This volume is a welcome addition to the series Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. It brings together significant readings of each of the three epicists – Valerius Flaccus, Statius and Silius Italicus – with A.’s valuable introduction, a detailed survey of the history of Flavian epic scholarship since 1990. A., with the help of H. Lovatt (credited in the introduction), has chosen studies that, especially taken together, present these authors and texts as complex, sophisticated, textually engaged participants in the Latin and Greek epic tradition. The collection is largely philological in focus; Flavian historical and cultural context is often ancillary to literary history, intertextuality and narratology.
As with other volumes in this series, A.’s collection is best thought of as a reader – a collection of already-published scholarship made more accessible to and updated for researchers, teachers and students. Some of the articles are included because they are foundational in the history of the scholarship of Flavian literature (for example, R.T. Bruère's 1958–59 two-part article on Silius’ use of color Ouidianus, here brought together as one), and some represent developments in newer scholarship (the most recent pieces are A. Keith on Statius’ use of Ovid [2004–5] and R. Marks on devotio in Silius [2005]). Some items are particularly good finds for Anglophone readers (translations of R. Nordera [1969] and M. Fucecchi [1996] on Valerius Flaccus and A. Mezzanotte [1995] on Silius). Even now, it can be hard to gain access to dissertations; it is, therefore, helpful that A. has included J. Brown's chapter on Archemorus in Statius from her Cambridge dissertation (1994). Full information about the original publication of the articles is not presented until the acknowledgement section at the back of the book; this practice flattens out the historical context of a given article if a reader encounters it out of sequence in this publication. Accordingly, I include the date of original publication for each article in parentheses here. All Latin is translated. There are few typographical errors.
The current volume, therefore, belongs in any good library collection or reading list that covers Flavian literature or ancient epic. It works particularly well as a source of perceptive interpretations of the epics. The clarity, depth and well-bounded scope of many of these readings means that they could profitably be used for advanced undergraduate seminars as well as for graduate-level scholarship.
The section on Valerius Flaccus opens with M.A. Davis's ‘ratis audax: Valerius Flaccus’ Bold Ship’ (1989). Davis shows how Valerius engages with predecessors (Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Seneca and Manilius) to weave together themes of the ‘primal fault’ (prisca fraus) of the first ship, the loss of Golden Age innocence, tension between differing views of Roman (especially Vespasianic) destiny and the role of the uates in a world where traditional values are eroding.
Nordera, in ‘Virgilianisms in Valerius Flaccus: a Contribution to the Study of Epic Language in the Imperial Age’ (1969), shows how Valerius transforms his models in his aemulatio of Virgil and other authors; the Flavian doctus poeta (p. 79) prefers inward-looking explanations of psychology and magical, rather than divine, explanations of unusual natural phenomena.
Fucecchi, in ‘The Restoration of Ancient Models: Epic Tradition and Mannerist Technique in Valerius’ Argonautica 6’ (1996), argues that Book 6 ‘shows unquestionable signs of a problematic rereading of Homer and Virgil’ (p. 82). Through a thoughtful linear reading of Medea's inner psychological conflict, Fucecchi demonstrates how Valerius uses the teichoscopy scene as a turning point in the characterisation of Medea and for the epic as a whole.
In ‘Allusion and Narrative Possibility in the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus’ (1999), A. Zissos makes a convincing case for reading the contradictions in Valerius’ text as ‘deep-rooted metaliterary preoccupations’ (p. 111) manifested through Valerius’ ‘negative allusions’ (p. 112) to versions of the myth that he chooses not to pursue in his own narrative.
To open the Statius section, D. Hershkowitz, in ‘parce metu, Cytherea: “Failed” Intertext Repetition in Statius’ Thebaid, or, Don't Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before’ (1997), offers detailed intertextual readings of each Statian instance of this topos (Polynices to Argia, Adrastus to Argia, Venus and Mars, and Jupiter and Bacchus) to conclude that ‘Statius’ characters are trying to rival Virgil's’ (p. 148), with each successive iteration of a parce metu scene leaving more of a power vacuum.
While Virgil provides the structure for Statius’ Thebaid, Ovid's ‘Thebaid’ (Met. 3–4) provides its mythological background, as Keith argues in ‘Ovid's Theban Narrative in Statius’ Thebaid’ (2004–5). Although he pointedly makes a praeteritio of the ‘series of misfortunes’ narrated by Ovid, Keith argues, Statius draws heavily on his Ovidian intertext, using themes and imagery from Ovid's representation of the house of Cadmus ‘as he documents the confusion of generational progression’ (p. 169) in the house of Oedipus.
In ‘Statius’ Hypsipyle: Following in the Footsteps of Virgil's Aeneid’ (1996), S.G. Nugent's sensitive Lacanian reading reveals Hypsipyle's repetition of her story, a sort of ‘talking cure’ (p. 174), to be not only unreliable but also the means by which she keeps her and her father's fame alive. Hypsipyle, for Nugent, is a feminised figure for Statius’ own relationship to Virgil, using the presence and absence of the father to tell one's own story.
Brown, in ‘lacrimabile nomen Archemorus: the Babe in the Woods in Statius’ Thebaid 4–6’ (1994), studies the representation of infants in poetry from Homer onwards, and of infant gods and heroes, especially baby Hercules, from Pindar onwards, in her metapoetical reading of Statius’ Opheltes/Archemorus as a figure for creative potential ‘reduced to nothingness’ (p. 231).
In ‘auferte oculos: Modes of Spectatorship in Statius’ Thebaid 11’ (2004), N. Bernstein investigates what happens when Statius, by representing multiple audiences of and within his epic, creates a paradox of identification for his actual and hypothetical readerships; the Thebaid offers no secure basis of identification for its readers, but does, in keeping with generic precedent, invite readers to consume it self-consciously.
Lovatt asks why Statius offers such a ‘proliferation of closural tactics’ (p. 263) in ‘Competing Endings: Re-reading the End of Statius’ Thebaid through Lucan’ (1999). In Lovatt's perceptive reading the ‘continued civil war’ (p. 286) of Lucan's text is a model for the Thebaid, in which ‘neither the male narrative of war, nor the female narrative of mourning’ (p. 291) can provide a real alternative to civil war.
S. Hinds's feisty ‘Essential Epic: Genre and Gender from Macer to Statius’ (2000) is the only article in the volume to address the Achilleid. Hinds looks at ‘the tension between Roman generic theory and Roman generic practice’ (p. 295); the presence itself of the feminine world of amor is not unusual in epic, but it is expected that the genre view it as subversive.
A. Pomeroy, in ‘Silius’ Rome: the Rewriting of Virgil's Vision’ (2000), looks at Silius Italicus as a member of the senatorial elite who participates in literary culture under the Flavians; the Punica represents not so much nostalgia for the Republic as a reminder that it was not a single charismatic leader, but rather the collective efforts of ‘numerous civic-minded senators … which had in the past and might still make Rome great’.
Bruère's ‘color Ouidianus in Silius’ Punica’ (1958–9) surveys, book by book, those passages of the Punica where the Flavian poet makes particular use of Ovidian expressions; Bruère shows that Silius is most Ovidian in the imaginative digressions that lighten the main narrative.
In ‘lugendam formae sine uirginitate reliquit: Reading Pyrene and the Transformation of Landscape in Silius’ Punica 3’ (2003), A. argues that the episode of Hercules’ rape of Pyrene in Book 3, taken with Silius’ choice to elide historical time in Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, not only foreshadows Hannibal's fate, but also presents Hercules as a model whose negative characteristics Hannibal imitates.
Silius Italicus ‘finds a law of history’ ‘in sacrifice’ (p. 433), according to Marks in ‘per uulnera regnum: Self-destruction, Self-sacrifice, and Deuotio in Silius’ Punica 4–10’ (2005). Marks argues that Silius sets up a context of ‘self-destructive impulses’ (p. 421) among Rome's leaders, with the strongest examples, leading to turning points in the Romans’ favour, being Flaminius at Trasimene (Book 5) and Paulus at Cannae (Books 9–10).
Usefully read with Pomeroy's article in this volume, Mezzanotte's ‘Echoes of the Contemporary World in Silius Italicus’ (1995) argues, through a series of mini-essays on Flavian themes detectable in the epic, that the poet was not, as some critics have argued, disengaged from his contemporary context but, rather, engaged with events and tastes of his day and ‘aligned’ (p. 458) with the Flavian dynasty.
All in all, this volume belongs in any serious library or personal collection addressing the Flavian period or the genre of Latin epic. It is especially useful for those who teach or supervise younger scholars, or want to educate themselves about the history of scholarship on Flavian epic.
