The recent edition of the Thebaid by Hall, Ritchie, and EdwardsFootnote 1 launched a successful attack on the communis opinio of a bipartite manuscript tradition, with one clearly superior family (represented by the ninth-century P [Puteanus] manuscript), and relatively few textual problems. In doing so, they underscored the need for renewed editorial work on the poem.Footnote 2 Here I discuss five passages from Thebaid 2 that have not received adequate attention from editors.Footnote 3
THEBAID 2.319–21
curis Bac? Gul P M2 (uel cura) M4 U2ac, Heinsius : cura Bpc? G M O Q R S T : cura est D O8 S2 S3 Z10
Polynices longs to return to Thebes and reclaim his throne. Print cura or cura est.
All editors from MuellerFootnote 4 (the first to use the readings of P) have printed curis, not the first time that ‘idolatry’Footnote 5 of P has led scholars astray. The variants cura and cura est are supported by an allusion to Lucan, 2.5–6: sollicitis uisum [Ioui] mortalibus addere curam | noscant uenturas ut dira per omina clades,Footnote 6 and by Statius' syntax elsewhere in the Thebaid: 1.179, sociis hanc addere mentem; 4.12, timidisque etiam breuis addita uirtus; 5.33, o miserae, quibus hic furor additus!; 7.692, famulo decus addit inane; 11.322–3, tantum miserae dolor ultimus addit | robur.Footnote 7 It is difficult to say whether cura or cura est is preferable. The omission of est is consistent with Statius' style, and its subsequent intrusion seems a likely simplification. On the other hand, est at the end of the line is frequently lost through corruption.Footnote 8 The presence of cura (without est) in most of the ‘primary’ manuscripts argues in its favour, but true readings are sometimes found in the ‘secondary’ witnesses.Footnote 9
THEBAID 2.496–502
latendi B Dul G Mpc O P Qpc R S T : latenti Mac Qac F O3, Lachmann : nocendi D Qul A M3ul Z
The site of the doomed Theban ambush of Tydeus. Print nocendi.
The variant latendi (again, the reading of P) is accepted by all other editors. But caecamque nocendi opem, ‘secret means of causing harm’, is a more likely phrase than the pleonastic ‘secret means of hiding’ (even worse when caecamque is treated as a transferred epithet, as it is by Hall et al.: ‘the means of lurking unseen’ – the best way to lurk!). Furthermore, the chiasmus of line endings produced by latendi seems foreign to Statius' style (latenti, siluae, siluis, latendi);Footnote 10 rather, the first three line endings (note also latis at the end of 503) led to the corruption of the true reading (the nonsensical variant latenti points to this path of corruption). There is repetition between caecamque nocendi | … opem and caeca nocentum | consilia in the previous passage (489–90) that fits with other repetition between the passages (486, instruit, and 502, struxit; 487, insidiis, and 501, insidias), underscoring this ‘blind’ ambush as the doomed product of Eteocles' ‘blind’ plan to assault Tydeus.
THEBAID 2.630–3
illa codd. : illo Watt
Periphas supports his wounded brother. Print illo.
‘I suspect that an original illo has been assimilated in gender to indole.’ So Watt, briefly.Footnote 11 Note, too, the gender of pietate, and also note colla, directly below the corrupt illa. The comparison of Periphas to the neuter nil could also have created confusion, but the expression is common enough in Ovid, Martial and prose.Footnote 12 The most recent editions do not print Watt's correction, but translate as if they have: ‘none more than he renowned for natural gifts or love of kin’ (Shackleton Bailey); ‘none more illustrious than he for his disposition and devotion’ (Hall et al.). But the transmitted text must mean ‘nothing was more illustrious than that disposition and devotion’, an unlikely phrase that – most importantly – does not fit with the syntax of a previously unnoticed Virgilian allusion here: Aen. 1.544–5, rex erat Aeneas nobis, quo iustior alter|nec pietate fuit, nec bello maior et armis.Footnote 13
THEBAID 2.682–6
plenum codd. : mersum conieci
Blinded by his success against the Theban ambush, Tydeus plans to travel alone to Thebes but is stopped by Pallas Athena. Print mersum.
Hall et al. suspected a problem in the manuscripts but emended the wrong word, changing caligine to uertigine (perhaps inspired by Mulder's gloss: propter ingentia facta uertigine quasi correptum, ita ut mens eius sit aliena).Footnote 14 The problem is plenum. Besides yielding an unparalleled image (‘filled/laden with fog’), it creates repetition from the description of Tydeus earlier in the sentence (‘laden with spoils and blood’) that is unacceptably clumsy, even given the tolerance of verbal repetition in Latin poetry. In fact, sanguine plenus at line 682 is the source of the corruption at 685 from caligine mersum to caligine plenum. Statius and Silius use caligine mersus to describe confusion with various causes, as here;Footnote 15 they adapt it from Virgil's literal usage in describing the underworld at Aeneid 6.267: res alta terra et caligine mersas. Here, it effects a double paradox: Tydeus is both on fire (flagrantem) and ‘submerged’, both ‘burning’ brightly and drowned in darkness (caligine).Footnote 16
THEBAID 2.692–3
aeris Gpc O P Qul Spc alii : aetheris ed. pr. : aeros B Gac b K Σ : heros D M Q R Sac T alii : auguris Marollius : aetheros conieci
Maeon's augury had predicted Tydeus' defeat of the Theban ambush. Print aetheros.
The rare Greek genitive aetheros, found in extant Latin only in Statius,Footnote 17 would have been vulnerable to corruption, and could have produced all the extant variants. All editors print aeris, but the ancient scholiast ‘Lactantius Placidus’ had a Greek genitive in his copy of the poem (as shown by his note: genetiuus Graecus est ut ‘Memnon, Memnonos’ Footnote 18), and aether, ‘the upper air’, is more appropriate to augury than aer, ‘the lower air’.Footnote 19Thebaid 3.524–5, also in the context of augury, makes this emendation nearly certain: clara regione profundi | aetheros innumeri statuerunt agmina cycni.
