STATIUS’ CAPANEUS

In this section, I will read Capaneus’ episode in Statius’ Thebaid Book 10, from his assault of the Theban walls and heavens to his spectacular death, underlining important models, both intratextual and intertextual, as they come into view from the character's and narrator's gaze. Similes are particularly helpful to think with in terms of the narrator's gaze. Since the internal gaze drives the focus of attention, it plays a key part in the reader's appraisal of these models, often competing models presenting us with competing readings. Beyond the particularity of meaning at the local level, the notion of the gaze also functions as a trope of metapoetic significance: Statius through Capaneus offers links to Homer, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid and Lucan in a bid to stage anew the poetic tradition and enable further poetic forces to emerge.

First, some context to set the scene: in Statius’ Thebaid Book 10, the war at Thebes is raging and Capaneus is about to take the city single-handedly. Capaneus looks up to the heavens (respexit in aethera, 10.839) and measures the distance to the lofty summits of the Theban walls.Footnote ¹⁸ As his gaze shifts onto the ladder, in Capaneus’ mind the steps of the ladder are countless (innumeros, 10.841), providing him with a vertical route not only to the distant top of the Theban walls but also into the sky (innumerosque gradus gemina latus arbore clausos, | aërium sibi portat iter, 10.841–2). Impossible heights now appear within reach and the hyperbolic device allows Capaneus to assume the limitless verticality of the Epicurean gaze staring into the firmament.Footnote ¹⁹ Such a posture anticipates his attempted assault on Olympus. When the hero is shown carrying himself through empty air (aërium … iter, 10.842), it looks as if he had climbed into a Lucretian frame, becoming another Epicurus, the philosophical epic hero on his way to burst open the tight bolts of nature's gates (Lucr. 1.70–1). Capaneus’ declared intent to test Apollo's prophetic power sits well within that frame in echoing Epicurus’ aversion to religion. Capaneus’ extraordinary ascension culminates in the Aloidae simile. The image shows the heavens now staring at their assailants, the Giants Otus and Ephialtes, both suggestively revived in the subsuming figure of Capaneus rising (10.849–52):

Here, the figurative aether uidit Aloidas, with the heavens looking at the Giants as they rise up, directly takes us back to Capaneus (respexit in aethera, ‘looking back at the heavens’, 10.839) some thirteen lines earlier, allowing the gazes to mirror each other across (textual) space. The heavenly gaze symbolically authenticates Capaneus’ ascent as a Gigantomachy.Footnote ²¹ Set against Capaneus’ bold and upward gaze, the simile casts divine viewing as disempowering: the personified heavens merely bear witness to the event (aether | uidit) with Jupiter as an anxious spectator of the Giants rising (trepidum … Tonantem). The image of divine anxiety anticipates a later scene where Capaneus’ voice heard in the heavens (cum mediis Capaneus auditus in astris, 10.898) fills the watching gods with bashful fear (pudet ista timere | caelicolas, ‘the sky-dwellers are ashamed to fear these things’, 10.917–18), a key moment that firmly positions Capaneus as a force to reckon with.

On the intertextual level, the Aloidae simile brings to mind the Sybil's memory of the Aloidae in Tartarus as she recounts their fateful deeds to Aeneas, who is forbidden entry into the land of the damned (hic et Aloidas geminos immania uidi | corpora … Aen. 6.583–4). One may wonder about the poetic substitution of the Sybil's reminiscent gaze with that of the heavens literally watching (uidit) the Aloidae rise again as a template for Capaneus’ scaling of the heavens that is still to come. The shift of transgression as a motif from memory to epic re-actualization may portend metapoetic implications in a move that re-enacts what Statius is doing by resuscitating the terrible transgressors of Tartarus in the guise of Capaneus.

In fact, Statius’ use of despectura in the Aloidae simile with the earth ‘about to look down upon’ the gods plays both with the literal and with the figurative sense of the word, and looks ahead to Capaneus’ poetic identification with the earth, both in his mid-air ascent as he climbs up the Theban walls and in his contempt for the gods.Footnote ²² Indeed, the subsequent depiction of the Argive hero ‘suspended in empty air’, uacuo … sub aëre pendens (10.861), repeats the terms of Thiodamas’ description of mother earth as ‘hanging in empty air’ (aëre pendentem uacuo, 8.311) in his prayer to Tellus in Thebaid Book 8.Footnote ²³ So Capaneus is at once like both the Aloidae and ostensibly the earth itself, mother of the Aloidae, threatening the gods with her upper-reaching gaze.Footnote ²⁴

The instability in equivalence settles further in with Capaneus as Bellona, the baleful goddess of war coming to uproot the city from its foundations (10.855), a Theban vision that looks back to a Virgilian scene, Neptune tearing the city apart (Aen. 2.610–12; and forward to Theb. 10.877–82, when Capaneus literally begins to destroy the city in Neptunian fashion). Bellona also brings to mind Julius Caesar at Pharsalus (Luc. 7.567–8), possibly suggesting that Lucanian imagery of civil war might be at play here, and indeed, in the confusion, the Thebans seem to have turned to their roofs and walls for ammunition to hurl at Capaneus (omnibus e tectis certatim ingentia saxa | roboraque, ‘from every roof they vie with enormous stones and timber’, 10.856–7). At the same time, Capaneus is still like Lucretius’ brazen giant, Epicurus, unrelenting in his ascent and immune to obstacles as Greek missiles fly around him.Footnote ²⁵

Gigantomachy and poetry become neatly intertwined in the subsequent simile, where Capaneus is like a surging river battering and smashing an old bridge (10.864–9), a simile that Williams surprisingly deems ‘unexpected’.Footnote ²⁶ Yet, the destructive river-simile not only looks ahead to Capaneus’ dismantling of the old Theban city, but also, since rivers are deities, collapses further instable polarities between Giant and god that Capaneus has come to epitomize so far (as Bellona and Neptune). In effect, Capaneus the Giant turned river-god is in reverse just like the river-god Ismenos turned Giant in its use of a tree-trunk against Hippomedon in Thebaid Book 9 (483–5), itself a replay of the iconic Scamander in Iliad Book 21, the swollen river-god, son of Zeus, against which Achilles himself is no match, just like Thebes is no match to Statius’ Capaneus.Footnote ²⁷ However, while in the Homeric intertext Achilles’ aborted theomachic aspirations ultimately emphasize boundaries between mortal and divine, Statius’ use of the river-simile as Capaneus not only blurs such a distinction but also takes the Homeric sublime of Achilles’ (and Hippomedon's) fight onto another level by having Capaneus both like Giant and like god simultaneously.

It is no surprise then that the same simile is, in a sense, about poetry itself. The image of the swollen river functions as a Callimachean metaphor for epic, as it already does in Thebaid Book 9 when the swollen Ismenos attacks Hippomedon, who collapses under the mighty force of epic.Footnote ²⁸ Except that here, in Thebaid Book 10, Capaneus is the river in spate. As such, one metapoetic way of reading the engulfing river that batters and breaks through the age-old bridge (longaeui … pontis, 10.864) is to see Capaneus as the poet-figure engrossed with the tumid inspiration of epic and transforming the landscape of literary tradition, for which the ancient robora (timbers) and trabes (beams) that form the structure of the ancient bridge stand as a trope.Footnote ²⁹ In this direction, the six-line simile also serves as a fitting response to the proem introducing the Capaneus-episode at 10.827–36, where the narrator calls for sublime inspiration, itself to be construed as aemulatio of previous poetic incarnations of Capaneus.Footnote ³⁰

Meanwhile, the Thebans themselves participate in the ambiguous construction of Capaneus as both divine and monstrous. The frightened Thebans, for all their fighting, resemble the ‘trembling Thunderer’ of the Aloidae simile (trepidum Tonantem), as Capaneus casts his immense shadow down upon the ‘trembling city’ of Thebes (trepidam urbem), thus casting the Argive hero as the Giant.Footnote ³¹ Capaneus is then visually constructed not only as a Giant by the Thebans, and simultaneously as a destructive divinity and a Giant through the narrator's gaze, but also inevitably as the embodiment of the narrator's sublime aspirations.Footnote ³²

Capaneus’ unresolved identity is further complicated as more models insert themselves jostling for dominance. Following Chaudhuri's observation, Lucretius’ assimilation of Epicurus’ war against divine superstition to a Gigantomachy lends solid ground to the reading of Capaneus as an Epicurean hero.Footnote ³³ Chaudhuri has also shown how the repeated use of experiar in Capaneus’ discourse against divine prophecy (Theb. 3.616–18 and 10.845–8) aligns Statius’ hero with Ovid's Lycaon.Footnote ³⁴ The two protagonists share a rationalist view of the world and both challenge Jupiter's fama in their own ways. But this link carries further implications in terms of intertextual framing and meaning. The parallel Capaneus/Lycaon brings into sharper focus the wider Ovidian frame within which Capaneus’ Epicurean gaze is being deployed. This is important in understanding how Capaneus’ Epicurean outlook does eventually succeed.Footnote ³⁵ For Capaneus to mock the tradition of Amphion's building of the Theban walls with a song and a lyre, Apollo's instrument, is to ascertain further his Epicurean stance against a positively Ovidian setting (10.874–7):

While Lovatt understands this passage as an attack on poetry itself and a challenge to its effectiveness, Chaudhuri reads it more specifically as a threat ‘to deconstruct epic as traditionally conceived’.Footnote ³⁶ More precisely, I would argue that Capaneus’ mockery of Amphion's song aptly reads as an attempt to reassert the Lucretian epic model, towards which Capaneus is gesturing, by poking holes into the Ovidian mythical background of the poem.Footnote ³⁷ As an Epicurean, the Argive hero is questioning the performative power of a song to produce change within the physical world by causing stones to transform into a fortified city. And who has the power to turn stones into anything else, but Ovid? Alison Keith has already shown just how Ovidian Statius’ Theban landscape is, and she even reads the Thebaid as an exploration of Ovid's Theban cycle from the Metamorphoses.Footnote ³⁸ From this angle, it is rather tempting to read Capaneus’ physical attack on the city as a metapoetic assault on Ovid's Thebes and its gods, which both lack, according to Capaneus, the epic pedigree that would make it a worthy challenge for a warrior of his calibre. It is then no wonder that Capaneus should turn against the walls almost reluctantly.

In fact, the image of Capaneus holding the city captive under his feet and smashing it with its own walls from above coincides with the Lucretian imagery of religio being thrown down and trampled under Epicurus’ foot (quare religio pedibus subiecta uicissim | opteritur, Lucr. 1.77–8). This is the sort of victory that makes men equal to gods, Lucretius tells us (nos exaequat uictoria caelo, 1.78), and so Capaneus’ dismantling of Thebes is fittingly rendered in split images that recall Neptune's dismantling of Troy in the Aeneid. The Statian scene pitted against its Ovidian setting re-enacts Lucanian civil-war imagery at the core of the intertextual process.

A shift in internal gaze from the narrator looking at Capaneus smashing the city to Jupiter surveying the gods as they witness Capaneus’ attack suggests a reversal in agency and power between mortal and divine, with metapoetic implications. At 10.883–6, the gods, now the object of Jupiter's parental concern, are depicted as powerless viewers of the challenge posited by Capaneus. The latter's deeds have prompted a vivid reaction from the gods who gather around Jupiter in opposing factions, a scene with strong political overtones which replays the tensions of the Divine Council in Thebaid Book 1. A passive-aggressive battle of gazes breaks out amongst the divine assembly, laying bare the reigning disunity. In contrast, only Jupiter, in contemplative mode, looks at Capaneus in a dispassionate way. His silent acknowledgement that he alone can deal with the mortal threat reminds us of his Ovidian autocratic self. Then, as we zoom in, each god is isolated through his/her individual gaze, exposing their robbed sense of agency. Capaneus’ voice heard in the heavens physically abolishes the distance between mortal and divine sphere. As the hero taunts Jupiter into battle, Capaneus’ dismissal of a victory over Thebes signals that the hero is less interested, unlike Neptune at Troy, in dismantling the feeble walls (recast as an Ovidian symbol of epic), but rather seeks to confront Jupiter himself. In fact, by claiming ownership of Semele's tomb, Capaneus assumes a curious kind of hegemony over the intertextual space(s) created by the Ovidian allusion (10.903–6):

Control over the landscape ensures control over meaning. So, by colonizing the site of Semele's death, Capaneus is free to demystify Jupiter's epic fama—again, like Epicurus undaunted by tales of gods (quem neque fama deum … compressit, Lucr. 1.68–9). This is exactly what Capaneus does when he provocatively robs Jupiter of his lofty Homeric-Virgilian disguise and exposes his Ovidian self (as a sexual predator). What reads as a jibe becomes another allusion to the god's affair with Thebes reminding us just how Ovidian Statius’ Jupiter is. Here, the effect of Capaneus’ Epicurean stance is not so much to do away with Jovian tales as superstitions but rather to expose the god's seemingly Virgilian and Homeric posture as counterfeit. The reference to Semele alone brings to mind Jupiter's Ovidian history, which explicitly undermines the god's claim to epic maiestas.Footnote ³⁹ Statius uses Capaneus’ Epicurean outlook on the metapoetic level to disclose Jupiter's attempt to pose as a Virgilian Jupiter.Footnote ⁴⁰

Leigh's argument, which identifies Capaneus as Statius striving to dislodge Jupiter as Virgil from ‘his poetic Olympus’, does not take into account the Ovidian attributes that Statius assigns to his god.Footnote ⁴¹ And yet, these attributes have long been acknowledged.Footnote ⁴² Feeney shrewdly observes that ‘Statius follows the development of power into his generation, and gives us a Jupiter whose autocracy is even more naked than Ovid's’, only to conclude that ‘the cumulative effect of this human characterization of Jupiter is so relentless that it becomes exceedingly difficult to have any confidence either in Jupiter's worth as a moral adjudicator for the poem, or in interpretations that cast him in this role.’Footnote ⁴³ To enhance Leigh's argument, Capaneus as Statius can still be viewed as taking on Jupiter as Virgil in his exposure of the god as inescapably Ovidian, thus symbolically casting Virgil down from the heights of Olympus. This is nothing short of a dig at Virgil's conception of epic seen as somewhat obsolete, at least in its representation of divine power-politics. But politically, whether this is Statius’ attempt at flattering Domitian by depicting Jupiter as a lesser figure to a much greater emperor, as Hill ponders, or a reflection of Domitian's tyrannical rule disguised as imperial flattery, it is difficult to ascertain.Footnote ⁴⁴ But the unresolved ambiguity is precisely what allows open-endedness in meaning.

Another significant aspect of Capaneus’ allusion to Jupiter's Ovidian past is that Capaneus as a conscious ‘reader’ of the Metamorphoses is necessarily aware that the god uses a lesser thunderbolt with Semele than the thunderbolt hurled to defeat Typhon (Met. 3.302–7). Therefore, the hero's invective is doubly provocative in taunting Jupiter to come down in all his might as he did when he fought the Giants. This can be read as Capaneus’ anxious attempt to have his fate aligned not with Semele's but rather with that of the epic Giants in the manner of his death.

At this point, Jupiter has heard Capaneus and is only too quick to repackage the hero as a Giant in his recall of the Gigantomachy (quaenam spes hominum tumidae post proelia Phlegrae? | tune etiam feriendus? ‘What hope is there for men after the vain battles of Phlegra? Must I strike you too?’ 10.909–10).Footnote ⁴⁵ Ironically, this line is a reminder that Jupiter once failed to strike Capaneus down, in Thebaid Book 5 when the god hurled too feeble a thunderbolt, which left the hero unscathed (5.584–7). That same episode is crucial in establishing Capaneus both as a Giant in his killing of the monstrous snake sacred to Jupiter (though he is unaware of the divine connection) and as a Giant-slayer, thus aligning himself with Jupiter (5.565–70):Footnote ⁴⁶

Though Jupiter endeavours to strike Capaneus down, the divine fire barely burns the crest of the hero's helmet (5.584–7).Footnote ⁴⁸ Hence the god's readiness in Thebaid Book 10 to put Capaneus back to his place by reducing him to a mock-up Giant, as Jupiter muses over his victory at Phlegra (10.909–10).

The imagery of Gigantomachy swiftly transfers onto the gathering storm. Setting itself up for the final close-up on Jupiter's fiery blast on Capaneus, the storm is oddly framed as the forerunner of yet another Titanomachy—or is it a Gigantomachy? The storm gathers itself spontaneously (sponte, 10.914) as if to shield the heavens from imminent threat. The lack of divine sanction in the storm's inception makes one wonder whether the cosmos is protecting itself in distrust of Jupiter's past failure to punish Capaneus. In fact, to capture the rumbling chaos above, Statius tells us that we might think that Titan Iapetus is unchaining himself or Giants are now rising from beneath the mountain (10.915–17). But is the rumbling sky only evocative of the subterranean sound of Giants and Titans unshackling themselves or is it rumbling also because it recognizes the sound of the rising Giants in Capaneus? Here, both the upper and the lower worlds figuratively come into alignment. Significantly, the gods themselves are like Giants—for all their might, they have no agency: ashamed to fear (pudet ista timere, 10.917), they watch Capaneus in wonder (mirantur, 10.920). Fear (timere) spells loss of control and agency, thus framing divine power as impotent, where the gods are much like the Giants, a parallel further emphasized through the divine gaze as they look at Capaneus in wonder and momentarily begin to doubt Jupiter's supremacy (10.917–20):

As the gods stare at Capaneus and figuratively rob Jupiter of his ascendancy by doubting his power, one does wonder who the gods are, and who the Giants. The confusion in identity, combined with other images that align Capaneus and Jupiter with one another,Footnote ⁴⁹ symbolically reveals Statius’ effort to make Giants out of gods and gods out of Giants.Footnote ⁵⁰ It does make sense for the gods to have misgivings about Jupiter's ability to use his thunderbolt with good effect in Thebaid Book 10, given the negative precedent in Thebaid Book 5. By contrast, Capaneus appears much in control of his surroundings as he threatens to play god with Jovian fire and use it against Thebes (10.925–6).

But when Jupiter finally strikes the hero down, the god only proves himself to be a mere pawn of the chthonic forces: in reality, Capaneus’ death comes as a fulfilment of Dis’s command, and the hero's attempted assault on heavens is a response to the violation of the god's kingdom down below in Thebaid Book 7. The Olympians’ lack of real agency anticipates the moment in Thebaid Book 11 when, averting their gaze from the fratricidal duel, they relinquish all power.Footnote ⁵¹ In doing so, they selfishly abandon Thebes to the demonic forces of the Underworld. This ostensibly undercuts the Virgilian model of the Aeneid where Jupiter rechannels the hellish agents of the Underworld for his own world-design, a model that Silius is keen to salvage and enhance, as we see in the following section. The metapoetic reading of Capaneus’ assault on Thebes which exposes Jupiter as an Ovidian egotistical god reinforces Ganiban's interpretation of the Thebaid as a statement about the impossibility of a Virgilian world-view.Footnote ⁵² Jupiter, unlike in Virgil where the god is almost identical with Fate, can hardly be seen as his Virgilian self in Statius in so far as the god tends to make prophecies only in hindsight when events have already been set in motion. In Thebaid Book 1, the Fury Tisiphone swiftly moves to implement Oedipus’ wish that his own sons would destroy each other in a fratricidal war (1.88–130), before Jupiter's decree (1.197–248).Footnote ⁵³ Chronologically, Jupiter's belated announcement of the conflict reads as an attempt to regain a sense of agency over a developing situation that has so far eluded his control. In framing the unfolding war as a punishment of the guilty, Statius’ Jupiter is merely ventriloquizing Ovid's vengeful god in Metamorphoses Book 1, and such a posture is rather comical in the Thebaid since Jupiter has even less power than his Ovidian counterpart. Hill is right in reading Jupiter as a ‘blustering buffoon’, since much of his power in the Thebaid is articulated as an afterthought in the wake of hellish deities enforcing a world-view based on the whims of furor.Footnote ⁵⁴

SILIUS’ HANNIBAL

Now let us turn to Silius’ Hannibal in Punica Book 12, and look at how the dynamics of the gaze also bring into focus particular intertexts. Like Capaneus in Thebaid Book 10, Hannibal's arrival in Rome in Punica Book 12 marks a turning point in the overall narrative.Footnote ⁵⁵ Hannibal riding around and inspecting the city walls is an imitation of Turnus outside the Trojan camp in Aeneid Book 9.Footnote ⁵⁶ This Virgilian allusion is seamlessly juxtaposed to another. As Hannibal first sets eyes on Rome, he reclaims Aeneas’ gaze at Pallanteum by enquiring and learning about the sites and their origins (Aen. 8.310–12; discitque locos causasque locorum, Pun. 12.568).Footnote ⁵⁷ By showing a similar antiquarian interest to that of the Trojan hero, Hannibal shows that not only has he ‘read’ and ‘remembered’ the Aeneid but he also believes that, in ‘plagiarizing’ Aeneas’ glimpse into the past of the future city, he too can preside over Rome's future by owning knowledge of its past.Footnote ⁵⁸ And of course, as Dido's avenger, the fate that Hannibal has in mind for Rome is not meant to outlast the future. However, his imitation of Aeneas falls short when he must prematurely abort the viewing and rejoin his camp.Footnote ⁵⁹ And Hannibal's thwarted ‘reading’ of Rome proleptically signals the failure of the Carthaginian siege in hampering his predatory gaze over the city. He would have ‘read’ and visually ‘penetrated’ every single inch of it, had he not been interrupted.Footnote ⁶⁰ Here Hannibal resembles Capaneus in that, where the Argive hero challenges Jupiter by laying a claim to the physical site of the god's Ovidian past, Hannibal challenges the city's future telos by attempting to lay siege to its Virgilian past.

But where Statius also emphasizes Capaneus’ Epicurean obsession with what lies beyond mortal sight, Silius stresses Hannibal's fascination for what he sees. The mere sight of Rome has filled the hero with satiety (spectata ductor satiatus pectora Roma, Pun. 12.573).Footnote ⁶¹ Here satiatus is particularly significant, as it speaks of the Punic gaze not only as consumption but also as consumption in excess. Rome's physical immediacy and powerful images exhaust Hannibal's gaze. But having laid his gaze on the Virgilian landscape and enjoyed control over it, Hannibal now craves its destruction. Like Capaneus’ assault on Ovid's Thebes and its gods, Hannibal's war on Rome is no less than an attack on its Virgilian gods. In assigning the elemental violence to bad weather and claiming that not even Jupiter himself would stop him, Hannibal is reinvesting the attitude of the tragic Capaneus in Aeschylus, where the hero compares Zeus’s lightning bolt to the ‘heat of a noonday’,Footnote ⁶² a proto-Epicurean outlook that Statius’ hero fully inherits and develops. Whether Hannibal is blending the attitude of the two Capaneus-figures or whether Statius capitalizes on Hannibal's reception of the tragic Capaneus is hard to tell. But the uncertainty feeds into the argument for an intertextual dialogue between the two poets.Footnote ⁶³

These links can be pressed further in observing a particular similarity between Statius’ Capaneus and Hannibal as to how the metapoetic gaze is articulated. Like Capaneus, whose Epicurean (materialistic) gaze is redirected onto and pitted against an Ovidian divine landscape, Hannibal's intertextual gaze is here pitted against its Virgilian background. This is literally the case when Juno, like Venus revealing to Aeneas the gods’ involvement in the sack of Troy (Aen. 2.604–19), reveals to Hannibal the gods in armour gearing for battle; except this time the gods have come down to protect the Roman city against Hannibal, the contender. But, unlike Capaneus’ hostile gaze in the Thebaid, Hannibal's gaze becomes temporarily entangled and subdued by the spectacle of divine epiphany before turning adversarial again (Pun. 12.736–40):

Hannibal's moment of wonder could metapoetically read as Silius signalling his well-known admiration for Virgil.Footnote ⁶⁴ So when Juno ‘restores’ (reponit) order, is this Silius ‘restoring’ neo-Virgilian boundaries within the epic world, a redemptive response to the confusion of the Thebaid where gods are akin to Giants and Giants to gods? Yet, at the end of each episode, both Hannibal and Capaneus are characterized by their resisting gaze: like Capaneus looking up after the deadly blast (stat tamen, extremumque in sidera uersus anhelat, Theb. 10.935), Hannibal looks back (respectans) in defiance as he departs, which metapoetically can be construed as a reluctance to quit the narrative of theomachy.Footnote ⁶⁵

The effect of reading Silius through Statius is that the former seems rather keen to reinvest by contrast the divine/imperial apparatus with a renewed sense of moral agency and to reinstate the Virgilian telos at the core of epic narrative. In Punica Book 12, elemental violence is very much the product of Jovian anger. Both storms are designed to hide Rome from Hannibal's gaze and to protect the city. At first glance, there is little of the ambiguity that one finds in the gigantomachic imagery of the storm in Thebaid Book 10. In Silius, Jupiter himself thunders and the world trembles in unison (Pun. 12.657–60):

Compare Theb. 10.913–14:

Unlike in Statius, where the sky thunders without divine signal (sponte, 10.914), in Silius, the storm is emphatically triggered by Jupiter ‘himself’ (ipse). Is Silius’ ipse a response to Statius’ ipsa (caelestis regia), repositioning the cosmos firmly under Jovian authority? Can this be read as a ‘signpost’ of Silius’ recuperative reading of Statius’ storm? On the interpretative level, Jupiter is reassigned a Virgilian sense of moral agency that he is so lacking in the Thebaid. There is even a risk that Jupiter might come across as more Hesiodic than Virgilian. The swiftness in narration and action of Jupiter blasting Hannibal's shield into ashes (12.622–6) strongly resembles that of Zeus blasting Typhoeus’ heads in Hesiod's Theogony (854–8). The gigantomachic winds of the storm in Aeneid Book 1 are now being reshuffled to support the Jovian cause (incumbunt uenti, ‘in weigh the winds’, 12.656).Footnote ⁶⁶ Or is Statius’ ipsa a destabilizing allusion to Silius’ Iuppiter ipse, making us wonder: ‘who is really in charge here?’—a question that often flares up in the Aeneid.

The possibility of redirecting allusion from one poet to another shows the extent to which these texts can be read in dialogue with one another. For instance, in Statius, the sound of thunder is akin to that of Giants freeing themselves from beneath the mountains (Theb. 10.915–17); in Silius, that the trapped Giant Typhoeus ‘recognizes’ (agnouit, 12.660) the sound of wars in heavens explicitly frames the war above as another Gigantomachy. In both passages, the imagery of Gigantomachy is played out not only as an epic topos but also as a site of poetic engagement between the two poets.

If we were to press this a little further, the allusion to Typhoeus ‘troped as recognition’ (to borrow Hinds’s words),Footnote ⁶⁷ could also offer another hint that Silius is potentially recycling the Hesiodic frame and plausibly engaging with Statius and Livy. When Silius writes that Typhoeus agnouit, what exactly does he ‘recognize’, his own war against Zeus in the Theogony and/or that of his avatar Capaneus against Jupiter in Thebaid Book 10? Statius alludes to Typhoeus (and Enceladus) during the storm scene, but the simile is marked with ambiguity in equivalence. In Silius, agnouit caelestia bella seems to engage directly with the ambivalence of the gigantomachic storm imagery in Statius: in which case, whom does Typhoeus really ‘recognize’? Jupiter or Capaneus? God or Giant? A Hesiodic/Virgilian or a Statian Jupiter? Silius’ use of agnouit could also function as a reflexive annotation of his epic re-appropriation of Livy's historical account (26.11.4), where the Carthaginians already believed the storms to be of divine origin. The evocative expression ‘war in heavens’ (caelestia bella) could be read as shorthand for either intertext. If Statius is reacting to Silius’ enigmatic lines (mersusque profundis | agnouit tenebris caelestia bella Typhoeus), then, the former is actively reacting to the potential ambiguity in meaning, not only by aligning the gods with Giants but also the Giants with Capaneus (and Capaneus with Jupiter). For Statius, the collapse between polarities rather fits the topsy-turvy world of Thebes, where the Olympian gods resemble and eventually surrender to the deities of the Underworld, thus making themselves more like Giants, mighty but powerless, and where heroes confusedly fight like gods and Giants.

This is not the only instance where Silius’ use of allusion can be read as a ‘signpost’ of intertextual activity with Statius (Pun. 12.684–5):

Compare with Theb. 10.924–6:

When Hannibal is said to ‘imitate’ the roaring thundery sky, imitatur refers not only to Hannibal's imitation of Jupiter (murmura caeli) but also to his role as a hero in the Latin epic tradition to imitate and repeat previous models. Note the metapoetic dimension of rursus (‘once more’) too. Hannibal is imitating not just Jupiter but also Capaneus imitating Jupiter, Salmoneus (Aen. 6.585–94) or even Capaneus imitating Salmoneus himself imitating Jupiter. The allusion becomes even more fully incorporated into the text when used by Jupiter himself in his warning to Juno (Pun. 12.699–700):

Silius’ repetition of imitator/imitari is thought-provoking, as it raises questions about whether imitation here stands as a synonym of epic parody, wherein Hannibal's impersonation of Jupiter is to be construed as a self-conscious caricature of the god, and, if so, whether the terms of parodic performance are reversible: for instance, is the Carthaginian ‘mimicking’ of Jupiter a tongue-in-cheek allusion to Jupiter, who as a god ‘inherited’ from the long-standing tradition of epic is bound to repeat himself? This draws attention back to Statius where the language already hints at Capaneus’ self-awareness of (parodic) repetition. In Thebaid Book 10, Capaneus’ hand is lassa, weary of combats, and so is his oak torch (lassam quercum, 926)—weary of repeating combats already fought in Aeschylus—and in a number of now lost Thebaids perhaps; here Capaneus intratextually echoes Jupiter in Thebaid Book 1, where the god claims to be tired of lashing out (1.216–17). Reference to weariness on account of repetition in Statius may be given a more prominently parodic spin by Silius, who, with the Punica relatively far from completion, would have felt more acutely the risk of being viewed as Statius’ imitator by posterity.

VIEWING/READING HANNIBAL THROUGH CAPANEUS—AND VICE VERSA

The exercise of bringing these two texts together opens up new perspectives on previous readings. So far I have focussed on specific aspects of the two episodes, particular allusions, intertexts and metapoetics. In the previous section attention was given to possible interpretations that arise from reading one Flavian passage through another. In this section I would like to turn to the overall meaning of reading one text alongside the other.

Starting with Silius as reacting to Statius, the question of narrative climax is an obvious angle from which to approach the relation between the two texts. In Silius the timing of Jupiter's fiery blast on Hannibal's shield comes across as an anticlimactic version of Capaneus’ demise: it takes place on the first day of battle, and contrasts with the swift escalating tension leading up to Capaneus’ spectacular exit. In doing so, Silius somewhat undermines the climax of Capaneus’ death, by having Jupiter's thunderbolt reduced to a mere incident, which is not without precedent. In Thebaid Book 5, Jupiter attempts to strike Capaneus down with his thunderbolt unsuccessfully, thus failing to recast the hero as a Giant. In Hannibal's words, ‘blind was the fire from heaven and vain was the roaring of the winds’ (caecum e nubibus ignem | murmuraque a uentis misceri uana docebat, 12.628–9). Though his words bear an Epicurean stamp in a boastful display of meteorological rationalism, Hannibal is no Epicurus striving to unshackle the world from religious obscurantism. But his rhetoric serves a specific purpose, that of favouring a closer comparison with his Statian counterpart, Capaneus. Both attract Jovian wrath and both demonstrate the same willingness to resist the god's deadly fire (non cedere certi, 12.624; compare with Theb. 10.935, stat tamen). Claire Stocks, who took a leap in reading one episode through the other, writes:

An alternative reading presents itself. Silius’ treatment of Hannibal's brush-off with Jovian fire clearly looks to minimize Capaneus’ sublime exit, and Jupiter's strike of Hannibal's shield, which proudly depicts the hero's past, already signals the hero's demise in figurative terms. In fact, Hannibal's decline follows and he soon gets pushed out of Italy. For his titanic endeavour Hannibal will be punished by suffering an obscure ending, thus denying him glory in death, the ultimate measure of success for any epic hero. Silius’ engagement with Statius can thus be seen as a patriotic revision of the fate awaiting heroes who defy the gods and Rome. On the other hand, if Statius is reacting to Silius, then Capaneus’ ending outdoes previous models of epic theomachy, while making a statement about the abusive nature of divine/imperial power.

In both stories, endings are pre-written, and so poetic licence has its limits. However, poets can manipulate the degree to which the door of intertextual engagement remains ajar. If we carry on reading Silius through Statius, the scale of the divine response in Punica Book 12 suggests a reconfiguration of divine power from the one displayed in Thebaid Book 10. In Silius, Jupiter's swift decision to summon the gods to battle upon his return from the Aethiopian kingdom recalls a belligerent god ready to fight in Iliadic fashion for his home city.Footnote ⁶⁹ This strikingly contrasts with Statius’ Jupiter, whose apparent equanimity simulates Virgilian composure, but whose Ovidian persona remains a defining feature of the god (Theb. 10.884–6):

Compare with Pun. 12.605–8:

In Statius, Jupiter merely laughs at the misplaced madness of the Argive hero (ipse furentem risit, 10.907–8), whereas, in Silius, Jupiter brings out the heavy artillery, in the form not only of divine reinforcement but also of elemental upheaval (Pun. 12.609–22).

This brings us to the question of sublimity, which, in Statius, is rather associated with Capaneus, but, in Silius, is transferred onto the divine side. In Punica Book 12, Jupiter's first initiative is to summon the gods to the seven hills and physically defend Rome. Silius also makes great use of Livy's storms that kept Hannibal at bay as Jupiter's epic response to the Carthaginian threat. The emphatic scale of divine effort in Silius suggests a divine response commensurate to the Romans’ unfaltering sense of pietas. The latter are carefully depicted praying to and celebrating Jupiter repeatedly. Details of the storm narrative imply that Silius could be reacting to Statius by depicting a less than placid Jupiter. His account of the natural violence, a reflection of Jovian anger, tends towards a marked amplification of Statius’ version of the unfolding storm: winds, clouds, angry hail, thunder, lightning and black-rain storms in Punica Book 12 vs thunder, clouds and rain in Thebaid Book 10. Verbal similarities show further evidence of Silius potentially reworking Statius (Theb. 10.921–3):

Compare with Pun. 12.612–13:

Here, it is plausible to assume Statius’ anteriority to Silius, in the light of a couple of allusions in Punica Book 12 hinting at the poet's playful awareness of being seen as coming after. The use of imitator/imitari discussed in the above section certainly points us towards this direction. In addition, when Juno bids Hannibal ‘not to repeat the Titans’ war’ (cede deis tandem et Titania desine bella, 12.725), the line could be read as the poet's allusive response to the limits of epic repeatability, since Hannibal can only tread so far in Capaneus’ footsteps. This does not, however, preclude the possibility that Statius may have engaged with Silius prior to the final release of the Thebaid. This thought is all the more defensible considering how exceptionally open the texts are to readings in either direction.

For instance, in Punica Book 12, Juno enables the Carthaginian to see the gods in all their might, but, where Silius tells us of Hannibal's awe at the divine faces (mirantem, 727), Statius only speaks of the gods’ wonder at Capaneus’ madness (mirantur, 10.920). In both passages, mirantem (Pun. 12.727) and mirantur (Theb. 10.920) are placed at the opening of the line and in enjambment: the metrical symmetry seems too specific to be accidental. Hannibal's passive spectatorship of the divine finds a reversed echo in Statius’ gods gazing in silent wonder at Capaneus raging for impossible wars. Unlike in Silius, where Jupiter remains the main divine viewer and adversary for Hannibal, Statius creates a whole divine audience for Capaneus. The divine gaze features another lens through which Capaneus is shown to create a significant breach in divine confidence, when the gods temporarily doubt Jupiter's superiority. But is Silius’ mirantem amending Statius’ mirantur by recasting the gods in a flattering position of power, or is Statius’ mirantur a reversal of mirantem, in a self-conscious attempt to repeat the unrepeatable?

Whereas Hannibal derives his sublimity from the spectacle of gods, Capaneus derives his from being the focalized object of divine gaze, a reversal that can be read in either direction. Another allusion that sits at the intersection of both passages is the memory of Aeneas’ experience of divine epiphany in Aeneid Book 2, as a passive witness of the gods dismantling Troy.Footnote ⁷⁰ But Hannibal's own experience of divine revelation, a clear reversal of the Virgilian intertext, is also operating another reversal within that reversal, that of the capsized version of Statius’ Capaneus-turned-Neptune dismantling the city while the gods watch, powerless. Unless Silius has created the opportunity for Statius to redraft his Capaneus as a proto-Hannibal, which in turn would make Silius’ Hannibal into an avatar of a ‘Hannibalized’ Capaneus. Either way, mutual influence shows just how remarkably dynamic these texts are when read intertextually.