Table Of ContentBrill’s Companion to Statius
Brill’s Companions in
Classical Studies
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bccs
Brill’s Companion to Statius
Edited by
W. J. Dominik, C. E. Newlands, and K. Gervais
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brill’s companion to Statius / edited by W. J. Dominik, C. E. Newlands, and K. Gervais.
pages cm — (Brill’s companions in classical studies)
ISBN 978-90-04-21789-8 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-28470-8 (e-book)
1. Statius, P. Papinius (Publius Papinius)—Criticism and interpretation. I. Dominik, William J.
II. Newlands, Carole Elizabeth. III. Gervais, Kyle. IV. Series: Brill’s companions in classical studies.
PA6698.B75 2015
871’.01—dc23
2014046302
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1872-3357
isbn 978-90-04-21789-8 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-28470-8 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Contents
Preface ix
Texts and Abbreviations xi
Notes on Contributors xiii
part 1
Introduction
1 Reading Statius 3
Carole E. Newlands, Kyle Gervais, and William J. Dominik
part 2
Beginnings
2 Statius on Invocation and Inspiration 31
K. Sara Myers
3 The Silvae: Poetics of Impromptu and Cultural Consumption 54
Gianpiero Rosati
4 The Beginnings of the Achilleid 73
Randall T. Ganiban
part 3
Social and Cultural Matters
5 Creating the Distinguished Addressee: Literary Patronage in the Works
of Statius 91
Meike Rühl
6 Gift and Society in the Works of Statius 106
Neil Coffee
vi contents
7 Negative Stereotypes of Wealth in the Works of Statius 123
Bruce Gibson
8 Family and Kinship in the Works of Statius 139
Neil W. Bernstein
part 4
Transgressive Poetics: The Achilleid
9 Statius’ Achilleid: The Paradoxical Epic 157
Peter J. Davis
10 Intertext, Metapoetry, and Visuality in the Achilleid 173
Christopher Chinn
11 Similes and Gender in the Achilleid 189
Charles McNelis
part 5
Conflict, Power, and Death in the Thebaid
12 “War Came in Disarray . . .” (Thebaid 7.616): Statius and the Depiction
of Battle 207
Rhiannon Ash
13 Parent-Child Conflict in the Thebaid 221
Kyle Gervais
14 Transgressing Boundaries of the Unthinkable: Sophocles, Ovid, Vergil,
Seneca, and Homer Refracted in Statius’ Thebaid 240
Frederick Ahl
15 Similes and Their Programmatic Role in the Thebaid 266
William J. Dominik
contents vii
16 The Constitutional Status of Euripidean and Statian Theseus:
Some Aspects of the Criticism of Absolute Power in the
Thebaid 291
Cecilia Criado
17 Dead Woman Walking: Jocasta in the Thebaid 307
Jessica S. Dietrich
part 6
Predecessors and Contemporaries
18 Statius’ Epic Poetry: A Challenge to the Literary Past 325
Laura Micozzi
19 Statius’ Thebaid and Greek Tragedy: The Legacy of Thebes 343
Agis Marinis
20 Georgics 2.497 and Thebaid 1.19–20: Allusion and Inspiration 362
Victoria E. Pagán
21 Statius and Senecan Drama 377
Antony Augoustakis
22 Lucan’s De Bello Civili in the Thebaid 393
Paul Roche
23 Following after Valerius: Argonautic Imagery in the Thebaid 408
Helen Lovatt
24 Statius and Silius Italicus 425
François Ripoll
25 Statius and Martial: Post-vatic Self-fashioning in Flavian
Rome 444
Luke Roman
viii contents
part 7
Reception
26 Reading Statius Through a Biographical Lens 465
Ruth Parkes
27 Papinius Noster: Statius in Roman Late Antiquity 481
Helen Kaufmann
28 Medieval Statius: Belatedness and Authority 497
Robert R. Edwards
29 Statius in Dante’s Commedia 512
Peter Heslin
30 The Thebaid in Italian Renaissance Epic: The Case of
Capaneus 527
Pramit Chaudhuri
31 Early Modern Thebaid: The Latin Commentary Tradition 543
Valéry Berlincourt
32 Statian Recusatio: Angelo Poliziano and John Dryden 562
Dustin Mengelkoch
33 Naturalizing Statius 579
Susanna Braund
34 Statius in an Ideological Climate 600
Carole E. Newlands
Bibliography 613
Index Locorum 674
General Index 688
Preface
Statius (c. 45–96 ce) is a key figure in the history of Latin literature. Janus-like,
his poetry draws upon the rich legacy of Augustan and Hellenistic poetry as
well as Neronian; it also looks forward to the shaping of new aesthetic princi-
ples and genres in late antique and medieval literature. Since Statius, after lan-
guishing in neglect for several centuries, has in the past forty years finally again
aroused serious critical interest and literary appreciation, it seemed timely to
accept Brill’s invitation to produce the Brill’s Companion to Statius; we, the edi-
tors, are grateful to Brill for taking this initiative.
Statius wrote at an important juncture in imperial history—in the last
years of the reign of Domitian (81–96 ce) and of the Flavian dynasty (70–96
ce)—when hopes for a return to the republic were definitively crushed and
Rome was being fashioned into a cosmopolitan, imperial power on an unprec-
edented scale with buildings of immense grandeur such as the Colosseum;
after Augustus, Domitian was the most prolific builder of the city of Rome.
Inevitably the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius on Domitian’s “reign of terror”
in the 90s have colored perceptions of Statius’ poetry, while the flourishing
of the arts and literature under Domitian—with the three major epic poets
Valerius Flaccus, Silius Flaccus, and Statius and the epigrammatist Martial—
have been relatively overlooked.
Our major objectives in planning this volume have been to represent a
broad range of critical perspectives on Statius’ poetry and to offer a histori-
cal perspective on the vagaries of his reception from late antiquity onwards.
We have sought to offer these varied perspectives partly by including schol-
ars from institutions in a number of countries with different scholarly tradi-
tions, namely usa, England, Wales, Canada, Australia, France, Switzerland,
Germany, Italy, Spain, and Greece. While our aim has been to avoid the polari-
ties involving Statius’ style and politics that have circulated around his poetry,
we have endeavoured at the same time to encourage discussion and debate
among the contributors to this volume (as reflected in the numerous cross-
references), which necessarily entails critical agreement and disagreement
with each other and other scholars. Many contributors had the opportu-
nity to share their chapters and receive feedback at the Statius International
Conference organized by Cecilia Criado and William J. Dominik and held at the
University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain in June 2013. The editors express
their appreciation to the University of Santiago de Compostela and Brill for
sponsoring this Conference, which included Statian scholars not only from the
countries mentioned above but also from Portugal and Mexico.
x preface
By studying the poetry of Statius from a variety of vantage points, Brill’s
Companion to Statius aims to offer a full and complex picture of this poet’s
critical role in Roman literary history and imperial culture. The Companion
offers detailed approaches to all three of Statius’ major works—the Thebaid,
Achilleid, and Silvae. It thus serves both as an introduction to Statius’ poetry
and as a stimulus to further research; it is intended to appeal to a varied read-
ership of students and scholars in the Humanities. It is our hope that Brill’s
Companion to Statius not only will illuminate the importance of Statius’ poetry
for literary, social, and political studies but also that it will confirm his standing
as a powerful and innovative figure in Latin literature.
We express our warm gratitude to a number of people and institutions for
their help in the production of this volume. To all our contributors we offer
our sincere thanks for their patience, good humor, and care during its long
production; in particular, we are grateful to Robert Edwards for bringing the
illustration used on the cover to our attention. We express our thanks to James
Holland (Texas Tech University), who offered comments on various chapters;
Andrew Zissos (University of California, Irvine), who read and commented
upon a draft of the introductory chapter; and to Agis Marinis (University of
Patras / Hellenic Open University), who helped with the proofreading. We are
indebted to Gordon Turner (University of Otago) for his editorial work and to
Tim Wright (University of Western Ontario) for his substantial assistance in
compiling the indices. In addition, we are extremely grateful not only to the
staff at Brill—namely Tessel Jonquière, Jennifer Pavelko, Caroline van Erp, and
Irene van Rossum—but also to Dinah Rapliza, who handled the production
process of this book on behalf of Brill, for their impeccable professionalism and
unflagging patience. Finally, we express our appreciation to the University of
Otago, its Division of Humanities, and the Faculty of Arts at the University
of Western Ontario for the award of grants that assisted us in the completion
of this book.
William J. Dominik
Dunedin, New Zealand
Carole Newlands
Boulder, usa
Kyle Gervais
London, Canada
February 2015
