Until F. Spaltenstein's two-volume commentary on Silius Italicus’ Punica (1986; 1990), readers had to make do with very old commentaries on the epic, such as those of J.C.G. Ernesti (1791), G.A. Ruperti (1795) and N.E. Lemaire (1823), and the only commentary on an individual book was D.C. Feeney's 1982 dissertation (Book 1). The landscape of Silian studies has changed significantly since then, particularly over the last two decades, with book-length studies, articles and chapters coming out in greater numbers than ever before. Commentaries on individual books have proliferated too; P.P.K. Roosjen's on Book 14 (1996) led the way and was followed by U. Fröhlich (2000) on Book 6, E.M. Ariemma (2000) on 8, R.J. Littlewood (2011) on 7, M. van der Keur (2015) on 13 and, just last year (2017), Littlewood on 10 and, the subject of this review, B. on 2. B.’s new commentary is a welcome contribution in that it fills a gap in the scholarship, being the only commentary exclusively devoted to Punica 2, and reflects the considerable advances Silianists, including B. himself, have made in recent decades; in this latter respect, it helpfully updates J. Küppers's 1986 study, heretofore the closest we have to a detailed, yet comprehensive treatment of the entire book.
B.’s introduction covers much of the ground one expects and requires, including Silius’ biography, historical sources, literary models, major themes, reception, language, poetic technique, metrics, and notes on the text and translation. Among high points here are B.’s thorough treatment of Silius’ correspondences with and deviations from Livy (‘Epicizing History’) and his overview of the book's contents (‘Episodes and Themes of Punica 2’), where, in addition to setting forth its major themes and ideas, he discusses each episode's principal models (Virgil, most of all, but Homer, Lucan and Ovid, among others, as well). B.’s fine presentation of this material renders his discussion of Silius’ poetic predecessors as something of an afterthought in the subsequent section (‘Punica 2 and the Poetic Tradition’), but his analysis of the epic's relation to Statius’ Thebaid is a pleasant surprise, as not much attention is usually given to this topic. The only topic to which B. might have given fuller attention is the historical and political context of the Punica’s composition, which he touches on briefly in his treatment of the poet's biography (‘Silius Italicus, Consular and Poet’) and his analysis of Saguntum's fall in ‘Episodes and Themes’. Granted, the pertinence of that context to our appreciation of the epic may not be so self-evident in Book 2 as it is in other books, such as 3, where the reigns of the Flavian emperors are prophesied, or the Cannae books (8–10), where references and allusions to civil war repeatedly evoke the events of 68–69 ce. Even so, as Saguntum's story in Books 1 and 2 prefigures Rome's in the epic in many crucial ways and as the city's fall, which forms the climactic finale of its story, itself evokes civil war in the suicides and internecine slaughter of its people, I expected B. to foreground more than he does the connection between Saguntum and Rome's civil wars, whether as foreshadowed at Cannae later in the epic or as experienced by Silius and his readers in the first century ce.
B. next gives the Latin text of Punica 2 and an English translation on facing pages. His text is J. Delz's Teubner (1987), from which he occasionally departs (seven times in all). B.’s is a straightforward and readable prose translation, ‘workmanlike’ in the best possible sense. He opts for clean, contemporary, idiomatic English, routinely breaks up long sentences into smaller, more digestible ones, sticks closely to the Latin syntax whenever possible, and glosses epithets so as to make them less alienating for and more easily intelligible to the general reader. As for the glosses, most of them are well chosen and efficiently convey a point; see, for example, Fabius, Tirynthia proles (2.3: ‘Fabius, descendant of Tirynthian Hercules’) or Hesperidum … dono (2.78: ‘the Hesperides’ golden gift’). In some cases, particularly ethnonyms, however, B. goes too far in my opinion. Silius uses a wide range of epithets for the Romans (e.g. Rhoeteius, Oenotrius, Ausonius), all of which one might translate as ‘Roman’ and many of which, in fact, B. translates as such. But in doing so B. detracts somewhat from the richness of Silius’ use of these epithets. Moreover, there is a lack of consistency at times; for example, Dardana (2.1), referring to a Roman ship, and Phrygiam (2.352), referring to the Roman people, are translated as ‘Dardanian’ and ‘Trojan’, respectively, but the epithet Rhoeteius (2.51), referring to the Romans, is translated as ‘Roman’. These quibbles aside, B.’s translation is accurate, reliable and, I should add, very much appreciated. J.D. Duff's 1934 Loeb translation of the Punica served Anglophone readers well for many years, but it is now antiquated, and modern translations into English are needed. A new English translation of the epic as a whole is a real desideratum.
The commentary includes introductions to the major episodes in the book and brief summaries of the scenes that subdivide them. B.'s ‘line-by-line’ analyses address the many and varied topics one expects from a learned commentary, including diction, morphology, syntax, metre, rhetorical figures, textual matters, geographical, mythological and historical references, issues of translation, and parallels (verbal, thematic, motival) with literary predecessors, contemporaries and successors, and with moments elsewhere in the Punica. B.’s coverage of parallels is especially thorough, and I, for one, am grateful that he foregoes lists of citations in favour of quotation of relevant intertexts, which saves the trouble of having to look them up. When it comes to literary interpretation, B. is sparing; he elucidates most points on which commentary is needed but, once he does, prefers to get out of the reader's way, perhaps so as not to ply one reading at the expense of others. This is a perfectly legitimate way of approaching a commentary, but I would have liked it if he lingered a bit longer on interpretative possibilities, say, as A. Augoustakis does in his recent commentary on Thebaid 8 (2016) or as Littlewood tends to do in her Silian commentaries (see above). Even so, between the commentary and the ‘Episodes and Themes’ section of the introduction, B. never fails to present the reader with a thorough accounting of pertinent interpretative issues and trends, and his judicious treatment of the notoriously ambiguous conclusion of the book (Saguntum's self-destruction following Fides’ and Tisiphone's interventions) shows the virtues of his restraint. Finally, B.’s engagement with scholarship deserves note: on the whole, he does well to extract from it what is most essential and useful for his readers – a good example is his commentary on the ekphrasis of Hannibal's shield (2.395–456), a much studied passage –, exhibits a thorough grasp of the entire scholarly tradition and is up-to-date, citing the most recent, relevant scholarship throughout. The book closes with a bibliography, an index verborum, an index locorum and a general index.
B.’s commentary is a much appreciated contribution to the study of Silius’ Punica and a great resource for scholars and students, specialists and generalists, alike. It is hoped that B. will consider producing other commentaries on books of this epic, which, while gaining readers of late, is still quite under appreciated.
