Claudian's panegyric for Olybrius and Probinus, the young consuls of 395, includes a passage describing Rome armed in the image of the goddess Minerva. Lines 83–90 read as follows:Footnote ¹

The tradition before Claudian is full of ‘descriptions of characters who keep their breast or arms bare in order to allow greater freedom of movement in battle or in the hunt’.Footnote ² Virgil's portrait of the Amazon Camilla is one of the typical sources for the description of the huntress's bared flank and breast in later poetry. The account of Camilla's attire at the end of Virgil's catalogue of Italians (Aen. 7.814–17) contributes details to the present passage, such as the inclusion of a brooch as part of the costume (P&O 89 mordet gemma sinum; cf. Aen. 7.815–16 ut fibula crinem | auro internectat), and the placement of the word ostro (90), which similarly appears at the end of Aen. 7.814.Footnote ³

I focus in the remainder of this note on the remarkable multiple allusion of line 87. Imitata (84) functions as a metapoetic signal, alerting the reader that what follows constitutes recombination of the texts of several prior epic poets describing armed female figures. These include Virgil's Venus disguised as a huntress, Virgil's Amazon Camilla, Valerius Flaccus’ war-goddess Bellona and Silius’ Amazon Asbyte. The description of Virgil's Camilla on the battlefield (Aen. 11.649 unum exserta latus pugnae, pharetrata Camilla) provides the motif of the bared breast (cf. P&O 88 audacem retegit mammam), as well as the specific words exserta and latus which Claudian repurposes in line 87. Virgil's Venus disguised as a huntress supplies another influential element to the tradition, the adjective nudus combined with an accusative of relation: Aen. 1.320 nuda genu nodoque sinus collecta fluentis.Footnote ⁴

As Taegert notes, Valerius Flaccus’ goddess Bellona was a relevant intermediary between Virgil's huntresses and Claudian's armed Rome.Footnote ⁵ As the unfortunate people of Cyzicus go into an unequal battle with the Argonauts, Bellona nuda latus passuque mouens orichalco sonoro | adstitit (Val. Fl. Argon. 3.61–2). The phrase nuda latus recombines nuda with an accusative of relation from Virgil's description of Venus with latus from the description of Camilla. Claudian adapted both Valerius’ description of a warlike goddess and his use of the phrase nuda latus.

Silius Italicus was an equally relevant intermediary for Claudian, and his contribution has so far remained unnoticed by previous commentators on the Punica and the Panegyricus. The Punica introduces Asbyte, the Amazon who participates in the assault on Saguntum, as follows: religata fluentem | Hesperidum nodo crinem dextrumque feroci | nuda latus Marti (Pun. 2.77–9). Silius adapts the phrase nuda latus from Valerius’ Bellona, and specifies that her right side (dextrum … latus) was bare. Though Asbyte is an Amazon warrior modelled on Virgil's Camilla, her hair evokes the attire of Virgil's Venus (religata fluentem … nodo ~ nodoque sinus collecta fluentis).Footnote ⁶ The source of the elements of the first half of Claudian's line are now evident: dextrum evokes Silius’ Asbyte, nuda latus Valerius’ Bellona, and all three evoke Virgil's Camilla and Venus. Claudian's indication that Rome's hair remains disarranged (neque caesariem … stringere … patitur, 85–6) now acquires an additional level of significance in the light of Silius’ description of Asbyte's pinned-up hair.

The second half of the line performs an identical recombination of passages of Valerius Flaccus and Silius. An Amazon in Valerius’ Argonautica, stripped of her battle-gear in combat with Hercules, again recalls the Virgilian Venus and Camilla through the terms nud-* and latus: Val. Fl. Argon. 5.135 quae pelta latus atque umeros nudata pharetris. Pharetris also recalls the pharetrata Camilla of Aen. 11.649. Silius again adapts the Valerian passage for his description of Aventine Diana, and performs a different recombination of Virgilian phrases: Sil. Pun. 12.715 exsertos auide pugnae nudata lacertos. Silius’ nudata signals his awareness of Valerius’ adaptation of Virgil's nuda, and the phrase exsertos … pugnae draws on a hitherto unexploited phrase from Aen. 11.649, exserta … pugnae. This line in turn supplies the elements for the latter half of Claudian's line: his phrase exserta lacertos evokes Silius’ Diana, who in turn recombines elements of Valerius’ defeated Amazon.Footnote ⁷ White limbs are a topos of erotic poetry,Footnote ⁸ but the niueos … lacertos bared by Claudian's Rome may conceivably evoke Virgil's Venus yet once more: Aen. 8.387 et niueis hinc atque hinc diua lacertis.

There is not a single element in Claudian's description of armed Rome that cannot be paralleled abundantly in earlier poetry, and that is the point. The late ancient poet expects his readers to recognize (a) Valerius Flaccus and Silius Italicus as the sources of the particular phrases that he has recombined, (b) the fact that Silius’ Amazon Asbyte and huntress goddess Diana recombine Valerius Flaccus’ war-goddess Bellona and Amazon defeated by Hercules, and (c) that both intermediaries recombined Virgil's Camilla and Venus in unique and different ways. Recombination enables Claudian both to make new a conventional topos and to demonstrate his absolute mastery of prior tradition in his ‘first Latin commission’.Footnote ⁹