2020a. “Dominoque legere superstes? Epic and empire at the end of the Thebaid”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 111 (2020). (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Thebaid, Statius' Homeric Epic? Reflections of Domitian's Rome
This dissertation examines the somewhat neglected epic poem the Thebaid of the Silver Age Latin poet Statius. Until recently considered as something of a failure of epic, the Thebaid is actually a complex reflection of Rome under the emperor Domitian. The first chapter examines the many depictions of death, from murder to battle to glorious death, and demonstrates the major persistent theme of futility in war. The second chapter analyses Statius’ use of similes, including an original database of all the Thebaid’s similes, and shows how we can use those similes to identify his focus on the Argive heroes. It also shows that his similes have complex intratextual development to characterise people, such as the pattern of the chief bull simile to criticize Polynices and Eteocles. The third chapter examines how Statius represents both mortal and immortal tyrants, criticising them for their injustice and implicitly comparing them to Domitian. It also analyses how Statius’ characters respond to the tyrants, on whether they sycophantically support them or dare to defy them, even at the cost of their own life. Overall, we can see through the Thebaid a Rome which is intensely concerned with the increasingly autocratic Domitian and the threat of civil war if he was to fall.
in 'A Companion to Latin Epic: 14-96 CE' edd. L. Fratantuono and C Stark
This chapter addresses the fact that scholars are increasingly detecting a range of non-epic intertexts in Statius’ Thebaid, although this work is widely accepted to be within the martial epic tradition. It considers the gap between epic theory, which prescribes a lofty tone and military matter, and practice. Considering the hexameter subgenres of pastoral, didactic and mock-epic, it suggests that, although the Thebaid frequently diverges into non-epic mode, it repeatedly makes manifest its return to a more traditional conception of epic: for instance, by adapting model passages in line with epic decorum and by staging a narrative build up over Books 4 to 7 to more serious, more epic-indebted material.
Part IV continues with Monica Gale on Lucretius' De rerum natura, Michael Putnam on Virgil's Aeneid, Carole Newlands on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Shadi Bartsch on Lucan's Pharsalia or Bellum civile, Andrew Zissos on Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, William Dominik on Statius' Thebaid and fragmentary Achilleid, Raymond Marks on Silius Italicus' Punica, Michael Barnes on Claudian's De Bello Gildonico, and Dennis Trout on Latin Christan epics of late antiquity. . . .
Part IV continues with Monica Gale on Lucretius' De rerum natura, Michael Putnam on Virgil's Aeneid, Carole Newlands on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Shadi Bartsch on Lucan's Pharsalia or Bellum civile, Andrew Zissos on Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, William Dominik on Statius' Thebaid and fragmentary Achilleid, Raymond Marks on Silius Italicus' Punica, Michael Barnes on Claudian's De Bello Gildonico, and Dennis Trout on Latin Christan epics of late antiquity. . . .