Ben Tipping
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550111
- eISBN:
- 9780191720611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550111.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the character Hannibal in Silius' Punica. It argues that it is Hannibal's compelling, meta-poetic, absent-presence in Scipio's triumphal parade that asserts his power over ...
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This chapter explores the character Hannibal in Silius' Punica. It argues that it is Hannibal's compelling, meta-poetic, absent-presence in Scipio's triumphal parade that asserts his power over Silius' epic. If the play of textual temporality, and of aperture and closure, in the Liternum episode serves to re-emphasize that the Punica is a tale told by a Roman victor, it also illustrates not only the openness of the poem to a Punic point of view, but, more broadly, Silius' limited power, as Roman epicist, over openings and closings. His poetic celebration of Roman victory, or victories, cannot altogether control its portrayal of Rome's greatest enemy, nor the problematic lapse between Roman past and present, nor, indeed, how, or how much of, the Punica will be read.Less
This chapter explores the character Hannibal in Silius' Punica. It argues that it is Hannibal's compelling, meta-poetic, absent-presence in Scipio's triumphal parade that asserts his power over Silius' epic. If the play of textual temporality, and of aperture and closure, in the Liternum episode serves to re-emphasize that the Punica is a tale told by a Roman victor, it also illustrates not only the openness of the poem to a Punic point of view, but, more broadly, Silius' limited power, as Roman epicist, over openings and closings. His poetic celebration of Roman victory, or victories, cannot altogether control its portrayal of Rome's greatest enemy, nor the problematic lapse between Roman past and present, nor, indeed, how, or how much of, the Punica will be read.
Antony Augoustakis
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199584413
- eISBN:
- 9780191723117
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199584413.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
In the second chapter, attention is paid to the construction of what constitutes same and other in the early books of the Punica, by looking at the role of patria, Italy and Africa respectively: the ...
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In the second chapter, attention is paid to the construction of what constitutes same and other in the early books of the Punica, by looking at the role of patria, Italy and Africa respectively: the word patria is closely associated with the male protagonists of the poem, especially pairs of fathers and sons, who try to protect their respective fatherlands, quite unsuccessfully. Alienation from one's patria is also evident in Rome's allied cities, especially Saguntum, where women are either silenced (the Amazon Asbyte) or inspired by bacchic frenzy, with a borrowed voice (Tiburna). The appearance of Tellus in book 15, however, marks a change, as the figure of the mother-earth empowers the male warriors to initiate war and discover a new identity.Less
In the second chapter, attention is paid to the construction of what constitutes same and other in the early books of the Punica, by looking at the role of patria, Italy and Africa respectively: the word patria is closely associated with the male protagonists of the poem, especially pairs of fathers and sons, who try to protect their respective fatherlands, quite unsuccessfully. Alienation from one's patria is also evident in Rome's allied cities, especially Saguntum, where women are either silenced (the Amazon Asbyte) or inspired by bacchic frenzy, with a borrowed voice (Tiburna). The appearance of Tellus in book 15, however, marks a change, as the figure of the mother-earth empowers the male warriors to initiate war and discover a new identity.
Ben Tipping
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550111
- eISBN:
- 9780191720611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550111.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Silius Italicus' Punica should be the example of Roman epic, glorifying hard-won victory over an external enemy at the height of the republic, between the legendary beginnings that Virgil traces in ...
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Silius Italicus' Punica should be the example of Roman epic, glorifying hard-won victory over an external enemy at the height of the republic, between the legendary beginnings that Virgil traces in the Aeneid and the decline into civil war that Lucan laments in the De bello civili. Yet even now, as ongoing antipathy to positivist aesthetics facilitates re-evaluation of potential subject matter for monographs, classicists are less familiar with the Punica itself than with the sort of faint praise or outright condemnation that has, since antiquity, characterized literary-critical response to Silius' poem. This chapter shows how Silius' epic merits close attention both per se and for its rich interrelationships with other works, especially its main generic paradigms, Virgil's Aeneid and Lucan's De bello civili.Less
Silius Italicus' Punica should be the example of Roman epic, glorifying hard-won victory over an external enemy at the height of the republic, between the legendary beginnings that Virgil traces in the Aeneid and the decline into civil war that Lucan laments in the De bello civili. Yet even now, as ongoing antipathy to positivist aesthetics facilitates re-evaluation of potential subject matter for monographs, classicists are less familiar with the Punica itself than with the sort of faint praise or outright condemnation that has, since antiquity, characterized literary-critical response to Silius' poem. This chapter shows how Silius' epic merits close attention both per se and for its rich interrelationships with other works, especially its main generic paradigms, Virgil's Aeneid and Lucan's De bello civili.
Ben Tipping
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550111
- eISBN:
- 9780191720611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550111.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter argues that the Punica is a poem at war with itself. The past Silius portrays is at once an ideal that contrasts with subsequent decline, the source of that decline, and disconcertingly ...
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This chapter argues that the Punica is a poem at war with itself. The past Silius portrays is at once an ideal that contrasts with subsequent decline, the source of that decline, and disconcertingly parallel with the present. For Silius also, at times, and from a certain point of view, presents exemplary Roman conduct as intact across history: Romulus, Scipio, and Domitian (for instance) are all model Romans, and approximately modelled on one another. But that point of view is temporary and partial. If the typological parallels involved in such a triumvirate achieve a mutual heroization of past and present exemplars of Roman conduct, they also entail tensions that cannot be wholly suppressed. The affinity of the republican Scipio to fratricidal king and extravagantly autocratic emperor papers over ideological fissures that remain, or are all too easily rendered, visible. It also raises the possibility that the emergent hero of Silius' epic is precisely an example of and for the domination of the individual over Roman destiny.Less
This chapter argues that the Punica is a poem at war with itself. The past Silius portrays is at once an ideal that contrasts with subsequent decline, the source of that decline, and disconcertingly parallel with the present. For Silius also, at times, and from a certain point of view, presents exemplary Roman conduct as intact across history: Romulus, Scipio, and Domitian (for instance) are all model Romans, and approximately modelled on one another. But that point of view is temporary and partial. If the typological parallels involved in such a triumvirate achieve a mutual heroization of past and present exemplars of Roman conduct, they also entail tensions that cannot be wholly suppressed. The affinity of the republican Scipio to fratricidal king and extravagantly autocratic emperor papers over ideological fissures that remain, or are all too easily rendered, visible. It also raises the possibility that the emergent hero of Silius' epic is precisely an example of and for the domination of the individual over Roman destiny.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual ...
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Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.Less
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.
Antony Augoustakis
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199584413
- eISBN:
- 9780191723117
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199584413.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
While interest in the poets of the Flavian period has been steadily growing, the role of women in the epic poems of Silius Italicus and Statius has so far remained understudied. This book offers the ...
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While interest in the poets of the Flavian period has been steadily growing, the role of women in the epic poems of Silius Italicus and Statius has so far remained understudied. This book offers the studies of the role of motherhood and female foreign otherness in the Punica and the Thebaid. The book argues that the juxtaposition of Roman and foreign women as mothers expands our awareness of the poems' scope in relation to gender and ethnicity. By drawing on the theoretical apparatus of Julia Kristeva on motherhood and otherness, the book shows how the Flavian poets construct an idealized discourse on the empire's own identity that at once crystallizes but also destabilizes the role that women command within the epic genre. The portrayal of female figures in the epics of the first century ce allows us to witness a change of attitudes toward otherness: the periphery now defines the centre, as the poets highlight the notions of otherness and motherhood in the narrative in order to reshape Romanness through representations of the other.Less
While interest in the poets of the Flavian period has been steadily growing, the role of women in the epic poems of Silius Italicus and Statius has so far remained understudied. This book offers the studies of the role of motherhood and female foreign otherness in the Punica and the Thebaid. The book argues that the juxtaposition of Roman and foreign women as mothers expands our awareness of the poems' scope in relation to gender and ethnicity. By drawing on the theoretical apparatus of Julia Kristeva on motherhood and otherness, the book shows how the Flavian poets construct an idealized discourse on the empire's own identity that at once crystallizes but also destabilizes the role that women command within the epic genre. The portrayal of female figures in the epics of the first century ce allows us to witness a change of attitudes toward otherness: the periphery now defines the centre, as the poets highlight the notions of otherness and motherhood in the narrative in order to reshape Romanness through representations of the other.
Hunter H. Gardner
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198796428
- eISBN:
- 9780191837708
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198796428.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter 6 explores the appropriation of late Republican and Augustan treatments of pestilence in Imperial literature. Seneca’s version of Oedipus’ tragedy turns to Latin epic, rather than Sophocles, ...
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Chapter 6 explores the appropriation of late Republican and Augustan treatments of pestilence in Imperial literature. Seneca’s version of Oedipus’ tragedy turns to Latin epic, rather than Sophocles, to articulate conditions of pestilence in Thebes. This language reflects upon Oedipus’ traditional role as φαρμακός, both infected “carrier” and saviour to the civic body, clarifying how competing claims of individuality and collectivity have determined the pathology of earlier literary treatments of plague. By inscribing plague within a text that questions standards of good government, Seneca secures the role of contagion as a tool for examining the health of the body politic in Neronian Rome. The epics of Silius Italicus and Lucan also invoke the plagues of their predecessors in contexts of Roman civil discord, and use the plague’s power to enact the dissolution of individual identity as a way of indicting competition for political distinction. Lucan relies on the symptomology of his predecessors in his account of pestilence afflicting Pompey’s soldiers, but emphasizes the link between contagion and internal conflict by casting both the disease and the fervour for civil war as rabies. Silius, in the Punica, describes an outbreak of pestilence during the Punic Wars that brings about widespread destruction. But in answer to the status-leveling and dehumanizing effects characterizing preceding plague narratives, he depicts the Roman general Marcellus escaping the plague and recovering distinction or “exemplarity” in a way that does not threaten the health of the body politic.Less
Chapter 6 explores the appropriation of late Republican and Augustan treatments of pestilence in Imperial literature. Seneca’s version of Oedipus’ tragedy turns to Latin epic, rather than Sophocles, to articulate conditions of pestilence in Thebes. This language reflects upon Oedipus’ traditional role as φαρμακός, both infected “carrier” and saviour to the civic body, clarifying how competing claims of individuality and collectivity have determined the pathology of earlier literary treatments of plague. By inscribing plague within a text that questions standards of good government, Seneca secures the role of contagion as a tool for examining the health of the body politic in Neronian Rome. The epics of Silius Italicus and Lucan also invoke the plagues of their predecessors in contexts of Roman civil discord, and use the plague’s power to enact the dissolution of individual identity as a way of indicting competition for political distinction. Lucan relies on the symptomology of his predecessors in his account of pestilence afflicting Pompey’s soldiers, but emphasizes the link between contagion and internal conflict by casting both the disease and the fervour for civil war as rabies. Silius, in the Punica, describes an outbreak of pestilence during the Punic Wars that brings about widespread destruction. But in answer to the status-leveling and dehumanizing effects characterizing preceding plague narratives, he depicts the Roman general Marcellus escaping the plague and recovering distinction or “exemplarity” in a way that does not threaten the health of the body politic.
Ben Tipping
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199218035
- eISBN:
- 9780191711534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199218035.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the wide range of closural issues that the Punica raises. It shows that the Liternum episode may be seen to illustrate not only the Punica’s openness to a Punic point of view, ...
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This chapter explores the wide range of closural issues that the Punica raises. It shows that the Liternum episode may be seen to illustrate not only the Punica’s openness to a Punic point of view, but more broadly Silius’ limited power, as Roman epicist, over aperture and closure: his poetic celebration of Roman victory — or victories — cannot altogether contain the dominant figure of the enemy, who thus perhaps becomes this ‘Punic’ poem’s anti-hero, nor control the problematic lapse between Roman past and present, nor, indeed, determine how, or how much of, the Punica will be read.Less
This chapter explores the wide range of closural issues that the Punica raises. It shows that the Liternum episode may be seen to illustrate not only the Punica’s openness to a Punic point of view, but more broadly Silius’ limited power, as Roman epicist, over aperture and closure: his poetic celebration of Roman victory — or victories — cannot altogether contain the dominant figure of the enemy, who thus perhaps becomes this ‘Punic’ poem’s anti-hero, nor control the problematic lapse between Roman past and present, nor, indeed, determine how, or how much of, the Punica will be read.
Ben Tipping
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550111
- eISBN:
- 9780191720611
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550111.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The force of example was a distinctive determiner of Roman identity. However, examples always rely upon the response of an audience, and are dependent upon context. Even where the example presented ...
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The force of example was a distinctive determiner of Roman identity. However, examples always rely upon the response of an audience, and are dependent upon context. Even where the example presented is positive, we cannot always suppress any negative associations it may also carry. This book considers the virtues and vices they embody, their status as exemplars, and the process by which Silius as epic poet heroizes, demonizes, and establishes models. The book argues that example is a vital source of significance within the Punica, but also an inherently unstable mode, the lability of which affects both Silius' epic heroes and his villainous Hannibal.Less
The force of example was a distinctive determiner of Roman identity. However, examples always rely upon the response of an audience, and are dependent upon context. Even where the example presented is positive, we cannot always suppress any negative associations it may also carry. This book considers the virtues and vices they embody, their status as exemplars, and the process by which Silius as epic poet heroizes, demonizes, and establishes models. The book argues that example is a vital source of significance within the Punica, but also an inherently unstable mode, the lability of which affects both Silius' epic heroes and his villainous Hannibal.
Pramit Chaudhuri
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199993383
- eISBN:
- 9780190204990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199993383.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
In the Punica, Silus Italicus combines the stereotypical impiety of Hannibal in the historiographical tradition with the literary figure of the theomach that had become especially prominent in ...
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In the Punica, Silus Italicus combines the stereotypical impiety of Hannibal in the historiographical tradition with the literary figure of the theomach that had become especially prominent in imperial epic. The chapter shows how Silius presents the hero’s two most theomachic moments - the crossing of the Alps and the assault on the Capitol - as underlining the power and supremacy of Jupiter in the world of the Punica. In each episode, Silius uses the notion of theomachy both to aggrandise Hannibal and to demonstrate the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between mortality and divinity. The majority of the chapter illustrates this simultaneous process of elevation and undercutting, while identifying important complicating factors. First, Silius invests Hannibal with considerable metapoetic significance through the concepts of loftiness and audacity that attach to his march across the Alps and attempt to ascend the Capitol. These two scenes put Silius’ conventional condemnation of impiety in tension with theomachy’s aesthetic importance for the Punica. Second, the burning of the Capitol in Silius’ own lifetime during the civil wars of AD 68-69 turns Hannibal’s theomachy from a stereotype of Carthaginian wickedness into an image of the very impiety Roman aspirants to the principate had themselves perpetrated.Less
In the Punica, Silus Italicus combines the stereotypical impiety of Hannibal in the historiographical tradition with the literary figure of the theomach that had become especially prominent in imperial epic. The chapter shows how Silius presents the hero’s two most theomachic moments - the crossing of the Alps and the assault on the Capitol - as underlining the power and supremacy of Jupiter in the world of the Punica. In each episode, Silius uses the notion of theomachy both to aggrandise Hannibal and to demonstrate the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between mortality and divinity. The majority of the chapter illustrates this simultaneous process of elevation and undercutting, while identifying important complicating factors. First, Silius invests Hannibal with considerable metapoetic significance through the concepts of loftiness and audacity that attach to his march across the Alps and attempt to ascend the Capitol. These two scenes put Silius’ conventional condemnation of impiety in tension with theomachy’s aesthetic importance for the Punica. Second, the burning of the Capitol in Silius’ own lifetime during the civil wars of AD 68-69 turns Hannibal’s theomachy from a stereotype of Carthaginian wickedness into an image of the very impiety Roman aspirants to the principate had themselves perpetrated.
Irene Peirano Garrison
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198826477
- eISBN:
- 9780191865442
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198826477.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the earliest traditions clustering around Virgil’s tomb. Its geographical location on the Via Puteolana, identified in the ancient lives, activates not only literary memories of ...
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This chapter explores the earliest traditions clustering around Virgil’s tomb. Its geographical location on the Via Puteolana, identified in the ancient lives, activates not only literary memories of the Aeneid (the landscape of Aeneas’ landfall and descent into the underworld), but also memories associated with the landscape itself in other sources. The chapter also investigates how the physical space of the tomb functioned as an early site of poetic succession: the land was acquired by the poet Silius Italicus, whose veneration of the tomb and claim to Virgil’s literary inheritance is taken up by Martial and Pliny the Younger. These accounts and traditions are examined within the context of the ancient topos of the neglected and rediscovered grave.Less
This chapter explores the earliest traditions clustering around Virgil’s tomb. Its geographical location on the Via Puteolana, identified in the ancient lives, activates not only literary memories of the Aeneid (the landscape of Aeneas’ landfall and descent into the underworld), but also memories associated with the landscape itself in other sources. The chapter also investigates how the physical space of the tomb functioned as an early site of poetic succession: the land was acquired by the poet Silius Italicus, whose veneration of the tomb and claim to Virgil’s literary inheritance is taken up by Martial and Pliny the Younger. These accounts and traditions are examined within the context of the ancient topos of the neglected and rediscovered grave.
Claire Stocks
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807742
- eISBN:
- 9780191845567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807742.003.0016
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses how Hannibal’s eruption of fury at the Capuan patriot Decius mirrors the violence of Campania’s volcanic landscape and the mythic monsters who lurk beneath the surface, ...
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This chapter discusses how Hannibal’s eruption of fury at the Capuan patriot Decius mirrors the violence of Campania’s volcanic landscape and the mythic monsters who lurk beneath the surface, punished for transgressing boundaries. Hannibal’s tour of the Phlegraean Fields suggests a travesty of Aeneas’ tour of Evander’s modest settlement in Aeneid 8. In perfidious Capua, a city whose depravity flouts every mark of Roman decency, now driven by furor to impious war, Hannibal, a monster in a land of monsters, is honoured as divine. In rivalling the demigod Hercules (11.134–7) his transgression is as theomachic as his emulation (of the human rather than the divine Hercules) is misguidedly flawed.Less
This chapter discusses how Hannibal’s eruption of fury at the Capuan patriot Decius mirrors the violence of Campania’s volcanic landscape and the mythic monsters who lurk beneath the surface, punished for transgressing boundaries. Hannibal’s tour of the Phlegraean Fields suggests a travesty of Aeneas’ tour of Evander’s modest settlement in Aeneid 8. In perfidious Capua, a city whose depravity flouts every mark of Roman decency, now driven by furor to impious war, Hannibal, a monster in a land of monsters, is honoured as divine. In rivalling the demigod Hercules (11.134–7) his transgression is as theomachic as his emulation (of the human rather than the divine Hercules) is misguidedly flawed.
Martin T. Dinter
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199644094
- eISBN:
- 9780191745010
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644094.003.0016
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the influence of epitaph, that is, actual funerary inscriptions, as well as the epitaphic subgenre of literary epigram, on the epics of Statius and Silius. It proposes that ...
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This chapter examines the influence of epitaph, that is, actual funerary inscriptions, as well as the epitaphic subgenre of literary epigram, on the epics of Statius and Silius. It proposes that brief formulaic expressions such as the epitaphic address tuquoque serve as intergeneric (epic/epigram) and intermedial (text/stone) markers and thus promote a connotation of memorialisation. In addition, these markers are frequently combined with epitaphic motifs. By looking at the deaths of minor and major heroes from this perspective, this chapter illustrates the use of epitaphic gestures by Statius and Silius.Less
This chapter examines the influence of epitaph, that is, actual funerary inscriptions, as well as the epitaphic subgenre of literary epigram, on the epics of Statius and Silius. It proposes that brief formulaic expressions such as the epitaphic address tuquoque serve as intergeneric (epic/epigram) and intermedial (text/stone) markers and thus promote a connotation of memorialisation. In addition, these markers are frequently combined with epitaphic motifs. By looking at the deaths of minor and major heroes from this perspective, this chapter illustrates the use of epitaphic gestures by Statius and Silius.
Pramit Chaudhuri
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199993383
- eISBN:
- 9780190204990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199993383.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
After Lucan, the Flavian epicists return to a superficially conventional theology of highly active and interventionist deities. The two martial epics - Silius Italicus’ Punica and Statius’ Thebaid - ...
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After Lucan, the Flavian epicists return to a superficially conventional theology of highly active and interventionist deities. The two martial epics - Silius Italicus’ Punica and Statius’ Thebaid - take a particularly strong interest in epic theomachy. The chapter offers two different kinds of case study which illustrate the main debts to, and departures from, the epic tradition, and which show the importance of non-Vergilian influence on Flavian epic, especially by Homer. The first case study examines the mache parapotamios, the epic topos of the struggle between mortal and river god. This section surveys the Iliadic and Flavian episodes in order to show the different ways that the texts frame the relative power of gods and mortals. The second case study takes a different approach by looking at the synchronic as well as diachronic intertexts for the topos of the agon between a seer and a theomach. Focusing on Silius’ argument between Flaminius and Corvinus, and the subsequent account of the battle of Trasimene, the section combines evidence from the Greek epic tradition, connections to a near-contemporary agon in Statius’ Thebaid, and intratextuality within the Punica itself to show how a multilayered representation of theomachy can be interpreted.Less
After Lucan, the Flavian epicists return to a superficially conventional theology of highly active and interventionist deities. The two martial epics - Silius Italicus’ Punica and Statius’ Thebaid - take a particularly strong interest in epic theomachy. The chapter offers two different kinds of case study which illustrate the main debts to, and departures from, the epic tradition, and which show the importance of non-Vergilian influence on Flavian epic, especially by Homer. The first case study examines the mache parapotamios, the epic topos of the struggle between mortal and river god. This section surveys the Iliadic and Flavian episodes in order to show the different ways that the texts frame the relative power of gods and mortals. The second case study takes a different approach by looking at the synchronic as well as diachronic intertexts for the topos of the agon between a seer and a theomach. Focusing on Silius’ argument between Flaminius and Corvinus, and the subsequent account of the battle of Trasimene, the section combines evidence from the Greek epic tradition, connections to a near-contemporary agon in Statius’ Thebaid, and intratextuality within the Punica itself to show how a multilayered representation of theomachy can be interpreted.
Thomas Biggs
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807742
- eISBN:
- 9780191845567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807742.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter posits a martial role for Campanian otium and socordia. Beginning with Silius’ description of Hannibal’s struggle through the marshes with Campania in the role of delayer (6.651–2), it ...
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This chapter posits a martial role for Campanian otium and socordia. Beginning with Silius’ description of Hannibal’s struggle through the marshes with Campania in the role of delayer (6.651–2), it suggests that, in blocking his progress, gentle, pastoral Campania joins forces with the old Cunctator, Fabius Maximus, in Punica 7, in retaliation for Hannibal’s devastation of her herds and vineyards. The balance, ingenuity, and proleptic force of Silius’ fictional ecphrases are a key facet of this chapter: whereas Hannibal threatens to obliterate the painted images of defeat on the temple walls at Liternum with scenes of Carthaginian triumph, Scipio is given indications of Roman victory by the Roman and Carthaginian heroes whom he encounters in his Nekyia in Punica 13. Finally, it will be Campanian otium and luxuria, dangerously excessive and grotesquely abused in Capua, that will extinguish Hannibal’s military ambition.Less
This chapter posits a martial role for Campanian otium and socordia. Beginning with Silius’ description of Hannibal’s struggle through the marshes with Campania in the role of delayer (6.651–2), it suggests that, in blocking his progress, gentle, pastoral Campania joins forces with the old Cunctator, Fabius Maximus, in Punica 7, in retaliation for Hannibal’s devastation of her herds and vineyards. The balance, ingenuity, and proleptic force of Silius’ fictional ecphrases are a key facet of this chapter: whereas Hannibal threatens to obliterate the painted images of defeat on the temple walls at Liternum with scenes of Carthaginian triumph, Scipio is given indications of Roman victory by the Roman and Carthaginian heroes whom he encounters in his Nekyia in Punica 13. Finally, it will be Campanian otium and luxuria, dangerously excessive and grotesquely abused in Capua, that will extinguish Hannibal’s military ambition.
Antony Augoustakis and R. Joy Littlewood (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807742
- eISBN:
- 9780191845567
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807742.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The region of Campania with its fertility and volcanic landscape was greatly influential on the Roman cultural imagination. The Bay of Naples was a centre outside the city of Rome, a place of otium, ...
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The region of Campania with its fertility and volcanic landscape was greatly influential on the Roman cultural imagination. The Bay of Naples was a centre outside the city of Rome, a place of otium, leisure and quiet, repose and literary productivity. And yet this is also a place of danger: Vesuvius inspires the inhabitants with fear and awe and, in addition to the majestic presence of the mountain, the Phlegraean Fields evoke the story of the gigantomachy, whilst sulphurous lakes invite entry to the Underworld. For the Flavian writers, in particular, Campania becomes a locus for literary activity and geographical disaster. In 79 CE, the eruption of Vesuvius annihilates a great expanse of the region, burying under a mass of ash and lava the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. In the aftermath of such tragedy the writers examined in this volume, Martial, Silius Italicus, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus, continue to live, work, and write about Campania, an alluring region of luxury and peril.Less
The region of Campania with its fertility and volcanic landscape was greatly influential on the Roman cultural imagination. The Bay of Naples was a centre outside the city of Rome, a place of otium, leisure and quiet, repose and literary productivity. And yet this is also a place of danger: Vesuvius inspires the inhabitants with fear and awe and, in addition to the majestic presence of the mountain, the Phlegraean Fields evoke the story of the gigantomachy, whilst sulphurous lakes invite entry to the Underworld. For the Flavian writers, in particular, Campania becomes a locus for literary activity and geographical disaster. In 79 CE, the eruption of Vesuvius annihilates a great expanse of the region, burying under a mass of ash and lava the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. In the aftermath of such tragedy the writers examined in this volume, Martial, Silius Italicus, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus, continue to live, work, and write about Campania, an alluring region of luxury and peril.
Alison Keith
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807742
- eISBN:
- 9780191845567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807742.003.0015
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Hannibal’s Capuan feast, modelled on Dido’s banquet for Aeneas, is the starting point for this chapter’s exploration of Silius’ wide-ranging allusions, in diction and thematic material, to the ...
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Hannibal’s Capuan feast, modelled on Dido’s banquet for Aeneas, is the starting point for this chapter’s exploration of Silius’ wide-ranging allusions, in diction and thematic material, to the Augustan poets, Virgil and Ovid. These predominate in the ecphrases which adorn the two songs of cosmology and erotic genealogy chosen by the Cumaean bard, Teuthras, a distinctively Hellenic lyric poet, and in the variants of the Cretan myth engraved on the doors of Apollo’s temple, which also embrace more widely diffuse literary allusions. As Silius engages with the topography of Cumae in Punica 12, his reference to the Carthaginian’s failure to gain access to the ‘gleaming temple’ points not simply to Hannibal as an inversion of Virgil’s Aeneas, but also to the metapoetic hint that the Flavian poet, like Hannibal, falls short of his illustrious model.Less
Hannibal’s Capuan feast, modelled on Dido’s banquet for Aeneas, is the starting point for this chapter’s exploration of Silius’ wide-ranging allusions, in diction and thematic material, to the Augustan poets, Virgil and Ovid. These predominate in the ecphrases which adorn the two songs of cosmology and erotic genealogy chosen by the Cumaean bard, Teuthras, a distinctively Hellenic lyric poet, and in the variants of the Cretan myth engraved on the doors of Apollo’s temple, which also embrace more widely diffuse literary allusions. As Silius engages with the topography of Cumae in Punica 12, his reference to the Carthaginian’s failure to gain access to the ‘gleaming temple’ points not simply to Hannibal as an inversion of Virgil’s Aeneas, but also to the metapoetic hint that the Flavian poet, like Hannibal, falls short of his illustrious model.
Margot Neger
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807742
- eISBN:
- 9780191845567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807742.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter analyses the diversity of themes which Martial ‘epigrammatizes’ in his portrayal of Baiae and Campania, giving prominence to epigrams on wine, its use and abuse (1.18), and scandalous, ...
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This chapter analyses the diversity of themes which Martial ‘epigrammatizes’ in his portrayal of Baiae and Campania, giving prominence to epigrams on wine, its use and abuse (1.18), and scandalous, tragic, and miraculous narratives, dramatized, occasionally, with literary or historical allusion and intertext. As he praises or mocks the country estates surrounding Baiae, Martial explores contemporary issues and compliments personal friends. A cycle of seven poems devoted to Silius and his Punica begins by comparing their disparate genres, inviting the poet-politician to surrender himself to the cultural temptations of Baiae, in the manner of his own Hannibal seduced by the music and sympotic delights of Capua (4.14). The wit, scope, and density of Martial’s literary allusions within this cycle extends beyond Silius himself to his cult of Virgil’s tomb in a witty cluster of epigrams from Book 11 where the theme of poetic emulation takes on a priapic slant.Less
This chapter analyses the diversity of themes which Martial ‘epigrammatizes’ in his portrayal of Baiae and Campania, giving prominence to epigrams on wine, its use and abuse (1.18), and scandalous, tragic, and miraculous narratives, dramatized, occasionally, with literary or historical allusion and intertext. As he praises or mocks the country estates surrounding Baiae, Martial explores contemporary issues and compliments personal friends. A cycle of seven poems devoted to Silius and his Punica begins by comparing their disparate genres, inviting the poet-politician to surrender himself to the cultural temptations of Baiae, in the manner of his own Hannibal seduced by the music and sympotic delights of Capua (4.14). The wit, scope, and density of Martial’s literary allusions within this cycle extends beyond Silius himself to his cult of Virgil’s tomb in a witty cluster of epigrams from Book 11 where the theme of poetic emulation takes on a priapic slant.
Robert Cowan
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199644094
- eISBN:
- 9780191745010
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644094.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Silius depicts Fabius Maximus’ rescue of his Master of Horse, Minucius, from a skirmish with Hannibal near Gerunium as a virtual katabasis or descent to the Underworld, but one which self–consciously ...
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Silius depicts Fabius Maximus’ rescue of his Master of Horse, Minucius, from a skirmish with Hannibal near Gerunium as a virtual katabasis or descent to the Underworld, but one which self–consciously draws attention to, rather than occluding, its own symbolic nature. This emphasis on the virtual quality of the katabasis serves as a commentary on other poets’ exploitation of katabatic imagery. More significantly it contributes to the depiction of Minucius’ salvation as a sort of mystic initiation into the ways of Fabius. For the relationship between ‘literal’ initiation and ‘allegorical’ katabatic myth is parallel to that between the ‘literal’ skirmish and the ‘virtual’ katabasis it evokes. The depiction of Fabius as a figure of initiation and salvation contributes to the ambiguity of his status as simultaneously quintessential Republican and synecdochic hero.Less
Silius depicts Fabius Maximus’ rescue of his Master of Horse, Minucius, from a skirmish with Hannibal near Gerunium as a virtual katabasis or descent to the Underworld, but one which self–consciously draws attention to, rather than occluding, its own symbolic nature. This emphasis on the virtual quality of the katabasis serves as a commentary on other poets’ exploitation of katabatic imagery. More significantly it contributes to the depiction of Minucius’ salvation as a sort of mystic initiation into the ways of Fabius. For the relationship between ‘literal’ initiation and ‘allegorical’ katabatic myth is parallel to that between the ‘literal’ skirmish and the ‘virtual’ katabasis it evokes. The depiction of Fabius as a figure of initiation and salvation contributes to the ambiguity of his status as simultaneously quintessential Republican and synecdochic hero.
Marco Fucecchi
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807742
- eISBN:
- 9780191845567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807742.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter defines the geographical limits of Roman Campania before engaging with the poetic blend, symbolism, and prolepsis with which Silius constructs his fictional and mythological digressions ...
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This chapter defines the geographical limits of Roman Campania before engaging with the poetic blend, symbolism, and prolepsis with which Silius constructs his fictional and mythological digressions and his conjunctions of people and places. The confrontation of his protagonists, Scipio and Hannibal, is anticipated first in Hannibal’s visit to the temple in Liternum, prominently adorned with images of Roman victory in the First Punic War, and secondly by Scipio’s charismatic leadership of Italian contingents from remote parts of Campania. The contrast of the epic’s protagonists continues against the backdrop of Campania to which Hannibal returns as the triumphant victor of Cannae in Book 11. The geography of Campania is again interwoven into Silius’ epic narrative, for Capua’s treacherous defection will receive stern retribution at the end of the Campanian sequence in Book 13.Less
This chapter defines the geographical limits of Roman Campania before engaging with the poetic blend, symbolism, and prolepsis with which Silius constructs his fictional and mythological digressions and his conjunctions of people and places. The confrontation of his protagonists, Scipio and Hannibal, is anticipated first in Hannibal’s visit to the temple in Liternum, prominently adorned with images of Roman victory in the First Punic War, and secondly by Scipio’s charismatic leadership of Italian contingents from remote parts of Campania. The contrast of the epic’s protagonists continues against the backdrop of Campania to which Hannibal returns as the triumphant victor of Cannae in Book 11. The geography of Campania is again interwoven into Silius’ epic narrative, for Capua’s treacherous defection will receive stern retribution at the end of the Campanian sequence in Book 13.
