5, 7, 109–26, 128 Priam 219, 224 prodigies 5 prophecy 5–6 and agones 60–69 and internal and external audiences 6, 53–70, 94–5 and limits of human foreknowledge 38 as mediation between human and divine spheres 39–40 insufficiency of in Lucan 57 physical sight and mental image in 97–9 political and moral ambiguity of 105 Roman discourse on 89–90, 105–7 theatricality of 53–70 Proserpina 166–7, 223, 226, 233, 327 Protesilaus 278 Proteus 228 Psamathe 115, 191, 255, 303–17 Ptolemy 136 Punic wars First 208 Puteoli 130, 133 Pyriphlegethon, River 175 pyromancy 6, 55, 57, 60 Pythagoras 323–4 Pythian games 310 Python 12, 115, 191, 303–17 recusatio 136 religion, Etruscan 105 religion, Rome and imperial ideology 8 and political discourse 148–9 and political reciprocity 73 and power in the Thebaid 145–61, 247–8 changes in 2 civic 8 interplay with literature 2 neglect and decline of 2 variety of discourse in 1 Remus 68, 104 Rhadamanthys 326–7 Rhea, see Magna Mater ritual ancient practices in Flavian epic 17–32 and mystery cults 223 Argive 303–17 Bacchic 345–51 child sacrifice 205–6, 241–2 chthonic 9, 165–80, 199–215 cremation 253–64 KŒçæ 254

General Index ephebic 335–6 euocatio 5, 17, 19–20, 23–7, 30 foreign 18 funeral 5, 10, 249–65, 329–31 initiation 223 ŒÆÅçæØ 338, 344 lamentation 254 murder 233–48 of enthronement 13, 324–6 of lauatio 31 Orphic 13, 224, 319–34 æŁØ 254 purification 9, 181–98, 329 Romanization of 40 sacrifice 58, 199–215 substitution of sacrificial 193 sparagmos 330 translatio 5, 18–19, 27–30 women’s 13, 335–51 see also katabasis; necromancy Roma 75 Rome ecumenical dimension of 148 Romulus 68, 104, 107 rule, Roman polysyllectic 1 sacrifice 5 Saguntum 27–8, 218, 277–8 Salii 139–40 Scipio Africanus, P. Cornelius 66–9, 179, 205, 228, 230, 246 Scyros 335–51 Semele 327 semiotic systems 271 Sextus Pompey 178 Sibyl 56, 59, 62, 134–5, 166–7, 169–70, 179 Sibylline books 35–6 Silius Italicus Stoic doctrine in 201, 279 Silvanus 260–61 Simois, River 333 Sinon 22 Sinuessa 133 Sleep 322 snake, killer of Opheltes 249–65, 328 Sol 43 Sparta 338 Statius and the Alban games 128 and the Capitoline contest 128 father of 105 interpretation of the Thebaid 71–2 ‘monstrous regiment’ in 303–17 Romanization of Theban myth 104 Stoic doctrine in 242 theodicy in 304

405

Stoic doctrine, see Silius Italicus; Statius; Valerius Flaccus Styx 111, 169, 171 suicide 4, 10, 233–48 Sulla 68 Surrentum 129–30 swans in augury 89–107 migration of 93–103 Symplegades 38 Syracuse 279–80 Taenarus 172 Tantalus 114, 262 Tarpeia 350 Tarpeian rock 208–9, 211 Tartarus 174, 195 teichoscopy Theban 101–3 Telchines 320, 322–4 Tellus 193 Telphousa 134 Terence 274 Tethys 321 Thapsus 278–9 Thebes 58–9, 80, 82, 89, 112, 114, 121, 123, 148, 151, 167, 172, 174, 183–4, 190, 196, 253, 264, 282, 316, 325–6 theogony Orphic 319–34 theoxeny 211–13 Theseus 8, 10, 71, 86, 91, 124–5, 142–3, 167–8, 172, 175, 194, 196, 233–5, 244–7, 282, 344 as a clement king 147–61 as a figurative representation of Jupiter 152, 156–61 çغÆŁæøÆ of 153–6 Thessaly 29 Thetis 336–51 Thiodamas 193 Thoas 10, 238–9, 329–31, 334 Thyestes 214, 262 thyrsus 339, 347 Tiber, River 185 Ticinus, River 65, 200 Tiphys 37 Tiresias 55, 57–61, 70, 166, 171, 173, 177, 179, 182, 184, 219, 239–44 Tisiphone 46, 78, 110–16, 137–9, 166–7, 172, 189–90, 196, 218, 238, 246–7, 332 see also Furies Titans 322–3, 325–6 see also gigantomachy Tolumnius 67 translatio, see ritual

406

General Index

Trasimene, Lake 63, 200 Trebia, River 64, 200 trickery Carthaginian 221 Troy 258 Tunger 9, 203–4, 221–2 Turnus 26, 185, 242, 245 Tusculum 204 Tydeus 8, 59, 78, 81, 115, 117–20, 139, 177, 194, 235, 244, 304, 306 cannibalism of 9, 119–20, 140–41, 174, 188–90 Ulysses 18, 175–9, 219, 341–2, 345, 350 Underworld 10 description of 58, 165–80 imagery of darkness in 199–215 motivation and revelation in 176–80 permeability of borders to 174–5 see also Hades; katabasis Valerius Flaccus and Lucan on fate 49–51 and Seneca the Younger on fate 49–51 as quindecemuir sacris faciundis 35–6, 40 gods as traditional elements in the narrative of 49

Stoic doctrine in 49–50 see also fate Varro, C. Terentius 287, 296 Veii 19 Venus 33, 42, 55, 65, 74, 155, 228, 233, 235, 239, 299, 328, 331, 340 girdle of 46, 321 Vespasian, Titus Flavius 36, 107, 158, 200 and civil war of 69 CE 206–7, 248 Vesta 213, 296 Vesuvius, Mt. 209 Via Domitiana 133–5 Virtus in Silius Italicus 46 in Statius 60, 239, 242–3 Vitellius, L. 132, 207, 248 Volturnus 133 Voluptas 46, 228 Vulcan 12, 213, 321, 323–4, 328–9, 331–2 Zacynthus 27–8 Zama, battle of 211 Zeus, see Jupiter in Homer 61, 65 in Orphism 321 temple of in Nemea 251 temple of in Olympia 325