Lucan and Flavian Epic consists of ‘a set of four review essays’ (p. 2) on the five extant epic poems composed under Nero and the Flavian rulers. It belongs to the series Brill Research Perspectives in Classical Poetry. As the three co-authors remark, Lucan’s Bellum Civile, Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid, and Silius Italicus’ Punica have been experiencing a scholarly ‘renaissance’, which, in the case of Statius, they agreeably call a ‘nouvelle vague’ (p. 49). The emancipation from a ‘narrative of development’ (p. 3) traditionally associated with these poems is thus very close to complete. The shift in focus to the intersections between Neronian and Flavian literature has already been anticipated in a number of recent co-edited volumes (e.g. L.D. Ginsberg and D.A. Krasne [edd.], After 69 CE: Writing Civil War in Flavian Rome [2018]; M. Heerink and E. Meijer [edd.], Flavian Responses to Nero’s Rome [2022]). While the present volume succeeds in many ways and is a welcome addition to scholarship, especially for its utility as an introduction and compact guide to the research area, there are a few ways it falls short of expectations.
The book includes a brief introduction, four parts devoted to Lucan and the three Flavian epicists Valerius Flaccus, Statius and Silius Italicus, a bibliography and an index. In the concise introduction, the authors set out the intended scope of the work and identify four reasons for increasing academic interest in Lucan and his Flavian successors in the last few decades (twentieth-century literary theory; the emergence of digital tools; intensified academic engagement with Latin epic; modern academia’s pressure to publish).
In a modest seventeen pages, the section on Lucan covers ancient, medieval and early modern receptions; Lucan in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; intertextuality; and the completeness of the poem. There are many topics to tackle here, with inevitable gaps in thematic analysis and engagement with secondary scholarship. To take the section on intertextuality as an example, except for brief mentions of Apollonius Rhodius, Lucretius, Livy, Ovid and other ‘Greek predecessors’ (pp. 20−1), the only intertextual model considered in some depth is Virgil, followed by a small coda on Caesar. The limited engagement with recent scholarship emerges, for instance, in section 2.4 ‘The Completeness of the Poem’, where one misses e.g. C. Walde, ‘Tu ne quaesieris scire nefas quem finem … di dederunt …: Reflexionen zur Debatte um das Ende von Lucans Bellum Civile’, in: C. Schmitz, J. Telg genannt Kortmann and A. Jöne (edd.), Anfänge und Enden: Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos (2017), pp. 169–98. And given that the global aim of the volume is to create new connections between Neronian and Flavian epic, readers might have expected a more thorough discussion of the ways in which ‘the Flavian epicists each responded to Lucan’s provocations’ (p. 3).
The chapters on Valerius Flaccus and Statius are, on the other hand, insightful and detailed, and for this reader the strongest parts of the volume. The section devoted to Valerius takes a thematic approach, moving from general questions, such as the date of composition and the scope of the epic, to an overview of the main characters of the poem. Paragraphs are devoted to intertextuality and Valerius’ authorial self-perception. The Statius chapter instead follows a chronological approach, presenting the historical evolution of Statian scholarship and broadening research questions around the Thebaid and the Achilleid, with a focus on textual criticism, sociocultural and political approaches, generic intersectionality and reception. Besides offering a clear-cut synthesis, both chapters anticipate new directions for further scholarly debate around Valerius’ and Statius’ poems, such as the under-studied Renaissance and early modern reception of the Argonautica, as well as promising research areas within the Thebaid and the Achilleid, such as the environment, aesthetics and sublimity. With their slightly different approaches, these chapters work well together and will be comprehensible both to those readers who, as the authors anticipate, are likely to ‘read one Part rather than the whole book’ (p. 7) and those who will read it from cover to cover.
After providing an overview of iconic themes emerging from the poem, such as exemplarity and civil war, the chapter concerning Silius offers a compelling introduction to the early modern and modern reception of the Punica. Repetitions are most evident in this chapter: the same points recur (e.g. E. Klaassen’s work is quoted in similar terms on pp. 76 and 78; Carthage as a potential caput mundi on pp. 76 and 79; the unreliability of ancient authors in n. 341 and on p. 80; the reuse on p. 83 of an idiom already employed in the Statius chapter on p. 57). The final paragraph on the future of the Punica briefly mentions possible research directions, such as the analysis of certain poetic techniques at play in the epic and its reception history, but it mainly reiterates the fact that the Punica has nearly completed its ‘march of redemption’ (p. 89).
Overall, the volume’s biggest issue is that it struggles to meet some of the stated goals. Unlike the authors’ claim on p. 2, it does not provide ‘a snapshot of the current state of the field’. For instance, the most recent source quoted in the Lucan chapter is P. Roche’s 2019 commentary on Book 7 of the Bellum Civile, and the declaration on p. 76 n. 357 seems a little behind the times and at least one decade late: ‘for a full bibliography on Silian intertextuality, see Dominik 2010’. Especially in the chapters devoted to Lucan and Silius, the bibliography focuses primarily on anglophone sources and could have included mention of international studies and commentaries (e.g. U. Fröhlich, Regulus, Archetyp römischer Fides: Das sechste Buch als Schlüssel zu den Punica des Silius Italicus [2000]; N. Lanzarone, M. Annaei Lucani Belli Civilis Liber VII [2016]; A. Mancini, Lucano, Bellum Civile VIII [2022]).
Because the volume’s focus is on the relations between imperial Latin epics, engagement with more recent developments in scholarly conceptions of intertextuality would have been welcome. Some seminal studies on that matter are indeed quoted, such as H. Lovatt’s 2010 chapter in Brill’s Companion to Silius Italicus (p. 77 n. 360), and others that are missing are surely known to the authors, but the bibliographic and methodological gaps may suggest that the volume has not fully processed the past fifteen years of fertile work (e.g. R. Marks, ‘Statio-Silian Relations in the Thebaid and Punica 1–2’, CPh 109 [2014], 130–9; D. Agri, ‘Opening up Texts: Flavian Interactions in Statius’ Thebaid and Silius Italicus’ Punica’, CQ 70 [2020], 310–31).
Despite some limitations, many of which are probably due to its restricted scope, the volume is a handy and valuable addition. Its merit rests in part on the compact and easy-to-browse format, and because it provides a long bibliography, which includes a good portion of the essentials. The book will undoubtedly serve well as a useful introductory guide for students, teachers and scholars engaging in the study of these rich epic poems that have long suffered from being deemed ‘silver’ (p. 1) by modern critics. There is now little doubt that imperial epic represents one of the most exciting fields of study in Latin literature, and this volume offers a picture of that field that captures much of its history and some of its possible futures.
