The Poetry of Statius

289 Pages·2009·1.21 MB·English

The Poetry of Statius
Mnemosyne
Supplements
Monographs on Greek and
Roman Language and Literature
Editorial Board
G.J. Boter
A. Chaniotis
K. Coleman
I.J.F. de Jong
P.H. Schrijvers
VOLUME 306
The Poetry of Statius
Edited by
Johannes J.L. Smolenaars
Harm-Jan van Dam
Ruurd R. Nauta
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2008
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
The poetry of Statius / edited by Johannes J.L. Smolenaars, Harm-Jan van Dam, Ruurd R.
Nauta.
p. cm. — (Mnemosyne. Supplements ; 306)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17134-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Statius, P. Papinius (Publius Papinius—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Epic poetry,
Latin—History and criticism. I. Smolenaars, Johannes Jacobus Louis. II. Dam, Harm-Jan
van. III. Nauta, Ruurd R.
PA6698.P59 2008
871’.01—dc22
2008033581
ISSN 0169-8958
ISBN 978 90 04 17134 3
Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Preface............................................................................................ vii
Abbreviations.................................................................................. xi
1. ‘In pondere non magno satis ponderosae…’:
Gronovius and the printed tradition of the Thebaid.................. 1
Valéry Berlincourt
2. Stones in the forest: epigraphic allusion in the Silvae.............. 19
Kathleen M. Coleman
3. Wandering woods again: from Poliziano to Grotius................ 45
Harm-Jan van Dam
4. The equine cuckoo: Statius’ Ecus Maximus
Domitiani Imperatoris and the Flavian Forum......................... 65
Michael Dewar
5. Battle narrative in Statius, Thebaid.......................................... 85
Bruce Gibson
6. Statius and the Greek Tragedians on Athens, Thebes
and Rome.............................................................................. 111
P.J. Heslin
7. Jupiter in Thebaid 1 again........................................................ 129
D.E. Hill
8. Statius in the Silvae.................................................................. 143
Ruurd R. Nauta
9. Statius, Domitian and acknowledging paternity:
rituals of succession in the Thebaid.......................................... 175
Gianpiero Rosati
10. Dust, water and sweat: the Statian puer between charm
and weakness, play and war..................................................... 195
Lorenzo Sanna
11. Statius Thebaid 1.72: is Jocasta dead or alive?
The tradition of Jocasta’s suicide in Greek and Roman
drama and in Statius’ Thebaid.................................................. 215
Johannes J.L. Smolenaars
Bibliography................................................................................... 239
Index of passages discussed............................................................ 251
General index.................................................................................. 261

PREFACE
After having organised a conference on Flavian poetry in Groningen
in 2003 and edited the ensuing volume Flavian Poetry (Brill, 2006),
we decided to devote a smaller-scale symposium to the most brilliant
and versatile of the Flavian poets, P. Papinius Statius. This sympo-
sium was held at the University of Amsterdam to mark the retirement
of Hans Smolenaars from the Department of Classics at the University
of Amsterdam, where he had taught Latin since 1969. The essays in
this volume are the revised versions of the papers delivered at this
symposium.
Most aspects of the poetry of Statius, including its reception, are
covered in this volume, although we regret that the Achilleid was
somewhat underrepresented in the colloquium. Four essays are de-
voted to Statius’ adaptation and transformation of traditional epic
techniques and motifs in the Thebaid (Gibson, Hill, Rosati, and Sanna,
who also discusses the Achilleid); two other contributions discuss
Statius’ creative imitation of tragic and other texts in the Thebaid
(Heslin and Smolenaars); a third group of essays is devoted to the
Silvae (Coleman, Dewar, and Nauta); and two papers are concerned
with the reception of Statius’ poems in European literature and schol-
arship (Berlincourt and van Dam). We decided, however, that, given
the relatively small amount of papers, it would be more satisfactory to
retain the alphabetical order of the contributors, which also leaves
readers more room to construe their own links between papers.
Valéry Berlincourt writes about the pivotal role of Johann Frie-
drich Gronovius as an editor and commentator of the Thebaid. He
shows that modern assumptions about the relationship between text
and commentary were not shared by earlier scholars, and that philol-
ogical reputations may rest on coincidences and arbitrary choices: if
Caspar Barth had printed his own text instead of adopting that of
Gronovius, his monumental commentary might have drawn more
attention, whereas the fame of Gronovius’ creditable but superficial
work was enhanced by the adoption of his notes in a popular variorum
edition.
Kathleen Coleman, after surveying the use of (fictional) inscrip-
tions in Roman imaginative literature, discusses the striking scarcity
viii PREFACE
of epigraphic quotation in the Silvae. She connects this with Statius’
strategy to transform and transcend the everyday reality of his pa-
trons’ world, and demonstrates how in various ways Statius replaces
an expected reference to an inscription by his own poetry.
Harm-Jan van Dam discusses the fortunes of the Silvae in the
Renaissance, concentrating on the reception and development of
silva(e) as a literary genre or mode of writing. He draws attention to
similarities between late 15th-century Italy and early 17th-century Hol-
land in the great enthusiasm for the Silvae evidenced by philological
work on the text, and by imitation and appropriation of the poems,
with Angelo Poliziano and Hugo Grotius as protagonists.
Michael Dewar argues that Statius’ poem on the colossal eques-
trian statue of Domitian in the Forum Romanum (Silvae 1.1) articu-
lates two themes crucial to the propagandistic message of the statue:
its association with other Flavian monuments in the vicinity and its
superiority to the monuments of Julius Caesar and Augustus in the
midst of which it was positioned.
Bruce Gibson examines various techniques of battle narrative in
epic poetry from Homer to Silius and points at Statius’ desire for
compression by foreshortening episodes and limiting the pictures of
individual combat, in comparison with Homer and Vergil. Gibson
argues that, following Lucan and Silius, Statius adds resonances of
historical modes of warfare in his similes, and uses anachronistic ele-
ments taken from historiography in his presentation of battle, in order
to amplify the significance of war in his epic on a mythical heroic
subject.
Peter Heslin investigates how Statius in the final books of the
Thebaid handles Greek tragedy. He argues that, by selecting and com-
bining themes and views from the tragedians, Statius reconciles the
plot(s) of Euripides with the spirit of Sophocles. By this use of themes
from tragedy, and by thematizing Athens, home of the tragedians, as a
refuge for the rest of Greece, Statius turns it into a paradigm for Rome
in more than one sense, and infuses the end of the Thebaid with moral
and political overtones.
Donald Hill analyses Oedipus’ prayer to Tisiphone and Jupiter’s
speech in the council of gods in Thebaid I. Oedipus’ prayer to wreak
vengeance on his sons is logically if not morally defensible, but Jupi-
ter’s diatribe about the failure of his previous punishments to improve
mankind is, Hill argues, rather a rambling speech by an incompetent
PREFACE ix
rhetorician. The flaws in Jupiter’s speech should be attributed not to
Statius’ possible carelessness, but rather to the weakness of Jupiter
himself.
Ruurd Nauta traces Statius’ self-presentation in the Silvae in
terms of the roles the poet plays. The role of praise poet, employing
the fictions of singing, lyre-playing and performance at the ceremony
itself, needs to be combined with other roles more closely related to
Statius’ position in Roman society: that of representative subject in
poems addressed to the emperor, and that of amicus in poems to non-
imperial addressees. These roles are variously articulated in accor-
dance with the relationship between poet and addressee and with the
speech act represented by the poem.
Gianpiero Rosati identifies the theme of succession, literary and
political, as informing both the opening and the close of the Thebaid:
whereas in the prologue the poet handles the motif of Phaethon in
such a way as to underscore the legitimacy of Domitian’s succession
of his father, in the epilogue political power is confronted by literary
power, as Statius stages the succession of Vergil’s Aeneid by his own
Thebaid.
Lorenzo Sanna examines ‘dust’, ‘sweat’ and ‘water’ as generic
constituents in the descriptions of ephebic heroes in Statius. The deli-
cate charm of Parthenopaeus in the Thebaid and the ambiguous beauty
of Achilles in the Achilleid are fine examples of this mixture of femi-
nine tenderness and male strength, a typical feature of Statius’ por-
trayal of boy-heroes. Dust and water not only enhance the beauty of
the puer delicatus, but are also characteristics of cruel warfare. The
mixture of these elements in descriptions of ephebic beauty and im-
mature death is typical of Statius’ style, but its origin can be traced
back to Ovid’s sensual pictures of Narcissus and Hermaphroditus.
Hans Smolenaars studies the different storylines developed since
Stesichorus with regard to the timing and setting of Oedipus’ self-
blinding and Jocasta’s suicide. Statius follows the version given by
Euripides in his Phoenissae, as Seneca did in his play of the same
name, according to which Jocasta stays alive long after Oedipus’ act
of blinding himself, and commits suicide only when the war breaks
out. Both Latin poets construct dramatic situations different from
those found in their predecessors, in a constant process of creative
emulation. Statius’ adaptations, moreover, demonstrate his skill at
incorporating multigeneric models.