This bountiful collection is dedicated to Professor Christiane Reitz. Although nominally compiled for her sixty-fifth birthday, the volume in fact celebrates her illustrious career, from which she recently retired. As this book demonstrates, however, even though Reitz might no longer be chair of Latin at the University of Rostock, her influential work on narratology, intertextuality and exemplarity continues to shape the study of classical epic.
R. launched her career with a dissertation on Silius Italicus (Die Nekyia in den Punica des Silius Italicus [1982]) and later turned to Apollonius of Rhodes (Zur Gleichnistechnik des Apollonios von Rhodos [1996]). In recent years she co-edited a number of influential collections on the same genre, always encouraging contributors to underpin their readings with intertextual and intermedial theory. This approach is prominent in her most recent collaboration with Finkmann, the four-volume Structures of Epic Poetry (2019).
The present volume, which primarily concerns itself with comparing the narrative techniques of various epicists, is therefore a fitting retirement gift. It consists of three sections, each preceded by a theoretical introduction. The first part contains nine chapters on the epic tradition from Homer to Milton, while the second features another nine centred on literary authority and generic conventions. The third section, with ten chapters, discusses exemplarity and knowledge transfer in both text and image. Each chapter begins with an English-language abstract and a list of keywords – though the main text is often in German, French or Italian – and ends with a bibliography.
The large number of contributions and the wide scope of the volume might elicit scepticism. However, the editors have managed a rare feat: there are no disappointments, and even though some chapters might attract a more limited readership, every contribution is incisively written and forms part of a cohesive whole. In this review, I will nonetheless limit my comments to a few gems among these gems, those that best represent the riches within the volume.
T. Behm's chapter on the Scylla episode in Ovid's Metamorphoses 8 masterfully connects the poet's description of Megara's musical walls to other descriptions of mythical cities, such as Thebes in Met. 3 and Troy in Met. 13. Behm's analysis pairs well with the following chapter by S. Poletti, who likewise traverses space and time by exploring epic ‘confusions’ between the battlefields of Philippi and Pharsalus. Of particular interest are Poletti's efforts to reconcile these literary depictions with historical fact, namely the ‘double battle’ fought at Philippi in October 42 bce between Caesar's assassins and the Second Triumvirate.
Finkmann and S. Franchet d'Espèrey furnish another interesting pair of chapters, which problematise epic heroism. The former compares Valerius Flaccus’ treatment of the nyktomachy (‘night battle’) between the Argonauts and Cyzicans to that by Apollonius of Rhodes. Using the narrative techniques of ‘free indirect thought’ and ‘epic silence’, Valerius showcases the destructive effect of miscommunication and the guilt that results from accidental murder. As a result, he produces a battle-scene that is more vivid and perhaps more ‘human’ than its Greek model. The latter chapter explores the same themes of mortal fallibility, forbidden behaviour and guilt, taking as its subject Tydeus’ cannibalism in the Thebaid. This nefas (‘forbidden act’), no less shocking than the Argonauts’ unfortunate slaughter of their own hosts, drapes Tydeus in ambiguity and calls into question the extent to which this sort of epic hero might truly be considered ‘heroic’.
This fascination with heroism and its discontents also dominates Walter's chapter, which points out ‘a striking number of inconsistencies’ (p. 201) in Silius Italicus’ depiction of Regulus, the Roman hero of the Punica. By including these contradictions, the poet not only comments on the non-linear and often inaccurate paths by which heroes accrue fama, but also subversively questions the gloriousness of the Second Punic War: was it truly Rome's finest hour or a turning point, after which the Republic fell apart, loosened by civil wars?
These undertones of turbulence, flux and disorder feature prominently in another trio of chapters. The first, by P. Hardie, discusses the ‘rise and fall’ not of states, but of epic heroes, who in classical epic slide up and down a vertical axis between underworld, earth and heaven. Hardie deftly shows how this movement takes on a new significance in Christian literature, especially Milton's Paradise Lost, which does not only depict the ‘fall’ of Original Sin but also the poet's own ‘rise’ into a chorus of angels. K. Freudenburg likewise explores the relationship between vice, virtue and boundary-transgression: in his reading of Persius’ Third Satire, ‘leaky’ pots and pens are Stoic metaphors for the incontinent and therefore immoderate soul. The third chapter, by the late C. Leidl, approaches ‘disruption’ from a metapoetic standpoint. When Actaeon violates Diana's modesty with his gaze in Ov. Met. 3, he transgresses the sacred boundary separating mortals from goddesses and loses his own name as a result. In the same way, the poet Ovid must efface his real-world self when depicting the ineffable beauty of goddesses. Consequently, his name will survive only through his opus: nomenque erit indelibile nostrum (Met. 15.876; p. 324).
The chapters discussed thus far are primarily concerned with narrative technique. Readers more interested in intertextuality and reception should take as their starting point F. Drews's nuanced comparison of the Orpheus–Eurydice myth, as told by both Ovid and Boethius, or S. Harrison's ‘Apuleius in France’, which takes as its subject Les amours de Psyché et de Cupidon, a lesser-known work by the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine. Harrison highlights La Fontaine's skill not only as a storyteller, but also as a classical ‘receiver’, who ‘manipulatively’ adapts Apuleius’ original tale into a roman-à-clef for Versailles insiders.
In addition, the theme of exemplarity features prominently in the volume. U. Gärtner highlights the didactic purpose of Phaedrus’ fables, thus connecting him to a pedagogical tradition that extends back to Socrates and Aesop. C. Williams likewise celebrates the marriage between philosophy and poetry by discussing two poems attributed to Oppian, the Halieutica and the Cynegetica. He convincingly argues that these works, which focus on fishing and hunting respectively, go beyond mere analogy: they assert that animals do experience true love and that their behaviour can teach humans quite a bit about eros. Nor is Oppian the only author whose verses provide us with some sex education. As M. Fucecchi observes, Hercules in Ov. Fasti 2 is a paradigm of the ‘new virility’ established in Augustan Rome: a strong, muscular hero who defends love and virtue (Omphale) from archaic primitivism (Faunus).
The final chapter is a biography of two exemplary women Classicists: the German-born refugee Eva Lehmann Fiesel and her daughter Ruth Erika Fiesel. J. Hallett makes no secret of the parallel between these extraordinary scholars and Christiane Reitz. Hallett thus provides a fitting end to the volume, which ultimately owes its existence to Reitz's intertextual and narratological interpretations of ancient epic. This Festschrift is not only a credit to its editors and contributors, but also a gift to our discipline and an apt tribute to its illustrious dedicatee.
