Politics and Poetics HANDOUT 8 (week 9)

Mangled Epic: Statius’ Thebaid (I)

1. Historical context

68CE: Nero hounded out of power and driven to suicide

68-69: ‘year of the four emperors’ – Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian

69-79: Vespasian rules as emperor

79-81: Vespasian’s son Titus is emperor (dies unexpectedly)

81-96: Domitian, Titus’ younger brother, rules as emperor

96: Domitian assassinated, followed by damnatiomemoriae.

2. A ‘new aristocracy of power’

Martial, On Spectacles 7(6):

It is not enough that warrior Mars serves

you in unconquered arms, Caesar. Venus serves you too.

On Spectacles 8(6b):

Illustrious Fame used to sing of the lion laid low

In Nemea’s spacious vale, Hercules’ work.

Let ancient testimony be silent, for after your shows, Caesar,

We have now seen such things done by women’s valour.

3. Statius

  • Born 45-50 CE in Naples. Died 96.
  • Son of a grammaticus andequeswho was born in the Greek city of Velia in Magna Graecia, and who was himself a successful professional poet. Statius suggests that the emperor Domitian was one of his father’s pupils.
  • Statius educated in Naples, but at some point before 90CE the family moved to Rome.
  • The poet owned an estate at Alba Longa which was equipped with running water courtesy of Domitian (Silvae3.1).
  • Statius was contemporary with Martial,ValeriusFlaccus,Quintilian and Tacitus (who was born in c.56 but lived on until 120), and was a generation older than Juvenal and Pliny the Younger.

Surviving works:

  • 5 books of Silvae(occasional poems)
  • theThebaid, an epic in 12 books, punished in 92.
  • theAchilleid, a highly elegiac, ‘Ovidian’ epic on the life of Achilles (we have the first book and the beginning of the second). Cut short by the poet’s death?

4. Writing, autocracy, doublespeak

Tacitus, Agricola 2:

We have read that the panegyrics pronounced by ArulenusRusticus on PætusThrasea, and by HerenniusSenecio on PriscusHelvidius, were made capital crimes, that not only their persons but their very books were objects of rage, and that the triumvirs were commissioned to burn in the forum those works of splendid genius. They fancied, indeed, that in that fire the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the Senate, and the conscience of the human race were dying, while at the same time they banished the teachers of philosophy, and exiled every noble pursuit, that nothing good might anywhere confront them. Certainly we showed a magnificent example of patience; as a former age had witnessed the extreme of liberty, so we witnessed the extreme of servitude, when the informer robbed us of the interchange of speech and hearing. We should have lost memory as well as voice, had it been as easy to forget as to keep silence.

Bibliography: see especially S.Bartsch (1992) Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian.

5. Thebes as ALL WARS

Lucretius,On the Nature of Things 5.324-7: ‘Besides, if there has been no first birth-time for earth and heaven, and they have been always everlasting, why have not other poets also sung other things beyond the Theban War and the ruin of Troy?’

Key predecessors for Statius:

  • An early Greek cyclic epic called the Thebais, of which a few fragments survive - attributed by early writers to Homer.
  • The long and apparently long-winded epic on Thebes by Antimachus of Colophon, a proto-Alexandrian poet and grammarian who flourished c. 400BCE (he was admired by Plato) and to whose work Statius perhaps alludes in his proem, when he stresses the limits he will place on the scope of his work.
  • The Hellenistic poet Antagoras of Rhodos wrote aThebaid in 11 books, as did other poets roughly contemporary with him.
  • 5th century Greek tragedydeals extensively with these tales, often as a means of grappling with contemporary, Athenian political concerns (nb.F.Zeitlin on Thebes as Athens’ archetypal other): Euripides’ Suppliants and Phoenissae,AeschlyusSeven Against Thebes, Sophocles’ Antigone, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus Colonus.
  • Pindar used the Theban myth for purposes of eulogy (Isthmian Ode 7.3-15).
  • Latin versions: e.g. Accius’ and Seneca’s Phoenissae. Propertius, at 1.7.1-2, 17-18 and Ovid in Tristia 4.10.47, mention a poet called Ponticus who wrote about the expedition of the Seven against Thebes.
  • Aeneas meets three of the seven against Thebes in the underworld at Aen.6.477-82. Thebes is conspicuous by its absence from Virgil’s epic, yet critics have noticed that the Theban three all seem to have corresponding characters in the Aeneid (Tydeus is the hot-headed Mezentius, Parthenopaeus the virgin Pallas, Adrastus the good king Evander, or Latinus). How far is the war in Latium a civil war?

6. Eteocles and Polynices – Titus and Domitian?

Suetonius 2.3:

From that time on – the death of his father – he never ceased to plot against his brother secretly or openly, until Titus was seized with a dangerous illness, when Domitian ordered that he be left for dead, before he had actually drawn his last breath. And after his death he bestowed no honour on him, except for that of deification, and he often attacked his memory in ambiguous phrases, both in his speeches and his edicts.

7. Thebes and Rome: what’s in the mirror?

  • virtusbecomes a form of death. See Theb10.628-787. ‘Chance does the work of valour’ at 8.421 (casus agitvirtutis opus).
  • The search foriustitiainspires mass murder: Theb 2.360
  • The final killing fields are clementia’s tribute:Theb12.451-796 (Clementia has her seat ‘in the middle of the city’, 12.481-2).
  • pietasbecomes a female value inverted and perverted in men. The poem climaxes in and is sealed by female values, which undercut the ethos of epic and its narrative of male heroism.

8. The glories of men?

  1. 1.45: ‘I must sing of Capaneus with another horror’ (alioCapaneushorrorecanendus)
  1. 1.425-6:Tydeus and Polynices fight, and both are flushed with hatred (alacresodio) yet are inspired by ‘no desire for praise/glory’ (nullaquecupidinelaudis).
  1. 3.160-4: Ide, a Theban mother (name not known elsewhere), mourns the (nameless) sons of Thespius

Not in the thick of battle, famous for your fate, your

Daring actions, destined to live in the memory of nations,

Did you find these wounds, a grieving mother laments;

You died an obscure death, amongst the crowd, alas,

Lying unnoticed, amongst the gore, none to praise you (sine laude).

D. 8.551-553: Death of Corymbus

Corymbus of Helicon, who was formerly

A friend of the Muses, had taken arms against the Danai. Aware

Of what the Stygian Fates had spun, one Muse, Urania, had long

Foretold his death from the stars’ alignments. Yet he longs for

War and warriors, so as to sing them perhaps.Now he lies low,

Worthy himself to be sung with lasting praise, yet the Sisters wept his loss in silence.

E. 4.182-6:

Thamyris, theGetic bard, who thought

To surpass the Aonian Muses in song,was condemned to a life

Of silence, voice and lyre instantly mute (who can slight the deities

Face to face?) He had forgotten Celaenae, the home of the satyr,

Marsyas hung and flayed for daring to try his skill against Apollo.

9. Thebaidand Aeneid

  • Silvae 5.3.233-4: ‘Under your guidance (father) my Thebaid followed the footsteps of ancient bards’
  • Thebaid 12.816-17: ‘Live, I pray, and do not rival the divine Aeneid, but follow from afar and worship its footsteps.’
  • No ‘Odyssey’ in the Thebaid. Action begins as Oedipus steps into the role of Virgil’s Allecto in Aeneid 7, and calls on the Fury Tisiphone to exact revenge on his sons by setting them against each other.
  • The loss of epic teleology (and the Virgilian drive towards imperium sine fine) is captured above all in the figure of Statius’ Jupiter. Jupiter now rouses disorder rather than calming it; and he channels Juno’s chthonic anger. See the following two examples:
  1. Theb 7.1-14, 26-32:

While the Pelasgi thus delayed the onset of the Theban war,

Jupiter watched them, no kindness in his heart, and shook

His head, so that the stars on high trembled at the motion;

Atlas complaining: Earth weighed heavier on his shoulders.

Then Jove addressed Mercury, the swift Arcadian god: ‘Go, 5

Lad, and in one rapid leap glide to the north as far as those

Thracian dwellings, and the pole of the snowy constellation,

That Great Bear, where Callisto feeds her flames (forbidden

To sink into the Ocean) on wintry clouds and my own rain.

There, quickly, deliver his father’s urgent command to Mars,

Who perhaps lays his spear aside to breathe, though he hates

To rest or, more likely, plies weapons and insatiate trumpets,

Revelling in the courage of a race he loves. Spare nothing!

…

Now he (Mars) is soft in warfare and grows slack though I am angry. Unless he hastens the war and hurls the Danaan host against

The Theban walls faster than I command let him (and yet

I threaten nothing cruel) let him become a kind and gentle god,

Let his savage ways transform to peaceful ones, let him return

The sword and horses, and end his power over life and death.

- Compare Theb.7.5-6, I, …puer , with Aen.4.223: vade, puer

  1. Theb.1.214-47 (Jupiter’s speech at the council of the gods, which

alludes both to Jupiter’s speech in response to Venus’ plea at Aen.1.257-96, and also to Juno’s decision to make Allecto her puppet in Aeneid 7). Note especially lines 224-5: nuncgeminaspuniredomos, quissanguinisauctor /ipse ego,descendo (Now I am descending in punishment on the twin houses, whose father I am by blood’)

-Compare Theb.2.115-16:

Ipse deum genitor tibi me miseratusab alto / mittit

The father of the gods himself in pity sends me to you from on high/from the depths.

Seminar

Think back to last week’s exercise. Given, as we saw, how over-determined Lucan’s proem is, what do you make of Statius’ intervention in the tradition?

  • Compare and contrast Lucan and Statius’ beginnings. Remember that both are alluding closely to their nearest and most significant Roman predecessors (Virgil’s Aeneid, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, esp. Met.3). Think again about addressee, scope, time, timing, teleology, diction, purity/hybridity of genre, geography and space, the role of the hero.

The Muses’ fire inspires my mind to tell of fraternal war,

Of alternate kingship, of guilty Thebes disputed over

In impious hatred. Goddesses, where do you command me

To begin? Shall I sing the origins of that fateful people,

Of the Sidonian rape, and the sway of Agenor’s inexorable

Decree, that sent Cadmus to sail the waves in search?

The tale is long were I to recall that ploughman’s fearful

Sowing of conflict, the warriors out of unholy furrows, cf. Met.3.104

Were I to pursue all that followed; how Amphion’s

Music drew piles of stone to form Thebes’ Tyrian walls;

What led to Bacchus’ fierce anger against his kindred city;

The savage act of Juno, through which wretched Athamas

Bent his bow, his wife Ino embracing the Ionian wave,

Plunging fearless into the depths with Palaemon her son.

Yet swiftly I leave the joys and sorrows of Cadmus’

Days behind: let my poem limit itself to the troubled

House of Oedipus, since, as yet, I do not dare to sing

Of Italian arms and northern victories; twice-conquered

Rhine; the Danube twice brought under the rule of law;

The Dacians, in league, hurled from their mountain peaks;

Or earlier still the fight on the Capitoline resolved in youth;

O Domitian, a glory added to Latium’s fame, who as you

Pursue your father Vespasian’s aims anew, Rome wishes

Hers for eternity. Though the starry paths be more confined,

Where a shining tract of heaven, free of Boreas, the Pleiades,

The forked lightning, beckons you; though the Sun curbing

His fiery-footed steeds set his radiant halo on your brow,

Or Jove, on high, grant you an equal share of the wide sky,

May you, powerful on earth and sea, forgo the heavens,

May you rest content with the governance of mankind.

A time will come, when filled with brighter Pierian flame,

I shall sing your deeds: now, I but tune the lyre, enough

To recount Aonian conflict; a sceptre fatal to two brothers;

Anger outlasting death, flames warring still in strife above

The pyre; the bodies of kings left unburied, and cities

Emptied by continual slaughter, while Dirce’s crystal

Spring ran red with Lernaean blood, Thetis horrified

As the Ismenus, accustomed to flow past arid shores,

Rose in mighty flood. What hero would you have me first

Recall, Clio? Shall it be Tydeus, extravagant in his wrath?

Or the laurel-crowned seer Amphiaraus’ precipitous fall?

Wild Hippomedon too urges himself upon me, driving-on

The hostile corpse-filled waters, and I must mourn bold

Parthenopaeus, sing of Capaneus with a different horror?

Latin text:

Fraternasaciesalternaque regna profanes cf. Lucan 1.4: cognatasqueacies.

decertataodiissontesqueeuoluereThebasnb, no address to cives(as in Lucan)

Pieriusmenticalorincidit.undeiubetis cf. Ov.Met.1.1. fert animus…

ire, deae? gentisnecanamprimordiadirae,

Sidoniosraptusetinexorabilepactum 5

legisAgenoreaescrutantemqueaequoraCadmum?

longa retro series, trepidumsiMartisoperti cf. Ov.Met.4.564, seriequemalorum

agricolaminfandiscondentemproeliasulcis cf. Met.3.104, Aen.1.5, etc.

expediampenitusquesequar, quo carmine muris

iusseritAmphionTyriisaccederemontes, 10

undegrauesiraecognata in moeniaBaccho,

quodsaeuaeIunonis opus, cui sumpseritarcus cf. Aen.1.4, saevaeIunonisobiram

infelixAthamas, cur non expaueritingens

Ionium socio casuraPalaemone mater.

atqueadeoiamnuncgemitus et prosperaCadmi15

praeteriissesinam: limes mihicarminisesto cf. Ovid’s carmenperpetuum

Oedipodaeconfusadomus, quandoItalanondum

signanecArctoosausimspiraretriumphos

bisqueiugoRhenum, bisadactumlegibusHistrum

etconiuratodeiectosuerticeDacos 20

autdefensapriusuixpubescentibusannis

bellaIouis. tuque, o Latiaedecusadditefamae

quemnouamaturisubeuntemexorsa parentis

aeternumsibi Roma cupit (licet artioromnes

limesagatstellas et teplagalucidacaeli, 25

PliadumBoreaequeethiulcifulminisexpers,

sollicitet, licet ignipedumfrenatorequorum

ipsetuisalteradiantemcrinibusarcum

imprimatautmagnicedattibiIuppiteraequa

partepoli), maneashominumcontentushabenis,30

undarumterraequepotens, et sideradones.

tempuserit, cum Pieriotuafortioroestro

factacanam: nunctendochelyn; satisarmareferre

Aoniaetgeminissceptrumexitialetyrannis

necfuriis post fata modumflammasquerebelles35

seditionerogitumulisquecarentiaregum

funera et egestasalternismortibusurbes,

caerula cum rubuitLernaeo sanguine Dirce

et Thetis arentesadsuetumstringereripas

horruitingentiuenientemIsmenonaceruo. 40

quempriusheroum, Clio, dabis? inmodicumirae

Tydea? laurigerisubitos an uatis hiatus?

urguet et hostilempropellenscaedibusamnem

turbidusHippomedon, plorandaquebellaproterui

ArcadosatquealioCapaneushorrorecanendus.45

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