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Exchange Eclipsed

in The Commerce of War: Exchange and Social Order in Latin Epic

This chapter explores the novel socioeconomic perspective of the Thebaid in relation to Statius's life circumstances, and also investigates how destructive consumption becomes the central economic ... More

This chapter explores the novel socioeconomic perspective of the Thebaid in relation to Statius's life circumstances, and also investigates how destructive consumption becomes the central economic theme of the Thebaid. It then argues that Statius creates innovative conceptions of the Roman virtues pietas and clementia in response to the appetitive excesses he envisions. The relative insignificance of gloria in the epic reflects its loss of vitality in imperial society. Jupiter's brother Pluto indicates most explicitly the delight that Jupiter takes in violence. The commodity language in Menoeceus' speech reflects the wording of the gods' demand for sacrifice. Niobe, Coroebus, and Menoeceus face the consumption and spending of the gods. Statius complements his interpretation of pietas with a notion of clementia that also encourages individual perseverance in the face of hostile dominant powers. Parthenopaeus, like Tydeus and Theseus, is carried along by a hunger for violence.Less

Parthenopaeus and mors immatura in Statius’ Thebaid

J. Mira Seo

in Exemplary Traits: Reading Characterization in Roman Poetry

“Parthenopaeus and mors immatura in Statius’ Thebaid.” This chapter explores the construction of a super-trope and its narrative implications. The pederastic poetics of Ovid’s Orpheus are ... More

“Parthenopaeus and mors immatura in Statius’ Thebaid.” This chapter explores the construction of a super-trope and its narrative implications. The pederastic poetics of Ovid’s Orpheus are referentially embodied in Statius’ ephebic Parthenopaeus: Statius synthesizes multiple traditions into a consistent set of physical traits and poetic topoi that signify the Doomed Ephebe. Seneca’s Hippolytus (discussed in the appendix) is an important antecedent. This essentialized portrait of ephebic death contains a voyeuristic eroticism that corresponds to Domitianic sexual practices and aesthetic norms.Less

Scit cetera mater: Motherhood and Poetic Filiation in Statian Epic

Mairéad McAuley

in Reproducing Rome: Motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Statius

This chapter examines the figures of Thetis in Statius’ Achilleid and Atalanta in the Thebaid to reveal how these poems also utilize images and metaphors of maternity to negotiate their position ... More

This chapter examines the figures of Thetis in Statius’ Achilleid and Atalanta in the Thebaid to reveal how these poems also utilize images and metaphors of maternity to negotiate their position within the epic tradition. It argues that Statius’ allusions to the Aeneid often amplify feminine, maternal aspects suppressed in the earlier, canonical epic. Through its extraordinary evocations of maternal subjectivity in the form of Thetis and Atalanta who must negotiate the deaths of their young warrior sons, it traces an alternative reading of Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid as a would-be, but never-quite-realized, maternal epic, a poetry of supplements, surrogates, and digressions, rather than one that fuses narrative linearity and patrilineage, like the Aeneid.Less

Conclusions

Stefano Rebeggiani

in The Fragility of Power: Statius, Domitian and the Politics of the Thebaid

This chapter recapitulates the volume’s main achievements and sketches ways for expanding its methodology to other texts and to parts of Statius’ poem not covered in this book. It suggests that ... More

This chapter recapitulates the volume’s main achievements and sketches ways for expanding its methodology to other texts and to parts of Statius’ poem not covered in this book. It suggests that Valerius Flaccus’ epic is influenced by the same anti-Neronian ideology discussed in Chapter 1 and, like the Thebaid, reflects on the topic of imperial succession. The chapter surveys the political relevance of the Lemnos episode. It also argues that Statius’ reflection on the epic hero’s oscillation between the two poles of god and beast (discussed in Chapter 3 with reference to Capaneus and Tydeus especially) concerns other figures in the poem as well (Hippomedon, and by contrast Amphiaraus and Parthenopaeus). Finally, the chapter contains a summary of political views articulated by Statius in the Thebaid and suggests that the political ideas embedded in the poem were particularly close to the position of groups of survivors of Nero.Less