In the Image of the Ancestors: Narratives of Kinship in Flavian Epic 9781442688339, 1442688335

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IN THE IMAGE OF THE ANCESTORS: NARRATIVES OF KINSHIP IN FLAVIAN EPIC

PHOENIX Journal of the Classical Association of Canada Revue de la Société canadienne des études classiques Supplementary Volume XLVIII

NEIL W. BERNSTEIN

In the Image of the Ancestors: Narratives of Kinship in Flavian Epic

U N I V E R S I T Y O F T O R O N TO P R E S S Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2008 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9879-5

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Bernstein, Neil W., 1973– In the image of the ancestors: narratives of kinship in Flavian epic / Neil W. Bernstein. (Phoenix. Supplementary volume ; XLVIII) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9879-5 1. Valerius Flaccus, Gaius, 1st cent. 2. Statius, P. Papinius (Publius Papinius). 3. Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius. 4. Epic poetry, Latin – History and criticism. 5. Kinship in literature. 6. Family in literature. 7. Rome – History – Flavians, 69–96. I. Title. II. Series: Phoenix. Supplementary volume (Toronto, Ont.) ; XLVIII PA6050.B47 2008

873'.01093552

C2008-901774-9

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Leonard and Danielle Bernstein, parentibus optimis Yi-Ting Wang and Hannah Wang Bernstein, uxori filiaeque carissimis

Quid, inquam, annos Patrocli et Achillis inquirere ad rem existimas pertinere? Quaeris Ulixes ubi errauerit potius quam efficias ne nos semper erremus? Non uacat audire utrum inter Italiam et Siciliam iactatus sit an extra notum nobis orbem (neque enim potuit in tam angusto error esse tam longus): tempestates nos animi cotidie iactant et nequitia in omnia Ulixis mala inpellit. Non deest forma quae sollicitet oculos, non hostis; hinc monstra effera et humano cruore gaudentia, hinc insidiosa blandimenta aurium, hinc naufragia et tot uarietates malorum. hoc me doce, quomodo patriam amem, quomodo uxorem, quomodo patrem, quomodo ad haec tam honesta uel naufragus nauigem. Seneca, Epistles 88.6–7

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Introduction

ix

3

1 Kinship as Narrative

7

2 Valerius’ Argonautica: Kinship and Power

30

3 Statius’ Thebaid 64 kinship as destiny 64 kinship and gender 85 4 Statius’ Achilleid: Nature and Nurture 5 Silius’ Punica: Kinship and the State

105 132

6 From Family to Nation: Descent and Ethnicity in Flavian Epic 7 The Poetics of Kinship Notes

205

Works Cited

245

Index Locorum

265

General Index

271

193

160

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Several friends, colleagues, and mentors read chapters or entire drafts of this book as it was taking shape and generously offered valuable commentary. For their gifts of time, expertise, and support, warmest thanks to Antony Augoustakis, Neil Coffee, William Dominik, Randall Ganiban, Micaela Janan, Alison Keith, Martha Malamud, Raymond Marks, Mark Masterson, Carole Newlands, Francis Newton, and Jennifer Rea. I would like to thank my colleagues in the Department of Classics & World Religions at Ohio University: James Andrews, Thomas Carpenter, Elizabeth Collins, Steve Hays, Lynne Lancaster, Loren Lybarger, William Owens, Ruth Palmer, and George Weckman. They exemplify the spirit of collegiality in all that they do, and I am deeply grateful for their constant support and encouragement. The participants in the Ohio University Classics, Medieval, and Renaissance Colloquium also offered extremely helpful criticism of an early version of chapter 4. My thanks in particular to Andrew Escobedo, Beth Quitslund, and Miriam Shadis. I would like to thank Suzanne Rancourt, Jonathan Edmondson, Richard Ratzlaff, and Barbara Czarnecki for providing an efficient and responsive editorial and publication process. Steven Palmer offered timely help with the preparation of the index. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Department of Classics & World Religions and the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University in granting me a release from teaching duties in fall quarter 2006. The Loeb Classical Library Foundation, the Department of Classics & World Religions at Ohio University, and the Ohio University Office of Research and Sponsored Programs furnished financial assistance toward the subvention for this book’s publication. An earlier version of the first half of chapter 3 appeared at TAPA 133.2 (2003): 353–79. My greatest thanks are due to my family. Grates persoluere dignas non opis est nostrae. I dedicate this book to them with all my love and gratitude.

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IN THE IMAGE OF THE ANCESTORS: NARRATIVES OF KINSHIP IN FLAVIAN EPIC

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INTRODUCTION

The four epic poems that survive from the Flavian period present a view of kinship at odds with earlier epic tradition. This book examines this shift in the representation of kinship in the context of contemporary social, political, and aesthetic change. I argue that the representation of kinship in Flavian epic responds in part to the changing ideologies of the contemporary upper-class Roman family and the imperial regime. Once criticized as socially irrelevant departures into aestheticism, the Flavian epics in fact share many of the same social and political concerns expressed in other genres of Roman literature of the first century ad. Though there have been several explicitly politicized readings of Flavian epic, this is the first book to relate the poems’ representation of kinship to the ideological and social developments of the early Imperial period. In the epics of Homer and Vergil, descent traced through the male line confers identity and social expectations on young men.1 Sons are guided by the examples provided by their fathers and are expected to reproduce or surpass their fathers’ exploits. Vergil’s Aeneas, for example, exhorts his son Ascanius to learn virtue by following the models presented by his father and maternal uncle (Aen. 12.435–40), evoking thereby Hector’s similar prayer for his son Astyanax in Homer’s Iliad (Il. 6.476–81). While aware of the frequent occurrence of intrafamilial conflict in the mythical world, these epics typically consign it to the margins of their narratives.2 The major narrative of the Iliad relates Achilles’ anger at Agamemnon, an unrelated person, while the Odyssey concludes with the restoration of the titular hero to his family. The exemplary pietas of the three generations of Aeneadae in Vergil’s Aeneid is complemented by the expressions of affection between other characters of the epic and their family members – most often grief at their bereavement.3

4 Introduction The conflict between Vergil’s Amata and Latinus over the marriage of their daughter Lavinia represents the central instance of familial disharmony in the Aeneid (7.373–405, 12.595–603). Both the conflict itself and the narrative context in which it is embedded, the outbreak of civil war, provide formative examples for Flavian epic. The Flavian epics reverse the Homeric and Vergilian emphases on agnatic descent, positive ancestral example, and intrafamilial solidarity. Instead of providing laudable examples for filial emulation, tyrants in several of the epics (Valerius’ Pelias, Statius’ Creon, and Silius’ Pacuvius) attempt to restrain their sons from the virtuous pursuit of gloria. Intrafamilial conflict, negative ancestral example, and fosterage and presumptive fatherhood as opposed to genuine paternity now occupy the centre of the narrative. Statius’ Thebaid narrates the fatal conflict between the brothers Polynices and Eteocles, spurred on by the curse of their father Oedipus. The quest for the Golden Fleece in Valerius’ Argonautica arises out of Pelias’ conflict with Jason, the son of his half-brother Aeson and a legitimate contender for the throne. Another substantial episode of intrafamilial conflict in this epic, the war at Colchis between the half-brothers Aeetes and Perses, provides one of Valerius’ major innovations on the traditional Argonautic narrative. In other epics, characters promote fictive over consanguineal relationships, resulting in the subversion of the father’s traditional roles as the guarantor of his son’s social identity and his primary educator through his own virtuous example. In Statius’ Achilleid, Chiron fosters Achilles, and the young hero expresses the wish to have been engendered by Jupiter rather than by his actual father, Peleus. Though Scipio Africanus in Silius’ Punica assiduously honours the elder Scipio, his presumptive father, the truth of his paternity by Jupiter remains concealed from him until midway through the epic and never becomes common knowledge to the other characters. This book discusses three major types of kinship in the Flavian epics. The first includes unchosen vertical and lateral relationships formed at birth. Another type includes elective relationships such as marriage, fosterage, and presumptive parenthood, in which kinship is ratified not by ‘the facts of biology’ but by the acknowledgment of symbolic forms of relatedness. Social and political relationships may also be expressed in the language of kinship, such as the symbolic fatherhood of the Roman people claimed by the emperor (as ‘Father of the Fatherland,’ Pater Patriae) or the claims of shared descent (συγγένεια) from common founders used to unite communities in political alliances. A series of new social pressures, examined in chapter 1, operated on the Roman upper class throughout the first century. As has often been noted, the senatorial class failed to achieve social reproduction during this period. Politically powerful men were not typically succeeded by descendants of

5 Introduction equal political power. The monopolization of power by the imperial regime created disincentives for young men to follow their fathers in a political career. Furthermore, imperial patronage tended to favour men without powerful kinship networks, as their loyalty to the imperial regime could be more readily assured. By the Flavian period, most members of the new upper class were no longer able to look back to a lengthy line of powerful ancestors. Meanwhile, men without distinguished descent, including provincial nobility and freedmen, gained increasing social power in this period. The Senate also became increasingly provincialized. As the result of these social changes, patrilineal connections no longer represented the primary factor in determining social status and expectations. Flavian epic, like many other genres of contemporary Roman literature, responds to the change in significance attached to descent, patria potestas, and imperial authority in upper-class Roman culture. Chapters 2 through 6 discuss how the Flavian epics respond to contemporary social change and to preceding literary tradition by generating alternative paradigms of kinship. The Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, the subject of chapter 2, represents the family as a fragile institution, threatened by the repression of tyrannical fathers and the hostile interventions of the gods. In Statius’ Thebaid, as discussed in the first part of chapter 3, characters present rival perspectives on the significance of descent and the effect of membership in a descent group on an individual’s status. The second part of chapter 3 considers parenthood and marriage: the contrasts between maternal and paternal imperatives for children expressed by Jocasta and Oedipus, and the idealized representation of Roman marital values offered in the Thebaid’s Argia narrative. Chapter 4 analyses the competing views of the relative effects of nature and nurture on the maturing hero Achilles presented in Statius’ Achilleid. Statius both responds to contemporary debates on the subject and aligns the development of Achilles with his incomplete epic’s sense of its own generic development. Chapter 5 examines the contrasting visions advanced in Silius’ Punica of the relationships between individuals, their families and lineages, and the state. I read Silius’ narratives of intertwined paternal and leaderly authority in the context of two contemporary debates, on the limitations of patria potestas and on the role ideally played by the optimus princeps. Chapter 6 departs from the earlier chapters’ focus on individual descent groups to discuss the narratives of national descent presented in Statius’ Thebaid and Silius’ Punica. In both epics, narratives of shared descent fail to compel political unity, whether the monogenetic narrative of the descent of the Theban people or the claims to shared descent with the Roman people advanced by the Saguntines and Capuans. These failures acquire contemporary political

6 Introduction significance in the context of the efforts to create Roman political unity after the civil war of AD 69. Chapter 7, the book’s conclusion, returns the focus to the literary implications of paternity as expressed in the creation of an idealized relationship between the poet and his father. I examine Statius’ creation of a privileged position for himself and his work within the literary tradition through his lament for the elder Papinius (Silvae 5.3). The Flavian epics’ presentation of alternative models of kinship offers new directions in a conservative literary tradition. They reflect the values of an upper class that can no longer expect to erect claims to status on the basis of descent. The decision to comment on contemporary change through the fictive construction of an idealized social world and the dramatization of kin relationships within it is hardly unique to Roman epic.4 My discussion of these aspects of epic composition in no way seeks to reduce these complex poems to simply stated ideological programs. Two of epic’s characteristic narrative techniques preclude the possibility of such reduction. By compelling the reader to create narrative significance from the mass of competing focalizations contributed by the narrator and the characters, epic militates against the privileging of a single dominant perspective. By engaging in an intertextual dialogue with a lengthy tradition, the epic creates meaning as much by indicating its difference from its predecessors as by reproducing type-scenes or generic conventions. While reading the Flavian epics’ response to contemporary social and political change, my discussions also relate their representations of kinship to their conceptions of form, genre, and place within a lengthy literary tradition.

1 Kinship as Narrative

Roman culture’s normative expectations for behaviour provide an ideological framework that structures perceptions of the relationships between family members. Roman authors assess the performance of various family members through reference to gendered and generational paradigms. The shared values reiterated throughout Roman literature include marital fidelity, filial and spousal obedience to the authority of the paterfamilias, and the expression of familial pietas.1 The enactment of actual familial relationships in many Roman literary narratives, however, often varies considerably from these idealizing paradigms. Paternal behaviour in Roman literature, for example, ranges from the severity of Brutus and Manlius, the executioners of their own sons, to the affection of the gentle and supportive men commemorated by Horace and Statius.2 The gap that inevitably exists between the idealizing stereotypes of familial behaviour and the actual practice of family members becomes most clearly visible when individuals are accused of denaturing kinship. A character who does not act according to the cultural expectations placed on a parent, child, sibling, or spouse, for example, is figuratively deprived of the title assigned by the biological or marital relationship.3 The ‘facts of biology’ (or marital history) do not generate perceptions of the relationships between family members entirely by themselves. Rather, the shared experiences of the individuals in question, mediated both by the expectations of other relatives and by the broader culture that surrounds them, create the actual emotional and ethical content of familial relationships. Generic conventions shape the representation of familial relationships in Roman literature. A schematic comparison of Roman epic with comedy, elegy, and tragedy suggests the varying character of the dramatizations of relationships that occur in each genre. The struggles over authority between sons and fathers and between husbands and wives generate the

8 In the Image of the Ancestors typical conflicts of Roman comedy. Proof of the legitimacy of birth often furnishes the denouement of comic plots.4 Roman elegy, by contrast, focuses on the amator’s love for the puella at the expense of relationships with primary kin. Elegiac speakers on occasion attempt to assert a structural similarity between erotic and familial relationships. Catullus informs Lesbia, for example: ‘I loved you then not only as a common man loves his girlfriend, but as a father loves his sons and sons-in-law.’5 Roman tragedy develops the paradigm of the corrupt dynasty whose crimes are recapitulated in successive generations.6 Vergil’s Aeneid, however, establishes pietas and emulation between the generations as the dominant paradigm of behaviour for subsequent Roman epic. The agnatic line of descent (i.e., descent through males) is represented as central to masculine identity. Sons are expected to reproduce or surpass their fathers’ achievements, and emphasis falls on generational continuity.7 Philip Hardie terms this complex of ideas the ‘dynastic principle.’ This chapter provides social and literary context for the individual readings of Flavian epic that follow by surveying some of the rhetorical functions of kinship narrative in Roman literature and culture. I begin by examining a relatively familiar set of epic passages in which characters lay claim to particular components of identity through reference to their descent in the male line. These aspects of character may include legitimacy of birth, political destiny, or status in a competitive, honour-based social hierarchy. Descent is one of the constitutive elements of identity for epic characters. Claims to privileged descent may be communicated visually, through the representation of ancestral images or symbols, as well as verbally, through self-introductions or battlefield vaunts. Rather than providing a comprehensive account of descent in epic, which would require a separate study, this initial discussion restricts focus to the descent relationships that are most privileged in terms of the androcentric conventions of epic.8 These are relationships in which the facts of paternity are undisputed, interactions between father and son are mutually supportive, the son actively seeks to emulate his father, and the descent group as a whole enjoys high status. The purpose of this restriction in focus is to show that claims to identity based on descent can be contested by other characters of epic even under such ‘ideal’ conditions. In particular, the behaviour of young men can be criticized through reference to an imagined ancestral standard. The implied threat of an accusation of illegitimacy or degeneracy provides a negative control on social performance. The father who urges his son to emulate him and the young man who lays claim to a particular aspect of identity through his descent not only speak for themselves but also reproduce a normative paradigm that influences the behaviour of all other

9 Kinship as Narrative fathers and sons in the world of epic. As rhetorical performances, therefore, descent narratives extend beyond the particularities of the individual’s claim to identity to assist in the reproduction of an androcentric social order. Subsequent chapters will show how Flavian epic adapts, reverses, and questions the norms presented in these descent narratives. Imperial Roman epic, like other contemporary literary genres, uses narratives of kinship to address contemporary social and political concerns. The literary construction of idealizing visions of relationships between family members found in epic serves as a social narrative, a commentary on the world of its contemporary readership. Among others, these issues include the limitations of paternal authority, the relationship between the aristocratic family and the state, and the legitimacy of the imperial dynasty. Flavian epic’s treatment of social issues occurs not in isolation but in dialogue with other productions in contemporary literary culture. The chapter’s central section accordingly provides a brief and schematic overview of the social and political developments that made these issues of central importance in the early imperial era and of their treatment in literary genres other than epic. In their function as social commentaries, narratives of kinship assign differential value to familial relationships in various contexts. The Roman literary narratives that dramatize relationships between relatives are therefore not naive or literal descriptions of external, objectively perceived, and unchanging realities. They are rather rhetorical productions that feature claims typically generated for persuasive rather than merely descriptive purposes. Taken as a whole, these narratives contribute to the larger thematics of the text in question.9 The conclusion introduces the topics of the subsequent chapters through reference to the particular thematics of kinship in each of the four Flavian epics. 1. Narratives of Descent As Christopher Harris observes, descent confers aspects of social status: ‘A given ego has not one but two statuses derived from “kinship”: an individuating one derived from bilateral kinship and a “class” status derived from descent group membership.’10 The characters of Roman epic often base their claims to identity upon the narratives of their descent. Yet neither membership in a descent group (whether the mythical Aeolids or the historical Cornelii Scipiones)11 nor position within a family structure (as a parent, child, sibling, or spouse) implies the assignment of an essential or unchanging identity to an individual. These identities rather emerge processually. As the history of the descent group advances, the status attributed to its members may rise or fall. Different values also become assigned to the relationships between its members at various points in the life course.12

10 In the Image of the Ancestors Genealogies and epic narratives share a number of structural similarities. Highly formalized generic rules govern the creation of both family trees and the plots of epic. Both forms of discourse extensively mediate reality in the service of a particular ideological program. Their creators employ a diachronic arrangement to assert causal relationships between events. Personal, familial, and/or political interests inevitably determine whose names will be included, excluded, foregrounded, or invented in a genealogy. As Maurizio Bettini cogently observes: ‘It is precisely genealogical structures that are most subject to what has been called to good effect “generative memory.” In other words, such structures are activated according to shifting, unequal criteria that are imposed by practical requirements – such as the possession of certain property, the connection with certain families instead of others, the membership in a certain class, and so forth – rather than being true to some precise standard … The language spoken by genealogies comes into being with strongly defined intentions, quite the contrary of the impassive impartiality we might be inclined to attribute to it.’ 13 The genealogist may confidently assert a claim from which others might well differ. One attribution of paternity in a legendary or historical genealogy often differs from another. For example, Plutarch’s biography of Romulus opens with a review of multiple accounts of its subject’s descent (Rom. 2– 3).14 The epic narrator, however, openly admits to his distance from the events he relates and seeks the assistance of the Muse for the narration of events long past. Whether concealed or openly admitted, the creation of both structures involves multiple acts of interpretation. In Greco-Roman epic, a recitation of one’s descent is a means of constructing a social reality and asserting one’s identity within it. Individuals selectively emphasize aspects of their own identities, correlating them with or distinguishing them from those aspects perceived by others to have been conferred by their descent. Claims to identity are also subject to evaluation and potential contestation by the other characters in the world of a given epic. Divine descent represents one of the highest forms of distinction in the world of epic, one that can be used to express moral as well as physical superiority. Homer’s Achilles, Vergil’s Aeneas, and Statius’ Theseus have one divine parent each, and the narratives attribute their physical competence and martial prowess partly to their semidivinity.15 Divine parentage is typically public knowledge: Aeneas’ birth from a goddess, for example, represents a central aspect of his identity.16 Yet even as it confers signal distinction, divine descent can also give rise to conflicts in the perception of identity. The Greeks of Statius’ Achilleid long for Achilles to join their ranks because of his semidivine prowess (Ach. 1.479–81). Yet both Achilles and his mother, Thetis, are unsatisfied with his descent and openly state

11 Kinship as Narrative their wishes that he were the descendant of two divine parents instead of merely one. Achilles’ perceptions of his father alternate throughout the epic. As a successful warrior and adventurer, Peleus represents a desirable example for emulation. Yet as a human being, Peleus’ paternity condemns Achilles to mortality and subordination to Jupiter’s rule. Silius’ Scipio is one of the few figures in Roman epic whose semidivinity is not common knowledge to the other characters. As discussed in chapter 5, the ability to accurately perceive the truth of his divine descent serves as a marker of virtue for some of the epic’s characters. These examples of conflicts in perception caused by divine parenthood suggest that no aspect of identity conferred through descent may be taken for granted. The reader rather constitutes the identities of the characters in Roman epic from the mass of competing perceptions presented in the text. The representation of divine descendants provides one indication of the nature of the relationship between gods and human beings in the world constructed by a given epic. The Aeneid’s celebration of the descent of the gens Julia from Venus through Aeneas and his son Iulus suggests the legitimacy of the Augustan regime and divine favour for the Roman people (Aen. 6.788–92). By contrast, in Statius’ Thebaid, the hostile relationships that obtain between gods and human beings tend to make divine descent a liability rather than an asset. Jupiter’s announcement of his intention to punish the royal houses of Thebes and Argos in spite of their descent from him renders characters’ assertions of his support for them ironically incorrect (Theb. 1.224–6). The descendants of the gods may also find themselves involved in proxy conflicts between their parents. For example, Valerius’ Jupiter extends his control on earth at the expense of his brother upon the victory of his son Pollux and the death of Neptune’s son Amycus in the boxing match of Argonautica 4. The alternative representations of the relationship between Jupiter and his progeny generate the vision of divine impotence and hostility in the Thebaid and the triumph of Jovian rule in the Argonautica. Perceptions of the effects and consequences of divine descent thereby contribute to the construction of an epic’s theodicy. The rhetoric of descent is an essential part of public self-presentation in Roman epic. Epic characters assert their claims to descent in a variety of rhetorical contexts such as self-introductions, prayers, and battlefield vaunts. Visual as well as verbal narratives emphasize the distinction conferred by both proximate and distant descent. Kings in Roman epic display statues of their ancestors, evoking the display of imagines maiorum by members of the Roman aristocracy.17 The use of ancestral heirlooms can also signify continuing respect for ancestors and the strength of the identification between the past and present generations of a descent group.

12 In the Image of the Ancestors Homer’s description of Agamemnon’s sceptre (Il. 2.100–8), passed down through several generations of his lineage, provides a narrative model for subsequent descriptions of ancestral heirlooms. Proud upholders of ancestral traditions display the names, images, and histories of selected members of their descent groups on objects such as armour, clothing, dishes, paintings, sculpture, and weapons.18 Exalted members of descent groups may serve as ‘genealogical attractors’: these figures become genealogical reference points for other members of the group, who express their identities through their relationship with this individual. Valerius’ Sol, for example, is a ‘genealogical attractor’ for Aeetes’ family, while Silius’ Hannibal performs this role for the Barcae.19 The ubiquity of visual and verbal narratives of descent in epic indicates their central contribution to individual and collective identity. Through rhetorical and visual displays, epic characters isolate and emphasize particular aspects of identity perceived to have been conferred by descent. Descent becomes the justification for the expression of particular virtues and obligations. Vergil’s Turnus protests to his sister Juturna that her attempts to confine him to the margins of the battlefield are dishonourable and unworthy of their ancestors (Aen. 12.648–9). Statius’ Parthenopaeus, who contrasts his mother’s warlike behaviour with the effeminacy of the ancestors of his Theban opponents, represents a partial exception to the typical evaluation of battlefield performance by reference to male ancestors alone: ‘My mother always carries a sword and a bow, while your forefathers strike hollow drums.’20 Such claims also extend to the definition of divine identity. At the end of the Aeneid, Jupiter equates Juno’s rage with his and relates it to their common descent from Saturn: ‘You are the sister of Jove and the other child of Saturn, such waves of anger do you turn beneath your breast.’21 Political implications often inhere in claims that relate identity to descent. In choosing to send Pallas rather than his other son to fight against the Latins along with Aeneas, Vergil’s Evander observes: ‘I would be urging my other son to go with you, if he were not of mixed stock from a Sabine mother and carrying part of this country with him.’22 Valerius’ Jason makes the fact that he shares a common descent with Aeetes’ son-in-law Phrixus the central element of his claim to the Fleece (Arg. 5.471–518). In these examples, the ‘facts of biology’ are not called into doubt – as they will be in examples to be investigated shortly. Yet these narrative constructions of individual identities and attempts to relate them to ancestral history are never simply neutral statements of fact. They are acts of persuasion that may be contested by unsympathetic audiences. Roman epics explore the ironic multiplicity of perspectives generated by rival interpretations of descent narratives. In his prayer thanking Jupiter for striking down Capaneus, Statius’ Eteocles recalls the god’s ties to Thebes

13 Kinship as Narrative through Semele and invites him to gaze favourably on the Thebans as his ‘in-laws’ (soceros, Theb. 11.217). Eteocles does not realize, however, that even if Jupiter were to receive the request (the Fury has maliciously redirected it), the god would not honour it because he has earlier resolved to punish Thebes for the crimes of Oedipus (1.214–47). This episode emphasizes the ironic distance between Eteocles’ hopes and the reader’s awareness of the inevitable failure of any claim on Jupiter’s favour based on descent in the bleak world of the Thebaid. Claims to identity asserted by characters through reference to their descent may also be refuted by subsequent events. Statius’ Hypseus prays for assistance from his father, the river god Asopus, as he attempts to resist the warrior prophet Amphiaraus on the battlefield. Even though Amphiaraus is under the god Apollo’s protection, Hypseus has confidence in his own abilities because his own father once faced a superior enemy. He claims: ‘It’s right for me to disdain Apollo, if the father of the gods stood against [his father Asopus] in battle.’23 A crucial detail introduced earlier in the narrative, however, alerts the reader to the weakness that undermines Hypseus’ vaunt. Hypseus’ father, Asopus, lost his battle with Jupiter, and as a result he could not prevent the god from raping his daughter Aegina. The river god himself still displays the signs of the damage caused by Jupiter’s thunderbolt (Theb. 7.315–27). From the reader’s perspective, therefore, Hypseus fails in his attempt to manipulate ancestral history to his own advantage, and he is similarly unsuccessful in halting Amphiaraus’ attack. Through instances such as these, epic narrative exposes the tendentious aspects of claims based on descent. As subsequent chapters shall show, this exposure can form part of a subtle critique of the propagandistic uses of descent in the world of its contemporary readership or a demonstration of the declining relevance of descent in a society that has chosen to privilege other forms of distinction. Epic narrative represents the social identity associated with descent not as a given conferred at birth and remaining stable throughout the life course, but as a provisional status that must be continually justified through appropriate performance. The presumption that kin are of the same kind can be tested even when the existence of a consanguineous relationship is not in doubt. Accusations of degeneracy, threatening irrecoverable loss of honour, represent the negative aspect of the paradigm of paternal emulation. Homer’s Agamemnon, for example, accuses Diomedes of failing to recapitulate his father’s skill as a warrior. In response, Sthenelus claims that he and Diomedes are in fact better men than their fathers, as they completed the sack of Thebes that their fathers Capaneus and Tydeus failed to accomplish (Il. 4.365–410).24 The rhetoric of degeneracy extends beyond prowess on the battlefield and beyond relationships between kin. Statius’ Amphiaraus

14 In the Image of the Ancestors accuses Thiodamas of degeneracy (degener, Theb. 10.209) as if his succession in the role of prophet to the Argives has made him a figurative son.25 Along with distinguished descent, therefore, comes pressure to conform to high ancestral expectations, reinforced by the threat of the accusation of degeneracy. Accusations of illegitimacy present further challenges to the claims to status conferred by descent. Claims of legitimate birth are always subject to contestation, as summed up by the proverb pater semper incertus.26 In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, Phaethon’s insistence on proving the truth of his paternity in order to silence a hostile challenge impels him to undertake his ruinous attempt to drive the chariot of his father the Sun (Met. 1.747– 2.328). In other contexts, accusations of alternate parentage may represent not necessarily a literal questioning of the facts of descent but a means of indicating that another person’s behaviour has deviated unacceptably from the expectations set by knowledge of his or her descent. When Vergil’s Dido rebukes Aeneas, for example, by claiming that he is descended from hard cliffs rather than from Anchises and Venus (Aen. 4.365–7), she offers a critique of his heartlessness rather than a literal accusation of bastardy. In each case, characters pass judgments on their own and others’ behaviour through reference to a series of shared cultural values. The interpretation of behaviour in the terms dictated by such values, however, remains subjective. What constitutes appropriate emulation of the ancestors or degeneration from the ancestral standard presents a subject for debate. The ancestors’ evaluation of the conduct of their children offers a privileged, if necessarily self-interested, perspective on adherence to the ancestral standard. Vergil’s Anchises offers a positive evalution of Aeneas’ descent to the underworld by interpreting the journey as an expression of his son’s superlative pietas (Aen. 6.687–8). Epic characters perceive the absence of ancestral evaluation as a threat to their pursuit of honour. During the storm that opens the Aeneid, Aeneas envies those of his countrymen who died in the defence of Troy ‘before their fathers’ faces’ (ante ora patrum, Aen. 1.95), a contrast to the inglorious and unobserved death by drowning that he believes is imminent.27 In presenting themselves to their descendants as paradigms of appropriate conduct, ancestors certify their own behaviour as exemplary. At the end of the Aeneid, Aeneas urges his son to emulate the examples of his ancestors:28 disce, puer, uirtutem ex me uerumque laborem, fortunam ex aliis. nunc te mea dextera bello defensum dabit et magna inter praemia ducet. tu facito, mox cum matura adoleuerit aetas,

15 Kinship as Narrative sis memor et te animo repetentem exempla tuorum et pater Aeneas et auunculus excitet Hector. (Aen. 12.435–40) My son, learn virtue and true labour from me, learn fortune from others. Now my right hand will give you defence in war and will lead you among great rewards. When your growing age shall have brought you to adulthood, make sure that you remember, and as you run over examples in your mind of your kinsmen may your father Aeneas and your maternal uncle Hector inspire you.

The transmission of paternal example may occur through the son’s direct observation or through formal instruction by approved preceptors. On the battlefield at Cannae, Silius’ Crista fights ‘in order to provide examples of warfare for his own sons,’ who demonstrate that they have inherited their father’s bravery by facing his killer, Hannibal, at the cost of their own lives.29 When direct paternal instruction is unavailable, preceptors instruct sons about the exploits of their fathers. In the Odyssey, for example, Nestor, Menelaus, and Helen recall their memories of Odysseus for the benefit of Telemachus.30 Fathers and preceptors reinscribe the androcentric expectations of the genre through their instruction and evaluation of members of the younger generation. Epic privileges emulation of the paternal example over other paradigms of behaviour. No matter how committed individuals may be to the principle of ancestral emulation, however, they cannot live lives identical to those of their ancestors. They are therefore obliged to make a choice among the aspects of ancestral character available for emulation and the events of ancestral history available for commemoration. Such choices are limited by the characters’ perspectives and ideological commitments. Vergil’s Pyrrhus, for example, sardonically represents himself to Priam as a ‘degenerate’ (Aen. 2.547–50) when he chooses not to exhibit the mercy associated with his father’s ransom of Hector to the people who killed his father.31 Statius’ Adrastus instructs his prospective son-in-law Polynices that he can choose not to emulate his ancestors’ criminal behaviour and thereby become ‘dissimilar’ to them (Theb. 1.691). Therefore, while claims to descent may be assertions of identity and legitimacy, at the same time they may also be aspirational efforts to create a new identity or modify others’ perceptions. In Greco-Roman epic, descent provides the foundation upon which claims to identity and social status are built. Judgment of an individual’s success in the emulation of his ancestors, sharpened by the threat of accusations of degeneracy and illegitimacy, certifies his status in a competitive environment. In each case, the conventions of thought regarding filial obedience and ancestral emulation extend beyond the individuals in question to

16 In the Image of the Ancestors the social order as a whole. These ideologically motivated narratives of kinship therefore contribute to the epic’s representation of an idealized social reality. In many cases, such narratives also enable the text to offer visions of alternative models of society. I examine next how Roman narratives of kinship address the changing social world of the first century AD. 2. Kinship as Social Narrative I begin with an overview of the social pressures experienced by the upperclass Roman family during the early imperial period. These pressures give rise to debates regarding kinship conducted across several genres of Roman literature. Among others, the topics of these debates include the proper exercise of paternal authority, the ideal relationship between the family and the state, and the criteria of imperial legitimacy. As the subsequent chapters will show, each topic is also a major concern of Flavian epic. The distinction conferred by descent and the role of the upper-class kinship network progressively changed throughout the first century. The social power that had once been held by a small number of aristocratic families in the Roman Republic began to decline. Sons and grandsons of upperclass men typically failed to maintain the same level of political power as their ancestors.32 Municipal and provincial ‘new men’ formed an increasing percentage of the Senate.33 The emperor Domitian, like many of his predecessors, counteracted the social power of senators with distinguished ancestries either through direct persecution or through elevation to honorary but politically marginal offices.34 Imperial intervention also limited the ability of aristocratic gentes to advertise themselves publicly. The emperors removed the honorific statuary set up by the aristocratic families, with the result that individual members of the upper class could no longer point to inspiring ancestors as propagandistic symbols.35 While emperors continued to grant public funerals through the first century, they chose prominent senators rather than a member of the deceased’s family to deliver the laudatio funebris.36 By creating disincentives that discouraged the descendants of politically successful individuals from attempting to reproduce or surpass their ancestors’ social status, imperial intervention successfully ‘prevented the formation of a powerful hereditary elite.’37 Imperial patronage contributed in a limited way to social mobility. Emperors promoted the children of undistinguished individuals to positions of authority.38 Suetonius reports, for example, that Nero promoted Vespasian to his eventual springboard to imperial power, the command of the army in Judaea, in part because of his low social status. ‘Because of the humble rank of his family and name,’ Suetonius observes, Nero thought Vespasian was a

17 Kinship as Narrative man ‘in no way to be feared’ (nec metuendus ullo modo ob humilitatem generis ac nominis, Vesp. 4.5). In the Dialogus, Tacitus’ Aper relates that the noui homines Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus were elevated in turn by Vespasian because of their oratorical talent (Dial. 8.3). Childless men may have been more likely to receive imperial patronage, as their ability to place loyalty to the emperor above their own families was more assured, while men with established aristocratic kinship networks may have been perceived as suspect.39 The imperial bureaucracy created a new upwardly mobile class by filling offices formerly held by the members of the aristocracy with equestrians and freedmen. The social elevation of imperial freedmen produced hostility among members of the senatorial class, as shown, for example, in Pliny’s complaints regarding the extravagant honours awarded to the Neronian freedman Pallas (Ep. 7.29, 8.6) or Tacitus’ notice of Galba’s transformation of the freedman Icelus into the equestrian Marcianus (Hist. 1.13.1).40 Furthermore, some members of both the senatorial and equestrian orders were apparently able to conceal their servile descent (Tac. Ann. 13.27, Suet. Claud. 25.1). The extent of the social mobility created by imperial intervention, however, should not be exaggerated. It was limited to some strata of the upper class, a tiny fraction of the total population.41 Yet this group is of particular interest to us because it includes the primary producers and consumers of Roman literature. The effects of the changes in this group’s social expectations are visible throughout the literature of the first century. Imperial initiative further contributed to the perception of change in upper-class Roman family life. The title Pater Patriae, ‘Father of the Fatherland,’ which Augustus accepted in 2 BC, summarizes the nature of his relationship with the society under his control. The development of the emperor’s role as the head of both the imperial and national families resulted in the notional loss of authority for the individual paterfamilias. The Augustan marriage laws limited the father’s traditional power to negotiate his children’s marriages. As Beth Severy has recently observed, ‘By intruding upon the Roman father’s rights to control sexuality, marriage, and procreation within his own family, Augustus was also acting as a father over all families and over the community itself.’42 By restricting the number of slaves whom property owners could manumit, Augustus similarly curtailed the father’s rights over a subordinate subgroup within the familia.43 Throughout his lengthy reign, Augustus adjudicated wills, sat on family consilia, and contributed money to individual families in order to enable them to meet the requirements of the senatorial census. As a substantial amount of the money for these activities came from legacies left to the emperor, he effectively served as the redistributor of resources for

18 In the Image of the Ancestors the aristocratic class.44 These personal acts of intervention within individual families served to consolidate the emperor’s role as national father, superior in authority to all other fathers. Intervention in a number of spheres of social life confirmed the imperial family’s status as separate and superior to all other families. Examples include the restriction of military triumphs to members of the imperial family, which denied to the aristocracy one of the traditional routes towards publicly celebrated glory. Augustus also performed the role of symbolic father for the legions who provided the military support for his regime. Men still under patria potestas typically controlled no property in their own name, and thus were unable to dispose of it through a will. Augustus, however, both forbade the fathers of his soldiers to disinherit them while on service (Paul. Sent. 28.2.26) and permitted the soldiers to write wills to dispose of the money they earned during military service (even if their fathers were still living).45 Augustus adopted the idiom traditionally associated with the Roman father in publicly presenting his family. He appears on the Ara Pacis, for example, as the head of a large and cohesive family. As Severy observes, ‘What is most stressed is the group entity of the family itself, and the role of Augustus as its pater.’46 Though endowed with less charisma than his predecessor, Tiberius continued both to perform the emperor’s paternal role and to emphasize the superiority of his authority to that of all other fathers. A section of the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone patre of AD 20, for example, begins with the observation that ‘the Senate judged that Ti. Caesar Augustus our princeps had exceeded the devotion of all parents.’47 Subsequent imperial regimes developed and institutionalized Augustus’ curtailment of aristocratic paternal privilege. Domitian’s ‘undertaking of the correction of morals’ (suscepta correctione morum, Suet. Dom. 8.3) included an attempt to refashion the image of the upper-class family.48 His efforts drew on the Augustan tradition of imperial intervention in family life. For example, Domitian renewed the Augustan lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, which provided penalties against adultery, and enforced the lex Voconia, forbidding the institution of women as heirs to members of certain property classes.49 Unlike his father and his brother, who held the office of censor for a single year, Domitian became censor perpetuus in 85.50 Contemporary authors imagine the emperor as being involved in the most intimate affairs of the families under his control. In Statius’ Silvae, for example, Domitian approves of his freedman Abascantus’ grief for his dead wife, Priscilla, in his capacity as censor: ‘This love is worthy of the approval of your master the Censor’ (hic amor a domino meritus censore probari, Silv. 5.1.42). Statius also indicates that the emperor serves as ‘guardian’ (praeses) for the young aristocrat Crispinus, who has been without such

19 Kinship as Narrative guardianship since the death of his father.51 Judging by the expressions of resentment that appeared after the emperor’s assassination, however, Domitian’s efforts to reform family life may have been unpopular among some sectors of the upper class.52 In the Panegyricus, for example, Pliny contrasts the emperor Trajan with his predecessor Domitian by arguing that people want to have children once more under the reign of a good emperor (Pan. 27). The reign of Domitian also featured a changed role for descent in imperial self-presentation. Vespasian, the first Flavian emperor, refused to claim divine or mythical origins for his gens. He came from an undistinguished family and, according to Suetonius, discouraged others’ attempts to foist noble ancestors on him (Vesp. 1.1, 12). This choice presented a deliberate contrast to the preceding Julio-Claudian dynasty, which had traced its origins back to Venus through Aeneas and his son Iulus. Vespasian’s ready admission of his descent contrasts, for example, with the emperor Gaius’ sensitivity regarding the humble origins of ancestors such as Agrippa and Livia (Suet. Cal. 23.1–2). Domitian’s institutionalization of the cult of the divine gens Flavia, however, returned to the tradition of using claims to divine descent to assert imperial legitimacy. Pliny’s hostile assessment of the Flavian deification of their family members and indication of Trajan’s continuation of the practice suggests that this was seen as a successful means of bolstering imperial legitimacy (Pan. 11.1). Domitian added many members of his family to the pantheon, including Titus, Domitilla, Titus’ daughter Julia, and his own short-lived son. His construction of temples and monuments for family members, undertaken to a greater extent than any preceding emperor, supported the expansion of the Flavian imperial cult.53 Unlike his father, then, Domitian made active use of the claim of divine descent in order to support the perception of his legitimacy as a ruler. The Flavian poets respond by honouring Domitian as a descendant of the gods. Descent also became a central issue in the succession crises that immediately preceded and followed the Flavian era. At the beginning of the war of AD 69, Galba’s adoption of Piso, a person unrelated to him, presented a new paradigm for imperial succession. In Tacitus, Galba argues that searching outside his own family for a successor yields better results (Hist. 1.15–16). This search for the best successor, regardless of his degree of relatedness, contrasted both with Augustus’ adoption of Tiberius, a family member, and with the patrilineal succession enacted by the Flavians. Vespasian’s two sons were viewed as assets during the war of AD 69. Their assurance of a stable succession enhanced his claim to power.54 However, Vespasian’s statement of his intention to pass his power to his sons gave rise to a debate in the Senate in AD 71.55 The contrast between Domitian’s practice and his father’s

20 In the Image of the Ancestors is once more observable. Domitian’s failure to produce surviving heirs and his refusal to nominate a successor throughout most of his lengthy reign gave rise to anxiety reflected throughout Flavian literature.56 Late in his reign, Domitian adopted the sons of his cousin T. Flavius Clemens as a response to his own failure to produce a successor. His execution of their father, according to Suetonius (Dom. 15), precipitated his own assassination.57 While the advent of the new dynasty gave rise to a re-examination of the principle of hereditary succession, perceived threats to the stability of the succession produced anxiety and eventually prompted its dissolution. The foregoing discussion has outlined the preconditions for the development of new attitudes towards the relationships between the individual and the family and between the family and the state. Throughout the first century, upper-class Romans reacted to imperial intervention in family life, increased social mobility, and the perception of decline in the social significance of descent. While the republican aristocracy had emphasized agnatic descent, often to the exclusion of other forms of relatedness, Romans now began to trace relationships through cognatic kin in search of nobility.58 This change in attitude towards descent took a visible form: the display of the imagines maiorum declined in aristocratic Roman houses and at public funeral processions in the Flavian period.59 As few members of the upper class of the later first century could advertise a lengthy aristocratic lineage, they began to privilege other forms of distinction such as virtue, wealth, and connoisseurship. As Noelle Zeiner has shown, Statius celebrates various forms of distinction in the Silvae, poems which make the economic and cultural attainments of his patrons known to a wider audience.60 In these occasional poems, some of which are addressed to freedmen and their descendants, descent is rarely the primary distinction to be celebrated. Statius instead emphasizes the wealth, taste, and learning of his addressees through descriptions of their villas, baths, artworks, and cultural attainments. As Carole Newlands has argued, Statius ‘proposes a provocative new concept of nobility to which economic, moral and artistic values rather than hereditary qualifications are essential’ in the Silvae.61 Contemporary literature therefore also displays the changing priorities of the Roman upper class to some degree. However, the use of literary evidence in support of an argument regarding changes in perception presents methodological difficulties. The surviving evidence does not indicate the actual extent of change in demographic terms of various social practices within upper-class Flavian society in comparison with previous generations. The percentage of individuals who changed their marriage, inheritance, commemorative, naming, or other social practices throughout the course of the first century cannot be accurately determined. Literary sources provide

21 Kinship as Narrative useful records of the values of the dominant culture during this period.62 Yet attempts to specify the degree of change in aristocratic Roman values through analysis of debates in contemporary literary sources must be limited by the fact that many of their topics are traditional. Romans of earlier periods had also experienced conflict between family and state, philosophers had considered the subject of filial and parental obligation, and authors had lamented the decline of parental authority. In attending to the specific inflection of these debates in early imperial literature, therefore, no attempt is made to suggest that their topics emerge only in this period or respond only to contemporary events. Rather, in many literary genres, including Flavian epic, authors also draw their inspiration from the resources of established traditions. The debates discussed below will accordingly be placed (again briefly and schematically) in the context of their literary traditions as well as in relation to the events of the early imperial period. The limitations of patria potestas form a traditional theme in Roman literature. Debates on the proper attitudes of fathers towards sons appear in Roman comedy and the works of Cicero.63 Cicero observes that though reputations may be created independently, they will also be inherited from fathers (Off. 2.43–7). The complaint of diminished patria potestas, though traditional, also addressed the role of the paterfamilias as the guarantor of his family’s reputation in the context of changing perceptions of the distinction of descent during the early imperial period. Late republican and early imperial literature offers an idealizing retrospective on patria potestas, presenting a nostalgic narrative in which the paterfamilias traditionally possessed supreme authority over his children that became eroded in later ages.64 Such authority was imagined to extend even to the power of life and death. In Augustan times, for example, Romulus was imagined to have been the author of the law granting the right to expose children (D.H. 2.15.2). Livy’s account of the end of the regal period includes Turnus Herdonius’ claim, advanced in an argument with Tarquinius Superbus, that conflict between father and son should be instantly resolved in the father’s favour (Livy 1.50.9). Among other functions, the narrative of progressively weakened patria potestas addressed the pressures exerted by the system of imperial patronage upon the fathers of upper-class families. Nostalgic fictions of supreme authority over sons express the desire for an era in which political power was shared among a group of aristocratic families (rather than monopolized by the imperial regime) and was accompanied by strong expectations of social reproduction. In the republican context of aristocratic competition in the political sphere, a son’s disobedience to his father threatened the reputation of future generations of his family and thereby provided a potential justification of the father’s extreme form of punishment.

22 In the Image of the Ancestors The monopolization of political power by the imperial regime, however, reduced the possibility that individuals could cause either long-term damage or long-term benefit to their family’s social capital. Hostile intervention by the emperor could prevent fathers from passing on political capital to their sons, while imperial patronage could elevate sons far beyond the social status of their fathers. Imperial patronage may have been able to create social mobility for only a limited number of individuals, yet, as Emma Dench observes, upward movement was regarded as a ‘constant ideological possibility’ in contemporary society.65 Statius’ Silvae show examples of the effects of imperial patronage on the reputations of his addressees’ families. Attaining the office of city prefect enabled Rutilius Gallicus to confer distinction retroactively upon his ancestors (Silv. 1.4). The father of Claudius Etruscus left behind his servile origins to become one of the most powerful imperial freedmen of the century (Silv. 3.3). The upper-class family’s inability to guarantee its social reproduction across multiple generations meant that its paterfamilias was no longer regarded as the sole guarantor of the social status of his descendants. Philosophers and declaimers made the limitations of patria potestas an active subject for debate. These debates have a long literary history: Aulus Gellius observes, for example, that ‘it is commonly inquired in philosophers’ discussions whether a father ought to be obeyed at all times and in every command.’66 Texts in numerous literary genres from the early imperial period discuss the appropriate exercise of paternal authority, the occasions in which filial disobedience may be the correct course of action, and the ideal relationship between the generations. Seneca, for example, raises the question: ‘Are not some fathers so harsh and so criminal, that it is right and proper to turn away from them and forswear them?’67 The Stoic Musonius Rufus argues that a son ought to obey his father not in all circumstances but only in those that can be approved by reference to other authorities (16 Lutz). Roman declamation frequently uses arguments between family members over public service as a means of reinforcing cultural standards of appropriate behaviour.68 In a controversia of the elder Seneca, for example, a father forbids his son to go to war, despite the son’s previous success in battle. Seneca’s Gallio presents the father’s prohibition as a benefit both to the state and to the family members in question (Contr. 1.8.9). Another controversia examines the overlap of the familial and public spheres in the preservation of a father’s honour. A son who refuses to help his father, a disabled war veteran, to kill his mother’s adulterous lover is accused of ‘having denied his hands to his country before having denied them to his father.’69 Negative examples of conflict between father and son complement the positive examples of paternal emulation in setting out the rules for

23 Kinship as Narrative interaction between the generations. Several chapters of this book examine similar conflicts between tyrannical fathers and virtuous sons, in which obedience to a father’s will is represented not as an absolute good but as a decision that must be mediated by various circumstances. As in epic and tragedy, many genres of Roman prose literature represent paternal emulation as the most valued and effective means of social reproduction, both of the individual family and of the larger social order. Yet contemporary sources typically locate this form of instruction, along with the image of boundless patria potestas, in an idealized past. The figure of the father as educator in Roman epic overlaps with a lengthy Roman literary tradition that presents him as ideally responsible for providing moral instruction to his son and serving as a personal example for his emulation. Pliny imagines a tradition of paternal emulation in military and legislative service. According to his reconstruction of an ideal past, young men once watched their elders in action both in the army and in the Senate: erat autem antiquitus institutum, ut a maioribus natu non auribus modo uerum etiam oculis disceremus, quae facienda mox ipsi ac per uices quasdam tradenda minoribus haberemus. Inde adulescentuli statim castrensibus stipendiis imbuebantur ut imperare parendo, duces agere dum sequuntur adsuescerent; inde honores petituri adsistebant curiae foribus, et consilii publici spectatores ante quam consortes erant. Suus cuique parens pro magistro, aut cui parens non erat maximus quisque et uetustissimus pro parente. (Pliny Ep. 8.14.4–6) There was the tradition in former times that we learned from our elders not only with our ears but also with our eyes. Thereby we would have the principles on which we would soon act and pass on in turn to our descendants. Thus young men received instruction initially through military service, so that, by obeying, they would become accustomed to command others; while following, to lead as commanders. While seeking offices as candidates, they stood outside the doors of the Senate house, and were spectators of public debate before they were participants. Each man’s father served as his teacher, or some older and more distinguished man would stand in for the man who did not have a father.

Pliny’s generalizing description precludes the possibility of the transmission of unique perspectives by individuals. In his vision of collective educational activity, paternal educators reproduce the general principles on which society is founded rather than the particularities of an individual lineage.70 A similar didactic strategy of social reproduction, framed as personal instruction of a son, occurs in the tradition of Roman literary dedication that stretches from the elder Cato through late antiquity.71 Though addressed to the author’s

24 In the Image of the Ancestors son, such literature makes itself available for consumption by all. In each example of filial instruction, whether by a Roman epic father, Pliny’s senators, or the authors of Roman didactic literature, a father extends his authority to educate his own son to encompass all of his readers. The didactic authority gained through this literary performance before a wider audience overshadows any individual authority over a real-life son. Examinations of the appropriate relationship between a family and the state complement the discussions in contemporary literature of the authority of the father over his son. The comparison of the economies of obligation experienced by family members and citizens is traditional. Aristotle compares a father’s authority in the household to different kinds of regimes: the father ‘rules the wife and children as free persons, but the manner of ruling is not the same; he rules the wife in political fashion and the children in royal fashion.’72 Cicero’s evolutionary account of social development describes the household as ‘the first principle of the city and as if the seedbed of the state.’73 In Roman literary narratives, however, individuals often find themselves torn between competing obligations to family and nation. In the De Re Publica, Cicero argues that ‘because the fatherland contains greater benefits and is a more ancient father than the one who engendered us, greater thanks is undoubtedly owed to it than to a father.’ 74 Later in the same work, Cicero’s Paulus urges Scipio to place pietas towards the fatherland before pietas towards parents and relatives.75 The potential for conflict in obligation is further intensified when the father and the ruler are the same individual. Livy includes several narratives of disobedient sons whose consular fathers punish them with death or exile for their crimes against the state. His Brutus and Manlius derive their sense of the legitimacy of their office only through the voluntary subordination of their obligations to their kin to the demands of the state.76 As subsequent chapters show, Flavian epic’s focus on royal or politically powerful families employs the traditional homology between the family and the state and shows that their fates are conjoined. The figuration of the emperor as a national father unites the themes of the limitations to the authority exercised by individual fathers with the paradigm of subordination of familial to political concerns. Greco-Roman literary tradition represents rulers from Homeric kings to the Roman emperors as the fathers of their people.77 The ruler’s role as saviour and benefactor is also viewed in paternal terms. Horace praises Augustus as ‘father and first citizen,’ while Statius and Martial praise Domitian as ‘the world’s father.’78 In the rhetoric of imperial encomia, the emperor exercises paternal authority over a nation of subject sons only insofar as it is just and beneficial. Otherwise, his authority becomes the domination of a master

25 Kinship as Narrative over a population of slaves.79 Pliny employs the contrast between a benevolent father and a tyrannical master in order to distinguish the kindly Trajan from his oppressive predecessor Domitian: ‘Never let us flatter you as a god, never as a divinity: for we are not speaking of a tyrant but of a citizen, not of a master but of a father.’80 As a father, the emperor exceeds all individual fathers in authority and notionally governs both them and their children through his symbolic paternity. In this context, the examinations of the proper exercise of paternal authority in epic and other genres become reflections on developments in the public, political sphere as well as on those within the private, individual household. Though drawing in many cases on traditional themes, contemporary literary sources present a change in attitudes towards authority within the family and the role of the family within the state. Discussions in multiple literary genres examine the limitations of fathers’ rights over their children by social convention and locate the stereotype of boundless patria potestas in an idealized past. Philosophers argued that the father’s authority may be legitimately contravened in appropriate circumstances, while declaimers often place their central characters in conflicts of obligation to the family and to the state. In representing himself as a paternal figure whose legitimacy as a ruler was based on his divine descent, the emperor offers a further challenge to the figure of the individual authoritative father. His imperial authority supersedes the authority of individual parents while reproducing the paradigms of filial emulation and of status based on descent that were no longer available to most members of the upper class. Contemporary Roman literature in many genres sought to address these new realities, including the Flavian epics to which we shall now devote exclusive attention. 3. Kinship as Thematic The foregoing discussions have shown that kinship narratives seek to alter perceptions of reality through the construction of an idealized social world. In epic, dramatizations of conflict between family members and between families and states both serve the proximate needs of narrative and also provide the poet with a means of contributing to contemporary social and political debates. In the subsequent chapters, I focus attention both on each epic narrative’s reflection of concerns raised in other literary genres as well as on its intertextual dialogue with preceding works in the Greco-Roman epic tradition. An older tradition of scholarship viewed the Flavian epics as committed to aesthetic goals, largely to the exclusion of commentary on the world of their contemporary audience.81 A more recent tradition has sought to uncover primarily subversive political messages concealed within the

26 In the Image of the Ancestors text.82 This study endeavours to view each poet’s aesthetic and political concerns as tightly interrelated. The epics’ creation of generic, narrative, and allusive contrasts with prior literary tradition can be interpreted in ideological as well as formal terms. In the remainder of this section, I introduce the particular issues in kinship to be addressed in the subsequent chapters. In chapter 2, I show that the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus represents the aristocratic family as a threatened institution. Threats to traditional relationships between family members occur on the divine, human, and political levels of the narrative. The gods’ privileging of the Argonauts deprives the epic’s other divine children of the support that they expect from their parents. The gods’ enforcement of their favourites’ claims disrupts the affective bonds that should ideally obtain between family members. Valerius’ configuration of kinship provides his narrative with an important source of cohesion, defines its space within a crowded Argonautic tradition, and aligns it more closely with Roman cultural values. The application of the paradigm of paternal emulation differentiates the Roman Argonautica from its Hellenistic predecessor, in which ancestors play a more peripheral role. The emphasis on paternal authority in the Argonautica reflects the central role granted to the paterfamilias within the Roman family. Though a traditional component of the Argonautic myth, the epic’s narrative of the betrayal of Aeetes also gains further point in a Roman cultural context, in which he would expect as paterfamilias to determine the inheritance of his property and to take a primary role in brokering his daughter’s marriage. The narrative expresses the traditional distinction between the tyrant and the ideal emperor that reflects the perspective of an aristocracy wary of the contemporary imperial regime. The repressive exercise of power by figures such as Pelias, Laomedon, and Aeetes calls the justifications of monarchy into question. One major consequence of the exercise of tyrannical power is the subversion of traditional family structures and the extension of dissimulative modes of behaviour throughout families. Valerius has transposed two of the major anxieties of the contemporary upper-class family into a mythological context. These include the immediate threat of familial disruption through civil war or tyranny and the progressive degradation of patria potestas as the result of the failure of social reproduction. The first part of chapter 3 examines the relationship between individual and familial identity in Statius’ Thebaid. In this narrative of ancestral curses and fratricidal conflict, divine hostility forbids particular individuals to establish identities independent of the stigma associated with their families and lineages. The curse of Polynices’ father, Oedipus, prompts the young man to recapitulate the intrafamilial conflicts of the earlier generations of his lineage.

27 Kinship as Narrative There is no escape from the corrupting force of descent in the bleak world of the Thebaid. Several individuals, however, transcend the status of their families of birth in the Silvae, a poetic environment in which more constructive relationships obtain between family members and between individuals and the gods. I read both Statius’ epic and his occasional poetry as contributions to contemporary debates, differentiated by genre, on the value of descent in assessing status. The discussion of Polynices’ mother, Jocasta, his wife, Argia, and his sister Antigone in the second part of the chapter complements the earlier examination of the perspectives of male relatives. Mothers in epic are usually prohibited from or censured for diverting their children from combat. In the Thebaid, however, Jocasta’s attempt to restrain her sons from the horror of the fratricidal duel is represented as virtuous (albeit unsuccessful). As Jocasta and Oedipus dramatize the conflict between maternal and paternal imperatives for their children, they invert epic’s normative expectation of paternal emulation. In the epic’s conclusion, Argia shares the role that the tradition typically assigns to Antigone, that of the faithful family member who risks death in order to bury Polynices. In Argia’s triumph, the Thebaid suggests the equivalence or potential superiority of elective relationships such as marriage to unchosen biological relationships such as descent or siblinghood. These thematics are also developed more fully in the encomia of marriage found in the Silvae. As the result of the marital unanimity of Argia and Polynices, a value privileged in the Silvae, Argia persuades her father, Adrastus, to undertake the invasion of Thebes that leaves her a widow. Once more, the dramatization of a similar set of values (marital unanimity, loyalty, and posthumous reverence) leads to opposite results in the Thebaid and the Silvae. Statius’ Achilleid investigates the complex relationship between the inherited and the social aspects of identity, the ‘given’ and the ‘made.’ Chapter 4 examines what the portrait of Achilles in Statius’ incomplete epic contributes to those contemporary readers who did not enjoy distinguished descent and were thus obliged to prioritize the ‘made’ over the ‘given.’ The central aspects of the young hero’s identity are viewed as the results both of his descent from a goddess and of the exceptional paideia provided by his fosterer Chiron. The narrative represents both Achilles’ personality and his physical characteristics as malleable and susceptible to shaping by authoritative figures. Though presented in a mythological context, the epic’s reflections on subjects such as marriage between social unequals, the effects of education, and the constituent elements of identity respond directly to the social concerns of its contemporary readership. Nature and nurture arguments continue to be ideologically sensitive discourse in the present day, and they were a subject

28 In the Image of the Ancestors of philosophical debate in the Greco-Roman world. Contemporary Roman discourse offers multiple perspectives on the significance of fosterage. Relationships between fosterling and fosterer could be represented as second-rate kinship or, as in Statius, even superior in affective terms to consanguineous ones. Through the multiple perspectives that it offers on Achilles’ fostering, the Achilleid contributes to a contemporary debate over the relationship between descent, identity, and social performance. In contrast to the other Flavian epics, which involve civil and intrafamilial conflict, Silius’ Punica presents a narrative of external conflict and familial solidarity. Chapter 5 examines the variety of perspectives presented by the epic’s leaders on the balance between their personal obligations to family members, both living and deceased, and their public responsibilities to subjects and followers. The performance of each commander in the Punica as father, son, and leader offers a different vision of the correlation between the familial and the public spheres of action. While Hannibal’s excessive desire to fulfil his father’s wishes for vengeance on the Romans represents the virtue of filial obedience taken to a dangerous extreme, Fabius’ performances as the head of his gens and as the symbolic father of the army under his command are interrelated. The Capuan tyrant Pacuvius’ negative exercise of paternal authority contrasts with the superior paradigms of paternity and governance presented by several of the Roman commanders. As with Achilles in the Achilleid, paternity is not a stable index of identity for Scipio Africanus; its significance instead remains open to negotiation and re-evaluation. Through its characters’ alternative conceptions of ancestry and paternal authority, the Punica responds both to the representations of intergenerational relationships in epic tradition and to the changing attitudes towards kinship in the Flavian regime and in the upper-class Roman family. Early imperial literature draws on the mythology of national kinship by representing the Roman people as descendants of Trojan founders and as a single family united under the emperor’s symbolically paternal governance. Yet the ready extension of citizenship meant that it was impossible to construct Roman identity exclusively in terms of ethnicity, and the outbreak of civil war in AD 69 similarly undid the myth of the national family. Chapter 6 examines how Flavian epic questions the validity of claims to national kinship through its narratives of the failure of myths of shared descent from common founders to compel political unity. The myth of Theban autochthony presents a vision of the city as a descent group, united by a common ancestry and a single blood. Yet the fighting that immediately ensues among the Spartoi, the ancestors of the Theban people, indicates the propensity for internecine bloodshed that will eventually culminate in the civil war narrated in Statius’

29 Kinship as Narrative epic. The conceptual similarities between the Theban and Roman origin narratives make the Thebaid’s vision of the connection between shared descent and national identity especially pertinent for a Roman audience that had but recently experienced civil war. Representatives of diverse national groups throughout Flavian epic attempt to obligate their people and their allies through the fiction of shared descent, reflecting the practice of kinship diplomacy by several ancient states, including imperial Rome.83 Silius’ epic uses the paradigm of descent in order to question the ability of political myths to establish or maintain unity among diverse peoples. Though both Saguntum and Capua perceive themselves as linked to Rome through shared descent, the Romans refuse to honour the Saguntines’ request for military assistance, while the Capuans revolt against Rome in favour of Hannibal. By examining the symbolic forms of kinship constructed within and between states, the epics of Statius and Silius address subjects such as the causes of civil conflict, the legitimacy of the imperial regime, and relationships between states. Even as the narratives of Flavian epic question the value of consanguineous descent, they present the filial relationship as a dominant model of literary succession.84 Chapter 7, the book’s conclusion, examines Statius’ uses of kinship narrative as a means of claiming privileged status for his work in the literary tradition. In the conclusion to the Thebaid, the poet makes anxious ‘paternal’ and humble ‘conjugal’ claims regarding the survival of his work. These modest claims contrast with the bolder ‘filial’ claims advanced in the epicedion for the elder Papinius (Silvae 5.3), in which the poet envisions his pietas towards his deceased father as potentially enabling him to rival Homer and Vergil. My examination of Statius’ construction of his relationship to the tradition through a personal kinship narrative completes the argument pursued throughout this book that Flavian literature renegotiates the conventional meanings of kin relationships and legitimates models of kinship that had been discounted by predecessors in the genre.

2 Valerius’ Argonautica: Kinship and Power Valerius’ Argonautica represents the family as a fragile institution, its cohesion continually threatened by internal and external pressures. The gods’ manipulation of their victims and favourites poses challenges to lineal security and disrupts the bonds of authority and affection that should ideally obtain between family members. Familial conflicts generated directly or indirectly by divine interference occur all along the Argonauts’ route. The women of Lemnos kill their male relatives at the instigation of Venus, while the civil war between the half-brothers Aeetes and Perses breaks out in response to an oracle commanding the return of the Fleece.1 Juno prolongs the intrafamilial conflict at Colchis by supporting the Argonauts’ participation on Aeetes’ side of the war. Together with Venus, the goddess compels Medea to disobey her father, to aid Jason in stealing the Fleece, and to marry him without her family’s consent. The masquerades by Juno and Venus as Medea’s relatives Chalciope and Circe involve the use of divine powers whose effects resemble human dissimulation. Medea once suspects that she may be deceived (Arg. 6.659–63), yet appears to believe that her sister and aunt are persuading her to disobey her father. The goddesses play on the trust that the young girl places in her female relatives in order to gain a more receptive audience for their deception. Monarchal power, negatively framed in this epic as tyranny, complements divine power as a force that threatens familial solidarity. Before the epic opens, the intrigue of a jealous stepmother causes the exile of Phrixus and Helle (Arg. 1.41–2, 1.277–93, 2.587–609). Within the epic’s main narrative, dissimulation is a typical mode of interaction between the members of royal families.2 Pelias orders Jason, his half-brother’s son and a potential rival for his throne, to undertake the expedition to Colchis by deceptively relating a dream that Aeetes has murdered Phrixus (Arg. 1.40–57).3 Pelias’ son Acastus and Aeetes’ daughter Medea act in secret against their tyrannical parents’

31 Valerius’ Argonautica wishes by joining the Argonauts. When Hercules rescues Laomedon’s daughter Hesione, the tyrant reacts with feigned satisfaction rather than genuine relief and plots to murder him. The violence and deception that pervade the familial sphere in the Argonautica follow the traditional association in Roman literature between the opening of the sea and the general decline of morality.4 The malign influences of hostile gods and tyrants in the Argonautica deform the expression of Roman familial ideals. While Aeson and Jason enact a positive paradigm of ancestral exemplarity and filial emulation, most other children in the epic no longer demonstrate loyalty and obedience to their tyrannical fathers. The execution of typical familial strategies, such as the arrangement of marriage for dynastic purposes and the disposal of familial property, no longer follows the directives of the paterfamilias. As in Statius’ Thebaid, the affairs of the family do not occur in isolation. The disruption of familial cohesion instead produces tangible effects in the political sphere. Valerius’ examination of threats to the aristocratic family revisits familial and political problems raised in prior Greco-Roman Argonautic and Medea narratives.5 The Argonautica also reopens, from a different perspective, the Aeneid’s examination of the justifications of paternal, monarchal, and divine power. This chapter examines how Valerius’ familial narrative associates the exercise of divine and tyrannical power with threats to culturally privileged modes of behaviour. I show first how the characters’ expressions of familial attitudes aid in the epic’s construction of its own independent space within a crowded Argonautic tradition and align it with Roman cultural values. I then examine the relationships between three of the tyrants of the epic (Pelias, Laomedon, and Aeetes) and their families. The attempts of these corrupt individuals to compel obedience from their children prompt the questioning of the moral underpinnings of paternal authority. The following sections consider hostile divine intervention, the other major form of pressure acting upon families in Valerius. Juno conceals the news of his parents’ suicide from Jason, while Venus compels the Lemnian women to murder their husbands and Cybele causes the Argonauts to slaughter the Doliones, their former hosts. The goddesses’ joint assault on Medea presents the most fully developed narrative of divine intervention in Valerius’ epic. The conclusion interprets the epic’s presentation of threats to familial cohesion as a reflection of the anxieties of the contemporary Roman upper-class family. 1. ‘Head Forward toward the Sweet Embraces of Your Parents’: Parents and Children in Valerius’ Argonautica Greco-Roman literature traditionally represents Argonautic episodes as having been too often related to need a new treatment.6 Valerius’ representation

32 In the Image of the Ancestors of ancestors achieves several purposes: marking the distance between his Argonautic narrative and its predecessors; signalling its affinities with the cultural values of its contemporary world; and developing his epic’s intertextual relationship with the Aeneid.7 The epic’s proem incorporates the paradigm of transcending the ancestors’ achievements in its encomium of the Flavian dynasty. In the manner of the Argonauts, Vespasian ‘opens the sea’ (during a campaign in Britain in the reign of Claudius) to a greater extent than his Julian predecessors: ‘There is the greater fame for you of opening the sea, after the Caledonian ocean that disdained the Trojan Julians carried along your sails.’8 Like the Flavians, Valerius’ Argonauts surpass the achievements of their parents’ generation, which was limited to exploits on land such as the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. In recruiting the Argonauts, Juno advertises Jason’s intention ‘to dare winds untried by the ancestors’ (inexpertos temptare parentibus Austros / Aesoniden, Arg. 1.97–8).9 The children of the Argonauts will in turn surpass their parents by fighting the Trojan War, an event prefigured in the prophecies of Jupiter and Mopsus and the brief encounter between Peleus and his infant son Achilles.10 The paradigm of surpassing the ancestors also extends to the gods. Jupiter intends to outdo the ‘idleness’ of his father Saturn’s reign (otia regni, Arg. 1.500), while his son Pollux’s victory over Neptune’s son Amycus reaffirms Jupiter’s authority both over the world and over his own brother. Pollux’s combat with a precivilized tyrant, a monstrous creature described as a ‘savage Giant,’ recapitulates aspects of the combats that his father had undertaken in earlier generations against the Giants and Typhoeus.11 The exploits that symbolize the inauguration of Jupiter’s new order and the eradication of remnants of the period before his reign have been taken as symbolic affirmations of Flavian imperial successes.12 Yet even as the narrative appears to celebrate the extension of Jovian control to far-flung parts of the world, it also details the human costs of Jupiter’s plan for translatio imperii that culminates with the rise of Rome and the subordination of Greece and Asia.13 While celebrating the exploits of the Flavian dynasty, the Argonautica also critiques the exercise of tyrannical power from the perspective of a marginalized aristocracy.14 The contrasting functions of characters, motifs, and narrative elements that appear in both the Greek and Roman Argonautic epics reveal the different ethical and ideological functions of ancestors. Because of his advanced age, for example, Valerius’ Iphiclus does not row along with the Argonauts but instead joins them ‘so that he may hand down keen warnings and ignite the men with praises of their great ancestors.’15 None of Apollonius’ Argonauts performs a function similar to this inspiring repository of ancestral precedent, and emulation of the ancestors takes a secondary role.16 Apollonius’ Iphiclus, in contrast to Valerius’, joins the voyage

33 Valerius’ Argonautica only because of his kinship connection with Jason (A.R. 1.45–8). Ancestors in Valerius take an interest in the deeds of the Argonauts that complements the respectful attention that they receive from their children. All the ancestors wish to observe the Argonauts after they complete the principal exploit of the outbound voyage, the passage through the Clashing Rocks.17 Valerius’ use of a narrative paradigm in which ancestors admire the achievements of their offspring aligns the Argonauts with Vergil’s Trojans. While Aeneas laments that he may drown unobserved by his ancestors, unlike the fortunate Trojans who died ante ora patrum (Aen. 1.95), the Argonauts perform at sea under the observation of at least one ancestor. Valerius presents his Argonauts as a heroic collectivity performing for their ancestors’ approval, like the Vergilian youth who enact the lusus Troiae. The mutual expression of pietas between the Argonauts and the older generation sharpens the contrast with the fear and duplicity characteristic of the tyrannical families in the Roman Argonautica. The use of the narrative paradigm of ancestral emulation is one of many means by which Valerius’ Argonautica thematically aligns itself with the Aeneid. The Argonauts’ divided identities, as heroic adventurers and as family men, provide the epic with crucial sources of narrative dynamism, logical coherence, and emotional tension. These are essential ingredients of an epic that, thanks to the nature of its narrative, perpetually threatens to become contingent, digressive, or even incoherent. Journey narratives imply a potentially infinite number of episodes of adventure, each of which can be extended to potentially infinite length. Valerius’ narrative displays awareness of this structural challenge by offering self-conscious reflections on its own pretexts for the curtailment or omission of episodes.18 The Lemnos and Hylas episodes in particular threaten to halt the forward progess of the narrative. In the former episode, the Argonauts appear ready to remain indefinitely with the marriageable Lemnian women until Hercules’ evocation of the ‘disappointed wishes’ of the ancestors prompts them to leave.19 After the departure of Hercules in the futile pursuit of Hylas, Valerius’ Argonauts despair of continuing with their quest until persuaded by Meleager’s rhetoric of familial obligation. Meleager spurs his comrades to continue by evoking thoughts of their eventual return home to loving families, which cannot happen unless they proceed to complete their quest (Arg. 3.654–60). The frequent evocation of the Argonauts’ absent families throughout the epic, however, emphasizes the incongruity between heroic activity and familial obligation. Idmon’s words of encouragement as the Argonauts prepare to depart on their voyage, ‘head forward toward the sweet embraces of your parents,’ encapsulate the paradox (dulcesque parentum / tendite ad amplexus, Arg. 1.237–8). Through his emphasis on the successful homecoming that will

34 In the Image of the Ancestors conclude the voyage, he attempts to obscure the fact that moving onward to Colchis inevitably leads to continued separation from families and increases the likelihood of bereavement. After Meleager prompts the Argonauts to continue forward despite the loss of Hercules by evoking the image of their families, Orpheus complements his effort of persuasion by blocking thoughts of family from their minds in order to focus his comrades on their work: ‘Grief and anger and hard work are expelled, and thoughts of their sweet children depart from their breasts.’20 A similar progressive evocation and subordination of familial concerns recurs at Colchis. The Argonauts emphasize their concern for their families as they urge Castor to relate Aeetes’ answer to their request for the Fleece: ‘Tell us, whether we have any hope of seeing our homeland again.’ When he tells them that they will fight on Aeetes’ side, their response is once more to put aside thoughts of family: ‘No one looked toward the sea or the cities of his homeland.’21 The complementarity of these efforts at persuasion suggests the tension implicit in the Argonauts’ double self-definition as heroic adventurers and as family men. The narrative does not permit them to exclude either aspect of their identities. These representations of filial activity contribute to the epic’s assertion (in schematic terms) of its ‘Roman’ character as opposed to its Hellenistic predecessor. Apollonius’ epic frequently establishes ties between individual Argonauts and communities far from their homeland through aetiological narratives of city foundation, as in the example of Polyphemus’ foundation of Ceos (A.R. 1.1345–7). Valerius’ Argonauts, by contrast, often express concern for the relatives waiting for their return and reject others’ attempts to represent them as outsiders or exiles.22 Their desire to return to their families motivates their completion of individual episodes and their forward progress to Colchis. The Roman family’s emphasis on ancestral emulation and its centralization of authority in the figure of the paterfamilias create a greater sense of obligation to the ancestors than in the Greek family. The Roman paterfamilias enjoyed far greater control of his family than the Greek father, though the family council and public opinion were also expected to moderate his judgment. By Roman law and custom, a paterfamilias controlled the family’s property, could expect to take a leading role in arranging his daughter’s marriage, and could compel her to divorce.23 As such, the performances of both the Valerian Argonauts and the tyrants they encounter are stereotypically more ‘Roman’ than those of their Apollonian counterparts. Several of the tyrannical fathers of the Argonautica experience a loss of control over their families as the result of divine interference and human deception. Jason’s deceptive overtures to Pelias’ son Acastus (Arg. 1.162–83) appear to place the young man in a traditional conflict between two culturally approved patterns of action: obedience to the paterfamilias on the one hand,

35 Valerius’ Argonautica and the virtuous pursuit of glory on the other. Acastus’ ability to make a moral choice is skewed, however, by his failure to perceive the deception perpetrated on him. Divine interference in the workings of authority within the tyrannical family similarly produces morally ambiguous results. In causing both Medea and the Fleece to pass to Jason, Juno deprives Aeetes of the ability to negotiate his daughter’s marriage and to dispose of his descendants’ property, rights typically enjoyed by the Roman paterfamilias. While the narrator represents Aeetes’ humbling as ‘deserved’ (meriti, Arg. 5.223), a consequence of his tyrannical behaviour, he nevertheless questions the justification of the goddesses’ interference and represents Medea as an unfortunate victim on the model of infelix Dido.24 The epic’s use of the language and themes of pietas serves as an ironic reminder of how fully the expression of this virtue has been compromised for several of its characters.25 Children obey paternal authority, in the Argonautica as in Roman culture generally, for a variety of overlapping reasons: from a culture-wide respect for the social position of the paterfamilias, for the self-evident moral justifications contained in appropriate injunctions, or out of fear of his power to enforce obedience.26 The narratives of filial rebellion in Valerius, however, involve tyrannical fathers who can justify obedience only through fear of punishment or a demand for pity. Their role as tyrants obviates any respect due to social position or claims of moral virtue. These narratives therefore prompt a critical examination of the foundations of paternal claims to authority. From the narrator’s perspective, Pelias and Aeetes ‘deserve’ the departure of Acastus in pursuit of glory and Medea for love of Jason. The multiple influences acting on these children complicate the judgment of their moral behaviour. Though Acastus appears to show no remorse, Medea feels considerable guilt at betraying her father. The deceptions perpetrated by Jason and the goddesses further reduce the element of choice informing the actions of each child towards his or her parent. The loyalty of Hesione and Absyrtus towards Laomedon and Aeetes, meanwhile, is represented as to some degree misguided. Both children are worthy of better fathers. The epic frames obedience to a father’s wishes, therefore, not as an invariably praiseworthy choice but as one potential course of action, a deliberate choice whose moral significance is always mediated by circumstances. The Argonautica presents these moral questions in their full complexities and leaves final answers in abeyance. As observed in the preceding chapter, members of the contemporary upper class engaged in debates concerning the limits of paternal authority. The epic’s attention to challenges to paternal authority, located in the extraordinary circumstances of tyranny and civil war, is one of its significant points of contact with debates conducted in contemporary literature.

36 In the Image of the Ancestors Though located in the mythical past and populated by Greeks and Asians, the Argonautica draws several connections between its narrative and contemporary Roman institutions and historical events.27 Like the Thebaid, the Argonautica unites the themes of civil war, the exercise of divine and tyrannical power, and the unravelling of kinship networks. The episode of civil war that occupies the epic’s sixth book permits exploration of martial and national themes in greater depth than Argonautic narratives traditionally feature. Medea’s betrayal of Aeetes both constitutes a traditional episode of the Argonautic myth and evokes the memories of intrafamilial violence and treachery witnessed by Valerius’ contemporary readers in the recent civil war.28 The epic locates familial betrayal within the literary tradition of Roman civil war narrative, which associates conflict between countrymen with the expectation, if not always the actuality, of dissimulation and violence within families. Valerius Maximus records the betrayal of two fathers by their sons and a husband by his wife during the proscriptions of the second triumvirate, while Tacitus’ narrative of the civil war of AD 69 presents examples of familial disintegration in the murder of Julius Mansuetus by his son and in a cavalryman’s murder of his brother for a reward.29 The outbreak of war at Colchis thus provides a thematically appropriate background for the episodes of dissimulation, betrayal, and intrafamilial violence associated with the Medea narrative. Though the Argonautica foreshadows the grim events that lie beyond its narrative scope, such as the murder of Absyrtus and Medea’s murder of her own children, it also presents the possibility of reconciliation after civil war. Medea will eventually return with Medeus, her son by Aegeus, in order to restore Aeetes to his throne after Perses deposes him.30 Her return to familial loyalty evokes an issue of paramount importance for Romans in periods following civil war: the achievement of reconciliation, both within families divided by war and between political factions. The tensions implicit in the Argonauts’ bifurcated identities as heroic adventurers and family men contribute to the epic’s narrative dynamism and cohesion, important considerations for a narrative that threatens to become episodic and digressive. Through his representation of ancestors who provide their offspring with inspiring examples of behaviour, high expectations to fulfil, and motivation to return home, Valerius creates a significant difference between the Roman Argonautica and its Hellenistic predecessor, in which ancestors occupy a less central role. The relationships between the tyrants of the epic and their children, meanwhile, provide negative foils to the paradigms of positive ancestral emulation variously enacted by the Argonauts. Valerius presents complex moral dilemmas for both parents and children through the creation of narrative situations in

37 Valerius’ Argonautica which freedom of action is constrained by divine intervention and fathers compromise their claims on their children’s obedience through their own immoral behaviour. The epic thereby furnishes a narrative context for addressing many of its contemporary audience’s anxieties regarding the position of the upper-class family. The epic’s exploration of the impact of tyranny on families complements its evocation of the possibility of the resumption of civil strife at Rome and the manifold disruptions of familial cohesion that result. The tyrants provide a negative model against which the ‘good’ emperors celebrated in the proem are implicitly invited to define themselves. The epic’s account of betrayal and dissimulation in tyrannical households reflects contemporary upper-class fears regarding the imperial court, as visible throughout Tacitus’ Annales, Suetonius’ biographies, and Pliny’s Panegyricus. While the epic’s narratives of tyranny and civil war reflect one set of anxieties regarding the extreme disruption of familial cohesion, its account of threats to lineal security and the inability to impose paternal authority within the family evoke the contemporary perception of a progressive decline in patria potestas and the failure of the Roman upper class to achieve social reproduction. 2. ‘Deserving to Be Deceived, Deserving to Be Betrayed’: the Tyrannical Family The Argonautica presents five rulers labelled by the narrator and other characters as ‘tyrants’ (tyrannus). These are Pelias the Haemonian, Laomedon the Trojan, Amycus the Bebrycian, Styrus the Albanian, and Aeetes the Colchian.31 The tyrant experiences a general isolation from the affective bonds that constitute human society, especially those of friendship and kinship. Valerius represents the tyrant’s household as divided by fear and repression, a place where dissimulation rather than mutual support is the characteristic mode of interaction between family members. I begin by surveying Valerius’ use of epic and transgeneric conventions of representation in constructing the relationship between the tyrant and his family.32 I focus next on Aeetes’ role as a paterfamilias and the threats to his exercise of the rights associated with that status, particularly the disposal of his family’s property. The tyrants are typically involved in conflicts with other potential claimants to the throne, such as their half-brothers and those men’s children. As a behavioural paradigm, tyrannical aggression towards family members recurs across multiple generations. Pelias’ acts of violence recapitulate earlier events of the Aeolid dynasty. Through exile or murder, Aeolid tyrants remove family members who offer competition for the throne, including children born to prior marriages (Phrixus and Helle), the legitimate claimant (Aeson), and the

38 In the Image of the Ancestors children of the legitimate claimant (Jason and Promachus). Athamas’ exile of Phrixus and Helle, at the instigation of their stepmother Ino, establishes this paradigm of tyrannical behaviour.33 Helle herself identifies Pelias’ banishment of Jason as a recapitulation of her escape with her brother from her hostile father (Arg. 2.592–5). Jason’s role in a pattern of repression recurring across generations helps him to identify with Phrixus and Helle, the former owners of the Fleece. He interprets Helle’s account of their shared descent and similar experiences as a sign that she will assist them in their voyage.34 This perception of similarity also stands behind Jason’s use of kinship rhetoric at Colchis, where he professes to have a better claim to Phrixus’ Fleece than Phrixus’ own sons. The narrative relates the hostile behaviour of the Aeolid tyrants to the impulses created by dynastic competition and political insecurity as well as to the immoral behaviour of the individual rulers. Though tyrants typically repress both male and female children, the enactment of such repression takes different forms according to the gendered expectations of their society. Pelias attempts to restrain his son Acastus from joining the Argonauts in the pursuit of glory, while Laomedon attempts to sacrifice his daughter Hesione and is disappointed when Hercules saves the young woman’s life. Aeetes neglects until too late to consider the possibility that his daughter Medea might betray him. As in other Flavian epics, Vergil’s Mezentius and Lausus episode provides the principal model for Valerius’ representation of relationships between tyrannical fathers and virtuous sons. The epic draws on an alternative set of conventions, however, to create its narratives of reactions by daughters to the revelation of their tyrannical fathers’ moral insufficiency. It is a traditional element of the Argonautic myth that Aeetes has one loyal son and one disloyal daughter. This narrative structure makes clear the gendered differential in the tyrant’s treatment of his children. While the tyrant’s son remains virtuous (if foolhardy) as he rebels in pursuit of publicly recognized gloria, the absence of an authoritative public role for women in epic means that the tyrant can always frame his daughter’s rebellion as an unforgivable act of private disloyalty. In his representation of royal households, Valerius upholds the traditional distinction between the Good King beloved by his people and the tyrant whose people live in fear of him and have no loyalty to him.35 Valerius’ allusions to different Vergilian figures develop the distinctions between tyrannical and non-tyrannical families. In contrast, for example, to the gentle rule of Vergil’s Latinus or Statius’ Adrastus, Valerius’ Pelias ‘restrains’ (frenabat) his people in fear.36 The dominant family of Vergil’s epic, the mutually supportive Aeneadae, provide the model for only one branch of a family (Aeson, Alcimede, Jason, and Promachus) that appears briefly in the Argonautica. All but one of its members have been wiped out by the end of the epic’s first

39 Valerius’ Argonautica book. This episode, which has no Apollonian parallel, evokes the Claudian and Neronian courts through its representation of dynastically motivated murder.37 The combination of the central roles granted to tyrants, the relative isolation of virtuous rulers, and the evocation of destructive patterns of behaviour from the Aeneid accords with the fear of tyrannical power associated with the aristocratic perspective that informs Valerius’ epic. Factors such as the illegitimacy of their reign and their violent removal of legitimate contenders contribute to the tyrants’ unpopularity and the perception of their grip on power as insecure. Tyrants are typically represented as the jealous enemies of virtuous individuals. Examples of good behaviour point up the tyrants’ ethical deficiencies through contrast and spur them to violent revenge. Seneca claims that the emperor Gaius killed Julius Graecinus ‘just because he was a better man than is expedient for anyone living under a tyrant’ (ob hoc unum, quod melior uir erat, quam esse quemquam tyranno expedit, Ben. 2.21.5), while Tacitus describes the emperor Domitian as ‘a ruler hostile to virtues’ (princeps infensus uirtutibus, Agr. 41.1). Pliny observes that the negative influence of a bad emperor can spread widely. In his view, military discipline declined in the Flavian era because ‘virtue was suspect’ (suspecta uirtus, Ep. 8.14.7). The tyrant may also be isolated from affective ties with other human beings, including his own family members. Pliny’s rhetorical abuse of Domitian in the Panegyricus offers a typical example of this theme: ‘As if shut up in a kind of cave, now he lapped the blood of his relatives, now he came forward to cause the death and destruction of the most prominent citizens.’38 As neither conventional morality nor affection for kin restrains tyrants, they are also represented as the enemies of familial authority in general. In declamatory exercises, for example, tyrants prompt slaves to kill their masters and command sons to beat their fathers (Sen. Contr. 7.6, 9.4). As the tyrant’s family is the source both of virtuous individuals and of possible contenders for his power, the tyrant’s destructive jealousy often extends to his own kin. These narrative paradigms shape the encounters between Pelias and Jason and between Aeetes and the Argonauts. Pelias fears Jason’s uirtus (Arg. 1.29–30), while the Colchian tyrant simultaneously admires the remarkable Greek strangers, whose help he needs to repulse Perses, and jealously despises them for their excellence (5.567–9). Their expressions of hostility towards the Argonauts and towards their own families align these characters with the tyrants of the Roman rhetorical tradition and the bad emperors of the negative historiographical and biographical traditions. Conflict between full brothers and half-brothers as contenders for monarchal power appears frequently as a narrative pattern in several genres of Roman literature. The tyrant who deposes his brother rules through violence and repression rather than through a legitimate mandate such as lineal

40 In the Image of the Ancestors succession, divine election, marriage into the royal family, or the favour of the people. Tacitus describes Nero, for example, as being prompted to kill Britannicus because of the miseratio evoked by his stepbrother’s complaint of his exclusion from power and the resulting inuidia against the emperor (Ann. 13.15). The historian also comments on the ‘hatred customary to brothers’ (solita fratribus odia, Ann. 4.60.3) in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Seneca’s Thyestes relates how Atreus deposed his brother Thyestes, the legitimate ruler, and offers a detailed portrait of the insecurity of the tyrant’s position and his repression of the people. Both the Argonautica and the Thebaid relate wars between brothers (half and full respectively) over monarchal power. Valerius’ characters regard the conflict between Aeetes and Perses as shameful but inevitable. Phineus associates the war with ‘the fraternal Fury.’39 Even as Minerva helps to spur on the war, she wishes that she were not ‘arming allied forces’ against one another (cuperem … nec socias armare manus, Arg. 5.665–6). The narrative of fraternal conflict exposes the illegitimacy of the tyrant’s exercise of power. Though tyrants are also occasionally led into violent conflict with their own sons, the Roman epic tyrant more characteristically experiences strong affection for his son in spite of the threat to his reputation caused by the young man’s greater virtue. The Vergilian narrator suggests that Lausus excels his father in virtue (Aen. 7.654), and the young man’s gallant self-sacrifice in order to save the life of his father Mezentius prompts Aeneas to praise him for his pietas (10.821–32). Rather than exhibiting jealousy, Mezentius grieves at his son’s death and dies in an attempt to avenge him (10.833–908). Subsequent Roman epics develop the paradigm established by the relationship between Lausus and Mezentius, presenting frequent examples of sons who are worthy of better fathers (see chapter 5). Valerius’ Absyrtus ‘is worthy of his grandfather’ the Sun rather than his father Aeetes and ‘an innocent man for whom better things would be in store,’ were he not his father’s son (dignus auo quemque insontem meliora manerent, Arg. 5.458). The narrative presents the paradox that the young man remains unworthy of association with his father’s depravity even as he becomes unquestioningly complicit in it. He obeys his father in fighting in the unjustified war with Perses and in his fatal pursuit of the Argonauts in an effort to recover Medea.40 The sons of tyrants in the Argonautica exert a form of ethical pressure on their fathers through their examples of superior conduct. While Aeetes’ emotional range is limited to explosive anger and deceptive calm, Pelias’ grief at the departure of his son Acastus is modelled on Mezentius’ mourning for his dead son Lausus.41 Through his efforts to prevent his son from excelling him, Pelias stands against the narrative of generational progress established throughout in the Argonautica. He maintains a restrictive view of

41 Valerius’ Argonautica his son’s identity and future. His implicit conflict with Acastus transposes the accounts of Homeric and Apollonian fathers who attempt to restrain their sons at home (out of presumed concern for their well-being) into the context of tyrannical fear of competition. Homer’s Merops, for example, fails to restrain his sons at home (Il. 11.330–2), and Ancaeus’ grandfather in Apollonius hides his weapons in an unsuccessful effort to restrain him from participation (A.R. 1.169–71). Pelias’ obstructive perspective further resembles that of the gods Boreas and Neptune. These figures, opposed by Jupiter, are similarly involved in implicit generational conflicts with their children.42 Aeson’s encouragement of Jason’s success on the expedition (‘Let my deeds yield to your youth,’ cedantque tuae mea facta iuuentae, Arg. 1.347) provides the positive contrast to Pelias’ attempt to confine his son at home. From the perspective of a marginalized aristocracy, the tyrant’s efforts to restrain his son from virtuous action recall the quies created by imperial domination of the political sphere. Pliny, for example, briefly observes the more limited scope for political action for men of his class in contrast to the tumultuous times of Cicero (Ep. 9.2), while Tacitus relates how a hostile princeps enforced Agricola’s retirement (Agr. 42). Pelias’ arbitrary exercise of paternal and tyrannical power leads directly to dissimulation within his family. Jason conceals his true purposes in recruiting Acastus (laetusque dolis, Arg. 1.485), and Acastus fails to gain his father’s consent before his departure.43 Acastus presents the model of an imperial subject willing to serve an emperor who acts like a kindly father to sons and prepared to rebel against a tyrant who acts like a master of slaves. The loyal Absyrtus, carrying out his father’s immoral orders, evokes the subject left no choice but to be complicit with a tyrannical regime. Acastus’ virtuous disobedience and Absyrtus’ compliance with a corrupt father suggest that neither paternal nor monarchal authority is natural and unquestionable. Like the contemporary debate over the limitations of paternal power, these interactions between fathers and sons bring to the fore the question of whether filial obedience and political loyalty are absolute virtues or must be mediated by attendant circumstances. As women in epic are not expected to occupy a public role or to perform heroic exploits, their tyrannical parents tend to treat them more repressively than their sons and do not always accord them compensatory affection.44 In the figures of Laomedon and his daughter Hesione, Valerius creates foils for Aeetes and Medea. Laomedon cheats the gods and almost loses the life of his daughter Hesione, while Aeetes’ attempt to cheat the Argonauts of the promised Fleece shocks his daughter Medea and contributes to her decision to elope with Jason. Laomedon is ‘not at all happy with a father’s love’ (patrio … male laetus amore, Arg. 2.556) after Hercules rescues Hesione and treacherously plots the murder of his guest. The narrator

42 In the Image of the Ancestors makes clear the tyrant’s contempt for familial feeling even as he outwardly appeals to his kinship with Hercules (Arg. 2.559–62). Aeetes similarly intends to hold on to the Fleece despite the legitimate objections of his halfbrother Perses and the tacit opposition of his daughter. By creating these narrative associations between the epic’s Trojan and Colchian episodes, Valerius establishes a distinctive attitude for the tyrant towards his daughter.45 He values his moral obligations and her safety less than his grip on his power and possessions, and he assumes her unquestioning loyalty. The daughters of both of these tyrants, however, offer sympathetic perspectives on their fathers that produce ironic contrasts with the perceptions of the narrator and other characters. The narrative’s expectation of loyalty from daughters, even towards tyrannical fathers, contrasts with its praise for the virtuous rebellions of sons in pursuit of gloria. Rather than condemn her father for sending her to her death, Hesione attempts to exculpate him to Hercules and Telamon. She also expects that her father will give his stated reward willingly to her rescuer (Arg. 2.471–2, 484–90). These might appear to be only the claims that anyone pleading for her life might make.46 Yet in the Colchian episode, without experiencing such exigencies, Medea presents a similar contrast between a daughter’s sympathetic perception of her father and the more hostile perspectives available to the narrator and other characters. The condemnation of the tyrannical father is sharpened by the narrative of his daughter’s gradually developing awareness of his moral insufficiency. Hesione’s loyalty to Laomedon, exposed by the narrator as unjustified, thematically prefigures Medea’s false perceptions of her father. Before the interventions by Juno and Venus that cause her to fall in love with Jason, Medea regards her father Aeetes as pius (Arg. 5.336). Her companion relates Aeetes’ exercise of justice to the observation performed by his father the Sun, a variation on the ante ora patrum theme: ‘His manifest father admonishes him to be fair’ (praesens pater admonet aequi, Arg. 5.406). Though Medea wonders if her father really will live up to his obligations (6.675–7), she is unprepared for the ferocity of his vituperation of the Argonauts as he breaks his promise to hand over the Fleece in return for their service to him in war (7.78–9). Though the narrator has prepared the reader for Aeetes’ deceptions, Medea becomes aware of Aeetes’ brutality and contempt for justice only at the same time as his victims. The affection that she displays for her father after she has begun to accede to betraying him is both a symptom of her indecisive response to the goddesses’ prompting and a sign of dissimulative behaviour characteristic of members of tyrannical families: ‘She clings more cajolingly than usual to her parents and covers her father’s right hand all around with kisses.’47 The narrative sympathetically portrays

43 Valerius’ Argonautica Medea’s inability to negotiate between the multiple forces (ancestral, divine, and ethical) compelling her to divide her loyalties. The Argonautic narratives typically represent Medea’s assistance to Jason and flight from Colchis as an act of disloyalty, the result both of divine intervention and of Medea’s own immorality. Valerius’ Argonautica, however, relates Medea’s actions in part to the pressures placed on her by her own family. In introducing Aeetes to the narrative, as mentioned above, the narrator relates Medea’s betrayal of her father to his failure of character: as such, it is ‘deserved’ (meriti). In the invocation of the Muses that forms the opening of the epic’s second half, a passage privileged in terms of both its narrative positioning and its generic function, the narrator passes a strong judgment on Aeetes: ‘Nevertheless before this I will proceed through the treacheries, through the tricks of the faithless descendant of the Sun – a man who deserved to be deceived and deserved to be abandoned.’48 Prophecy offers another partial justification for Medea’s marriage to the foreigner Jason. In the manner of Vergil’s Faunus instructing his son Latinus (Aen. 7.96–101), though without the divine or paternal authority accorded to that figure, the ghost of Phrixus instructs Aeetes to betroth his daughter to a foreigner and remove her from the kingdom (Arg. 5.238–40). Though Aeetes responds to the prophecy by engaging Medea to the Albanian Styrus (3.495, 5.459), he does not remove Medea from the kingdom before the Argonauts arrive. Phrixus’ prophecy nevertheless makes Aeetes aware that Medea’s elopement is consonant with divine will. The narrative paradigms associated with the tyrant, introduced by Valerius’ accounts of the relationships between Pelias, Laomedon, and their families, receive their fullest expression in the Colchis episode. Jason indicates the paradigmatic association between the Greek and Colchian tyrants by remarking in response to Aeetes’ refusal to hand over the promised Fleece: ‘I see another Pelias here’ (alium hic Pelian … cerno, Arg. 7.92). The Argonautica relates the conflict evident in each of Aeetes’ relationships with his family members (including his father, half-brother, children, son-in-law, and grandsons) to his identity as a tyrant. The lack of cohesion in the Colchian royal family results from its vulnerability to the effects of both divine and tyrannical repression. Aeetes fights a civil war with his half-brother and ‘deserves’ (meriti, 5.223) his daughter’s disloyalty in part because he is a tyrant. He is destined to lose the war, his daughter, and the Fleece both because of his immoral character and because of the subordinate position of his nation in the fated transfer of power outlined in Jupiter’s prophecy. Valerius’ account of Aeetes’ relationships with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons raises questions about the moral justifications and practical limitations of his authority as a paterfamilias. In epic tradition, the paterfamilias’

44 In the Image of the Ancestors decisions may be questioned. Amata’s appeal in the Aeneid to her ius maternum (Aen. 7.402) and her maddened protest provide an example of a wife’s dissent against a husband’s unilateral determination of their child’s marriage.49 In Roman society, the traditional respect for the authority of the paterfamilias is moderated by the legitimate criticism that can be levelled against a despotic father who makes unilateral decisions without gaining the consent of a consilium of his family members and friends.50 Valerius’ narrative of the removal of the Fleece offers a series of conflicting perspectives regarding the question of legitimate inheritance and the powers of the paterfamilias to dispose of the family’s property. The contrasting opinions over the Fleece’s rightful resting place also reflect the fluidity of the inheritance system of the Roman aristocracy, which permitted the propertied classes considerable freedom in the disposal of their property. Contestations of ancestral property were a typical source of conflict among the Roman aristocracy. Quintilian describes a situation not unlike that of the conflict between Jason, Aeetes, and Phrixus’ sons, in which different parties advance claims to property on different grounds: ‘This happens also if a question occurs about a single property which several people lay claim to, either by the same right, such as closeness in kinship, or by different rights, such as one person by appeal to a will, another person by his closeness in kinship.’51 Furthermore, Pliny records his inquiry into the case of a disinherited son and his speech on behalf of a disinherited daughter (Ep. 5.1, 6.33). The moral behaviour of testators and inheritors was an important consideration in the judgment of inheritance cases.52 Unlike a Roman estate, however, the Fleece is not partible. In its role as a unique symbol of power, it recalls the throne in Seneca’s Thyestes or Statius’ Thebaid.53 As observed above, hostile divine intervention, the inevitability of dynastic competition, and the corrupting effects of tyrannical power all affect the representation of Aeetes’ efforts to control his family. Nevertheless, the narrative does not absolve the tyrant for his violence and deception. Despite his status as a ruler and a paterfamilias, the tyrant’s immoral character obviates his mandate to rule as well as his right to dispose of the extraordinary property brought to him by his son-in-law Phrixus. Alternative claims to the Fleece are advanced in Pelias’ speech commanding Jason to undertake the expedition, during the divine council midway through the first book; in the Argonauts’ negotiations with Aeetes; and in Medea’s assessments of her own behaviour (both prospective and retrospective) throughout the epic’s final episodes. This multiplicity of perspectives on the Fleece’s ownership helps to emphasize the tyrant’s greed but also shows up the relative weakness of Jason’s claim. Pelias dishonestly claims that Aeetes murdered Phrixus and that it is incumbent upon the survivors

45 Valerius’ Argonautica of the Greek exile to reclaim his property for his family (Arg. 1.40–57). The Sun, Aeetes’ father, advances a view that contradicts Pelias’: Aeetes gave Phrixus shelter, offered him his daughter in marriage, and now takes responsibility for grandsons of mixed Greek and Colchian descent (1.520– 3). The oracle indicates the necessity of the return of the Fleece (5.259–62). The sons of Phrixus, introduced as Aeetes’ favourites after his son Absyrtus and his son-in-law Styrus (5.460–2), appear to have willingly conceded to Aeetes whatever claims they possessed over the Fleece. Silent throughout the epic, they allow Aeetes to speak for them in terms of disposing of the Fleece, first in offering it as a reward for the Argonauts’ assistance in the Colchian civil war, and then in spuriously withdrawing the promise. Differing degrees of veracity, varying access to information, and alternative perspectives on the principles of inheritance inform each character’s claim to the Fleece. The Roman Argonautica creates an important distinction from Apollonius’ narrative by harmonizing the perspective of the sons of Phrixus on the disposal of the Fleece with their maternal grandfather’s. In Apollonius’ epic, the support lent by Phrixus’ son Argus to the Argonauts against Aeetes is essential in terms of both morality and expediency. Argus pleads for the Fleece on Jason’s behalf and intercedes with his mother Chalciope to gain Medea’s support for the Argonauts (A.R. 3.320–66, 3.609–11). The eldest son bases his argument that the Fleece should be returned to its homeland on the fact of his descent from its former owner. His support improves Jason’s moral claim to the Fleece, while Medea’s practical assistance enables its removal after Aeetes’ refusal. The silence of the sons of Phrixus in Valerius, however, increases the perception of opposition against Jason. All of the Colchians now appear opposed to him, even those with whom he enjoys a distant link of kinship. Aeetes’ family also initially appears to be more internally unified in contrast to Apollonius. Though Valerius’ Aeetes claims to disdain his connection to Phrixus (Arg. 7.37–9), he does not suspect Phrixus’ sons of plotting to depose him as in Apollonius. Apollonius’ Aeetes has received an oracle that danger will come to him from his own family (A.R. 3.594–605). He ironically fails to realize that the oracle points to Medea rather than to Chalciope and her sons. Valerius instead concentrates on the theme of Medea’s divided loyalty to her father and to her future husband. The complicity of the sons of Phrixus with Aeetes obviates many of the questions regarding inheritance that might conceivably have arisen in a naturalistic narrative (or among contemporary Roman aristocrats). In contrast to Apollonius’ Jason, who benefits from Argus’ assistance, Valerius’ Jason pleads for the Fleece himself. He bases his argument in part on the rights derived from his kinship with Phrixus:

46 In the Image of the Ancestors ipse egomet proprio de sanguine Phrixi: namque idem Cretheus ambobus et Aeolus auctor cum Iove Neptunoque et cum Salmonide nympha … sed me nuda fides sanctique potentia iusti huc tulit ac medii sociatrix gratia Phrixi iamque tibi nostra geniti de stirpe nepotes … (non aliena peto terrisue indebita nostris siquis et in precibus uero locus) atque ea Phrixo crede dari, Phrixum ad patrios ea ferre penates. (Arg. 5.476–8, 498–500, 508–10) I myself am of Phrixus’ own blood; for Cretheus and Aeolus are the ancestors of both of us, along with Jove, Neptune, and the nymph Salmonis … Naked trust and the power of holy right have brought me here and the goodwill of Phrixus that allies us both, and the grandchildren born to you from our stock ... I am not asking for another person’s property or something that is not owed to our land – that is, if there is any place for the truth in prayers. Think rather that this is given to Phrixus, that Phrixus is carrying it back to his ancestral household.

The similarities of Jason’s argument to the claim of shared descent made by Aeneas to Evander (Aen. 8.126–51) point up the ethical contrasts between the Valerian characters and their Vergilian exemplars. Jason claims to stand as Phrixus’ representative in carrying his ancestor’s property back to Greece. By his own logic, however, the claim of Phrixus’ sons based on descent is much stronger. They are the sons of the Fleece’s former owner, while Jason is a more distant relative.54 The repeated references to these genealogical data make Jason’s claim that he does not seek ‘another person’s property’ (aliena) or something ‘not owed’ (indebita) to his country appear like a case of special pleading, one made possible only because of the gods’ interventions in support of the Argonautic expedition. Jason claims the Fleece by virtue of kinship but cannot hope to succeed solely through an appeal to his proximitas to Phrixus so long as the man’s sons are present.55 Some moral support for Jason’s claim to the Fleece comes from Aeetes’ deceptive promise to give it to him as a reward for his service in the civil war. Aeetes proposes the exchange in familial rather than economic language, claiming that the Argonauts will assist him by protecting ‘the homes of their in-laws’ (cognatas … sedes, Arg. 5.538) rather than merely acquiring the Fleece as payment for hired work.56 As a tyrant without respect for social ties, however, Aeetes disdains arguments based on kinship or service, and he reviles his connection to Phrixus when pressed to return the Fleece (Arg. 7.37–9). While Aeetes’ lies may weaken his moral authority to possess the Fleece, Jason’s dissimulation regarding his interest in the prize calls

47 Valerius’ Argonautica attention to the illegitimacy of his claim. Jason claims that the sight of the martial valour displayed by the sons of Phrixus is sufficient reward for him: ‘I am bringing home great enough rewards for my labours; with this sight I have enough compensation for anything.’57 In a similarly flattering but deceptive manner, he tells Medea that she is sufficient for him and he need no longer pursue the Fleece (8.37–40). Unlike their Apollonian counterparts, Valerius’ sons of Phrixus have made Colchis their homeland and allowed Aeetes to determine the disposal of their father’s possessions. The gods’ decision to remove the Fleece from Colchis, announced in Jupiter’s prophecy and effected through the interventions of Juno and Venus, results in the suppression of Aeetes’ rights as a paterfamilias. Through the representation of tyrannical fathers, the Argonautica examines the moral underpinnings of the forms of authority enjoyed by two figures in the world of its contemporary audience, the paterfamilias and the emperor. The paradigm of tyrannical conflict with family members thematically unites the episode’s Greek, Trojan, and Colchian episodes. Filial opposition to the tyrant reveals a gendered differential. Sons express greater virtue than their fathers, on the model of Vergil’s Lausus and Mezentius, and contravene paternal wishes in the pursuit of glory. Hesione’s unquestioning obedience and Medea’s guilt-ridden rebellion, however, show that the range of responses available to daughters is far more circumscribed. Valerius’ narrative shows how the immoral behaviour of Pelias and Aeetes threatens their exercise of their rights over their children and the disposal of their property. The tyrant’s characteristic contempt for his social obligations both undermines his attempt to control his family members and permits hostile divine interference and filial betrayal to be viewed as deserved, if morally questionable, consequences. Tyrannical repression, however, constitutes only one set of forces at work in Valerius’ complex narrative. Juno and Venus’ disruptions of Aeetes’ rights as paterfamilias form part of a larger pattern of divine interference in familial affairs. 3. ‘And Overturn Every Household for Me’: Divine Intervention in Family Life Divine intervention in family life is a pervasive, disruptive force in Valerius’ Argonautica. Juno’s concealment from Jason of the news regarding Pelias’ murder of his relatives is an example of small-scale intervention. Divine intervention can also produce effects on the largest scale, as in Venus’ incitement of the Lemnian women to murder their male kin. The gods also intervene to disrupt relationships of symbolic kinship. Cybele causes the Argonauts to return to Cyzicus and unwittingly murder the Doliones, with

48 In the Image of the Ancestors whom they previously enjoyed a relationship of hospitium that the narrator describes in terms of created kinship.58 This examination of the goddesses’ earlier interventions provides a foundation for the discussion in the subsequent section of the epic’s most complex and extensive series of divine interventions, the masquerade by Juno and Venus as Medea’s relatives Chalciope and Circe. Juno interferes to prevent Jason from learning about his parents’ suicide, which occurs through Pelias’ compulsion soon after the departure of the Argonauts.59 The marked position of the lines describing Juno’s concealment of this information lends them thematic emphasis. They occur at the beginning of a book and at the narrative moment when the voyage starts in earnest. They help to set the terms of engagement between gods and human beings in a manner that resonates throughout the epic: neque enim patrios cognoscere casus Iuno sinit, mediis ardens ne flectat ab undis ac temere in Pelian et adhuc obstantia regis fata ruat placitosque deis ne deserat actus. (Arg. 2.2–5) Nor did Juno permit Jason to learn of his father’s misfortune, lest he turn in anger from the middle of his voyage and rush pointlessly against Pelias and the king’s fates that still opposed this and lest he leave off the deeds that pleased the gods.

Jason earlier experiences misgivings about his choice to abandon his parents to Pelias and to anger the tyrant by bringing his son with him on the voyage (Arg. 1.693–9). His awareness of the fact of his father’s death, however, appears to vary at different points in the epic. When lamenting his murder of Cyzicus, Jason appears to reveal knowledge of his father’s death. He observes that ‘the farseeing minds of the prophets were silent about such an unspeakable crime, though they sang about the cruel death of my aged father and so many harsh sufferings.’60 When attempting to persuade Medea of his trustworthiness at Colchis, however, Jason claims to expect his father to greet her upon their return. He asks her: ‘Why should I desire my country any further, if my father Aeson does not embrace you right away?’61 The apparent contradiction in Jason’s knowledge raises a series of interrelated questions about familial obligation, artistic control, and the problem of narrative focalization in epic. Efforts have been made to discount Valerius’ interest in logical coherence, or to relate the apparent contradiction to the epic’s unfinished state, under the assumption that the author would have eventually revised these passages for the sake of coherence. 62 When the thematic, formal, and

49 Valerius’ Argonautica intratextual dimensions of the question are addressed, however, they reveal not incoherent composition but a sophisticated approach to focalization, characterization, and the representation of familial obligation. Differential access to information is an important theme of an epic where dissimulation is a characteristic mode of behaviour. Other episodes within the Argonautica show similar approaches to the concealment of information by the gods. The prophet Phineus suffers loss of sight and torment by the Harpies as punishment for revealing divine will too abundantly and precisely (Arg. 4.479–82). The reprioritization of familial obligation that Juno forces on Jason also occurs voluntarily among the Argonauts. A song of Orpheus, for example, blocks thoughts of family from the Argonauts’ minds (4.88–9), a necessary complement to Meleager’s rhetorical incitement of his shipmates to action. Juno’s choice to conceal knowledge of his bereavement from Jason therefore prefigures both Phineus’ eventual decision to conceal full knowledge of divine will and Orpheus’ therapeutic adjustment of his crew members’ mentalities. The differences in focalization of the various passages quoted above also contribute to Jason’s characterization. The omniscient narrator relates Juno’s intervention in the first passage to conceal the fact of his father’s death, but Jason himself delivers the latter two speeches, which present the apparent contradiction regarding his knowledge of that event. The prophecy that Jason recalls in his lament for Cyzicus could have been delivered in general terms, without specifying a fixed moment for Aeson’s death or relating it to his departure. Thus Jason could plausibly assume in his later encounter with Medea that his father is still alive. He could also have chosen to discount the prophecy (as Cyzicus does, for example, at Arg. 3.355–6) by the time he encounters Medea. In an epic of dissimulation, the reliability of information presented to the reader depends strongly upon the motives of its source. Another interpretive possibility therefore presents itself: that Jason could be dissimulating in either or both of the speeches, either to arouse the audience’s pathos in his report of the prophecy regarding his father’s death, or to engage Medea’s trust through the promise of his father’s embrace. The manner in which the information is conveyed to the reader both obviates the possibility of final judgment and demonstrates the potential operation of dissimulation at all levels of the narrative. In the meantime, as the result of Juno’s act of concealment, Jason participates in the expedition with the same motivations as his fellow crew members, in spite of the difference between his familial situation and theirs. Meleager’s account of the joys of his loving home (Arg. 3.654–60), for example, contrasts with the sufferings of both Hercules and Jason at the hands of Eurystheus and Pelias. Rather than view himself as an exile without

50 In the Image of the Ancestors family (which would be a plausible reaction were Juno to permit him to learn of his family’s death), Jason remains concerned for his family while subordinating his concern for them long enough to undertake a quest that takes him far away from them. The characterization of Jason as a pius son and Aeson as a father interested in the success of his children in following the paradigm of heroic ancestral emulation adds ethical and psychological weight to Juno’s intervention.63 Her interest in his completion of the quest takes precedence over Jason’s opportunity to act as a dutiful son by protecting or avenging his father. Though Jason will eventually take revenge on Pelias, it will be not in the heroic manner that presumably both he and Aeson would have preferred, but through the deception of Medea perpetrated on the tyrant’s daughters. As the following discussions show, Juno’s later interventions and the efforts of other goddesses to change the mentalities of the characters produce even more sinister effects on families. Venus’ destruction of the Lemnian men is the largest-scale example of divine interference in human families.64 Valerius develops the destructive potential of Venus suggested by the Aeneid’s Dido episode, aligns the goddess with both the Vergilian Juno and the Fury, and prefigures her subsequent maddening of Medea in the epic’s final books. Like Vergil’s Juno instructing Allecto, Venus orders Fama to ‘overturn every home for me’ (et cunctas mihi uerte domus, Arg. 2.128) by spreading stories of their husbands’ infidelity among the Lemnian women.65 The swiftness of the violence’s eruption reveals the fragility of the family as an institution. From the perspective of the Lemnian observers, unaware of the power of divine intervention, the family’s affective bonds appear to have been immediately undone by the spreading of a few lying rumours.66 By presenting the family as a microcosm of society, the Argonautica suggests that the forces that push individuals into violence against their relatives threaten the destruction of society as a whole. The conflict at Lemnos between one half of the population and the other reflects the division caused by the recent civil war at Rome. The theodicy of the epic’s most extreme version of intrafamilial conflict offers a pessimistic conclusion on the likelihood of establishing permanent stability within Roman society. Through reference to Venus’ conjoined roles as mother of the Roman people and demonic punisher of the Lemnians, Valerius suggests that the origins of Roman civil conflict can also be interpreted in terms of descent from this goddess. Venus is no longer the ‘nourishing mother’ of the Aeneid;67 rather, Valerius has emphasized the destructive aspects of Venus implicit in the Dido episode in order to provide a supplement to Vergil’s theodicy. Roman civil conflict, in his narrator’s view, can be traced back to the descent of the Roman people from an ancestress with both nourishing

51 Valerius’ Argonautica and demonic aspects, who alternately nurtures her descendants and plunges societies into turmoil. Valerius’ narrator describes the Lemnians’ crime of failing to worship Venus not as the result of obliviousness, a frequent justification for mythological narratives of punishment, but as the result of a conviction about proper familial behaviour that recalls both the Augustan marriage laws and Domitian’s correctio morum. Through their refusal to sacrifice to Venus, they express their sympathy with Vulcan’s mistreatment and disapproval of the goddess’s adultery with Mars (Arg. 2.91–100). Venus’ punishment of the Lemnians for their reaction to her adultery puts into question the moral authority of her role as mother of the Roman people.68 Rather than performing the generative and pacificatory roles attributed to her as protectress of the Romans, Venus turns the worlds of Hypsipyle (and later Medea) upside down. The Lemnos episode further associates intrafamilial violence with a wider inversion of societal norms. The women’s murder of their children is the first of many examples of their departure from gendered expectations of behaviour. After the massacre, the women attempt to participate in government and to prepare for warfare, roles reserved in Greco-Roman society almost exclusively for men (Arg. 2.306–15). The general context of inversion leads to a new evaluation of pietas, the core familial virtue. Valerius presents Hypsipyle’s expression of pietas in her rescue of her father Thoas as an example for Roman society in terms that recall the similar narratorial apostrophe at the conclusion of the Aeneid’s Nisus and Euryalus episode.69 The apostrophe suggests both the central role of familial pietas in the moral construction of the Roman Empire and a correction to the Aeneid’s economy of praise. The exploit of Nisus and Euryalus is foolhardy and fatal, while Hypsipyle’s rescue of Thoas is both successful and imperative. The judgment of the larger community that surrounds Hypsipyle, however, diverges from the narrator’s. In a society where everyone else has murdered their male relatives, Hypsipyle risks drawing hostile attention to herself by permitting her father to live (Arg. 2.279–84). Hypsipyle’s relationship with her father Thoas offers an inverted parallel to Medea’s with her father Aeetes. She risks social condemnation in the service of pietas, while Medea incurs condemnation for her failure of pietas.70 In the context of contemporary Roman society, as discussed above, the concealment of relatives at personal risk evokes the exigencies of the recent civil war. Several aspects of the Lemnian episode prefigure familial themes that recur throughout in the epic, including the violent consequences on earth of the breakdown of familial harmony among the gods, disguise and the ubiquitous practice of dissimulation among families, and murderous revenge at the prospect of the introduction of a rival into the family. Venus’ anger, stemming

52 In the Image of the Ancestors from the discovery of her adultery with Mars, afflicts both Lemnians and Colchians. She agrees to help Juno against the Colchians because of their worship of the Sun, who revealed her crime to her husband (Arg. 6.467–8). Venus adopts a disguise to deceive both the Lemnians and Medea (2.174–85), and the Lemnian women conceal the truth of their deed from the Argonauts (2.343–5) in the same way that Jason and Medea conceal their thoughts and actions from others.71 Disguised Fama tells one of the Lemnian women that the thought of ‘your children, lacking their mother and condemned to a rival, devastates me’ (me tua matris egens damnataque paelice proles / exanimat, Arg. 2.153–4). Her words evoke Medea’s future revenge on Jason upon the introduction of the rival Corinthian princess, an event that lies beyond the scope of the narrative but is predicted within it. Deadly conflict also occurs between Medea’s rival suitors, Anausis, Styrus, and Jason. The Lemnos episode, the most extreme episode of intrafamilial conflict in the epic, presents narrative paradigms that recur within the subsequent narrative and anticipate events beyond its conclusion. References to divine approval of the destruction of innocents creates thematic links between the Lemnos and Cyzicus episodes. While all Lemnos may have been complicit in failing to worship Venus, the Cyzicus episode shows the punishment of an entire community as the result of one individual’s failings. Cybele takes revenge on the king for killing her lion by causing the Argonauts to return unwittingly to the Doliones and slaughter the king and his people in a night-time battle.72 The battle between the Argonauts and the Doliones in both Apollonius and Valerius represents a violation of hospitium. The narrator focuses on the irony that Jupiter, the traditional protector of hospitality in epic (Hom. Od. 9.270–1), permits such an offence against hospitium: ‘Why did Jupiter permit such warfare, why did he permit right hands joined in ties of hospitality to clash in war?’73 By representing the combatants as symbolically united through ties of created kinship, a motif not paralleled in Apollonius, Valerius incorporates this episode in a larger narrative paradigm where hostile divine intervention threatens social attachments. Like the war in Colchis, the battle at Cyzicus is framed as a civil war with affinities to Roman versions of such conflicts.74 Divine intervention breaks the ties of blood and marriage at Lemnos and in Aeetes’ household, while in this episode Cybele’s intervention disrupts a relationship of created kinship. Narrative motifs occur at both literal and figurative levels that identify the relationship between the Argonauts and the Doliones as one of created kinship. At their parting, Jason and Cyzicus join hands, symbolically uniting their families: ‘With right hands joined they united their households’ (manibusque datis iunxere penates, Arg. 3.13).75 Since Cyzicus died childless, Jason acts in place of his son, lifting the dead man onto his pyre (Arg. 3.338–9). The repeated

53 Valerius’ Argonautica reminders of Cyzicus’ orbitas increase pathos (3.317, 345), while Jason’s lament for Cyzicus features repeated claims that he should have preceded him in death (3.290–313). As he wonders why the prophets that warned him about his father’s death did not also foretell this murder (3.301–3), Jason’s equation of the death of his father with the murder of Cyzicus rhetorically elevates his host to the status of primary kin. Through a series of comparisons, the narrative associates the Argonauts’ murderous violation of hospitality with acts of violence against kin caused by divine hostility and with the repetition of ancestral patterns of behaviour. A pair of similes compare Cyzicus as he proceeds to battle to the drunken Rhoetus and to Athamas carrying the body of his son Learchus (Arg. 3.65–9). The first simile, recalling the disruption caused by Rhoetus and the Centaurs, who fought with the Lapiths at the marriage of Pirithous, highlights the Argonauts’ violation of the rules of hospitality.76 This comparison also suggests the negative recapitulation of ancestral exploits. As Aeson recalls (1.336–40), the Argonauts’ fathers fought in a battle originated by the Centaurs’ violation of hospitality. This time, however, their own sons are the murderous guests. The latter simile establishes the parallel between the violation of hospitality and violence against kin and suggests divine interference and the recapitulation of ancestral crime as its causes. Athamas, an ancestor of Jason, unwittingly murdered his son Learchus after being driven mad by Juno.77 Later in the episode, a third simile further develops the association with violence against kin by comparing the shocked Argonauts realizing that they have killed their hosts to Agave realizing that she has killed her son Pentheus (3.264–6). As in the Athamas comparison, the killing of a host has been represented as the equivalent of the murder of a family member. This is one of a number of similes in the Argonautica that compare human beings to Bacchic worshippers; several more are applied to Medea.78 The comparison to Agave thus thematically associates the Argonauts’ violence against their hosts, caused by Cybele’s hostility, with Medea’s treachery and violence against her family, caused by the interventions of Juno and Venus. Violations of hospitium are typically figured as serious breaches of civilized behaviour that approach acts of violence against kin in the severity of their social sanction. The crucial difference between host-murder and kin-murder, however, lies in the possibility of their expiation. Violent crimes against kin in Roman mythological epic, many of which will be discussed in the following chapter, typically remain inexpiable, resulting in madness, exile, or self-mutilation. After a period of mourning, however, the Argonauts are permitted to continue their voyage, and no direct effects of their murders appear to follow them. The elaborate ceremony organized by Mopsus underscores the severity of the

54 In the Image of the Ancestors host-murders while introducing the means of their expiation (Arg. 3.377–458). Valerius’ expiation scene evokes the Vergilian funeral ceremony for Polydorus, another victim of the violation of hospitality, that emphasizes the Trojans’ pietas and their suffering as victims of war (Aen. 3.13–68). One effect of this intertextual frame is to partially shift the burden of guilt from the Argonauts. The thematic links between the Cyzicus and Colchis episodes underscore one of the central problems with the voyage. The gods’ interference causes suffering in families wherever the Argonauts go. The unrestrained anger of Venus and Juno results in wide-ranging consequences such as the destruction of half of an island’s population and the prolonging of a civil war. From Jupiter’s perspective, these are minor events in the grander narrative of translatio imperii. The Argonautica thereby creates a distinction comparable to the one drawn in the Aeneid between Juno’s broad-ranging assaults on the Trojans and Jupiter’s vision in which these are but brief delays to the fulfilment of fate (Aen. 7.314–15, 12.806). From the Jovian perspective, the goddesses’ interventions in the Argonautica similarly achieve only temporary outcomes. Thanks to the Argonauts, Lemnos will be repopulated with males, and thanks to Medea, Aeetes will be restored to his throne. Jupiter’s perspective, however, is neither available to the characters, to whom the goddesses’ interventions seem devastating, nor does it ultimately favour their descendants as in the Aeneid. The contrast between the optimistic view of the prophecy and the actual experience of the characters implicitly prompts the questions of whether the idealization of Flavian imperialism in the proem can match lived experience as well, or whether the tensions that recently produced civil war must inevitably reappear. Divine interventions in the lives of families provide logical and thematic connections between the various episodes of the Argonautica. These unifying elements help to prevent the epic from dissolving into a series of disconnected events linked only by a contingent adventure narrative. As in Statius’ Thebaid, divine intervention is generally the expression of a hostile relationship between gods and human beings, and human beings also suffer the effects of personal vendettas between the gods. The gods disrupt both blood relationships, as in Pelias’ household and at Lemnos, and relationships of created kinship, as at Cyzicus and between Hercules and Hylas. In the manner of the Aeneid, Valerius’ epic details the human costs of divine intervention in the service of Jupiter’s plan. The masquerade by Juno and Venus as Medea’s relatives, the subject of the following discussion, shows that even when the gods propose to aid human beings in their endeavours, the consequences are familial disruptions typically unforeseen by the human beings themselves.

55 Valerius’ Argonautica 4. ‘Looking Back to See If It Is Really Her Sister’: The Goddesses’ Deception of Medea The goddesses’ prolonged masquerades as Medea’s relatives represent one of Valerius’ central innovations, with respect both to his major intertexts and to the epic tradition as a whole. Appearing to Medea in the guise of her sister Chalciope, Juno induces her to fall in love with Jason. Venus subsequently appears to Medea disguised as her aunt Circe and compels her to assist Jason in passing Aeetes’ challenges and removing the Fleece. While the gods in Greco-Roman literature frequently appear to human beings disguised as familiar individuals, they rarely take on the identities of relatives. Nor do they remain in contact with their human companions for as long a period as Valerius’ goddesses do with Medea.79 Valerius’ goddesses intervene directly rather than through intermediaries, appear in person to effect changes in their victim, and supplant the independent roles that Apollonius granted to his human characters. Through these formal innovations, Valerius focuses attention on the familial nature of the Medea narrative. The narratives of the goddesses’ prolonged masquerade unite and extend the themes of intrafamilial conflict presented in earlier episodes of the Argonautica. The epic’s first speech, Pelias’ deceptive account of his dream of Phrixus, inaugurates the theme of dissimulation between family members. In the Lemnian episode, Venus adopts a disguise, spreads lying rumours, and induces the women to commit murder through her divine powers. The women in turn simulate friendliness to their husbands before destroying them in their sleep (Arg. 2.187–95). The goddesses’ interactions with Medea reprise these prior instances of disguise, dissimulation, and misplaced trust in family members. Juno and Venus use the affective bonds generated by familial relationships in order to induce Medea to act against her family’s wishes. Valerius’ disguised goddesses evoke figures and situations from the epic’s two major intertexts, the epics of Apollonius and Vergil. The episodes involving Latinus’ family serve as models for Aeetes’ war with his halfbrother and Medea’s divinely inspired betrayal. Aeetes and Latinus are both introduced at the beginning of each epic’s second half. Both men are enjoined to marry their daughters to foreigners through oracles delivered by family members (Phrixus, Faunus). Like Vergil’s Allecto, Valerius’ goddesses madden a member of Aeetes’ household, and, like Latium, Colchis is involved in a civil war. By encountering their victim directly, however, Valerius’ Juno and Venus contrast with the more distant goddesses of prior epic. Apollonius’ Aphrodite must persuade a disobedient son who disdains his mother to cause Medea to fall in love by shooting her with his arrow (A.R. 3.91–9, 275–98). Subsequently, Medea’s ‘mind is changed’ about

56 In the Image of the Ancestors committing suicide ‘by the promptings of Hera,’ and the goddess ‘casts most painful fear into her heart’ that causes her to flee with Phrixus’ sons, but in neither case does she appear to her directly.80 Venus’ episode of disguise also responds to narrative paradigms introduced by the disguised gods of Aeneid 1. Like Vergil’s Cupid, who appears in disguise as Ascanius for the purpose of compelling Dido to fall in love with Aeneas (Aen. 1.657– 721), Venus’ purpose in her masquerade is to infatuate Medea. Her disguise as a relative of Medea, however, inverts her Vergilian counterpart’s role during her appearance to Aeneas in Aeneid 1 (1.314–417). Where Vergil’s Venus is a relative posing as a stranger, Valerius’ Venus is a stranger posing as a relative. The contrasts between the goddesses’ adopted characters and their ‘real’ counterparts in Apollonius (insofar as one can apply such terms to fictional characters) reveal the differences in Valerius’ vision of human motivation and divine power. In Valerius, the goddesses’ masquerades are the only appearances of either a Chalciope or a Circe character. The ‘real’ Chalciope and Circe do not appear in his epic.81 Valerius has divided the Apollonian Chalciope’s consolatory and conspiratory roles between Juno as Chalciope and Venus as Circe. In Apollonius, Medea’s foreboding dream of a conflict between her father and the Argonauts sends her to seek Chalciope’s help (A.R. 3.616– 44). She uses the language of created kinship as the basis of her supplication, claiming that Chalciope’s sons are her brothers and that she herself is Chalciope’s daughter, because her sister nursed her as a baby (A.R. 3.731– 5).82 Concerned for her sons, Chalciope agrees to conspire with Medea against their father. By excluding the ‘real’ Chalciope from the narrative, Valerius has reduced the double motivation operating on both divine and human levels characteristic of epic narratives to a single motivation implanted in Medea by the goddesses. His Aeetes has no suspicion of a plot involving the sons of Phrixus, who are fully subordinate to him and have resigned their claims to the Fleece. As a result, Aeetes’ family initially appears more unified and its dissolution all the more pathetic. The absence of a narrative of persuasion by human characters emphasizes the power and hostility of the goddesses impelling Medea to aid Jason. Valerius emphasizes the effects of divine manipulation on Medea by introducing her into the narrative as a loving and dutiful daughter. The narrative thereby creates a further thematic parallel with the Aeneid’s Allecto narrative. Just as Vergil distinguishes Turnus’ initially indifferent reactions to news of Aeneas’ arrival from his maddened rage after Allecto’s assault (Aen. 7.435– 44), Valerius distinguishes Medea’s initial love and loyalty from her subsequent compulsion by the goddesses. She experiences a threatening dream before the divine interventions begin, in which she foresees, though she

57 Valerius’ Argonautica cannot correctly interpret it, the entire narrative of separation from her father and brother and the eventual murder of her own children (Arg. 5.329–49). The dream expresses her affection for her father as against others’ hatred of the tyrant. She cares for her ‘dutiful father,’ does ‘not yet hate her wretched parents,’ and the thought of separation from or violence against them leaves her ‘disturbed.’83 Even in her last moments in Colchis, as she resolves to depart with the Argonauts, she attempts to account for the filial affection that endures within her and competes with the other motivations compelling her to act: ‘Father, don’t believe that that man whom I follow is more dear to me than you’ (ne crede, pater, non carior ille est / quem sequimur, Arg. 8.12–13). In response to the goddesses’ compulsion, however, Medea proceeds to promote the claims of Jason on her loyalty and affection over those of her relatives. She desires to watch her brother and fiancé at war during the teichoscopia, but Juno compels her to observe only Jason (Arg. 6.584–6). After the battle, Medea experiences a second dream in which ‘on one side her guest kneels as a suppliant, on the other side her father’ and both men address her with competing claims (supplex hinc sternitur hospes, / hinc pater, Arg. 7.143– 4). The image of a father kneeling before his daughter as a suppliant encapsulates the epic’s larger narrative of the inversion of familial authority. Juno’s intervention in the teichoscopia episode places Medea in a conflict between love on the one hand and filial obedience and political loyalty on the other. Divinely instilled passion impels her to disobey her father. Significant models for Medea in this part of the narrative are provided by Ovid’s Scylla and Propertius’ Tarpeia (Met. 8.1–151, Prop. 4.4), who fall in love with the men whom they observe from the walls and who betray their fathers and their countries as a result. For example, Medea gives Jason the magical materials that enable him to complete Aeetes’ challenges ‘not otherwise than handing over her country and similarly her reputation and honour’ (non secus ac patriam pariter famamque decusque / obicit, Arg. 7.459–60). In contrast to Scylla and Tarpeia, however, Medea conceives a passion for her father’s military ally rather than for a besieging enemy, and helps him remove the Fleece only after Aeetes breaks his promise to award it to Jason for his service in the war. Though the theme of political betrayal may ultimately be subordinated to the theme of filial disobedience, the evocation of Scylla and Tarpeia and the representation of Medea as a traitor to her nation suggest the homology between the familial and the political spheres. Mopsus’ prophecy associating Medea’s marriage with the outbreak of the Trojan War (Arg. 8.247–51) indicates the larger political consequences of her behaviour. Valerius constructs a parallel between Medea’s familial and political loyalties in order to evoke these earlier figures’ treacheries and to locate the ultimate effects of her betrayal in a world-historical context.

58 In the Image of the Ancestors In persuading Medea to disobey Aeetes, Juno and Venus are required to argue against culturally privileged expectations. Fathers in upper-class Roman society are imagined to possess irrefutable claims on their unmarried daughters’ respect and loyalty.84 By posing as Chalciope, Phrixus’ widow, Juno argues the justness of Jason’s claim as if she possessed the right to dispose of her late husband’s property. In her view, Jason is ‘seeking his relative Phrixus’ Fleece, which is owed to him’ (debita cognati repetit qui uellera Phrixi, Arg. 6.593). Though, as discussed above, the paterfamilias Aeetes might more normally be expected to dispose of the Fleece, Medea accepts this claim and begins to perceive Jason as a relative who should not die in her city (Arg. 7.135–40). Despite Medea’s acceptance of the validity of Jason’s claims on the Fleece, she wishes his mother or wife could help him instead of her (7.198–9). She imagines herself in the image of Vergil’s Andromache, devoting the rest of her life to honouring Jason’s tomb (7.208–9). Juno has not yet impelled Medea to undertake the transfer of loyalty from father to potential husband that, for example, Hypsipyle achieves by her own inclination (2.404). The rhetorical challenge for Venus, therefore, is to persuade Medea that she can become a helpful wife for Jason, aiding him in life rather than honouring him in death. Valerius’ choice to present Venus disguised as Circe offers one of his more ironic reversals of Apollonius’ narrative, in which Circe is the character who most explicitly condemns Medea’s betrayal of her family (A.R. 4.739–48). Though Venus poses as an aunt, she takes on some of the aspects of a mother’s authority (Arg. 7.242, 248, 375–9). In her role as a surrogate mother figure, Venus stands in opposition to Medea’s real mother, who complains that her rights to arrange her daughter’s marriage to Styrus have been violated (8.144–70). The goddess uses her adopted character to extol the virtues of ‘marrying out,’ claiming that she herself is the wife of the Italian king Picus (7.232–4).85 She develops the theme of aiding a foreign guest against a father’s will by comparing Medea and Jason alternately to Hippodamia and Pelops and to Ariadne and Theseus (7.284–9). As Medea will soon do, both women betray their fathers, and Medea’s cousin Ariadne assists in the murder of her half-brother, the Minotaur, as Medea assists in the murder of her brother Absyrtus. Venus’ exhortation calls attention to the ironic gap between Medea’s knowledge and the reader’s. The goddesses’ assumed characters as Phrixus’ widow and a foreign prince’s wife support their morally dubious arguments on Jason’s behalf. The ability of Juno and Venus to disguise themselves as Medea’s family members and their use of the divine cingulum enable them to employ forms of persuasion unavailable to human speakers. Though Medea briefly suspects that she may be deceived, ‘looking back to see if it is really her sister’

59 Valerius’ Argonautica (respiciens an uera soror, Arg. 6.661), she cannot resist Juno’s compulsion. Venus’ furialia oscula (Arg. 7.254–5) infect Medea with amor, recalling the effects of Apollonius’ Eros and Vergil’s Cupid on their victims. Venus’ kiss tests the boundaries between constructive familial affection and dangerous eroticism. Medea responds to Venus’ compulsion by experiencing madness figured with Bacchic comparisons. As with Vergil’s Dido, compared both to a bacchant and to Pentheus, these comparisons suggest Medea’s partial awareness of the subordination of her independent thought to divine compulsion. These comparisons also serve to underscore the familial nature of her tragedy. Her betrayal and violence, like Bacchus’ vengeance, will be enacted against family members.86 Divine intervention also deprives Medea’s mother as well as her father of her parental rights to broker her daughter’s marriage. As Medea’s mother observes in her complaint, the loss of the Fleece is less significant to her than her daughter’s departure with Jason. Jason takes on authority that rightly belongs to the bride’s parents as he proleptically addresses Medea as his ‘wife’ at their night meeting when she provides him with the magical materials.87 Medea’s mother invites Jason to ‘take the Fleece’ but to return her daughter, whose marriage had not been promised to him: ‘My daughter was promised to [Styrus] the Albanian tyrant, not to you. Her wretched parents made no arrangement with you, Jason.’88 She offers a counterpoint to her husband’s insistence on keeping the Fleece in spite of the oracle’s stipulation and his subsequent promise to offer it as a reward. As a more sympathetic character than Aeetes, Medea’s mother offers a perspective that contrasts with her husband’s insistence on control of property and power at the expense of his family members’ welfare. The loss of her daughter evokes both the sympathy that cannot be easily granted to the tyrannical Aeetes and the questioning of the morality of the divine intervention that caused Medea’s elopement. The episodes of divine compulsion place Medea’s transition of identity from Aeetes’ daughter to Jason’s wife in the contexts of madness and betrayal. The wedding of Jason and Medea, in which the goddesses also participate, is marred by the predictions of future violence beyond the epic’s scope. In Apollonius, the wedding is hastily arranged as the result of Alcinous’ δίκη, his attempt to create a legitimate pretext for keeping Medea away from the Colchians (A.R. 4.1098–1109). The contrast in Valerius’ narrative, in which the participants marry without such compulsion, initially appears more favourable (Arg. 8.217–57, A.R. 4.1126–267). Yet the perversions of customary Roman practice and the menacing omens at the wedding ceremony at Peuce reveal that the pernicious effects of divine intervention extend to the marriage as well as the elopement.89 Threatening comparisons further

60 In the Image of the Ancestors suggest the unsuitability of the husband for his role (Arg. 8.226–31). An incursion by the Colchians interrupts the ceremony (Arg. 8.259–60). Like the murals on the temple of the Sun, the ill-omened wedding ceremony prefigures the violence that lies in the marriage’s future. The ominous marriage recapitulates the epic’s catalogue of failed marriages, including the unequal union of Peleus and Thetis, the marriage of Venus and Vulcan that is destabilized by adultery, and the Lemnian marriages that end in murder.90 Furthermore, the instances of dissimulation in the married couple’s interactions both involve them in the epic’s typical pattern of familial behaviour and offer further prefigurations of Jason’s ultimate betrayal of his wife in Corinth. When Jason supplicates Medea, she asks him: ‘Are you pretending not to know that I am soon to die from my father’s righteous anger?’ (an me mox merita morituram patris ab ira / dissimulas? Arg. 7.484–5). As she departs with the Argonauts at Venus’ compulsion, Medea remains uncertain of Jason’s intentions to make her his wife. By the time they are married, she has learned to read his dissimulation (Arg. 8.206, 410). In this Medea narrative, the dissolution of her marriage is predictable from its origins. Valerius’ epic attributes similarly ominous consequences to the marriage in its political and historical dimensions. Mopsus’ prophecy identifies the marriage as the prelude to the Trojan War (Arg. 8.247–51). The Argonauts also rebuke Jason for appearing to act contrary to the goals of their heroic collectivity by marrying Medea (8.385–99). The Argonauts’ complaints echo those of Hercules at Lemnos and of Medea’s mother. Jason’s quest for the Fleece and for a wife represent separate goals, and his conflation of them violates their understanding of their agreement with him. Their rebuke also provides an allusive coda to Apollonius’ version of the Lemnian episode. As discussed above, Valerius’ Hercules critiques the Argonauts for their failure to live up to their ancestors’ expectations, but Apollonius’ Heracles condemns them for inappropriate marriage: the Argonauts now make a similar complaint to the Apollonian character. The marriage’s foretold consequences for them and for all Greece indicate the dangerous interplay between private and political spheres. The parallels suggested by the epic’s accounts of two other young female victims of divine intervention, Proserpina and Io, both accentuate the pathos of Medea’s victimization by the goddesses and emphasize the fact that her actions give rise to larger historical consequences. The Proserpina simile that occurs soon after Medea’s introduction into the narrative (Arg. 5.343–7) suggests her girlish innocence but also prefigures her eventual removal from her home as a consequence of divine intervention. The simile aligns the goddesses’ compulsion of Medea with the divine instigation that

61 Valerius’ Argonautica leads to Hades’ rape of Persephone and her marriage against her mother’s will (H. Hom. Dem. 4, 30). Valerius’ epic twice recalls the story of Io, in Orpheus’ song, and in a simile describing Medea’s uncertainty over whether to aid Jason (Arg. 4.351–421, 7.111–13). The narrative motif of hostile intervention by Juno that sends a young woman far away from her homeland again suggests a parallel with Medea’s fate.91 The rapes of Proserpina and Io give rise to historical consequences such as the introduction of seasonal change and the generation of Inachid dynasts who colonize several nations. The parallels that Vergil creates between his Medea and these figures help to frame her departure with Jason not simply as a private affair but as an event of central significance, an indirect cause of the Trojan War. As the figure who transfers Proserpina to his brother and who himself rapes Io, Jupiter provides the impetus for both narratives. In Valerius’ narrative of Medea’s marriage, Jupiter similarly subordinates her to his plan for translatio imperii. In their disguised roles, Juno and Venus supplant the Chalciope and Circe characters of Apollonius’ narrative. Their means of persuasion involve powers that transcend those available to human speakers, such as metamorphosis and magical compulsion. Their deceptive gift of the fulfilment of Medea’s erotic desires eventually proves destructive to both Medea and her family. When Medea departs with Jason, Aeetes loses a right typically enjoyed by the paterfamilias, the brokering of his daughter’s marriage, and loses his son and heir in the attempt to recover her. The goddesses thereby enable the advancement of Jupiter’s plan at the expense of Aeetes’ goal of lineal security. The narrative further reveals the larger implications of what initially appear to be two persons’ individual decisions to marry. Comparisons to Proserpina and Io suggest that Medea’s marriage similarly involves world-historical consequences, and her marriage to Jason is later identified as one of the indirect causes of the Trojan War. Valerius’ explicit indications of the larger consequences of this marriage encourage the reading of the kinship strategies that lead up to it as imbued with political rather than purely personal significance. As the concluding section suggests, the narrative of Medea’s compulsion by the goddesses is one of the epic’s means of questioning the human costs and moral justification of Jupiter’s plan. 5. ‘Though the Father Be Unwilling, You Will Be Replaced as His Son-in-Law!’ Valerius’ Familial Allegories of Power An allegory of the anxieties of the contemporary Roman upper class emerges from Valerius’ narrative of the effects of internal and external pressures on the family. The role of the upper-class family changed throughout the first century, in part as the results of the failure of the senatorial class to reproduce

62 In the Image of the Ancestors itself socially and the institution of a system of imperial patronage that discouraged the formation of strong kinship networks. The narratives of lineal insecurity and the failure of matrimonial strategies in the Argonautica reflect these perceived threats to the stability and functioning of the upper-class family. The epic’s accounts of tyrannical repression and violent conflict between dynastic competitors, meanwhile, contribute to the contemporary rhetorical project of distinguishing the ideal princeps from the abhorrent tyrant. Its civil war narratives both evoke memories of the recent Roman conflict and examine the effect of wider societal collapse upon relationships within the family. While presenting a series of social concerns that overlap with those of its upper-class Roman audience, the familial narratives of the Argonautica also contribute to the epic’s definition of its place in the tradition. The narrative simultaneously subjects its Argonauts to the heroic paradigm of ancestral emulation, with its attendant risks, while making them sensitive to the risk of bereaving their families. The epic thereby aligns its Argonauts with the Trojans of the Aeneid and marks its difference between its own familial ideologies and those of the Hellenistic Argonautica. Through narratives of threats to familial solidarity, whether on the small scale in Colchis or on the grand scale in Lemnos, Valerius undertakes an investigation of the human costs of the enactment of divine will that recalls the similar inquiry in the Aeneid. The Roman Argonautica prompts a comparison between the situations of Aeetes and his daughter Medea and Vergil’s Latinus and Lavinia through the use of comparable placement of episodes and narrative motifs. This macrostructural allusion emphasizes the failure of Aeetes to enact his desired matrimonial strategy, in contrast to Latinus, who achieves the marriage enjoined by the oracle, albeit at a massive cost to his family and kingdom. While Medea’s parents are unified in their intentions regarding her marriage, unlike Vergil’s feuding spouses, they are opposed by the figures of several female relatives, including Medea herself and two goddesses masquerading as Aeetes’ other daughter Chalciope and sister Circe. Valerius’ heroine has three suitors instead of Lavinia’s two, and instead of maintaining her Vergilian counterpart’s silent, blushing passivity, Medea expresses and acts on her desires. Anausis’ challenge, aimed at Aeetes’ chosen son-in-law Styrus, points to the father’s inability to broker his daughter’s marriage: ‘Though the father be unwilling, you will be replaced as his son-in-law!’ (inuitoque gener mutabere patri, Arg. 6.269).92 Medea’s later elopement with Jason proves the vaunt ironically correct, though not in the sense intended by the speaker. The events of the latter half of the Argonautica subject Aeetes to the loss of control as paterfamilias and as ruler that aligns him with his Vergilian counterpart Latinus.

63 Valerius’ Argonautica Though Valerius grants neither Anausis or Styrus as detailed a representation as Vergil’s Turnus, he offers a fuller narrative of the attitudes of Jason and Medea towards their marriage than Vergil provided for Aeneas, Dido, or Lavinia. These figures dramatize the conflict between the ‘lineagebased’ imperatives of the older generation, the ‘individualistic’ tendencies of the younger generation, and the transhistorical goals of the gods.93 The priorities of the older generation of the Argonautica include preserving the security of the lineage, creating political alliances through marrying out daughters to neighbouring monarchs, and responding obediently (albeit incompletely) to the admonitions of oracles. From a dynastic perspective that sets the interests of the lineage above the welfare of any of its individual members, Medea’s elopement represents the loss of an opportunity for the formation of a valuable political alliance with Styrus the Albanian tyrant, while the death of Absyrtus spells the end of this lineage’s male line of descent.94 The younger generation, by contrast, maintains a more individualistic perspective on marriage. Though she is ultimately subordinate to divine compulsion, Medea’s sexual attraction to Jason and her negative judgments of her father’s moral behaviour are also factors in her decision to elope with him. This chapter has cited tyrannical immorality and hostile divine intervention as motivations for the behaviour of the characters of the Argonautica. Yet a familial inheritance, whose effects stretch beyond the nuclear family of Aeetes, also stands behind Medea’s choice to elope with Jason. Narratives featuring the female descendants of the Sun, such as Ariadne, Circe, Pasiphae, and Phaedra, typically involve them in passionate, destructive love affairs.95 A further factor must therefore be added to the consideration of Medea’s behaviour. The predisposition of her lineage, along with her individual desire and the compulsion of the goddesses, contributes to her decision to elope. The next chapter examines the theme of predispositions inherited through descent in Statius’ Thebaid.

3 Statius’ Thebaid

KINSHIP AS DESTINY SIR DESPARD MURGATROYD: But what is a poor baronet to do, when a whole picture gallery of ancestors step down from their frames and threaten him with an excruciating death if he hesitate to commit his daily crime? W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, Ruddigore (1887), Act I

The characters of Greco-Roman epic typically erect claims to status on their affiliations with distinguished descent groups. When presenting themselves publicly, for example, Homer’s Diomedes and Vergil’s Aeneas both emphasize the high status associated with their lineages (Il. 14.110–32, Aen. 1.372–80). The characters of Statius’ Thebaid similarly employ their descent as a component of their self-presentation.1 Descent is a marker of identity that interests the Argive king Adrastus when he encounters strangers. He asks Tydeus and Polynices to identify themselves after stopping their fight outside the door of his palace. Although the men are strangers to him, qualities such as their physical appearance and tremendous rage already indicate their noble descent: ‘For such great anger reveals that you are not of low birth, and great signs of distinguished lineage show clearly through your shed blood.’2 He similarly enquires after Hypsipyle’s parentage upon encountering her in Nemea (Theb. 5.25). Both Tydeus and Hypsipyle identify themselves to Adrastus by explicitly naming their fathers and praising them. Tydeus claims to be ‘born from the stock of great Oeneus,’ while Hypsipyle describes herself as ‘engendered by famous Thoas.’3 Polynices, however, has no words of praise for his immediate male kin, as for him they represent only sources of embarrassment. At first he is unable to answer Adrastus’ question; he starts to reply and then abruptly falls silent. When Adrastus repeats his request for identification later in the

65 Statius’ Thebaid episode, Polynices identifies himself through Cadmus, a distant ancestor, and through his mother Jocasta (Theb. 1.676–81). He offers no praise of either ancestor and communicates tremendous shame as he reveals his identity. Polynices’ choice to identify himself through his mother rather than his father is unexpected in the context of an androcentric epic tradition.4 The combination of his shamefaced reaction to his male kin and his refusal to name his father is virtually unparalleled in Roman epic. Polynices’ unusual self-presentation leads to an equally exceptional response from Adrastus, who argues that Polynices’ identity can be dissociated from that of his lineage (Theb. 1.681–92). He offers to improve Polynices’ social status by offering him his daughter Argia in marriage (2.152–72). Adrastus’ argument is partly motivated by self-interest. He has received an oracle of Apollo directing him to marry his daughter to Polynices (1.395–400), and a son-in-law unburdened by ancestral stigma would be desirable. Furthermore, by arguing that culpability does not descend through multiple generations of a family, Adrastus implicitly attempts to absolve himself of guilt by association with his distant ancestor Tantalus. His arguments are unsuccessful, however, in the context of the larger narrative. Jupiter carries out his promise to punish Argos for Tantalus’ crimes (1.214–47). Despite his best efforts at consolation and peacemaking, Adrastus is unable to prevent Polynices from taking part in the fratricidal duel of Thebaid 11 and thereby becoming a kin-murderer like his ancestors. I read Polynices’ shamefaced self-presentations in Thebaid 1, the sympathetic responses of Adrastus and Tydeus, and Jupiter’s negative reactions as the elements of a debate, conducted throughout the epic, on the evitability of ancestral stigma and the value of descent in assessing character and status. These were issues of central importance to the contemporary Roman upper class, which experienced an increased degree of social mobility during the early imperial period. I begin by examining the nature of the ancestral stigma in the Theban royal house. Cadmus’ descendants operate in an atmosphere of mutual hostility. The example of Vergil’s Lausus, the virtuous son of the criminal Mezentius, suggests that descent from a criminal ancestor is not in itself a guarantee of criminality. The interventions of the Fury in the Thebaid, however, ensure that Polynices becomes a kinmurderer like his ancestors. I next discuss the effects of the ancestral stigma on Polynices’ efforts at self-presentation. Unlike Adrastus, Polynices appears to believe in an androcentric and imitative model of descent and presents himself as shamed by his descent from Oedipus. However, the examples of self-presentation by other stigmatized individuals, such as Statius’ Eteocles and Aegisthus in Seneca’s Agamemnon, show that other rhetorical possibilities are at Polynices’ disposal. Accommodating responses

66 In the Image of the Ancestors are offered by Adrastus and Tydeus, Polynices’ new relatives by marriage. In accepting Polynices as his son-in-law, Adrastus reveals his compassion but also his ignorance of the destructive power of his descent and the extent of Jupiter’s hostility. Tydeus, meanwhile, implicitly rebuts Adrastus’ arguments regarding ancestral stigma even as he attempts to support his new brother-in-law. In the conclusion of the first part of this chapter, I draw on examples from Statius’ Silvae to argue that the ultimate failure of Adrastus’ arguments regarding descent and status in the Thebaid does not indicate their absolute lack of merit. The speakers of the Silvae praise individuals who have transcended ancestral stigma or retroactively ennobled the previous generations of their families through their accomplishments. The contrasting representation of descent establishes one of the many generic differences between these two works. 1. ‘The Madness of the Lineage’: The Ancestral Stigma of the Theban House Though several of its characters may celebrate their ancestors, the Thebaid also problematizes the individual’s relationship to his or her family and lineage. Beyond the limits of earlier epic tradition, Statius emphasizes the potential for shame, violence and discontinuity in dynastic lines.5 In contrast with the relatively harmonious relationships between ancestors and descendants in the epics of Homer and Vergil, acts of incest and violence against kin are principal elements in the Theban myth that forms the basis of Statius’ narrative. The royal houses of Thebes and Argos both contain at least one figure who commits filicide (Athamas and Tantalus), fratricide (Polynices and Eteocles), or incest and parricide (Oedipus). The account of Harmonia’s necklace shows that criminality is not limited to the male line (Theb. 2.244–305). Tisiphone’s numerous assaults on the brothers throughout the course of the epic result in the war between Thebes and Argos and the fratricidal duel of Thebaid 11.6 Polynices’ criminal behaviour is the result both of his descent and of Tisiphone’s interventions, factors that contribute to the epic’s representation of the failure of generational continuity and the negative emulation of ancestors. The opening scenes of the epic highlight the dangers associated with membership in Cadmus’ lineage. The proem establishes the expectation of hostile relationships between Theban ancestors and descendants. Hostility between family members begins even before the city is founded with the exile of Cadmus by his father Agenor (Theb. 1.5–6). The fighting between the Spartoi subsequently caused by Cadmus presents the paradigm for the subsequent war between Eteocles and Polynices. Like the clash between Romulus and

67 Statius’ Thebaid Remus at the founding of Rome, it is an originary civil war featuring brothers as the primary combatants. The proem continues the theme of violence against kin in the context of offence to the gods. When Bacchus’ relatives enrage him by denying his divinity and persecuting his followers, the god takes vengeance on his family members, including his cousin Pentheus and his aunt Agave, which the narrator summarizes as ‘savage anger against the kindred walls’ of Thebes (graues irae cognata in moenia Baccho, Theb. 1.11). Athamas’ murder of his son Learchus after having been maddened by the Fury offers the proem’s third example of violence against kin. His wife Ino escapes with their other son Melicertes by jumping into the sea (1.12–14).7 The proem’s list of ancestral crimes forms part of a recusation enabling the poet to focus attention on his present subject, ‘the disordered house of Oedipus’ (Oedipodae confusa domus, 1.17).8 The crimes of the ancestors of this ‘dreadful lineage’ (gentis … dirae, 1.4) prefigure the behaviour of Laius, Oedipus, and his sons Polynices and Eteocles, the three generations of the confusa domus that play active roles in the epic. Oedipus and the ghost of his father Laius both assist in creating the discord between the brothers that leads to their destruction. In the epic’s opening scene, Oedipus prays to Tisiphone to punish his sons Eteocles and Polynices (1.53–87). The Fury assaults the brothers in response and creates fatal hostility between them by activating their inherited ‘madness’: ‘The madness of their lineage entered their spirits’ (gentilisque animos subiit furor, 1.126).9 Also sharing his son’s anger against his descendants, the ghost of Oedipus’ father Laius appears to his grandson Eteocles and orders him to resist his brother’s attempt at peaceful resolution of their conflict.10 His desire to achieve further vengeance on Oedipus by destroying his posterity provides his motive for helping to generate the war at Thebes. Statius contrasts Laius’ determination with the resistance of Seneca’s Tantalus, also suborned to create discord among members of his family. Tantalus’ insubordination forces the Fury to compel him violently to finish his mission (Sen. Thy. 86–100). The ghost of Laius, however, assaults Eteocles without compulsion and confirms his active hostility against his descendants during his next appearance in the necromantic ritual of Thebaid 4. ‘Breathing undying hatred’ (immortale odium spirans, 4.609) as he looks at his grandson Eteocles, Laius angrily contradicts Tiresias’ attempt to describe him as fully avenged and placated by his descendants.11 Rather than attempt to create solidarity between his descendants, Laius contributes to the efforts of Tisiphone and Jupiter to advance the war that he knows will result in the extinction of his line. While Laius and Oedipus actively seek revenge on their descendants, the brothers’ more distant Theban ancestors become enthusiastic spectators of the brothers’ fatal duel (Theb. 11.420–3). Rather than trying to stop

68 In the Image of the Ancestors the duel and save their descendants’ lives, the ghosts of Theban ancestors look forward to observing ‘their own crimes being outdone’ (uinci sua crimina gaudent, 11.423). As criminals themselves, the ghosts are pleased by the sight of a greater example of criminality, and the thought that their posthumous reputations will improve furnishes an additional source of pleasure. Future generations will be less likely to remember the crimes of the Theban ancestors because the fratricide, an even greater crime, will occupy their attention. Seneca’s Tantalus makes a similar claim in his prediction that the crimes of his descendants will render him innocent in comparison: ‘Now there proceeds from my stock a crowd which will defeat its kin and render me innocent and dare the undared.’12 Immediately after relating the duel, however, the narrator offers a contrasting view of the role of ancestral memory. He prays for all memory of the duel to disappear from the memories of future generations, implicitly negating the Theban ancestors’ wishes to improve their own reputations through the contrast with the even more dreadful crimes of their descendants. Though the narrator would like the duel to serve only as an example to kings (11.576–9), his prayer is unlikely to succeed, as the epic narrative itself contributes towards its commemoration.13 Descent, then, is one of the Thebaid’s many destructive and corrupting forces. Its risks include guilt by association, gentilis furor (Theb. 1.126), and the threat of harm from one’s ancestors. While Cadmus’ lineage is a breeding ground for conflict, the members of Aeneas’ lineage in Vergil’s Aeneid offer a contrasting example of a network of mutually sustaining relationships. They represent the positive expression of the ‘dynastic principle’ in Roman epic. A shared belief in constructive pietas directs ancestors to offer themselves as positive models for emulation. Aeneas exhorts his son Ascanius to learn virtue from the examples of his father and maternal uncle at the end of the Aeneid (Aen. 12.435–40). Aeneas’ father Anchises showers his future Roman descendants with good wishes as he observes their parade in the underworld (Aen. 6.752–892). The descendants of Cadmus, by contrast, find themselves threatened by members of their own families. Their behaviour towards their ancestors and descendants exemplifies nefas and impietas. Both Roman epic and tragedy show the potential of a criminal ancestor (whether proximate or distant) to create criminal descendants. In the ship race of Aeneid 5, for example, Vergil’s Sergestus, described as ‘raging in his spirit,’ engages in reckless behaviour that leads to his shipwreck and also prefigures the crime of his distant descendant L. Sergius Catilina.14 Seneca’s Atreus recapitulates Tantalus’ acts of cannibalism and kin-murder by slaughtering his brother Thyestes’ children and serving them to him as food.15 Narratives involving the line of Oedipus represent the ancestor’s behaviour as furnishing

69 Statius’ Thebaid a destructive example for his or her descendants. In Seneca’s Phoenissae, for example, Jocasta realizes that she has given birth to sons who will reproduce their father’s impiety: ‘I have given birth to criminals.’ Oedipus confirms her expectation: ‘Children born through crime think nothing is a crime.’16 While Roman epic and tragedy offer examples of descendants who imitate the destructive behaviours of their criminal ancestors, they also present the possibility of pious variation from the ancestral norm. For example, although Vergil’s Mezentius believes that he has ‘stained the name’ of his son Lausus ‘with crime,’ there is no indication that Lausus’ reputation has been substantially affected by his father’s crimes.17 At the moment of Lausus’ death, the young man serves an example of filial virtue for both Aeneas and the narrator (Aen. 10.791–3, 821–30). In Seneca’s Phoenissae, Oedipus’ daughter Antigone displays dutiful attention to her father Oedipus, persuading him to continue living against his will. His surprised reaction indicates that his expectations of her behaviour are based on an imitative model (‘Does some dutiful person descend from me?’ aliquis est ex me pius? Phoen. 82). Seneca’s Antigone, however, has replaced Oedipus’ nefas with pietas. The examples of Vergil’s Lausus and Seneca’s Antigone suggest that criminal descent alone is not a guarantee of criminal behaviour. Propensity to assault from the Furies, however, is the aspect of the Theban ancestral stigma that guarantees the perpetuation of criminality. Tisiphone’s assault on the brothers in Thebaid 1 is only the latest of a long history of assaults on members of Cadmus’ lineage. Examples such as the ‘sweet madness’ of Oedipus’ incest and the maddening of Athamas in Ovid (Met. 4.481–511) stand behind her journey along the ‘well-known road to Thebes.’18 Tisiphone’s repeated assaults on Polynices guarantee that he cannot avoid reproducing his ancestors’ acts of violence against their kin. He remains the victim of gentilis furor until beginning the duel with Eteocles. 2. ‘Nor Am I Lacking in Ancestry’: Polynices’ Self-Presentations in Thebaid 1 Polynices’ stigma affects every aspect of his behaviour, including his selfpresentations, and he presents himself to Adrastus as a figure of shame. The logic of Polynices’ self-presentation reveals his internalization of his ancestors’ expectations of criminality. When Adrastus first asks Polynices and Tydeus to identify themselves, Tydeus makes no effort to conceal his diminished status as an exile. When it is his turn to answer Adrastus’ question, however, Polynices communicates tremendous shame instead of using the opportunity to assert status claims based on descent. He reacts indecisively in his first response to Adrastus’ request for identification:

70 In the Image of the Ancestors ‘nec nos animi nec stirpis egentes – ’ ille refert contra, sed mens sibi conscia fati cunctatur proferre patrem. (Theb. 1.465–7) ‘Nor am I lacking in spirit or ancestry – ,’ he says in reply, but his mind, ashamed of his fate, hesitates to mention his father.

The shame that it would cause Polynices to identify his father Oedipus motivates this instance of aposiopesis, a relatively frequent occurrence in Statius.19 Six words into his incomplete utterance, his self-presentation strategy changes from trying to prove himself equal to Tydeus in terms of his distinguished descent to the sudden realization that it might be more profitable to deflect attention from himself. Polynices shifts from active self-presentation through familial affiliation to disengaging himself from a status competition that he knows he is bound to lose. The prior example of Tydeus provides a useful comparison in assessing Polynices’ behaviour. Both men have lost status through exile, but only one is embarrassed to reveal his descent. Adrastus’ sympathetic reaction prefigures his support for Polynices throughout the narrative. The king permits his embarrassed guest to avoid identifying himself for the moment. Adrastus reprises his request for identification only after providing hospitality (Theb. 1.668–72). At this point, however, Polynices’ second attempt to identify himself makes the pressure of his ancestral stigma unmistakable. The embarrassment that the narrator described during his first self-presentation now becomes obvious to others from Polynices’ nonverbal behaviour (1.673–5). Polynices begins his second attempt at self-introduction with a lengthy preamble: non super hos diuum tibi sum quaerendus honores, unde genus, quae terra mihi, quis defluat ordo sanguinis antiqui: piget inter sacra fateri. sed si praecipitant miserum cognoscere curae, Cadmus origo patrum, tellus Mauortia Thebe, est genetrix Iocasta mihi. (Theb. 1.676–81) While paying honours to the gods, you should not ask me the race from which I come, what my country is, my ancient line of descent. It is disturbing to mention these things amid holy rites. But if concern impels you to recognize me, wretched as I am: Cadmus was the first of my ancestors, Mars’ Thebes is my land, Jocasta is my mother.

Polynices’ preamble explaining why he wishes to avoid the question is longer than the answer itself. He claims that he should not be asked about his

71 Statius’ Thebaid descent, as the well-known impiety of the members of his lineage makes it shameful to mention their names while sacred rituals are in progress (super hos … honores, inter sacra). Omitting all honorific language, Polynices’ self-introduction also contrasts with the typical epic habit of praising oneself by praising one’s ancestors. After his lengthy preamble, Polynices identifies himself through the indication of his homeland (tellus Mauortia Thebe), a distant ancestor (Cadmus origo patrum), and his mother instead of his father (est genetrix Iocasta mihi). Though not without parallel, his self-introduction is conspicuously different from the androcentric mode of identification used by Tydeus, Hypsipyle, and almost all other characters in the Thebaid.20 Polynices intends his mention of Cadmus, ‘the first of his ancestors’ (origo patrum), to serve as a rhetorical distancing move, redirecting his audience’s attention from the crimes of his father Oedipus into the far-off and presumably safer ancestral past. Origo indicates temporal distance and generational continuity in epic contexts such as Amata’s account of Turnus’ distinguished descent in the Aeneid (Aen. 7.371–2). Polynices’ reference to his ordo sanguinis antiqui is a similar attempt to move his audience’s attention to the distant past. Though distant, the past represented by Cadmus is still unsafe territory for Polynices. In creating the Theban ancestors by sowing the dragon’s teeth, Cadmus also gave rise to Thebes’ first civil conflict. Though neither he nor Adrastus realizes it at this point, Polynices has a dangerous affinity with this distant ancestor. He becomes the originator of the latest civil war at Thebes. Nor, as Adrastus notes in reply, is Polynices able to identify himself solely as Jocasta’s son. He cannot hope to suppress his listeners’ memories of his father’s crimes. Polynices’ awareness of his ancestral stigma leads him to divert attention from himself during his self-presentations. Twice unable or unwilling to mention the name of his father Oedipus, he communicates shame through his non-verbal behaviour, introduces his account of his descent with an evasive preamble, and provides only minimal information. Attempting to efface his affiliation with his criminal father, however, is not Polynices’ only rhetorical option. Other characters of the Thebaid are willing to identify themselves as products of incest and the sons of kin-murderers. Polynices’ brother Eteocles, for example, does not attempt to obscure his association with Oedipus. In rejecting Tydeus’ embassy, he claims that he does not view his descent as a source of shame: ‘I am not ashamed to say that Oedipus is my unhappy father.’21 In Seneca’s Agamemnon, Aegisthus similarly reveals no shame in his identity as an exile and product of incest in his argument with Clytemnestra over whether they should marry and implement their plan to murder Agamemnon (Ag. 288–301). After Atreus seized

72 In the Image of the Ancestors the throne and exiled his brother Thyestes, an oracle advised Thyestes to engender his son Aegisthus by his daughter Pelopia in order to take revenge.22 Despite the stigma conferred by his incestuous engendering and his father’s filicidal cannibalism, Aegisthus argues: ‘I was engendered at Apollo’s command; I am not ashamed of my origin.’23 Aegisthus can view his incestuous engendering as the gods’ will, as it occurred at an oracle’s command and specifically for the purpose of revenge. As I discuss in further detail below, Eteocles also has a motive to excuse his descent: the consolation of sole rule at Thebes permits him to claim that his descent from Oedipus causes him no embarrassment. Polynices’ engendering, however, has led only to exile. His frustration and failure to promote his status in his selfintroduction contrasts with the straightforward admissions of other stigmatized individuals, whose differing motives permit them to admit these facts without similar shame. His father-in-law and brother-in-law use a variety of rhetorical strategies to accommodate Polynices and improve his status in the eyes of others. 3. ‘Nor Does Guilt Harm Their Descendants’: Adrastus’ Perspectives on Descent and Marriage Characterized by the epithet ‘gentle’ (mitis), Adrastus is one of the few genuinely compassionate characters in the Thebaid. His mistaken but well-meaning choice to shelter Polynices and his subsequent suffering evoke the reader’s pathos.24 Instead of regarding Polynices as unavoidably stigmatized by his descent, the king offers him instead the opportunity to establish a new identity. In persuading Polynices to dissociate his identity from that of his family and to value instead the family into which he will marry, Adrastus departs from the androcentric ‘dynastic principle.’ Adrastus’ narrative of Linus and Coroebus (Theb. 1.557–672), however, implicitly undermines his argument regarding the evitability of ancestral stigma, and the later events of the epic prove it untenable. His offer of hospitality and marriage to a dangerous guest and participation as a result in a destructive war expose him to the same perils as Vergil’s Latinus and Dido, while his failure to understand divine will and its relation to his guest marks his difference from Vergil’s Evander. Statius’ use of these Vergilian frames highlights his departure from preceding epic tradition in presenting Adrastus’ novel perspective on kinship. Adrastus adopts a threefold persuasive strategy. First, he demonstrates to Polynices that his affiliation with Oedipus is impossible to conceal, despite his guest’s efforts at evasion. Next, Adrastus argues that familial affiliation need not be the only determining factor of Polynices’ identity. He can even increase the status of the other members of his family of birth through

73 Statius’ Thebaid independent action. In the following book, Adrastus invites Polynices to become a member of his own family by marrying his daughter (Theb. 2.152–72). Adrastus’ arguments are self-interested as well as compassionate. Successfully denying the corrupting force of Polynices’ ancestral stigma would ensure that his son-in-law posed no threat to the family’s reputation. Adrastus also is the distant descendant of a criminal ancestor, the cannibal and kin-murderer Tantalus, and would therefore profit from an argument separating the identity of an individual from the stigma of his lineage. Adrastus responds to Polynices’ self-presentation first by indicating that his guest’s attempts to exclude all thought of Oedipus were unsuccessful (Theb. 1.681–8). In his view, Polynices can only fail in his attempt to ‘conceal well-known things’ (nota recondis, 1.682). Polynices cannot hope to pass himself off as solely the son of Jocasta, as mention of her name is sufficient to identify Oedipus as well, and the whole world, described in terms of its geographical extremes, has become aware of Oedipus’ crimes. Vergil’s Dido claims to Aeneas in similar terms that the whole world has learned about the fall of Troy (Aen. 1.565–8). Though Adrastus’ bluff-calling may at first appear threatening, it is in fact the first part of a rhetorical strategy leading to eventual acceptance. Having focused attention on Oedipus’ stigma and claimed that it cannot be hidden, Adrastus proceeds to contradict Polynices’ assumption that it affects him. The king argues that descendants are not to be held responsible for the crimes of their ancestors: ne perge queri casusque priorum adnumerare tibi: nostro quoque sanguine multum errauit pietas, nec culpa nepotibus obstat. tu modo dissimilis rebus mereare secundis excusare tuos. (Theb. 1.688–92) Don’t continue to complain and to count the misfortunes of your ancestors as your own. Members of my bloodline greatly failed in their duty as well, nor does guilt harm their descendants. Dissimilar to your kin, you should only earn the right to excuse them through favourable dealings.

Adrastus distinguishes Polynices’ character as an individual from the aspects of identity presumed to be conferred by his family. He argues that his future son-in-law should not be presumed to share in his ancestors’ stigma. Seneca’s Oedipus offers the observation that another of his children, Antigone, is ‘dissimilar’ to him, but his reaction is surprise: ‘Where did this young woman come from, dissimilar to her family?’ (unde ista generi uirgo dissimilis suo? Sen. Phoen. 81). According to Adrastus, Polynices can distinguish his future

74 In the Image of the Ancestors meritorious behaviour from their past crimes, and he can ‘excuse’ their shame by acquiring a good reputation. Given the general expectation that Polynices’ behaviour will be impious, he might have an easier chance of exceeding others’ expectations than the descendant of an unstigmatized family would.25 In addition to attempting to separate Polynices from his ancestral stigma, Adrastus argues that descendants are free from their ancestors’ guilt (nec culpa nepotibus obstat) in order to counter his own guilt by association with his distant ancestor Tantalus. When Adrastus confesses that there has been impiety in his own ancestral line (errauit pietas), he refers to Tantalus’ attempt to serve his son Pelops as a meal to the gods. The crime of this distant Argive ancestor has become proverbial for the characters of the Thebaid.26 Though Tantalus’ genealogical connection with Adrastus varies in other mythological accounts, it is secure in Statius’ narrative.27 Eteocles recognizes Tantalus as the auctor of Adrastus’ line (Theb. 2.436) and Jupiter holds the Argives culpable for his crimes (1.246–7). In order to rule in Argos, therefore, Adrastus has already been required to confront the stigma created by earlier members of the royal line. Though the subsequent discussion focuses on Tantalus, he is hardly the only criminal ancestor associated with Adrastus. For example, the catalogues of Adrastus’ ancestral statues and imagines end with a reference to Danaus’ crimes against his brother Aegyptus, which resulted in the deaths of Aegyptus’ fifty sons.28 This conflict between Adrastus’ ancestors prefigures the king’s present involvement in the fratricidal conflict that occupies the Thebaid. Rather than attempting to divert attention, in the manner of Polynices, from the potential embarrassment caused by his ancestors’ memories, Adrastus openly presents his kinship connection with Tantalus in the display of imagines at the funeral games of Archemorus: Tantalus inde parens, non qui fallentibus undis imminet aut refugae sterilem rapit aera siluae, sed pius et magni uehitur conuiua Tonantis. (Theb. 6.280–2) Next comes father Tantalus, not as one who broods over deceptive waters or seizes the empty air as the trees pull away, but as a dutiful man and a table companion of the great Thunderer.

Although the display of Roman imagines has been criticized as an anachronistic intrusion into a epic set in mythical Greece,29 it is one of several textual cues within the Thebaid suggesting that its kinship discourse should be read in the context of contemporary Roman concerns. The display of the imagines declined in the Flavian period, in part because of the rise of a new

75 Statius’ Thebaid upper class without office-holding ancestors. Rather than evoking nostalgia for a vanished hereditary aristocracy, however, Adrastus’ procession suggests the impossibility of escaping a tradition of impiety to the gods and violence against kin. In this regard, obscure or untraceable ancestors might be preferable to notorious ones. The subsequent events of the narrative contradict Adrastus’ arguments regarding the evitability of ancestral stigma. Though Adrastus is currently unaware of it, Jupiter intends to make the Argives suffer because of his implacable anger at their ancestor Tantalus, and uses Polynices as the unwitting agent of their destruction. In the council of Thebaid 1, Jupiter belatedly announces his intention to punish the Thebans for the crimes of Oedipus and the Argives for the crimes of Tantalus (Theb. 1.214–47). The god’s memory of his own position as the originator of both houses’ bloodlines (1.224–6) fails to mitigate his anger. He views Tantalus’ distant kinship relation to the present royal house as a pretext for punishing the innocent Argives: hanc etiam poenis incessere gentem decretum; neque enim arcano de pectore fallax Tantalus et saeuae periit iniuria mensae. (Theb. 1.245–7) I have also resolved to assault the Argive race with punishments; for neither deceptive Tantalus nor the injustice of his savage table has departed from my secretive heart.

Many readers have observed that Jupiter makes an arbitrary decision to punish the Argives in the present generation and advances an unreasonably prolonged memory of Tantalus’ crime as his pretext. D.C. Feeney observes that as the result of Jupiter’s ‘human characterization … it becomes exceedingly difficult to have any confidence either in Jupiter’s worth as a moral adjudicator for the poem, or in interpretations which cast him in this role.’30 The rout of the Argive army and Adrastus’ flight from Thebes in Thebaid 11 offer the final disproof of the claim that the previous crimes of Argive ancestors have not led to danger in the present generation. Adrastus’ views on the consequences of descent from criminal ancestors and the separation of the individual’s reputation from that of his family find few adherents in the Thebaid. Though Atys courts Oedipus’ daughter Ismene despite the shame of her ancestors and even finds her response to her family’s stigma attractive, the narrator presents his views as exceptional and unexpected: ‘Nor had his in-laws and their grim deeds turned him aside; rather Ismene’s chaste desolation and the charm of undeserved sorrow recommend her to her lover.’31 Atys, furthermore, will not survive to consummate his marriage. More prudent characters than Adrastus and

76 In the Image of the Ancestors Atys are indeed aware of the danger that stigmatized ancestors pose to their descendants. Thus, for example, Phorbas hopes that the goddess Diana will forget her anger at Dryas, the grandson of her enemy Orion (Theb. 7.254– 8). However, Mars’ instigation and Dryas’ hatred for Diana and her followers as the result of her murder of his grandfather (9.841–4) cause him to pursue and destroy her favourite Parthenopaeus. Dryas then dies from an unseen blow (9.875–6). The available inference is that Diana killed him, as she had earlier promised to do in order to avenge Parthenopaeus.32 Failure, therefore, should be the expected result, when characters in the Thebaid attempt to regard individuals as dissociated from the reputation created by their ancestors. Adrastus’ intertextual evocations of Vergil’s Dido and Latinus prefigure his weakness as a leader and his ignorance of fate. He recapitulates the mistakes of both of these Vergilian hosts as he welcomes in a dangerous guest and proposes a dynastic marriage that leads to a destructive war. The Argive king’s introduction into the narrative echoes Vergil’s introduction of Latinus, and both kings display ancestral statues in their throne rooms.33 Statius further identifies Adrastus with Dido by adapting motifs from her banquet welcoming Aeneas, such as the use of an ancestral heirloom in pouring a libation (Theb. 1.539–56 ~ Aen. 1.728–40). In identifying himself to Adrastus, Polynices echoes Aeneas’ preamble to the account of his sufferings, and like fati nescia Dido, Adrastus fails to identify the threat that Polynices poses to him and his people.34 A character more aware of epic tradition than Adrastus would have recognized Polynices as the agent of his destruction.35 The later events of the narrative confirm the parallels suggested by the Vergilian frames. In addition to recapitulating Latinus’ offer of marriage and Dido’s offer of hospitality to a dangerous guest, Adrastus fails to equal Vergil’s Evander in his comprehension of divine will. His aetiological account of Linus and Coroebus (Theb. 1.557–672) reveals his misplaced trust in hostile gods. As Adrastus relates, Apollo twice caused the Argives to suffer collectively for the actions of individuals. The god sent a monster to devastate Argos upon Crotopus’ execution of his daughter and a plague after Coroebus killed the monster. This story ‘should have reminded [Adrastus] that the gods are not so ready to wash away culpa from the descendants of the guilty.’36 Adrastus has failed to learn from Apollo’s earlier punishments of the Argives, and his belief that he fully understands the god’s oracle directing his marriage of his daughters to Polynices and Tydeus is mistaken. In fact, Apollo has purposely kept the full import of the oracle obscure even from his prophet Amphiaraus (Theb. 1.398–9). Adrastus’ ignorance counterbalances the virtues displayed in his pacific and compassionate acceptance of Polynices. Jupiter’s resolution to punish Thebes and

77 Statius’ Thebaid Argos and Apollo’s concealment of the consequences of the marriage suggested by his oracle render the king’s claims regarding the evitability of ancestral stigma untenable. 4. ‘But Origins Are Misleading’: Tydeus’ Attempt to Deny Polynices’ Affiliation through Descent Both Tydeus and Eteocles present implicit rebuttals to Adrastus’ claims during the embassy of Thebaid 2. Their opposition emphasizes the fact that Adrastus occupies a minority position with his arguments regarding the evitability of ancestral stigma. Eteocles reminds Tydeus that he and his brother are equivalent in terms of the status conferred by their descent and that Polynices cannot hope to obscure his origins through marriage into a more distinguished family.37 Eteocles is willing to accept his own ancestral stigma only because sole rule at Thebes provides a sufficient consolation. Tydeus counters by prioritizing behaviour over consanguinity; he claims that Eteocles is the only son of Oedipus and thus the only one truly subject to the ancestral stigma. Like Jupiter, however, neither appears to support Adrastus’ claim that the ancestral stigma is avoidable. Tydeus arrives at the Theban court seeking the return of power to Polynices in accordance with the agreement to alternate yearly rule that nominally obtains between the brothers (Theb. 2.389–409). Following the admonition he received from the ghost of his grandfather Laius, Eteocles breaks the agreement and refuses to abandon the throne to his brother (2.410–51). He sarcastically pretends to console Polynices with the thought of the better fortune he has achieved in Argos: te penes Inachiae dotalis regia dono coniugis, et Danaae (quid enim maioribus actis inuideam?) cumulentur opes. felicibus Argos auspiciis Lernamque regas: nos horrida Dirces pascua et Euboicis artatas fluctibus oras, non indignati miserum dixisse parentem Oedipoden: tibi larga (Pelops et Tantalus auctor!) nobilitas, propiorque fluat de sanguine iuncto Iuppiter. (Theb. 2.430–8) Keep the kingdom coming to you in marriage, the gift of your Inachian wife, and pile up Argive riches. Why should I begrudge greater tasks? Rule Argos and Lerna with lucky omens. I rule the rough pastureland of Dirce and the shores hemmed in by the Euboean tides, not embarrassed to call wretched Oedipus my father.

78 In the Image of the Ancestors Acquire great nobility (Pelops and Tantalus the originator!), and let a closer Jupiter flow from your united blood.

Though Eteocles is fully aware that only rule at Thebes will satisfy Polynices, he claims that his brother ought to be satisfied with the opportunity to rule in Argos. He appears willing to invite a double blow to his own status by contrasting the ‘greater tasks’ (maioribus actis) that his brother could achieve by ruling in Argos, and by praising Adrastus’ resources and line of descent from Jupiter as superior to his own. Eteocles, for his part, claims to be content with a more distant line of descent from Jupiter and control of a weaker kingdom so long as he is permitted to rule it unimpeded. He argues that Polynices has improved his status through making a fortunate marriage and should therefore not be interested in reclaiming the Theban throne. Eteocles is even willing to vituperate his own family in the service of his argument, imagining Argia’s distaste for her grieving motherin-law and accursed father-in-law if she were to move with Polynices back to Thebes (2.438–42). Though Eteocles may initially appear to use a rhetoric of self-abasement similar to Polynices in Thebaid 1, his persuasive goals are wholly different. His purpose in downplaying his potential sources of distinction is to emphasize that Polynices will never be able to find an adequate compensation for the sole rule of Thebes. Eteocles presents himself as inferior to his brother in terms of his familial affiliation and the resources of his kingdom, yet can nevertheless claim a greater satisfaction with his debased situation. The brothers do not evaluate their status following typical standards but follow instead the irrational desires planted in them by Tisiphone during her assault at the beginning of the epic.38 Tisiphone fills the brothers with ‘the savage love of rule’ and prevents all efforts to forestall their conflict. As a result, neither brother listens to good advice, whether delivered by Adrastus, Creon, or the anonymous critic of Eteocles (Theb. 1.171–96). The narrator explains that the kingdom they fight over is so poor that their object cannot be control of resources but ‘naked power.’39 After Polynices withdraws into exile, he considers all other things valueless in comparison to rule at Thebes. The exile’s hunger for power makes him willing to trade his life just for the opportunity, however brief, to gain the throne and see his brother deposed (1.319). As he rejects Tydeus’ request, Eteocles shows his awareness that there is no adequate substitute for the kingship. Polynices’ displays of grief as he continues to wait in Argos (3.678–9) confirm that sole rule at Thebes is the only measure of status that matters to him, one for which there is no compensation, and one which no consolation will enable him to forget.

79 Statius’ Thebaid In this unusual rhetorical context, where conventional measures of status have become irrelevant, Eteocles can claim that his ancestral stigma scarcely matters to him. He contrasts Polynices’ embarrassment with his own willingness to identify his parentage. He knows that his sarcastic wish for Polynices to acquire larga nobilitas through marriage cannot be fulfilled. As children of the same father, he and his brother have the same nobilitas, and acceptance by Adrastus does not permit his brother to efface the memory of his origins.40 Adrastus might have conferred the benefits of greater wealth and status upon his brother, but no one will forget the basic facts of his descent. Like Adrastus, though in a far less tactful manner, Eteocles indicates that Polynices’ attempts to disguise his descent are bound to be ineffective evasions. Unlike Adrastus, however, he never claims to believe in the evitability of ancestral stigma. In his view, the family’s shame attaches equally to both brothers, and sole rule is the only effective compensation. In his furious response to this argument, Tydeus excoriates Eteocles’ injustice in withholding the promised power and enumerates the forces that will compel him to return it (Theb. 2.451–67). Tydeus offers Polynices consistent support throughout the epic, taking risks in service to his brotherin-law such as his sole embassy to Eteocles in Thebaid 2. He dies fighting to restore Polynices to the throne at the end of Thebaid 8. Although his quick temper causes him to fight with Polynices on their first meeting, he soon identifies strongly with his new brother-in-law. The characters’ sympathy for each other is in part a result of their parallel situations. Both are in exile and both are violent towards their own kin. Tydeus has been forced to leave his homeland as the result of murdering his brother (1.402–3). Each man experiences an unusual degree of anger and madness: the narrator compares their friendship to those of Theseus and Pirithous and Orestes and Pylades (1.474–7), and the motifs of madness and violence against kin in the myth of Orestes make him a particularly appropriate comparandum for Polynices. Furthermore, each man uses the other as a replacement for a real-life brother.41 In his lament for his fallen friend, Polynices metaphorically promotes Tydeus from affine (relative by marriage) to agnate (descendant from a common male ancestor). Using language that echoes Catullus’ lament for his brother, he imagines a new kinship relation between them in order to emphasize his grief and love for his brother-in-law.42 Their emotional connection causes Polynices to perceive Tydeus, despite his criminality, as an exemplary brother, better than the one to whom he is actually related by blood.43 During his argument with Eteocles, Tydeus similarly denies the reality of kin relationships in order to promote Polynices’ cause. His desire to support Polynices impels him to argue that his friend is exempt from the shame of

80 In the Image of the Ancestors his descent. He shares one goal with Adrastus, that of promoting Polynices, but achieves it through rhetorical means that contradict Adrastus’ arguments regarding identity. In his angry response to his refusal to yield power, Tydeus imaginatively claims that Eteocles is Oedipus’ only son: haec pietas, haec magna fides! nec crimina gentis mira equidem duco: sic primus sanguinis auctor incestique patrum thalami; sed fallit origo: Oedipodis tu solus eras, haec praemia morum ac sceleris, uiolente, feres! (Theb. 2.462–6) So this is duty, this is great faith! For my part, I don’t consider the crimes of your race unbelievable. Thus was the original ancestor of your bloodline, and thus were the defiled bedchambers of your ancestors. But origins are misleading: you were the only son of Oedipus, you violent man, and these are the rewards you shall take for your way of life and your crime!

This argument from ethos recalls Oedipus’ and Jocasta’s expectations of their own children in Seneca’s Phoenissae. Like the Theban parents in Seneca, Tydeus expected both sons to engage in criminal behaviour as the consequence of being descended from a criminal father. In Tydeus’ view, however, Eteocles is the only one of Oedipus’ sons who has actually recapitulated his father’s crimes and should therefore be stigmatized through recollection of their kinship. As Polynices has avoided criminal behaviour, he should not be considered to be a son of Oedipus. Tydeus’ language also implicitly weakens a strategy used by Polynices in his earlier self-presentation. His claim that origins are misleading (fallit origo) and his references to the ‘original ancestor of the bloodline’ echo Polynices’ attempt to divert Adrastus’ attention from his proximate ancestor Oedipus to his distant ancestor.44 For the purposes of his argument to Eteocles, however, Tydeus moves the point of Polynices’ origination only as far back as the generation of Oedipus. While presenting Polynices favourably, this argument contradicts Adrastus’ claim concerning the evitability of ancestral stigma. One cannot, in Tydeus’ view, represent oneself as the son of Oedipus and yet free of shame. Even one of Polynices’ most enthusiastic supporters does not believe that he should admit to his true paternity. 5. Identity, Descent, and Genre in the Thebaid and Silvae The pressure of his ancestral stigma causes Polynices severe embarrassment during his two efforts to introduce himself to Adrastus (Theb. 1.465–7,

81 Statius’ Thebaid 1.673–81). In Adrastus’ response (1.681–92), however, Statius shows the possibility of re-evaluating the relationship between individual identity and familial affiliation. Adrastus combines his typical compassion with selfserving attempts to fulfil the oracle predicting his daughters’ marriage and to efface the negative associations of his own affiliation with Tantalus. Adrastus advances a minority viewpoint in the world of the Thebaid, one that the events of the narrative contradict. The arguments of Tydeus and Eteocles rebut his and reveal a logic of kinship far better attuned to the hostile environment created by vengeful gods. Adrastus’ approach to representing the boundaries between an individual personality and the identity conferred by membership in a family also contrasts with the literary tradition represented by Vergil’s Aeneid and Senecan tragedy. Many of the tragedies of Seneca incorporate narratives of kinship conceptually similar to those presented in Statius’ Thebaid. Several of Statius’ specific responses to the language and situations of Senecan tragedy have been observed above. Divine and ancestral hostility, the context for Statius’ narrative of fratricide and civil war, also provide the preconditions for many of the tragedies. The context of divine hostility is not limited to tragedies devoted to the Theban myth but runs throughout Seneca’s tragic corpus. Angry gods are involved in the fall of Troy and the deaths of Hippolytus and Heracles as well as the misfortunes of Oedipus’ family. Furthermore, a negative inflection of the ‘dynastic principle’ shapes the conflicts of many of the plays. Seneca’s Atreus, for example, makes the following observation to his Satelles regarding his own children: ‘Do you fear that they may become evil? They are born that way’ (ne mali fiant times? nascuntur, Thy. 313–14). As A.J. Boyle observes, in Senecan tragedy ‘the past dictates all … It is the model and the mold; it preshapes the present.’45 Though operating on a quite different scale from the short, intense dramas of Seneca, the Thebaid employs a similarly pessimistic vision. By developing the ‘pathetic motif of the extinction of dynastic hopes,’46 the epic presents negative examples of the paradigm of ancestral emulation. Sons reproduce only their fathers’ crimes, and violence against kin poses a constant threat to generational continuity. Furies, hostile gods, and malevolent ancestors are absent from Statius’ Silvae, however, and thus human beings are able to form more constructive relationships. Though proven incorrect in the Thebaid, Adrastus’ perspectives on the evitability of ancestral stigma and the importance of cognatic kin closely resemble those held in the Silvae. Narrators of the poems of this collection use rhetoric similar to Adrastus’ as the basis of praise of various addressees. They show thereby that the attempt to dissociate an individual from his lineage can succeed in a different poetic environment. After briefly

82 In the Image of the Ancestors reviewing the similarities in Adrastus’ consolatory speech and his offer of marriage (1.681–92, 2.152–72) with several passages from the Silvae, I shall argue that genre determines the success or failure of the argument in each context. In each of these poetic universes, Statius grants human beings varying potential to reverse or confirm the expectations created by their ancestors and constructs relationships between individuals and their families on different terms. Adrastus suggests to Polynices that he can ‘excuse [his] ancestors’ (excusare tuos, Theb. 1.692) through his own meritorious actions and retroactively improve their status through his ‘favourable dealings’ (rebus … secundis, 1.691). Though thanks to Tisiphone’s interference, Adrastus’ wish for Polynices remains unachieved in the Thebaid, Silvae 1.4 shows the fulfilment of a similar aspiration. Apollo, one of Statius’ mythological speakers, praises the city prefect Rutilius Gallicus for having improved the status of earlier generations of his family: genus ipse suis permissaque retro nobilitas; nec origo latet, sed luce sequente uincitur et magno gaudet cessisse nepoti. (Silv. 1.4.68–70) He gives high birth to his family and his nobility is granted to previous generations. The family’s origin is not obscure, but it is outdone by its succeeding greatness and it rejoices to yield to its great descendant.

While Gallicus’ forebears may not have been completely undistinguished (nec origo latet), their achievements had not yet equalled those of their ‘great descendant.’ Instead of praising Gallicus as having been ennobled by the greatness of his ancestors, therefore, Apollo claims that his achievements have retroactively (retro) ennobled them.47 After informing Polynices of his individual potential for success beyond the expectations created by his malevolent family, Adrastus attempts to improve his status by offering him his daughter Argia in marriage (Theb. 2.152–72). The possibility never materializes for Polynices in the Thebaid of being identified to others solely through cognatic kin, as Adrastus’ sonin-law or as the son of Jocasta. Following the androcentric conventions of the epic genre, Polynices’ identity remains tied to his descent from Oedipus. Though Adrastus’ strategy once more fails in the Thebaid, it is valid in the Silvae, which feature an increased role for cognatic kin in the establishment of an individual’s identity. In Silvae 1.2 and 4.4, Statius praises two different men who have improved their own status and that of their descendants by marrying prominent women. In Silvae 1.2, Statius’ celebration of the

83 Statius’ Thebaid marriage of L. Arruntius Stella and Violentilla, the goddess Venus praises the bride as the ‘glory of her forefathers,’ who will pass down ‘honour’ (decus) to her children. In terms of assessing their descendants’ future status, her qualities are as important as his.48 The speaker of Silvae 4.4 similarly recognizes the value of superior cognatic descent in his praise of Vitorius Marcellus’ son Geta. Marcellus was from a non-consular senatorial family, but his wife (a Hosidia) was the granddaughter of Cn. Hosidius Geta, suffect consul in September 43 or 45. Statius therefore praises their child as ‘fortunate in his mother’s ancestry and his father’s virtue.’49 Cognatic descent is as important as agnatic in assessing the status of Stella and Violentilla’s children in Silvae 1.2. In the case of Geta in Silvae 4.4, his mother’s stemma is more significant than his father’s. The Thebaid generally associates descent from Cadmus with the repetition of ancestral crimes. In the Silvae, however, Statius presents constructive relationships between ancestors and descendants. He exhorts ancestors to provide positive examples and children to emulate them. In Silvae 4.4, for example, Statius represents both Vitorius Marcellus and his father as offering examples to be emulated and surpassed by Marcellus’ son Geta: ipse canenda geres paruoque exempla parabis magna Getae, dignos quem iam nunc belliger actus poscit auus praestatque domi nouisse triumphos. surge, agedum, iuuenemque puer deprende parentem … (Silv. 4.4.71–4) You [Marcellus] will perform feats worthy of song and you will provide great examples for little Geta. His warlike grandfather is already demanding worthy actions from him and makes it possible to learn of his triumphs at home. Come now, boy, rise and outdo your youthful father …

Though Statius places high expectations on Geta, they are only positive ones; in contrast to the Thebaid, there is no ancestral stigma to be overcome. Once more the contrast between the positive rhetoric of ancestral emulation in the Silvae and the fates of the characters of the Thebaid who attempt to outdo their ancestors’ exploits is revealing. Capaneus, for example, ‘had great nobility from the earlier generations of his family; but with his own hand he had transcended the exploits of his ancestors.’50 Though Capaneus initially performs admirably on the battlefield, his effort to transcend his ancestors results in a fatal act of transgression. Jupiter strikes him down with a thunderbolt when he tries to assault Olympus (Theb. 10.921–39). By failing to achieve his goal of sacking Thebes, Capaneus also creates the opportunity for his son Sthenelus to transcend his exploits and revile his father’s failure (Il. 4.404–10).

84 In the Image of the Ancestors The example of Claudius Etruscus, the addressee of Silvae 3.3, further signifies that descendants in the Silvae are largely free of the negative expectations created by their ancestors’ careers. Statius represents Etruscus as suffering no ill repute as the result of his ancestor’s servile origins or prior offence to the imperial regime.51 Other examples of positive ancestral examples to be emulated include both Julius Menecrates and his father, who demonstrate their laudable virtues to Menecrates’ children: ‘Let their father show them his gentle ways, their grandfather his great splendour, and both men their concern for glorious virtue.’52 Silvae 5.2 relates the career of Vettius Bolanus in considerable detail to Bolanus’ son Crispinus upon the occasion of his appointment as tribunus militum. Statius’ speaker exhorts the sixteenyear-old Crispinus to learn from the example of his deceased father in language that echoes the exhortation of Vergil’s Aeneas to Ascanius.53 The varied success of the same arguments in the Thebaid and the Silvae should be read as a consequence of the differing genres of these works. In the Thebaid, Jupiter’s decision to punish Adrastus and Polynices for the crimes of their ancestors renders fruitless Adrastus’ attempts to separate the identity of his son-in-law from his familial affiliation. The Silvae, however, represent both descent and divinity as more constructive forces than the Thebaid. Though essential in epic, descent is no longer the most important aspect of identity in the Silvae. For example, Statius’ speakers praise addressees such as Manilius Vopiscus (Silvae 1.3), Pollius Felix (Silvae 2.2), and Novius Vindex (Silvae 4.6) for their displays of wealth in their villas and their art collections. As Noelle Zeiner demonstrates, many of Statius’ addressees in the Silvae come from families that lack the distinction of descent: their distinctions instead include offices, virtue, wealth, learning, and literary production rather than stemmata.54 The Silvae validate efforts to separate perceptions of the individual’s identity from expectations conferred by descent. In the Thebaid, however, the collective activity of hostile gods and ancestors ensures that Polynices cannot escape his ancestral curse and destroys those who associate with him. The failure of Adrastus’ apparently reasonable arguments regarding kinship in the Thebaid contributes to the epic’s negative representation of ancestral ideology and generational continuity. The mythological figures of the Silvae are uniformly supportive, however, and an essential difference in relationships between human being and god is established throughout this collection.55 For example, the god whose vengeance devastates Argos in the Thebaid occupies the opposite role in Silvae 1.4. Apollo calls on Asclepius to effect Gallicus’ miraculous recovery from ill health (Silv. 1.4.58–105). The success of propositions regarding the evitability of ancestral stigma and the distinction between individual and familial identity in the Silvae, therefore, is a consequence

85 Statius’ Thebaid of Statius’ representation of more constructive relationships between kin (including cognatic kin) and between human beings and gods. KINSHIP AND GENDER

The first half of this chapter examined the perspectives expressed by various male relatives of Polynices on his familial stigma and destiny. The discussions of Polynices’ mother Jocasta, wife Argia, and sister Antigone that follow complement my earlier examination of the perspectives of male relatives. Epic narratives construct implicit divisions between the public, ‘masculine’ sphere of action and the private, ‘feminine’ sphere. Homer’s Hector expresses this convention of the genre by ordering his wife Andromache to return to her loom and informing her that ‘war will be a concern for men.’56 Women in Roman epic typically experience reduced authority within the family and more limited freedom of action in the public sphere in comparison with men. From the androcentric perspective of Roman epic, the separateness of men’s and women’s experience produces a contrast in their imperatives with regard to their family members.57 While fathers urge their sons to perform successfully on the battlefield, mothers and wives want to hold their sons and husbands back from the risks of war or adventure. Amid a chorus of mourning mothers, for example, Valerius’ Alcimede expresses her fear and anxiety at the departure of her son Jason. Aeson, to the contrary, asserts his pride in Jason and exhorts his son to surpass him. In this interaction between the generations, as in many others, parental imperatives are represented as gendered and opposed to one another.58 In the Thebaid, Jocasta’s efforts to make peace between her sons present a similar opposition to Oedipus’ curse. Through Jocasta’s supplications of her sons, Statius develops contrasts between his figure and her counterparts in Greco-Roman tragedy and signals her affinities with epic mothers such as Homer’s Hecuba and Vergil’s Amata. Jocasta’s desire to restrain her sons from combat is represented as virtuous, while Oedipus’ curse leads eventually to the fratricidal duel. As Jocasta and Oedipus dramatize the conflict between maternal and paternal imperatives, they invert epic’s typical praise of virtuous paternal emulation and marginalization of women who attempt to prevent their sons from fighting. The paradigm of paternal emulation implies the exclusion of maternal influence in the development of masculine identity. At the same time, however, Roman epic also reveals the instability of gendered divisions of experience or spheres of action. The narrator of the Thebaid represents the violence at Thebes as an experience that excludes the domestic sphere. Mars

86 In the Image of the Ancestors inspires the combatants by ‘effacing households, marriages, children’ from their minds, and Parthenopaeus fights ‘forgetting his homeland and his mother.’59 Yet the female characters who fight with men on the battlefield, such as Vergil’s Camilla and Silius’ Asbyte (Aen. 11.648–915, Pun. 2.56– 269), challenge the assumption that war is an exclusively masculine activity.60 Epic narrative frames women’s martial or political activities as intrusive reversals of the social order.61 Though Valerius and Statius show the Lemnian women governing themselves after their murder of the Lemnian men, the narrators of both epics suggest that they would not have been able to do so for long (Arg. 2.306–10, Theb. 5.305–25). Though labelled as exceptional and temporary, women’s performance of ‘masculine’ activities such as war and governance indicates that the gendered division of behaviour is an arbitrary construction that can be reversed, rather than the natural or inevitable ordering of society. Argia’s heroic journey to Thebes in Thebaid 12 represents an inversion of gendered expectations of behaviour that nevertheless leaves her fully aligned with normative Roman marital values. The tyrants who attempt to hold their sons back from performing deeds of valour present a further challenge to the gendered conventions of epic behaviour. Instead of reproducing the paradigm of paternal emulation, tyrant fathers like Valerius’ Pelias or Statius’ Creon act in some similar ways to anxious mothers. Behaviours marked as ‘maternal’ in Roman culture, such as supplication and weeping, complement the expression of a typically maternal imperative, insistence on a son’s safety.62 The tyrant’s lack of virtue and insecure grip on power are expressed in terms of a faulty performance of paternity. These examples indicate that attitude towards kin is not solely a function of the parent’s biological sex or position in the familial hierarchy. The behaviours of family members in Roman epic are part of complete performances of gender that may include activities alternately marked as masculine or feminine, not part of an immutable script generated by biology.63 The marriage of Argia and Polynices in the Thebaid presents a contrast with the traditional representation of marital relationships in epic and elegy. Rather than attempt to confine her husband safely at home, Argia makes a decisive contribution to the start of the war. Unlike other characters, who view Polynices as stigmatized by his descent from Oedipus, she focuses instead on the threat that his uxorilocal residence at Argos poses to her status and their son’s. In her view, the conquest of Thebes will offer a necessary improvement of her new family’s social status. In the epic’s conclusion, Argia shares the role that the dominant tradition typically assigns to Polynices’ sister Antigone, that of the loyal woman who risks death in order to bury him in defiance of Creon’s orders. Argia’s performance, like those of many other

87 Statius’ Thebaid female characters of the Thebaid, erodes the division between male and female experience. Though she begins the epic as a member of the ‘inferior sex,’ she ‘leaves her sex behind’ by its end.64 As with Achilles in the Achilleid, her experiences undermine efforts to construct gendered identity and performance in immutable, ‘natural’ terms. Through Argia’s responses to her bereavement, the Thebaid also asserts the equivalence or potential superiority of elective relationships such as marriage to unchosen biological relationships such as descent or siblinghood. This thematic is more fully developed in the idealized representations of marriages and fosterage relationships offered in the Silvae. Comparison of Argia with Polla, Priscilla, Claudia, and the other loyal wives of the Silvae shows the ironically contrasting outcomes of similar marital ideals in the hostile world of the Thebaid. Though her sense of loyalty and posthumous reverence for her husband impel her to perform heroically, Argia’s expressions of marital unanimity lead to the invasion of Thebes. The activities of the bereaved mothers and widows who populate the Thebaid provide a fuller narrative context for Argia’s responses to her bereavement. Episodes of feminine lament play a dominant structural role in the Thebaid, rather than performing the digressive or retarding narrative function typically assigned to them in epic, such as offering a brief respite from the episodes of violence that produce bereavement. The laments of women such as Hypsipyle, Atalanta, and Evadne, among others, either constitute in themselves or give rise to large-scale narrative units, such as the Lemnian episode and the funeral games of Opheltes in Thebaid books 5–6, the aristeia of Parthenopaeus in book 9, and Theseus’ assault on Thebes in book 12.65 Feminine lament also provides a metapoetic commentary on the commemorative function of epic and the limits of the poet’s powers of representation. As Karla Pollmann observes, Statius proposes an alternative vision of epic in the final book of the Thebaid: [Statius] develops a new poetics indicating what the epic of the future should look like: it would comprise not violence, but its consequences, like burial, lament and grief as its leitmotifs, and single out the heroic deeds of predominantly female agents. Such acts would be characterized by suicide out of love, as in the case of Evadne, by posthumous forgiveness, as in the case of Deipyle, or would consist in female narrative, as in the case of Argia, and ultimately in universal lament, here led by Atalante. These facets … are diametrically opposed to traditional epic and heroic values … [Statius] envisages here a new type of epic concerned with the description of the painful consequences of war and the part women could play therein.66

This ‘new poetics’ of feminine lament also implies an alternative approach to intrafamilial dynamics, one where the imperatives of female

88 In the Image of the Ancestors relatives take precedence over male. Through its innovative representation of gendered behaviour, as seen in the actions of Jocasta, Argia, and the epic’s numerous bereaved women, the Thebaid suggests the possibility of constructing the relationships between parents, children, and spouses through reference to principles that contrast with earlier epic. 1. ‘Your Mother Implores You, Not Your Father’: Jocasta, Oedipus, and Parental Imperatives In her separate supplications of Polynices and Eteocles in Thebaid 7 and 11, Jocasta endeavours to restrain her sons from fighting. She thereby expresses an imperative that epic encodes as ‘maternal.’ In this context, however, shunning the crime of fratricide takes precedence over avoiding the dangers of combat per se. Her persuasive efforts oppose Oedipus’s curse at the beginning of the epic, through which he attempts to destroy his sons by impelling them to compete for the throne. Jocasta both distinguishes her attitude towards her sons from their father’s and claims a different sort of influence over them as the result of her role as their bearer and nurturer. The Thebaid thereby offers an alternative to the gendered norms of epic parenthood through its representation of the attitudes of Jocasta, Oedipus, and the narrator towards the involvement of Polynices and Eteocles in the civil war. The abuse or abnegation of paternal authority furnishes the Thebaid with one of its major thematics. Oedipus’ curse on his sons opens the narrative with a parodic inversion of the paternal imperative.67 He defines his paternal authority primarily in terms of his sons’ offences to it, enjoins his sons to perpetuate the lineage’s infamy by fighting each other rather than external enemies, and entrusts his requests to the demonic Fury rather than to the indifferent gods. Tisiphone’s immediate response to Oedipus’ curse sets in motion the conflict that culminates in the brothers’ duel. Oedipus then withdraws until after the duel, emerging only briefly to gloat over the war that he has started (Theb. 8.240–58). Once his sons have killed each other, Oedipus belatedly attempts through a public display of mourning to accept responsibility for the destruction that he has caused (11.580–633). The father who indirectly destroys his sons reverses the normative paternal paradigm, while the accomplishment of his curse through the intervention of the female Fury suggests his loss of masculine agency. The Thebaid juxtaposes the blind and belatedly repentant Oedipus with the supreme god Jupiter, who turns his gaze away from the duel, and with the Argive king Adrastus, who flees from the battlefield. Roman epic characteristically figures Jupiter’s authority as paternal; he is the ‘father of gods and king of men.’68 Statius’ supreme god also specifically identifies himself

89 Statius’ Thebaid as the originator of the royal houses of Thebes and Argos and thus the ancestor of those involved in the combat (Theb. 1.224–6). His refusal to watch the brothers’ duel, therefore, represents an abnegation of his authority over affairs on earth and over the fate of the descendants whom he has determined to punish, as well as of the literary tradition that encodes him as an authoritative observer of epic duels.69 Jupiter leaves the Furies unchallenged in their takeover of the Theban battlefield and never again acts in the epic.70 This is the culminating example of his macrocosmic failure of authority, which complements Oedipus’ failure of paternal authority and Adrastus’ abandonment of regal authority. The similarities in the behaviour of god, king, and father emphasize the universality of the disavowal of paternal authority in the epic. The death, absence, or incapacity of the patriarch represents a narrative void that feminine forces may occupy. Jocasta and the Furies, the antitypes of Oedipus and Jupiter, enter when the male characters have withdrawn. In the absence of Oedipus, Jocasta attempts to exert her authority over her sons. She relates her authority to her biological role as the mother and nurturer of her sons. Jocasta duplicates her own supplications by approaching each of her sons individually, and Antigone also repeats her mother’s supplication of Eteocles.71 In both episodes, however, the interventions of the Fury nullify the effect of Jocasta’s supplication.72 The narrator credits the Fury on multiple occasions, beginning with her response to Oedipus’ prayer, with a metapoetic role in directing the course of the narrative and excluding alternative possibilities.73 Her response to Jocasta marks the threat that the supplications pose to the forward progress and integrity of the narrative. Should the mother’s supplications succeed and preclude her sons’ fatal combat, the epic not only would lack one of its most famous episodes but would fail to reach the event prefigured since its opening lines. The narrative proceeds towards the duel through its typical pattern of repetition of past behaviour and cancellation of alternative courses of action.74 It is now under the control of female figures, who claim the narrative space left open by the abnegation of paternal authority. Jocasta’s supplications of Polynices in Thebaid 7 and Eteocles in Thebaid 11 mark the epic’s alternative treatment of this figure from the tragic tradition. In these episodes, Statius presents significant structural variations from the comparable scenes in the Phoenissae of Euripides and Seneca.75 Both of Jocasta’s sons are present for the mediation scenes of the tragedies. Her attempts to reconcile them fail as they begin to argue with each other. In the Thebaid, however, Jocasta attempts to convince each of her sons individually to desist from fighting the other. Her own ability to evoke pathos, as well as the absence of the hated brother from the scene of supplication,

90 In the Image of the Ancestors lead to momentarily successful acts of persuasion. Jocasta’s inclusion of her daughters in her supplication of Polynices also produces a different perspective on the role of family from the comparable scenes in the tragedies, in which she acts alone. Jocasta augments her own authority as a mother by displaying the contrast between her obedient daughters and disobedient sons. Through their presences, Antigone and Ismene also support her effort to arouse pathos in her audience.76 All of the women of the family, rather than just his mother, beg Polynices to stop the invasion, and all present themselves as potential victims of war. Statius’ Jocasta is at once more aware of her sons’ dispositions and more willing to act in concert with her other children than her tragic counterparts. Though including her daughters in her supplication, Jocasta claims primary authority over her sons as their mother. Her references during her supplications to her womb and breasts indicate her construction of maternal authority in emphatically biological terms, a thematic also observable in Senecan treatments of this figure (Phoen. 535–6, Oed. 1038–9). She identifies herself as the ‘criminal mother of the war’ as she approaches Polynices’ camp in an effort to forestall the outbreak of violence: reserate uiam! rogat impia belli mater; in his aliquod ius execrabile castris huic utero est. (Theb. 7.483–5) Clear the way! The criminal mother of the war demands it. My womb has some accursed prerogative in this camp.

In her peroration, Jocasta again refers to her body as the privileged source of her influence over her errant child: ad uestrum gemitus nunc uerto pudorem, Inachidae, liquistis enim paruosque senesque et lacrimas has quisque domi: sua credite matri uiscera! si uobis hic paruo in tempore carus (sitque precor), quid me, oro, decet quidue ista, Pelasgi, ubera? (Theb. 7.519–24) Now, descendants of Inachus, I turn my tears against your sense of shame. For each of you has left young and old relatives and tears like these at home. Entrust her own flesh and blood to a mother! If my son has become dear to you (and I pray that he has) in such a short time, then what is fitting for me, Pelasgians? or for these breasts?

91 Statius’ Thebaid Jocasta claims that her prior relationship with Polynices, however debased, still grants her a greater role than the Argives in influencing his future course of action. She again uses references to her physical markers of maternity, her breasts and womb, in her later supplication of Eteocles, immediately before the duel of Thebaid 11. She insists that ‘you must trample my breasts, you accursed man, and you must drive your horse over your mother’s womb.’77 As by this point she has realized her inability to compel him through an appeal to her authority, she uses the threat of violence against a mother’s body in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to evoke pity. In both her supplications, she maintains that her physical responsibility for creating the war’s instigators grants her the authority to end their conflict.78 Jocasta’s mode of supplication and basis for claims to influence over her children differ considerably from Oedipus’. In his rage, Oedipus seeks to deny any sense of duration or affect in his relationship with his sons. Oedipus’ ability to influence his sons’ behaviour depends on the Fury’s acquiescence to his wishes rather than any obedience on their part or intrinsic respect for him as a father. Jocasta, on the other hand, attempts to lay claim to authority over her sons based on her physical experience of maternity. She argues that her physical similarity with her sons, their sharing of the same flesh and blood (uiscera), the duration of their relationship, and her privileged contact with them as a nurturer (ubera) all grant her rights over them.79 She contrasts her attitude towards her sons with that of their father. In her supplication of Eteocles, for example, Jocasta opposes her desire for peace to Oedipus’ hostility and Adrastus’ indecisiveness: ‘Your mother implores you, savage man, not your father … Adrastus is the one man out there to persuade against fighting, but perhaps he too commands it.’80 From her viewpoint, Eteocles’ biological father and Polynices’ surrogate father are pushing her sons towards their destruction against a mother’s better judgment. In addition to evoking the Jocastas of Euripides and Seneca, the figure of Jocasta in Statius’ Thebaid recapitulates narrative motifs associated with other epic mothers, Homer’s Hecuba and Vergil’s Amata. Jocasta’s references to her breasts recall the scene in which Hecuba shows her breast to her son Hector and urges him to recall her nurture of him in an unsuccessful effort to dissuade him from fighting Achilles (Il. 22.79–89). An attempt to dissuade Turnus from the fatal duel with Aeneas similarly occurs at his conference with Latinus, Amata, and Lavinia at the beginning of Aeneid 12.81 On the level of narrative similarity, Statius’ allusion suggests the inevitability of the failure of Jocasta’s supplication. Her sons proceed to fight between themselves just as both Hector and Turnus refuse the entreaties of the older generation and enter into fatal duels. In thematic terms, however, Jocasta’s supplication delineates the contrast between the

92 In the Image of the Ancestors attitudes of the parents in the Iliad and the Thebaid and the older generation in the Aeneid. Statius’ use of these narrative models focuses attention on the relative merit of the imperatives of each group of parents. Statius’ evocation of Hecuba’s supplication suggests that the Iliad, the most ‘masculine’ of epics, itself provides the textual authority for a ‘feminine’ appeal to discretion as the better part of valour. Homer’s Hector initially claims to Andromache that he must fight in order to ‘win great renown for [his] father and [himself].’ Yet Priam does not in fact share Hector’s sense of his imperatives by the time his son enters the duel with Achilles, and he joins his wife in urging him to avoid it.82 In Priam’s view, the dishonour to be experienced by the humiliated survivors upon the city’s defeat would outweigh any potential threat to Hector’s honour in declining to participate in the duel. The stereotypically ‘paternal’ emphasis on filial emulation also makes less sense to Priam once the majority of his sons have been wiped out on the battlefield. In the Thebaid, however, Jocasta’s and Oedipus’ wishes for their sons are directly opposed, and hers are marked as more virtuous than his. The allusion suggests that the appeals of both Jocasta and Hecuba represent the appropriate course of action. It would have been possible for Polynices and Eteocles to have acceded to their mother’s wishes without thereby bringing either their masculinity or their martial valour into question. From the Thebaid’s perspective, maternal exhortation no longer represents the indecorous ‘feminine’ challenge, so often rejected in prior scenes of supplication, to the ‘masculine’ imperative of war. Jocasta’s affinities with Vergil’s Amata, however, undermine the image of the virtuous and nurturing mother. Hector’s parents eventually display unanimity in their desire to preserve their son’s life, but Amata and Latinus conflict over the betrothal of their daughter in the Aeneid. The assault by the Fury exacerbates these sentiments and pushes her into open revolt. Amata leads a group of women in a Bacchic ritual featuring a parodic marriage of Lavinia and Turnus. She commits suicide when Aeneas’ victory in the war appears inevitable (Aen. 7.341–405, 12.595–603). Furial and Bacchic motifs corroborate the thematic associations between Statius’ Jocasta and Vergil’s Amata. Jocasta displays the same affinity with the Fury as the other members of Cadmus’ line. Her incestuous coupling with her son Oedipus is represented as the result of one of the many interventions by the Fury in the lives of her family members (Theb. 1.68–9, 11.638). Jocasta is compared to a Fury as she proceeds to Polynices’ camp for her first effort at supplication (Theb. 7.477). On the figurative level, then, Jocasta not only is ‘the criminal mother of the war’ but also continues to be one of its stimuli as a parallel figure to the Fury.83 During Jocasta’s supplication of Eteocles, the narrator suggests a Bacchic aspect to her behaviour through a comparison between her and her Theban ancestor Agave (11.318–20). The opposition of both Jocasta and Amata to their husbands’

93 Statius’ Thebaid imperatives is represented as resulting in Bacchic madness. While her mode of supplication may recall Homer’s Hecuba, Jocasta’s opposition to her husband, her victimization by the Fury, her Bacchic behaviour, and her eventual suicide all evoke Vergil’s Amata. Elaine Fantham has affirmed the validity, in secular terms, of Amata’s opposition to her husband.84 Latinus has made an unusual choice in proposing to marry his daughter to an outsider without standing in the community rather than a locally resident relative of high status. The Italian king’s deference to his father’s oracle leads him to adopt an atypical familial strategy, and Amata’s followers accordingly regard her as a justly aggrieved mother. Amata’s retreat to the wilderness and parody of a marriage ritual represent an unofficial effort to enact the marriage she desires for her daughter after Latinus’ decree has officially precluded that possibility. The narrator, however, represents her rebellion as an irrational act of resistance ultimately caused by Juno’s opposition to Roman destiny. At their final conference, Amata’s inability to accept either the prospect of Turnus’ continued fighting or surrender suggests the untenability of her position compared with those of Latinus or Aeneas. Statius’ Jocasta, however, advocates the proper course of action in spite of her associations with the Fury, her Bacchic madness, and the limitedness of her perspective in comparison with the omniscient narrator. In contrast to Amata, Jocasta’s opposition to her husband suggests her adherence to a virtuous path of action, one approved by the narrator, who joins in her opposition to the war. The opposition between Jocasta’s anticipatory suicide from maternal grief and Oedipus’ belated yielding to paternal grief concludes the thematic development of the two parents’ contrasting imperatives for their children. The parents’ modes of spectatorship express the contrast in their attitudes. Jocasta envies Oedipus’ physical inability to observe the duel and kills herself to avoid watching (Theb. 11.333–5, 634–47). As Antigone leads him to his sons’ bodies, Oedipus offers others the spectacle of his grief, while imagining the restoration of his eyes so he can remove them again as honour to his sons.85 The narrative represents Jocasta’s suicide as her final expression of dissent from Oedipus. Suicide is the only option remaining to her as her efforts to restrain her sons have failed. The interventions of the Fury and the curse that travels through the generations of the lineage invalidate Jocasta’s efforts. The descendants of Cadmus are destined to be set against their ancestors and also to recapitulate their crimes. The example of the joint supplication of Homer’s Hector by his parents shows that parental imperatives for children need not always be opposed. The mothers of Valerius’ Medea and Statius’ Menoeceus similarly join with their husbands in disapproval of their children’s errant behaviour (Arg. 8.140–74, Theb. 10.793–814). In the Thebaid, however, the scenes of Oedipus’ opening

94 In the Image of the Ancestors curse and Jocasta’s supplications of her sons indicate the contrasting terms in which the epic constructs maternal and paternal attitudes towards children. Oedipus expresses his authority through a curse, Jocasta through recollection of her physical involvement with her children as bearer and nurturer. Through allusion to Hecuba and Amata, Statius marks the difference in his epic’s representation of maternal restraint as the virtuous course of action. Fighting his brother in a civil war in accordance with his father’s wishes makes Polynices a shameful criminal. Acceding to his mother’s supplication and remaining at peace would have been the virtuous path of action, despite its alignment with the maternal imperative. Narrators of martial epic typically reject the ‘maternal’ imperative as antithetical to their goals. By relating the violence deplored by female characters, the narrator produces fame for male characters, his poem, and himself. In order for there to be a narrative of war, sons must reject maternal efforts at restraint, and the epic narrator typically accords mothers only limited sympathy. The lament of Euryalus’ mother in the Aeneid, for example, ends with her forcible removal by the Trojan men (Aen. 9.502) and the immediate resumption of hostilities. Scenes of maternal supplication in earlier epic narrative, from Homer’s Hecuba to Valerius’ Alcimede, typically end with the son’s rejection of his mother’s (or tyrannical father’s) pleading. Epic encodes obedience to a mother’s wish for peace as shameful and unmanly, and the pursuit of gloria in accordance with the (normative) father’s wishes as virtuous and honourable. The narrator’s sympathy with the mother’s loss after the death of her son does not necessarily entail either approval of her earlier efforts at restraint or condemnation of the father’s encouragement. Though the narrator may sensitively evoke the pathos of a mother’s parting from her son, the narrative inevitably proceeds towards relating the subsequent combat. In contrast to other maternal supplications in epic, however, Jocasta’s attempt to preclude combat is consonant with the narrator’s representation of his own goals. His interjection after the fratricidal duel attempts to circumvent epic’s typical commemorative function with a prayer that memory of the event soon disappear (Theb. 11.577–9).86 He claims to be as unwilling to memorialize the fratricidal duel as Jocasta is to permit her sons’ participation. Though ultimately rejected, the maternal imperative points to the alternate narrative that both mother and narrator wish they could enact. 2. ‘This Woman Got Here First’: Argia, Antigone, and Elective and Unchosen Relationships Like mothers, wives in Roman poetry also try to hold their husbands back from participation in war. Roman elegy presents the complaints of relictae

95 Statius’ Thebaid such as Propertius’ Arethusa (4.3) and Ovid’s Laodamia (Her. 13), women left behind by departing lovers or husbands. Epic wives such as Lucan’s Cornelia and Silius’ Imilce express the desire to follow their husbands to the battlefield, but are prevented from doing so (BC 5.722–815, Pun. 3.61– 157). In contrast to the wives who attempt to prevent war, Argia supplicates her father Adrastus to begin the assault on Thebes. Her intention in doing so is to support her husband and to improve the status of her new family. In her view, Polynices’ exile and uxorilocal residence, not his descent from Oedipus, are the causes of social stigma that will be passed on to their son. Through her journey to the Theban battlefield after the war in order to bury her husband, she surpasses both the pietas of Antigone and the courage of the Amazons while remaining fully aligned with the ideals of conventional marital fidelity. Statius’ Argia narrative offers a dramatization of marital unanimity, loyalty, and posthumous reverence, ideals also developed in the encomia of marriage in the Silvae. In the Thebaid, however, the expression of such ideals leads only to further violence and suffering. Federica Bessone has persuasively framed the development of Argia’s perspectives on her marriage in terms of the contrast between the antithetical values traditionally associated with the genres of elegy and epic. As a ‘Herois manquée,’ Argia departs from the stereotype of the elegiac relicta. Relictae attempt to restrain their husbands from participating in war by questioning its cause. Ovid’s Laodamia, for example, argues that Protesilaus has far less reason to fight the Trojans than Menelaus: ‘Your cause is different’ (causa tua est dispar, Her. 13.77). Statius’s Argia offers a different perspective from the relictae who are concerned only for their husbands’ safety and the possibility of their own bereavements. She sympathizes with her husband’s loss of his rightful kingdom and refuses to present him with the relicta’s traditional complaint of broken faith.87 The difference between the grounds for the Trojan War and Polynices’ proposed invasion of Thebes furnishes one aspect of this contrast. From Argia’s limited perspective, her husband appears to have right on his side. The earlier events of the narrative, however, have already dispelled this illusion. Oedipus’ complaints regarding his sons’ lack of pietas, Polynices’ brawl with Tydeus on the doorstep of Adrastus’ palace, and the omens associated with Harmonia’s necklace, one of Polynices’ wedding gifts, all challenge her presumption of her husband’s virtue.88 Argia’s expressions of fidelity and support appear cruelly ironic from the perspective of the narrator and reader, who have greater access to information regarding her husband and his fate than she does. As with many other characters in the epic, noble motivations guide her to participate in an immoral and unjustifiable conflict. Argia assists her husband’s effort to regain his kingdom by convincing her sister Deipyle to allow Tydeus go to Thebes as an ambassador demanding the

96 In the Image of the Ancestors return of the throne to Polynices after the conclusion of the stipulated year (Theb. 2.374). After Eteocles refuses to abandon the throne peacefully, Argia makes a decisive contribution by supplicating her father Adrastus to start the war (3.678–721). The use of elegiac motifs such as crying, jealousy, preoccupation with return, and the backward glance all serve as foils that emphasize Argia’s ultimate commitment to the values of the martial epic in supporting the war and permitting her husband’s departure.89 Her performance as a wife contrasts not only with those of elegiac wives but also with those of the mourning women encountered elsewhere in the Thebaid. Argia’s supplication of her father to begin the war represents her clearest expression of imperatives marked elsewhere as ‘masculine’ or ‘paternal.’90 The improvement that victory at Thebes would bring to the status of her husband and her child occupies the first part of her appeal: tu solus opem, tu summa medendi iura tenes; da bella, pater, generique iacentis aspice res humiles, atque hanc, pater, aspice prolem exulis; huic olim generis pudor. o ubi prima hospitia et iunctae testato numine dextrae? (Theb. 3.695–9) You alone have aid, you have the greatest authority to heal. Give us war, father. Look at your abased son-in-law’s lowly situation and look at this exile’s offspring. One day Thessander’s descent will cause him shame. Oh, where now is your first welcome and our right hands joined with god as our witness?

Argia’s reference to her son Thessander’s prospective shame in his descent indicates the difference between her attitude towards inherited stigma and the perspectives discussed in the first half of this chapter. Her husband’s descent from Oedipus, with its legacy of incest and parricide, does not trouble Argia. She instead regards his exile and enforced residence in Argos as sources of shame that will be transmitted to their son Thessander. Regaining control of the Theban throne, in her view, will therefore improve the status of both the males in her new family. Argia adheres to the minority position advanced by her father Adrastus that affiliation with her family can erase the stigma of Labdacid descent. In contrast to her father, however, she does not believe that her family’s social standing and resources can compensate for the shame of exile. The opposition between uxorilocal residence in Argos and virilocal residence in Thebes structures Argia’s perceptions of her marriage with Polynices. Neolocal residence by nuclear families appears to have been the normative expectation for upper-class Romans, though the common experience of serial marriage meant that households could often be populated by ‘blended’ families.91 It is

97 Statius’ Thebaid not the normative expectation in mythological epic, however, and is not considered in the Thebaid. Uxorilocal residence often occurs as the result of exile in epic tradition. Force of circumstance compels Valerius’ Phrixus, for example, to establish an uxorilocal marriage in Colchis against his initial intention of remaining in Greece. A kingdom gained through uxorilocal marriage can also serve as a compensation for exiles.92 While it is still believed that he is an exile from Corinth, for example, Oedipus gains Thebes through marriage to Jocasta, and Vergil’s Aeneas gains Latinus’ kingdom through marriage to Lavinia.93 Yet the prospect of inheriting Adrastus’ kingdom in Argos satisfies neither Polynices nor Argia, as it does not ameliorate the stigma of exile. Both he and his wife assume that Thebes is their rightful dwelling place and that his exile should not be endured. As observed above, Eteocles’ argument that his brother should be satisfied with uxorilocal residence is made in an attempt to conceal the illegitimacy of his possession of the Theban throne past the stipulated year. The expectation that Argia and her husband will reside in Thebes after the successful completion of the war conforms to epic’s typical emphasis on virilocal residence as the desirable norm and uxorilocal residence as the result of extraordinary circumstance. Virilocal assumptions continue to shape Argia’s perception of her marriage as she travels to Thebes to bury her husband. Though she recognizes in advance that Creon will oppose her, she expects to receive kindly treatment from her husband’s closer kin: ‘My husband’s parents are there, and his sisters, and I shall not come to Thebes as an unknown person.’94 Though she does not encounter Oedipus himself, her amicable cooperation with Antigone partially bears out the truth of her assumption of supportive treatment from her in-laws. Her perspective on affinal relationships suggests the depth of her sympathy: the loss of her husband in a war with his kinsmen does not turn her into the enemy of her in-laws. Argia’s response to her bereavement expands the contrast with the expectations for widows encoded by prior epic narrative. Her mobility and acceptance of risk contrast with the typically stationary mourning widow of prior epic. The narrator represents Argia’s conception of her exploit as a departure from the expectations created by her role as a dutiful daughter: non regia cordi, non pater: una fides, unum Polynicis amati nomen in ore sedet; Dircen infaustaque Cadmi moenia posthabitis uelit incoluisse Mycenis. (Theb. 12.113–16) Neither her palace nor her father is in her heart. Only her loyalty, only her beloved Polynices’ name remains in her mouth. Rejecting Mycene, she would wish to inhabit Dirce and Cadmus’s unlucky walls.

98 In the Image of the Ancestors Argia’s journey to Thebes reprises her earlier desire for virilocal residence in the new context of bereavement. The narrator’s description of Argia’s indifference to her home and father recalls the earlier description of Mars’ exclusion of households from the soldiers’ minds (Theb. 8.385, quoted above). In her singleness of focus on recovering her husband’s corpse, which leads her to exclude her household and other family members, she displays an affinity with the men who exclude household and family in their zeal for fighting. The news that Creon has forbidden burial to the Argives prompts Argia to diverge still further from the paradigm of epic widowhood towards that of masculine heroism. The narrator asserts that Argia has ‘set aside her sex’ in her plan to travel to Thebes:95 hic non femineae subitum uirtutis amorem colligit Argia, sexuque inmane relicto tractat opus: placet (egregii spes dura pericli!) comminus infandi leges accedere regni, quo Rhodopes non ulla nurus nec alumna niuosi Phasidis innuptis uallata cohortibus iret. (Theb. 12.177–82) At this point Argia takes on a sudden love of unwomanly courage. Having set aside her sex, she contemplates a mighty work. Harsh hope of outstanding risk! It pleases her to confront hand to hand the laws of the appalling kingdom, to go where neither any Rhodopian bride would go nor any nursling of snowy Phasis, accompanied by an army of unmarried women.

The narrator relates Argia’s decision in terms that evoke masculine military activity. At this point of the epic, uirtus (‘manliness’) has been strongly associated with the appearance of the personification that prompts Menoeceus’ suicide in Thebaid 10.96 As a generic marker, the phrase ‘mighty work’ (inmane opus) suggests a narrative of warfare undertaken by men. Tisiphone assigns a similar label to the duel between Eteocles and Polynices (grande opus, Theb. 11.100), and Vergil’s narrator describes the martial theme of the latter half of the Aeneid as a ‘greater work’ than the narrative of the first half (maius opus moueo, Aen. 7.45). The narrator therefore labels Argia’s exploit as equivalent in narrative potential to a martial epic, though in the event it is confined to half a book. Argia’s performance of her uirtus is similarly expressesed in the language of battlefield combat. She resolves to ‘confront’ Creon’s laws ‘hand to hand’ (comminus … accedere), a phrase used elsewhere in the epic to refer to combat at close quarters.97 The concluding claim that Argia outdoes the Maenads and the Amazons in her boldness challenges the

99 Statius’ Thebaid assumption that the only female intruders into the masculine military sphere must be women opposed to marriage (innuptis). Though involving her in an exploit that runs contrary to gendered expectations, Argia’s bold undertaking represents a superlative expression of fidelity towards her husband. The narrator marks Argia’s departure from ‘feminine’ behaviour and aligns it with the epic’s masculine deeds of heroism. In promising a display of greater courage than the Maenads and the Amazons, even in a praiseworthy cause, he also raises the possibility of the excessive behaviour that dooms characters such as Tydeus and Capaneus.98 Juno’s intervention on Argia’s behalf in her role as the goddess of marriage, however, defuses the suggestion of excess and associates her instead with marital fidelity. The goddess asks the moon to shine more brightly so that Argia may find her husband’s body more easily (Theb. 12.291–311). At the same time, however, Juno’s intervention also accentuates the suggestion of danger in her undertaking by providing a further comparison between Argia and male heroes. As a narrative motif, the bright moonlight produced by Juno for Argia’s benefit recalls the peripety of Vergil’s night raid, in which the moonbeam reflected by Euryalus’ stolen helmet betrays the Trojans to their enemies. Statius’ use of the moonlight motif signals the contrast between Argia’s fidelity and Euryalus’ greed. Argia’s burial mission further recalls the virtuous though unsuccessful efforts of Hopleus and Dymas, also supported by Juno in response to an Argive woman’s prayer.99 Juno’s intervention on Argia’s behalf shows the Argive princess succeeding where earlier male heroes had failed, both in her successful burial of her husband and in her restraint from the excesses of valour or greed. As discussed above, Adrastus proposes that Polynices’ marriage to Argia would permit the effacement of his descent from Oedipus. The narrator’s comparison of Argia’s devotion to Polynices to other familial relationships complements the suggestion that elective relationships can surpass unchosen ones. A simile compares Argia’s search for the body of Polynices to Ceres’ search for Persephone.100 By comparing a marital relationship to mother love, the narrator undermines the conventional assumption that no relationship can be more affective than the maternal one. Argia serves in this aspect as a figurative mother to Polynices, though she declines the peacemaking role played by his actual mother by contributing to the onset of the war. By risking her life to perform the actual burial of her husband, Argia also outdoes the pietas of Hypsipyle, who performs a mock burial of her father for the purpose of deceiving her fellow Lemnians.101 Argia’s interaction with Antigone further develops the epic’s contrast between elective and unchosen relationships. Though the marriage of Argia and Polynices fails to alter the perceptions of Polynices’ identity, it enables

100 In the Image of the Ancestors Argia to claim the role of superlative pietas traditionally assigned to Antigone.102 When Antigone comes to tend to her brother’s corpse, she finds that Argia has arrived before her. The Theban woman’s reaction follows the same competitive paradigm that structures her brothers’ conflict. She defines her encounter with Argia as a contest in pietas that she has lost by arriving late, and criticizes herself for failing to perform her obligations as primary kin.103 Her lament evokes her failure to perform according to the expectations of the tradition: ‘I yield: you hold him! Alas, for shame! A sister’s lazy devotion! This woman got here first – ’104 Though initially lamenting her loss in competition, Antigone eventually accedes to the cooperative paradigm of behaviour offered by Argia. Though Antigone attempts to yield to her (cedo, tene), Argia permits her to share in touching and grieving over Polynices’ corpse. She attempts to console Antigone and to remove the suggestion of competition through tactful praise. Though in her earlier soliloquy Argia exaggeratedly claims that she was the reason that Polynices undertook the expedition to Thebes, she tells Antigone that her husband cared only for his sister.105 The narrator compares the bereaved wife and sister to the Heliades, the sisters who mourn for their lost brother Phaethon.106 In the act of mourning, both women become as if sisters; they are equated in their devastation by grief. As with the earlier maternal comparisons, the comparison to sisters equates marriage with a blood relationship. Argia’s unanimity with her husband and willing acceptance of risk in order to prove her fidelity to him after his death are exceptional in terms of the expectations associated with women in prior epic. Many of Statius’ encomia of marriage in the Silvae, however, offer comparable treatments of the themes of unanimity, loyalty, and posthumous reverence.107 The narrator’s praise of the marriage of Polla and Pollius Felix presents husband and wife as ethical counterparts.108 Statius’ praise of his own wife Claudia in Silvae 3.5 similarly invokes the themes of unanimity and loyalty. She shares his reaction to his poetic successes and defeats, supports his production of the Thebaid, and will lead the way as they move from Rome to Naples (Silv. 3.5.28–36, 109– 12).109 Argia’s willingness to risk death in order to perform her husband’s burial also finds parallels in the praise of conjugal loyalty and bravery in the Silvae. In his epicedion for Priscilla, Statius’ narrator claims that she would have followed her husband Abascantus to the battlefield (Silv. 5.1.117–34). Should Statius himself suffer an absence like Odysseus, his wife Claudia would draw a sword to put her suitors to flight (Silv. 3.5.6–10). Not less than the heroines of mythology, she ‘knows loyalty and how to give her life for a husband.’110 Argia’s desire to live at Thebes as a perpetual mourner recalls the ongoing devotion of Lucan’s widow Polla Argentaria, who continues to worship her husband several decades after his death.111 Argia in the Thebaid is

101 Statius’ Thebaid therefore aligned with the idealized wives of the Silvae in terms of her adherence to normative Roman marital values. While the abnegation of paternal authority by Oedipus and Jupiter results in chaos and violence instigated by the Furies, Argia’s liberation from the authority of her husband and father permits her to undertake one of the epic’s deeds of virtuous heroism. Her performance as a wife and widow provides an epic complement to the argument advanced in the Silvae that elective relationships, such as those formed through marriage, can be equal in terms of affect, responsibility, and loyalty to those created through descent. Yet further violence results from her expression of unanimity, a Roman marital ideal. Argia’s all-too-ready support of Polynices contributes to the outbreak of violence in the Thebaid. Though she may be ethically counterposed to Oedipus, she catalyses the war that he desires, and she is briefly drawn into a competition with Antigone that resembles the conflict between the feuding brothers. Through the narrative of a wife who encourages her husband’s destructive desires for war, Statius again demonstrates how the hostile world of the Thebaid deforms the expression of the ideals that he praises in the Silvae. 3. The Poetics of Bereavement I conclude by placing the Argia narrative in the larger context of Statius’ gendered poetics of spousal bereavement. The Thebaid’s location of Argia in terms of gender and genre represents the culmination of narrative paradigms established through prior episodes of bereavement and lament. Though lament in epic is typically a ‘feminine’ activity, associated with particular female figures such as Niobe and the Pandionids, it is always an activity that exerts tangible effects in the ‘masculine’ political sphere.112 Like the supplications of Jocasta or the complaints of the elegiac relicta, episodes involving mourning widows and mothers pose alternatives to the masculine imperatives of enduring fame and ancestral emulation typical of epic narrative. When the narrative presents the aftermath of warfare through the perspectives of surviving female relatives instead of the perspective of those who directly participate in combat, it offers a different ethical orientation to epic’s most characteristic activity.113 Argia’s reactions to the loss of her husband Polynices involve her in the transgression of gendered expectations of behaviour. Through their laments for their lost kin, the bereaved women of the Thebaid similarly participate in the ideals normatively associated with masculine heroism. The epic’s first large-scale episode of lament occurs after Tydeus’ slaughter of the fifty ambushers (Theb. 3.114–217). In her mourning for her dead sons, Ide reflects on her forestalled ambition to secure public honour through their heroic

102 In the Image of the Ancestors exploits rather than choosing to relate the loss of her sons’ future or her own loneliness.114 She regrets that the manner of their death, in a night-time ambush rather than in battlefield combat, prevented them from achieving glory worthy of commemoration and her from ‘surpassing other Theban parents in distinctions’ (3.156). Ide’s emphasis on personal status, honour, and fame contrasts with the historical and political perspective adopted by Aletes, the other mourner of the episode to deliver a lengthy lament (3.181–213). Aletes regards the deaths of the fifty ambushers as one in a succession of Theban disasters motivated by divine hostility, but one that can also be associated with the crimes of Eteocles.115 In different ways, both mourners turn private bereavement into an occasion for commentary on public affairs. Ide reflects on the public perception of her status, Aletes on the governance of his country and its relationship with the gods. Ide’s lament for her sons expresses her desire for publicly recognized honour and status, ambitions typically marked as ‘masculine’ in Roman epic discourse. The lament of the Argive women upon Creon’s refusal of burial to their male relatives similarly addresses another normatively ‘masculine’ imperative, the obligation to exact violent revenge.116 In contrast to Ide, however, their leader Evadne is capable during her appeal of fully subordinating personal considerations to public ones during her appeal to Theseus (Theb. 12.546–86). Evadne makes no mention of her husband’s name in her supplication. Her appeal is based on the claim that the Argive dead deserve their burials because of their common humanitas, not because of their individual distinctions.117 She also identifies fully with the interests of the Argive women, all of whom have experienced comparable bereavement. For both of these reasons, the rhetorical promotion of her personal loss above any other woman’s would be inconsistent with the goals of her argument. Evadne also resembles Argia in her willingness to support her husband’s enterprise rather than play the obstructionary role typically assigned to the relicta. She questions the justification of the invasion of Thebes, but not the necessity of warfare in itself: ‘We don’t complain that they were killed: these are the laws of war and the outcomes of fighting.’118 She speaks at one point in the voice of a participant in the combat: ‘We made war, it’s true’ (bellauimus, esto, 12.573). These indications of Evadne’s perspective, identified with public, masculine, and martial goals, frame her subsequent suicide (summarily narrated as part of the recusation of Theb. 12.797–809) both as a heroic exitus like those performed by Roman aristocrats and as a further alignment with her husband’s maddened, excessive behaviour. Like other responses to bereavement throughout the epic, these laments erode the division between public and private spheres of action and between codes of behaviour normatively defined as masculine or feminine.

103 Statius’ Thebaid At the conclusion of the epic, Statius uses feminine lament as a test of the limits of his representational powers. The large-scale feminine mourning that concludes the narrative forms a pointed contrast to the obviation of mourning for the defeated in the abrupt conclusion of the Aeneid or the mourning of a single individual at the conclusion of the Iliad.119 Yet the narrator claims to be unable to represent the boundless lament and recuses himself through use of the topos of poetic incapacity (Theb. 12.797–809). Though this topos can also be paralleled in funereal contexts, epic narrators conventionally use it in describing activities associated with the ‘masculine’ sphere, such as catalogues of forces or killings on the battlefield.120 In transferring the topos of incapacity to a recusation of the Argive women’s mourning, Statius’ narrator testifies to the equivalence of feminine lament in terms of narrative significance to these activities in the military sphere.121 The contents of the epic’s concluding recusation present the final alignment of female characters with the ideals of masculine heroism. As she commits suicide, Evadne seeks to be struck by the same thunderbolt that claimed her husband’s life. Once she retrieves her husband’s corpse, Deipyle reverses her earlier reluctance to permit his participation in war (2.374). Through her act of forgiveness, she expresses better comprehension of his character than did Minerva, who withheld immortality from him. Argia’s narration of her conflict with Creon’s guards forms her equivalent of a male hero’s account of combat. The women’s laments for their husbands express masculine ideals of heroic opposition to the gods, participation in war, and the perpetuation of fame through acts of commemoration. Rather than emphasize the heroism of the combatants or their sacrifice for a larger purpose, the final moments of the narrative attend instead to the suffering and bereavement of their relatives. Statius concludes the Thebaid by focusing on the impact of war on the mothers and wives of the men who have died in combat. The preceding books of the epic have already positioned the female lament as a central rather than peripheral narrative element. One effect of such narrative positioning is to emphasize the war’s purposelessness, futility, and disconnection from any providential mandate. While an attestation to the power of affective bonds between family members, lament also threatens social cohesion, generic boundaries, and the poet’s powers of representation. The Thebaid’s presentation of Jocasta and Argia subverts the epic genre’s characteristic representation of gendered behaviour. The activities of many female characters, including the Fury, occur in the absence of controlling masculine authority. The thematic of the abnegation of paternal authority also plays a role in Statius’ Achilleid, discussed in the next chapter. The paternal figures in this epic similarly experience the failure of natural fatherhood and a concomitant, if brief, yielding to the imperatives of female kin. Jupiter forfeits the opportunity to engender a child by Thetis in response

104 In the Image of the Ancestors to the prophecy that her offspring will be greater than his father. Though not challenged directly by the hostile Furies in this epic, the god’s forbearance nevertheless suggests some affinities with the impotent god of the Thebaid. Both Jupiters are unable to successfully unite paternity and authority and yield to powerful female figures. On the human level, Achilles’ father Peleus forgoes his opportunity to inculcate his values directly in his son; the Centaur Chiron instead serves as Achilles’ fosterer from his infancy. Achilles yields to his mother Thetis’ plan to conceal him in feminine disguise even as he condemns himself for this departure from the paradigm of paternal emulation. The narrative dramatizes the young man’s internal conflict between his obligations to an actively interfering mother and his memory of an absent father, embodied in the spear that he carries as an heirloom. Achilles further obviates his father’s traditional role as a dynast by choosing his own bride. Rather than offering his father the leading role in the negotiation of his marriage, as contemplated by the Iliadic Achilles,122 Statius’ young hero marries Deidamia in order to legitimate the child that he engendered by her through rape. Though Achilles represents the rape as the physical enactment of his rejection of Thetis’ humiliating plan of concealment, it does not imply any return to his father’s authority. He proceeds to recapitulate his father’s absence during his own childhood by departing to take part in the Trojan War immediately after the birth of his son. The Achilleid’s challenge to the paradigm of paternal emulation suggests a new direction in an epic already noted for its radical innovations in genre.

4 Statius’ Achilleid: Nature and Nurture Omne meum obsequium in illum fuit cum multa seueritate, neque unum eius nec paruum sed multa magna delicta compressi. patris autem lenitas amanda potius ab illo quam tam crudeliter neglegenda … sed nulla nostra culpa est, natura metuenda est. haec Curionem, haec Hortensi filium, non patrum culpa corrupit. (Cic. Att. 10.4.6) My compliance toward him has always been seasoned with plenty of strictness and I have nipped many serious offences of his in the bud – not just the odd peccadillo. As for his father’s mildness, it should have earned his affection rather than such callous disregard … But it is no fault of ours, nature is the enemy. This, and not any fault on their father’s part, was what ruined Curio and Hortensius’ son. Quintum puerum accepi uehementer. auaritiam uideo fuisse et spem magni congiari. magnum hoc malum est, sed scelus illud quod timueramus spero nullum fuisse. hoc autem uitium puto te existimare non nostra indulgentia sed a natura profectum. quem tamen nos disciplina regimus. (Cic. Att. 10.7.3) I gave young Quintus a warm reception. I see it was greed and the hope of a handsome largesse. That is bad enough in all conscience, but I hope there was no such villainy as we feared. I think you will agree that this vice does not proceed from indulgence on our part but from nature. However I govern him with discipline.1

1. What Homer Left Out Statius’ Achilleid investigates the complex relationship between the inherited and the achieved aspects of social identity, the ‘given’ and the ‘made.’ The narrator and the characters of the incomplete epic2 offer various perspectives

106 In the Image of the Ancestors on the relative contributions of ancestry and nurture to the development of Achilles. The central aspects of Achilles’ identity are viewed as the results both of his divine descent and of the education that he receives from his fosterer Chiron. When the Greeks long for him to join their expedition against Troy, they describe Achilles’ capabilities as the products both of his divine ancestry and of the exceptional experiences of his youth. Epic praise often credits divine descent as the cause of the hero’s prowess or support from the gods as the cause of his success.3 With regard to Achilles, however, the Greeks of the Achilleid pay more attention to experiences such as Chiron’s training and Thetis’ attempt to confer invulnerability on her son by submerging him in the river Styx:4 quis enim Haemoniis sub uallibus alter creuerit effossa reptans niue? cuius adortus cruda rudimenta et teneros formauerit annos Centaurus? patrii propior cui linea caeli, quemue alium Stygios tulerit secreta per amnes Nereis et pulchros ferro praestruxerit artus? (Ach. 1.476–81) For what other man grew up crawling on the dug-out snow in the valleys of Haemonia? Whose rough beginnings and tender years did a centaur take up and shape? Whose line of descent was closer to his ancestral heaven, or what other man did a Nereid secretly lead through the river Styx and defend his beautiful limbs in advance from the sword?

Though presented in a mythological context, the epic’s reflections on Achilles’ birth and upbringing respond to the social concerns of its contemporary readership. The Achilleid’s assessment of experience and education as central constituents of identity and its promotion of these characteristics as equal or in some cases superior to ancestry evoke a theme presented in several genres of Roman literature throughout the latter half of the first century. With the decline of the aristocratic republican families, as discussed in chapter 1, Statius’ contemporaries typically could not count distinguished descent among their social assets. Roman literature of this period presents accomplishments such as the acquisition of wealth and learning, the products of nurture rather than of nature, as forms of distinction that offer viable alternatives to ancestry. This chapter considers what the portrait of Achilles in Statius’ incomplete epic contributes to those of its readers obliged to prioritize the ‘made’ over the ‘given.’ Through its presentation of Achilles as the product of nature and nurture, the Achilleid suggests that social identity is neither

107 Statius’ Achilleid predetermined nor stable but subject to a continual process of creation and definition. The Achilleid’s representation of the relative contributions of nature and nurture to the developing character form part of a discussion conducted throughout the literature of the late republic and early empire. I begin by examining the points of contact between the Achilleid’s narrative of the fosterage and education of a mythological hero and the social experience of the Roman upper class. Chiron’s training of Achilles provides a narrative pretext for discussions of education from Old Comedy through the literature of late antiquity.5 For Pindar, who numbered the descendants of Achilles’ grandfather Aeacus among his patrons, Achilles serves as the perfect example of ‘inborn glory’ (συγγενεῖ … εὐδοξίᾳ, Nem. 3.40). I next discuss how the Achilleid complicates the traditional view of Achilles’ ‘inborn glory.’ The young hero’s natures are multiple (divine and human, civilized and feral, masculine and feminine) and his social performance reveals both inborn and inculcated aspects. His sense of his familial relationships depends more upon the rhetoric of choice than upon the limitations of biological fact. Achilles’ desire to have been engendered by Jupiter rather than Peleus expresses a widely shared fantasy of being born to different parents.6 His claim to social distinction as the result of his mother’s divinity reflects the contemporary practice of advertising nobility in the maternal line. The epic calls attention to the power of family members, fosterers, and preceptors to affect a young person’s mental and physical development. Through narrative devices typical of epic, such as temporal compression and amplification of reality, the Achilleid exaggerates the effects of nurture. Statius represents Achilles’ personality and physical characteristics as malleable and susceptible to instantaneous shaping by his elders. The formal properties of the narrative figure Achilles’ progress towards adulthood, its oscillation between genres reflecting the hero’s struggle to assert his identity. The Achilleid’s figuration of kinship is part of its assertion of independence, as a literary work, from the dominant version of the Achilles narrative presented in Homer’s Iliad. The proem to the Achilleid deliberately signals its differences in content and genre from Homer’s account. The narrator observes that ‘the hero’s deeds are much celebrated in Homeric song,’ yet Homer also left ‘more [of these deeds] free’ for treatment by other poets, in particular the episodes in Chiron’s cave and on Scyros.7 Yet more is at stake than the choice simply not to retell episodes already treated in the Iliad. Including what Homer left out radically changes perceptions both of the traditional portrait of Achilles and of the genre of the epic that presents his deeds. Homer describes Achilles as growing to maturity in his parents’ house and enjoying the benefit of his mother’s nurture. Thetis twice describes her

108 In the Image of the Ancestors own nurture of Achilles, and Achilles recalls her presence in his father’s palace.8 The hero of Statius’ epic, however, matures under the care of a fosterer, the centaur Chiron, in a cave under Mount Pelion rather than in his father’s house. A redefinition of the relationship between Achilles, his mother Thetis, and his wife Deidamia complements the narrative of Chiron’s fosterage. While Homer’s Thetis sets the plot of the Iliad in motion by interceding with Zeus in order to compensate Achilles for his loss of honour, Statius’ Thetis instead attempts to prevent Achilles from gaining honour through warfare by concealing him in feminine disguise. Allusion to Seneca’s Troades enhances the portrait of Achilles by generating an implicit comparison with Astyanax, another young man whose mother unsuccessfully attempts to conceal him from an early death.9 Through allusion to the Roman elegiac tradition, the Achilleid figures Achilles and Deidamia as lover and relicta, evoking the traditional contrasts between the erotic and the martial spheres. Statius’ intertextual and intergeneric portrait of Achilles’ private and familial roles (as son, fosterling, lover, husband, and father) complements Homer’s portrait of the hero’s exploits in the public sphere. The representation of fosterage in the Achilleid also helps to define the epic’s relationship to Statius’ other works. The bond between Achilles and his fosterer Chiron takes priority for him in emotional terms over his conflicted relationship with his mother Thetis. Fosterage in the Thebaid, by contrast, is characterized by negligence that leads directly to misfortunes such as the deaths of Linus and Opheltes (Theb. 1.578–90, 5.534–40). The image of Linus and the dogs that appears on Opheltes’ bier (6.64–5) draws the association between the two infant heroes and their fatally negligent fosterers. These unfortunate outcomes are consonant with the themes of an epic that emphasizes the potential for violence and conflict within families and the extinction of dynastic lines. In the Silvae, however, Statius frequently evokes the image of the caring foster father, and two poems of the collection also feature extended descriptions of a fosterage relationship. Statius uses the language of parenthood to describe his own nurture of a young freedman in Silvae 5.5 and Atedius Melior’s nurture of a favoured freedman in Silvae 2.1. Statius briefly alludes to Chiron’s sensitive fosterage of Achilles in order to praise Melior’s devoted care for Glaucias.10 As in the Achilleid, these laments for dead youths place a positive value on the fosterage relationship, even to the extent of describing it as superior to natural parenthood. Yet a significant contrast between the epic and the occasional poems lies in the fact that the aspirations of the birth parents and the fosterers for the young child’s development are represented as identical. While Chiron’s fosterage in the Achilleid may be closer to that provided by the loving fosterers of the Silvae than to the dangers caused by the negligent

109 Statius’ Achilleid caregivers of the Thebaid, a conflict nevertheless arises for Achilles that turns on the rival visions of his future presented by his mother, his father, and his fosterer. As Marianne Novy observes, this conflict is a typical characteristic of fosterage narratives, which turn on the fosterling’s ‘relation to two different kinds of parents.’11 2. ‘You Will Give Her Much, Even If You Give Her Nothing besides Your Example’: Nature and Nurture in Imperial Rome Statius’ account of Achilles’ early childhood and young adulthood recalls some of his contemporaries’ assumptions about the various effects of education on different stages of development. Late republican and early imperial discussions of education focus on three periods of life. The most basic forms of instruction occur in early childhood, and corrupting influences and positive examples are imagined to have their strongest impact during this period. Upper-class young men often receive oratorical training in young adulthood, and Roman orators’ analyses provide evidence of the distinction between the capacities granted by inborn talent and those made accessible by education. Philosophical discourse typically examines the period of maturity. Adult men are exhorted to alter their lives in accordance with the precepts of philosophy and, where relevant, to select models for emulation. The Achilleid conforms to this cultural pattern by representing its hero’s early education as shaping his warlike mores and refining the capabilities provided by his divine descent. Though not yet a full adult, Achilles also selects models for emulation: the examples provided by older men help him to choose his courses of action. Imperial Roman authors represent education in the earliest period of life as most effective in shaping character. Seneca exhorts his mother Helvia to take charge of the education of her granddaughter Novatilla: Nunc mores eius compone, nunc forma: altius praecepta descendunt quae teneris inprimuntur aetatibus. tuis adsuescat sermonibus, ad tuum fingatur arbitrium: multum illi dabis, etiam si nihil dederis praeter exemplum. (Sen. Helv. 18.8) Shape her way of life now, form it now: precepts impressed on tender youth descend more deeply. Let her be accustomed to your instruction, let her be shaped to your will. You will give her much, even if you give her nothing besides your example.

Tacitus praises the mother of his father-in-law Agricola for directing her son’s moral education (Tac. Agr. 4). Many upper-class Romans, however, entrusted the care of their children to foreign or servile caregivers, and contact

110 In the Image of the Ancestors with these lower-status individuals could be represented as detrimental to the child’s moral development.12 The rhetorician Favorinus condemned a senator’s use of a wet nurse as detrimental to his son’s morality and relationship with his parents (Gell. 12.1). In Tacitus’ Dialogus, Messalla condemns the common use of Greek slave women (Graeculae … ancillae) as caregivers by upper-class families. He argues that this practice, representing a change to the tradition of entrusting young children to the care of senior family members, has resulted in a moral decline among the contemporary youth. The ‘discipline and severity’ exercised in the previous generation produced ‘in each child a pure and upright nature, corrupted by no vices, that would seize on worthwhile pursuits straight away with all its spirit,’ enabling youth to excel in war, law, or oratory.13 According to Messalla, one cause of the contemporary decline of oratory is a failure of education, beginning with children’s early exposure to foreign or servile caregivers, combined with their parents’ inability to provide appropriate moral examples (Tac. Dial. 28–9). An uncritical acceptance of these rhetorical claims has sometimes led to the exaggeration of the detrimental effects of fostering on the development of children in the upper-class Roman family. As Suzanne Dixon observes, ‘Anthropological proponents of cultural relativism have … succeeded in demonstrating that it is not damaging to a young child to be cared for by a variety of people if the arrangements are embedded in a social structure and therefore perceived as normal and accompanied by the kind of emotional and other supports associated with kin-based care.’14 Statius’ Thetis makes similar assumptions to Tacitus’ Messalla and Gellius’ Favorinus, namely that Chiron’s exceptional paideia begins to exert its effects on Achilles from his early childhood. Her complaints, however, are quite different in form and content from the rhetorical abuse of lower-status wet nurses. They are presented in the form of a personal lament, and involve no criticism of Chiron’s social status or the quality of his nurture. The mythological tradition typically commends Chiron, the tutor of several young heroes, as offering a superior form of education.15 Yet Thetis’ lament depends on an assumption shared by the rhetoricians: that by entrusting her son to Chiron as an infant, she has lost control of the direction of his development. Chiron’s training has produced a passion for war in her son that causes her ‘pain’ and ‘fear in her maternal heart.’16 While the other characters of the epic regard excellence in warfare as the natural end point of Achilles’ development, Thetis opposes his participation in war because she knows that it will lead directly to his death. Her lament conjoins a typical scene of epic, the mother’s prospective lament for the fate of her warrior son, with a consideration of the effects of education on a young man’s development, a common concern among the Roman upper class of Statius’ era. Both Thetis’ lament

111 Statius’ Achilleid and the rhetorical abuse of caregivers turn on the similar conflict between parents’ aspirations for their children and the capacities actually developed by early education. While Achilles’ innate nobility is never in doubt, those who observe him nevertheless reflect a tendency in contemporary Roman discourse to grant greater credit to nurture and education than to descent. Roman discussions of oratorical training provide the best comparanda for the Achilleid’s examination of the contribution of appropriate training (doctrina) to natural talent (ingenium). In the De Oratore, Cicero argues that training in oratory advances human beings’ basic aptitude for speaking into true eloquence.17 The example of the development of the youthful (adulescentulum) Sulpicius into a proficient orator illustrates both the effects of careful nurture applied to raw talent and the importance of using a preceptor as a model (Cic. De Orat. 2.88–9). Cicero’s Antonius concludes that though natura ipsa may have been leading the young man in the appropriate direction, his ‘study and imitation’ (studio atque imitatione) of Crassus were necessary to achieve that goal. Statius’ contemporary Quintilian similarly represents natura as necessary but not sufficient to the formation of the ideal orator and privileges the contribution of doctrina. He argues that ‘the greatest orators owe more to teaching than to nature … In sum, nature is the material for teaching; teaching shapes, material is shaped. Without material, art is nothing, and even material without art has some value; but the greatest art is better than the best material.’18 Quintilian’s example of the contrast between the intrinsic value of an unworked block of Parian marble and the value added by the skill of the sculptor Praxiteles recalls the Achilleid’s narrative of the contrasting efforts by Chiron, Thetis, and Ulixes to shape the character of Achilles. Writers of the first century AD locate the relative benefits of nature and nurture in the context of the creation of distinction among the upper class. They assert that the products of nurture, especially intellectual accomplishments, can be the source of nobility. Seneca discredits the usual source of nobilitas, distinguished ancestry, and argues that the practice of philosophy can make its practitioners noble. After recalling, for example, that Socrates and Cleanthes were not aristocrats, he persuades Lucilius that ‘these men are all your ancestors, if you conduct yourself worthily of them; moreover, you will do so if you first convince yourself that you are outdone in nobility by no man.’ Elsewhere he exhorts Lucilius to recall that ‘your studies will make you famous and noble.’19 Like the arguments of Cicero and Quintilian about the contributions of oratorical training, Seneca’s moral exhortations similarly rest on the distinction between descent and achievement. The selection of models for emulation forms a necessary corollary to

112 In the Image of the Ancestors studies. In order to restrain his desires and remove the nequitia from his spirit, Seneca urges Lucilius to ‘live with the Catos, with Laelius, with Tubero,’ and many other figures of the exemplary tradition (Ep. 104.21). According to Seneca, Lucilius can turn to Socrates (Ep. 104.27–8) and the younger Cato (29–33) for examples of endurance and courageous resistance to adverse circumstances and hostile governments. Statius’ Achilles similarly uses the examples provided by models to direct his behaviour. Thetis observes that Achilles, despite his father’s absence, ‘already is measuring himself against his father’s spear’ (et patria iam se metitur in hasta, Ach. 1.41). When she attempts to disguise her son in women’s clothes in an effort to conceal him from the Greeks, Achilles’ memories of ‘his father and his mighty fosterer block his entreating mother’ (obstat genitorque roganti / nutritorque ingens, 1.275–6). In persuading Achilles to join the Greeks, Ulixes recalls the difference between the examples presented by his mother and father: ‘May it please your father to hear this, and may it shame tricky Thetis to have been so frightened for you.’20 Ulixes and Diomedes in turn present themselves as models for the young man to emulate and easily gain his acceptance of the ‘justness’ of their participation in the Trojan War (iustas … iras, Ach. 2.48). These men become the masculine models of behaviour that Achilles has been lacking since his mother took him from Chiron’s cave to Lycomedes’ court. Peter Heslin has emphasized the crucial contribution of Ulixes, the last of Achilles’ surrogate fathers to be encountered in the Achilleid, to the formation of the young man’s masculine identity. Even after raping Deidamia, Achilles is not yet able to fully assert his identity as a man. He remains in transvestite disguise for at least nine months after the rape. Ulixes’ unveiling of the hero and subsequent acts of persuasion are necessary to bring Achilles to full manhood.21 The absence of the young hero’s parents during his childhood in this epic recalls the experience of upper-class Romans, who often came to maturity in families that experienced serial marriage, the lengthy absence or early death of a parent, or both. Richard Saller’s microsimulation of Roman marriage, fertility, and life expectancy patterns suggests that, by the age of twenty, thirty-eight per cent of upper-class males could expect to have lost their fathers and twenty-six per cent their mothers.22 Like Achilles, raised and educated by a fosterer of lower status than his mother, upper-class Roman children were often cared for and educated by servile or lower-status caregivers.23 While the nurture provided by family members may have been privileged over such alternatives in the discourse of the first century, such episodes also appear to have been taken for granted in Roman society as in that of the present day. Through its representation of Achilles’ early education and the

113 Statius’ Achilleid conflict between his mother and his fosterer, the Achilleid reflects the assumptions of contemporary educational and philosophical discourse. Rather than present Achilles’ character as fully established and invariable, it focuses on the construction of the young hero’s identity through his early training and his selection of models for emulation. The narrative presents the final identity adopted by Achilles in the epic, that of a warrior about to depart for Troy, as resulting from the contribution of training to inborn talent. From the perspective of the narrator, as in Silvae 2.1, the fosterage provided by Chiron appears superior to the care provided by Achilles’ birth parent, and kinship typically criticized as second-rate is superior to the ‘natural’ form. Thetis’ objections are unavailing and dismissed as either trivial or shameful.24 3. ‘Already He Is Measuring Himself against His Father’s Spear’: Achilles’ Descent Innate nobility, the result of divine descent, is a typical characteristic of Achilles in the mythological tradition. While the Achilleid suggests that his capabilities owe as much, if not more, to his training as to his descent, it never suggests an alternative basis for his nobility. The epic, however, also assigns multiple meanings to Achilles’ descent and makes its contribution to his identity a subject for debate among the characters. The attempt to define the specific meaning of Achilles’ descent has a lengthy literary tradition. Homer’s Apollo creates a single combat between Aeneas and Achilles as a ‘test of divine parentage.’25 Pyrrhus in Seneca’s Troades argues with Agamemnon over the value of his father’s descent. When Agamemnon reviles Achilles for the ‘furtive’ rape that engendered Pyrrhus, Achilles’ son objects: ‘I was engendered by that Achilles who holds the world through his lineage, spread through each of the gods’ kingdom: the sea through Thetis, the dead through Aeacus, the sky through Jupiter.’26 In the Achilleid, the traditional inquiry into the meaning of Achilles’ descent is partly conducted in the terms of first-century social discourse. As the result of the prophecy that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father, Jupiter gave her in marriage to Peleus, a human being, to avoid losing his position of control.27 The objective ‘facts of biology’ make the supreme god a distant ancestor, Achilles’ great-grandfather. His well-known intention to engender a son by Thetis, however, becomes part of the discourse surrounding Achilles and can be made to stand in for an act of physical generation. Jupiter’s unfulfilled intention becomes the basis of Achilles’ claim on his goodwill and a central feature of the young hero’s identity and selfpresentation. In this case, kinship is created through language rather than the actual facts of descent. Following his mother’s example, Achilles chooses

114 In the Image of the Ancestors to nominate Jupiter as a preferred social father and to exclude mention of his biological father Peleus, describing himself to Deidamia as ‘almost born for Jupiter’ (genitum … paene Ioui, Ach. 1.650–1).28 Though Peleus is Achilles’ biological father, the Achilleid describes no direct contact between the two, a contrast with the Iliad, where Nestor remembers that Peleus advised his son Achilles to always be the best, and with Valerius’ Argonautica, where Peleus affectionately takes leave of his infant son and exhorts Chiron to teach him well.29 Chiron serves instead as Achilles’ foster father from young childhood to near-maturity, and Peleus’ spear is the only substantial sign of Achilles’ association with his biological father. Thetis ruefully observes that it serves as a stimulus for the heroic destiny that she would prefer him to avoid.30 Through the figures of Jupiter, Peleus, and Chiron, the Achilleid sets three contrasting models of paternity in a dialogue that reflects its contemporary readership’s conflicting perceptions of their kinship practices. As Janet Carsten observes, ‘It is the sustained effort involved in maintaining relationships over time that both produces chosen families and proves their authenticity.’31 The closeness of Achilles’ relationship with Chiron, characterized by choice and duration through time rather than through ties of blood, causes it to equate and surpass his consanguineous relationships in affective terms. He calls Chiron his ‘father,’ equates him with his biological father on more than one occasion, and prefers to sleep in his fosterer’s embrace rather than his mother’s.32 Chiron weeps upon Achilles’ departure and stares after him like the deserted lovers of the Roman elegiac tradition (Ach. 1.232–6); Achilles in turn pities orbatus Chiron (Ach. 1.631).33 Achilles’ representation of Jupiter and Chiron, fathers of choice rather than of blood, recalls similar examples of elective paternity throughout the first century. Like Statius’ Achilles, Romans of the first century used the rhetoric of choice to describe familylike relationships created by individual wish rather than by the facts of biology or formal adoption. Formal adoption involved legal consequences for the adoptee and his birth family: ‘In general … adoption was conducted between males and involved the legal transfer of the adoptee into the agnatic family of the adopter … Adoption did not sever normal relations with the original family any more than marriage or emancipation from the father’s authority would have done and the law still observed certain obligations between the adopted child and his biological father. In general, adoption altered hereditary succession, and the adoptee was subject to the same legal privileges and limitations of a legitimate biological son.’34

In contrast, Seneca’s consolation of his mother Helvia suggests some of the ease with which kin relationships could be redescribed in Roman discourse

115 Statius’ Achilleid without recourse to a formal adoption. Though Seneca’s niece Novatilla has a living father, Seneca represents his affection for her as a superior form of paternity. His assurance that his affection is superior to her own father’s leads him to describe her loss of contact with her through exile as a form of orphanhood for which her own relationship with her father cannot compensate. Meanwhile, he directs Novatilla’s grandmother Helvia to act as if she were Novatilla’s mother, assuaging the girl’s pain at the loss of her biological mother through her exceptional pietas (Sen. Helv. 18.7). Pliny similarly praises Calpurnia for substituting for her niece’s deceased father (Ep. 4.19.1). In his lament for the dead freedman Glaucias, Statius describes Atedius Melior’s relationship with his fosterling as the emotional and ethical equivalent of paternity: ‘Your mind and spirit had already made you a father to him.’35 In Statius’ representation, this social father outdoes the young freedman’s actual and present biological parents through his gifts of financial support, education, and an opulent funeral. Statius does not represent Glaucias’ parents as having objected to Melior’s fosterage of their son; he only indirectly urges Melior to take concern for them (Silv. 2.1.234). The poem’s encomiastic and commemorative functions and the parents’ dependent status as Melior’s freedmen obviate any possibility of the expression of their dissent.36 Pliny recalls that Verginius Rufus, who became his guardian (tutor) upon his father’s early death, chose to treat him as if he were his son: ‘Having been left by will as my guardian, he showed me a father’s affection.’37 Pliny provides examples of the consistent support that Verginius provided him throughout his career, concluding with the words used by the senior politician in passing along a political obligation to his younger colleague: ‘Even if I had a son of my own, I would still entrust this to you’ (etiam si filium haberem, tibi mandarem, Ep. 2.1.9). The tutor typically did not live with the children under his guardianship: Verginius and Pliny lived in different parts of Italy.38 His authority over the children was greatly reduced in comparison with the father’s, he did not arrange their marriages or education, and his legal authority over young men terminated at puberty.39 As Pliny observes, therefore, Verginius’ emotional closeness and support for his career after the conclusion of the period of tutela constituted care and effort far in excess of what was expected from a tutor. Like Seneca and Statius, Pliny chooses to praise Verginius’ exceptional care for him by redescribing him as the equivalent of a father. The characters of the Achilleid similarly redescribe their family relationships and assign them differing values at will. The inequality of Thetis’ present marriage, in terms of social status, and the forgone possibility of a greater marriage with Jupiter provide her with a constant subject for complaint. Neptune urges her to ‘stop complaining about Peleus and your lesser

116 In the Image of the Ancestors marriage.’40 Thetis remarks to her son that he is ‘unequal in birth’ and that she ‘endured a lowly husband’ for his sake.41 As observed above, Achilles himself internalizes his mother’s social values. He omits mention of his actual father when revealing his identity to Deidamia, choosing instead to highlight his mother’s divinity and Jupiter’s unfulfilled intention to engender him. Thus Achilles describes himself as ‘almost born for Jupiter’ and tells Deidamia that she has been ‘joined as a daughter-in-law to the great sea’ and is destined ‘to bear mighty grandsons for heaven.’42 Each of these relationships, actual and potential, has been traced through the female rather than the male line. The mythological tradition assigns Achilles’ Peleus several potential sources of social stigma. He conspired in the murder of his brother, and his first wife killed herself upon hearing the false accusation that he planned to marry another woman.43 As in the Argonautic epics, however, the Achilleid confines mention of Peleus’ social stigma to his inferior status in comparison with a goddess, and thus Achilles need not choose to exclude all mention of his father. (We may recall Polynices’ unsuccessful effort in the Thebaid to omit mention of his father Oedipus and pass himself off as solely the son of Jocasta.) Achilles appeals to his father’s distant descent from Jupiter when asking for Lycomedes’ consent to marriage with Deidamia: ‘Peleus and Thetis, connected by ties of hospitality, are joining you as a father-in-law to their son and both bring gods as support from either line of descent.’44 Achilles’ alternate indifference to and respect for Peleus contrast with the attitude of Silius’ Scipio towards his ancestors. As discussed in the next chapter, the Roman general continues to emphasize his relationship with his presumptive human father even after the revelation of his actual divine paternity. Achilles is more keenly aware at this early stage of the effect of social distinctions, as he has not yet achieved the fame as a warrior that will enable him to transcend conventional measures of status. While it is typical for suitors in Roman poetry to advertise the nobility of their families,45 Achilles’ particular combination of emphasis on the female line as the basis of his nobility and his declared intention to surpass his father in status reflect two particular social developments of the first century. During this period, Romans increasingly accepted noble descent in the female line as a form of distinction. In a context of greater social mobility and elevation through imperial patronage, sons were also more likely than before to surpass their fathers in status. While the republican aristocracy had emphasized agnatic descent (descent through males), upper-class Romans of this period increasingly began to trace relationships through cognatic kin in search of sources of distinction. As discussed in the preceding chapter, Statius praises two men who married women of superior social

117 Statius’ Achilleid status, Arruntius Stella and Vitorius Marcellus (Silv. 1.2, 4.4). Like Achilles, the latter’s son Geta is ‘fortunate in his mother’s ancestry and his father’s virtue.’46 Tacitus’ biography of Agricola and Pliny’s letter commending Minicius Acilianus both include references to the character of their subjects’ maternal grandmothers; Pliny’s letter also includes praise of Acilianus’ maternal uncle.47 Changes in nomenclature, terminology, and description reflected this expanded view of ancestral connections. While the traditional tria nomina commemorate only the agnatic line, the polyonomous nomenclature of the first and second centuries could be used to commemorate cognatic kin, as well as adoptive relationships and the results of so-called ‘testamentary adoption’ (condicio nominis ferendi).48 According to Richard Saller, the choice of the term domus rather than familia in the letters of Pliny reflects a view of the family that includes relationships in the female line, a contrast to the usage of Cicero, who had tended to restrict his attention to connections through males.49 Rather than focus exclusively on the emperor Otho’s descent in the male line, for example, Tacitus reports that his maternal ‘ancestry was unequal’ (genus impar) to his father’s, ‘but not nevertheless shameful.’50 The perceptions of Achilles’ ‘unequal birth’ (impar genus) in the Achilleid therefore reflect the contemporary change in thinking about the relationship between descent and nobility, as upper-class Romans increasingly accepted that distinction could be passed through the female line as well as the male. Achilles and Thetis express their disappointment at various points throughout the epic that Jupiter did not make good on his intention to engender a son by Thetis and thereby deprived them of access to supreme power. The narrative’s frequent associations between Achilles and Jupiter’s sons emphasize the difference between his actual and hypothetical status. Various characters honour Achilles and his mother by recalling that Achilles is descended from Jupiter through his grandfather Aeacus. Ulixes addresses Achilles as ‘descendant of heaven and sea,’ Diomedes as ‘the most worthy descendant of heaven.’51 Neptune offers Thetis the consolatory fantasy that her son can pass, if desired, for the actual son of Jupiter: ‘You will be thought to have given birth for Jove’ (crederis peperisse Ioui, Ach. 1.91). Two similes compare Achilles to the father who could have been his: Achilles’ pre-eminence among the Greeks is compared to Jupiter’s among the gods (Ach. 1.484–90), and he plays with Deidamia as Jupiter and Juno played as children (1.588–91). The narrative also presents several typological parallels between Achilles and Bacchus, one of Jupiter’s actual sons. Bacchus is associated, like Achilles, with episodes of transvestism, and Achilles’ youthful exploits recall those of Bacchus’ worshippers. Under Chiron’s tutelage he

118 In the Image of the Ancestors chases wild animals and eats raw flesh like a bacchant, while on Scyros he rapes Deidamia at a Bacchic festival.52 Statius’ narrator also compares Achilles with Pentheus, one of Bacchus’ more notable victims (Ach. 1.839– 40). Rejecting the image of Bacchus dooms both young men to short lives: Pentheus would have survived had he accepted the Bacchic cult, while Achilles would have survived had he accepted his mother’s efforts to conceal him in feminine disguise and remained a pseudo-bacchant instead of becoming a warrior at Troy.53 The reminder that Bacchus, the real son of Jupiter, suffers no such liabilities emphasizes the limitations that Achilles endures as a result of having been deprived of Jupiter’s paternity. When Achilles withdraws from the battlefield in the Iliad, he sings about the κλέα ἀνδρῶν (Il. 9.189). His theme recalls that he has chosen to remove himself from the environment in which he could have gained the fame that becomes the theme of future generations’ song. When Statius’ Achilles sings (Ach. 1.188–94), his choice of theme again recalls exclusion, but in this case from Jupiter’s paternity and succession to rule in heaven. He sings about Hercules and Pollux and ‘the mighty seeds of glory’ implanted by their divine descent (immania laudum / semina, 1.188–9).54 Quintilian attests to the contemporary appropriateness of Achilles’ theme. He claims that, because the emperor Domitian’s extraordinary pietas has made the gaining of immortality by virtue a current subject of praise, ‘some men should be praised because they were born immortal, others because they attained immortality through virtue. The pietas of our emperor has made the latter the glory of the present day as well.’55 Through his hero’s praise of other heroes who attained immortality through their exploits, Statius implicitly forecasts Achilles’ future while also reflecting the encomiastic priorities of his readership. Within the narrative of the Achilleid, these comparisons between Achilles and Jupiter’s sons emphasize the fact of achievement in spite of lesser ancestry. The heroic tradition evoked in the Achilleid grants Achilles a fame equal to that of Bacchus, Hercules, and Pollux without the actual benefit of Jupiter’s paternity. Achilles’ jealous remarks regarding Jupiter’s sons, coupled with the programmatic indication in the proem that he has been ‘forbidden to succeed to his father’s sky’ (et patrio uetitam succedere caelo, Ach. 1.2) also reflect on different models of succession to power advanced in contemporary literature. As discussed in chapter 1, the encomiastic literature produced near the end of Domitian’s reign urges him to produce a surviving heir, and the threat to a stable succession signified by his murder of T. Flavius Clemens may have prompted his assassination. Statius represents Domitian as claiming divine descent like Achilles, but also (so the poet hopes) as about to engender gods to succeed him: he will be both ‘the descendant and the parent of the great gods’

119 Statius’ Achilleid (magnorum proles genitorque deorum, Silv. 1.1.74). A typical convention of Roman imperial poetry associates the emperor with Jupiter. Like the JulioClaudian emperors, Domitian deliberately sought associations with the supreme god, and it is a commonplace in Flavian poetry to represent Domitian as ‘another,’ or a ‘Roman,’ or ‘our’ Jupiter.56 The emperor’s control of Statius’ world and his divine descent are his points of contact with both the Achilles and the Jupiter of the Achilleid.57 The marriage between Peleus and Thetis, while causing grief for both Thetis and Achilles, nevertheless guarantees the stability of Jupiter’s reign. The Achilleid does not question the validity or morality of Jupiter’s decisions as strongly as does the Thebaid. In Statius’ encomiastic terms, Domitian offers a reign as stable as Jupiter’s, a better model of succession than the supreme god’s (who cannot be succeeded), and a resolution of the conflict between his divine and human natures that frustrates Achilles and Thetis. Statius’ account of Achilles takes up a traditional inquiry into the meaning and value of his descent and expresses it in terms that reflect the social valuations made by his upper-class contemporaries. Like Atedius Melior and Statius himself, Achilles creates a family of choice by representing his emotional connection to his fosterer as superior to those formed by biological kinship. His self-presentation as ‘almost born for Jupiter’ (genitum … paene Ioui, Ach. 1.650–1) recapitulates his mother’s dissatisfaction with her unequal marriage, and the epic’s frequent contrasts between Achilles and other sons of Jupiter emphasize the limitations of his condition. Achilles’ evocation of the female line as the source of his ancestral nobility recalls the practice of Statius’ contemporaries, who increasingly began to accept noble descent in the female line as a form of distinction. Yet even as he claims the nobility provided by his maternal ancestry, Achilles rejects his mother’s proposed model of peaceful and inglorious behaviour in favour of emulating his lower-status father. Descent, nurture, personal aspiration, and the heroic tradition already known to the characters remain independent forces that struggle for dominance as Achilles proceeds to maturity. 4. ‘Once Snatched from His Mother’s Breast’: Achilles’ Nurture Statius’ Achilleid has been admired for its sensitive portrait of a fosterage relationship. Like Statius’ father, Chiron educates young men; like Statius and his patron Atedius Melior, the Centaur also plays the role of foster father. Elaine Fantham identifies Chiron as ‘a symbolic bridge between Statius’ mythical poetry and his own social world.’58 In the Achilleid, Chiron is identified as Achilles’ ‘fosterer’ and ‘teacher,’ a role he plays for his ‘fosterling’ Achilles from the latter’s infancy. The Centaur’s cave becomes ‘the cradle for the little boy.’59

120 In the Image of the Ancestors By serving as Achilles’ foster father from young childhood to near-maturity, Chiron has the longest period of contact with the maturing boy and the most significant effects on his development. Fosterage is a common practice in mythological epic, typically provided by maternal relatives in Homer. The young Iphidimas, Neoptolemus, and Odysseus are fostered by their maternal grandfathers in Homer.60 Members of the Roman upper class of the first century AD employed a variety of lower-status caregivers to raise their young children, including educatores, nutricii, magistri, and nutritores.61 Statius associates Chiron’s mythical fosterage with the practices of his own day by applying the latter two titles to the Centaur. This section examines the effects of Achilles’ nurture, both within the narrative of the Achilleid and its intertextual economy, as well as in relation to the social experiences of the Roman upper class. Achilles’ social performance presents evidence of a combination of inherited and inculcated characteristics, embedded in a nature that partakes of human, divine, and bestial aspects. His mixed descent from a human and a divine parent grants him superhuman speed, size, and strength but also condemns him to mortality, while Chiron’s training helps to produce his mixture of civilized and feral behaviour. A ‘semi-feral’ and ‘two-formed’ creature that combines a human and an animal body, a virtuous lawgiver from a group traditionally associated with violence and barbarity, the Centaur offers a physical and ethical parallel to the conflicting aspects of his fosterling’s identity.62 In the completed portion of the Achilleid, Achilles’ exceptional paideia generates conflicts between the civilized and feral aspects of his personality. The effects of Chiron’s martial training prompt Achilles initially to resist his mother’s efforts to redefine his identity. At Ulixes’ urging, he wholly abandons the feminine role that his mother has invented and Deidamia has developed for him. Achilles’ behaviour, alternately obedient and rebellious, shows ‘the raw beginnings of a great nature’ (cruda exordia magnae / indolis, Ach. 1.276–7). Chiron complains to Thetis that he has only limited control over his fosterling, whose violent behaviour has brought him into trouble with the other Centaurs.63 Statius’ representation of the mutability of Achilles’ youthful personality evokes a contemporary Roman view of young manhood. The young adult male was frequently described as being prone to danger and in need of the firm control of a preceptor. Roman writers describe young manhood as a ‘slippery’ (lubricus) period of life.64 Thus in attempting to excuse Caelius’ behaviour as youthful indiscretion, Cicero appeals to the ‘many slippery paths of adolescence,’ while Tacitus explains that thanks to his corrupt mother’s exile, the younger Papinius was protected ‘during the slippery period of youth’ from being forced into suicide like his older brother.65 The Roman youth was typically expected to reproduce the mores of his caregiver, whether fosterer or

121 Statius’ Achilleid birth parent. Seneca urges his mother Helvia to shape Novatilla’s mores by her example (Helv. 18.8, quoted above), while the rhetorical attacks by Tacitus’ Messalla and Gellius’ Favorinus on servile wet nurses reveal their assumption that aristocratic children would reproduce behaviours associated with lowerstatus individuals. In his lament for Melior’s fosterling Glaucias, Statius suggests that the young man transcended his lower-status origins as the result of his aristocratic fosterer’s nurture. Glaucias exemplifies his cultural skills through wrestling in the palaestra, reciting Homer and Menander, and causing Melior’s friend Blaesus to mistake him for one of his own relatives (Silv. 2.1.113–19, 198–9). The Achilleid confirms that, despite occasional disobedience, Achilles has internalized Chiron’s mores. His memory of his fosterer prompts him initially to resist his mother’s attempt to conceal him in feminine disguise (Ach. 1.275–7), and while disguised as a woman he rebukes himself with the thought of his prior life under Chiron’s care (1.626–33). Achilles’ account of his upbringing at the Centaur’s hands, lovingly recalled at length (Ach. 2.96–167), recalls the education of other epic warriors in nonconventional parenting situations. Like Achilles, Camilla in the Aeneid and Parthenopaeus in the Thebaid are raised in fosterage contexts and trained to be hunters.66 In the context of the Achilles tradition, Statius evokes the tradition of brutal training represented by Pindar (Nem. 3.43– 52) rather than the ‘bourgeois’ upbringing in Peleus’ palace described by Homer’s Phoenix (Il. 9.489–95). The semiferal Chiron guides his fosterling to act like a predatory animal. He withholds affection from Achilles unless he has been successful in his hunting and drawn blood. Achilles reports to Ulixes and Diomedes that, ‘sitting in his vast cave, Chiron awaited my deeds, if I would return splashed with black blood; he did not welcome me to his embrace until he had inspected my weapons.’67 Upon his first entrance in the narrative, Achilles is carrying captured lion cubs (Ach. 1.170). At his preceptor’s instruction, he eats the raw flesh of animals: dicor et in teneris et adhuc reptantibus annis, Thessalus ut rigido senior me monte recepit, non ullos ex more cibos hausisse nec almis uberibus satiasse famem, sed spissa leonum uiscera semianimisque lupae traxisse medullas. haec mihi prima Ceres, haec laeti munera Bacchi, sic dabat ille pater. (Ach. 2.96–102) In my tender infancy, during the years when I was still crawling, as old Thessalian Chiron took me in on the rugged mountain, it’s said that I ate no typical food nor satisfied my hunger at nourishing breasts, but that I tore the tough flesh of lions

122 In the Image of the Ancestors and the marrows of a half-alive she-wolf. This was my first bread, this the gift of joyful wine, that’s how my father used to feed me.

Achilles’ description of his food emphasizes his fosterer’s displacement of his parents. Chiron’s savage diet nourishes Achilles as an infant in place of Thetis’ maternal breast. Though Homer and Pindar omit mention of Achilles’ consumption of raw flesh, alternative traditions include it, and cross-cultural examples show that such a diet is imagined to give the hero strength and courage.68 Achilles’ reference to the substitution of raw flesh in place of the maternal breast in the Achilleid evokes the false etymology of his name from ἀ- (privative) and χείλη (lips), connoting ‘an infant brutally weaned and separated from his mother’s milk.’69 Later in life, Achilles continues to prefer Chiron’s nurture to Thetis’. When his mother visits Chiron’s cave, Achilles prefers to sleep in his fosterer’s embrace: ‘Although his faithful mother is present, he prefers Chiron’s familiar breast.’70 As mentioned above, Achilles honours Chiron with the title pater, and his recollection of his youth combines the emotional connection between fosterer and fosterling alluded to by Homer’s Phoenix with the superhuman paideia described by Pindar. Through its examination of potential narrative continuities with the Iliad, the Achilleid draws a connection between early nurture and mature behaviour that Homer omits. The Iliad frequently compares its central figure, like the other warriors, to a raging lion. Achilles behaves most like a predatory animal in threatening to eat Hector’s raw flesh (Il. 22.346–7).71 The Iliad credits Achilles’ semiferal behaviour to the superhuman rage (µῆνις) evoked by his dishonouring by Agamemnon and Hector’s killing of Patroclus.72 The Roman epic tradition accentuates the negative aspects of Homer’s presentation of Achilles. His typical epithets are saeuus, a word that can be equally applied to predatory animals, and immitis.73 In contrast to the Iliad, the Achilleid suggests that Achilles’ battlefield savagery was the necessary outcome of his savage paideia, in which he was trained to act from infancy like a predatory animal. Statius declares independence from Homer not only with his choice of different narrative material but also with a different sense of the unity of his character.74 In this vision, Achilles’ semiferal rage owes as much to his youthful nurture as to his later misfortunes. Within the completed portion of the Achilleid, four animal similes emphasize different aspects of Achilles’ combination of humane and bestial behaviour.75 The first two similes, occurring before Achilles has declared his independence from Thetis, figure the young man as a farm animal under the control of herdsmen. His rejection of Thetis’ attempt to conceal him in feminine disguise resembles the resistance of an unbroken horse to his first rider (Ach. 1.277–82), while comparison to a bull tamed by cowherds represents

123 Statius’ Achilleid his reaction upon falling in love at first sight with Deidamia (1.313–17). These two similes, occurring within a single narrative unit, suggest that Achilles’ impulses can be easily tamed by a prudent caregiver. Occurring within an essential peaceful, domestic, and unthreatening context, they evoke the lyric and elegiac tradition of militia amoris as opposed to martial epic.76 The farm animal similes contrast with another set of comparisons, again enclosed within a single narrative unit, that figure Achilles as a wild animal. Ulixes’ search for Achilles among the young women of Scyros is compared to a hunter’s pursuit of his prey (1.746–9), while Achilles’ sudden transformation upon reaching for the weapons offered to him by Ulixes recalls a lion’s transformation from tame and obedient to savage (1.857–63).77 In typological terms, these similes recall the Homeric battlefield with its frequent comparisons to hunting and to combat with lions. The latter simile recapitulates several of the aspects of Achilles’ nurture: ut leo, materno cum raptus ab ubere mores accepit pectique iubas hominemque uereri edidicit nullasque rapi nisi iussus in iras, si semel aduerso radiauit lumine ferrum, eiurata fides domitorque inimicus, in illum prima fames, timidoque pudet seruisse magistro. (Ach. 1.857–63) Just like a lion who, once snatched from his mother’s breast, accepted human customs and learned to have his mane combed and to fear man and never to get angry unless ordered – if once the flash of a sword shines before him, he forswears his trust and his trainer becomes his enemy, his first hunger is for him, and he is ashamed to have served his timid master.

Like the lion in this comparison, Achilles is ‘snatched from his mother’s breast’ and fed the raw flesh of animals by Chiron. The lion’s anger and shame recall Achilles’ disgust at carrying out his mother’s plan to conceal him (Ach. 1.635). As nurture appears to have only superficially changed the animal in this simile, so Achilles’ disguise as a young woman is only superficial: Deidamia quickly perceives the truth of his masculine identity (1.560–3). Like the lion’s trainer, Deidamia teaches Achilles behaviour appropriate to his feminine disguise (1.580–3, 767–71) and is unprepared for the violence of his assault when he abandons it. The lion simile recapitulates the ‘amalgam of civilization and savagery’78 displayed by Achilles throughout the preceding portion of the epic. The tension in Achilles between civilized and feral aspects resulting from his nurture complements the tension between human and divine aspects conferred by his ancestry.

124 In the Image of the Ancestors Even though Achilles is no longer a young child after leaving Chiron’s care, the instruction of his elders still alters him in both physical and emotional terms. When Thetis persuades her son to dress in women’s clothes, she also creates changes in his body and behaviour that the narrator compares to the work of a sculptor: tum colla rigentia mollit submittitque graues umeros et fortia laxat bracchia et inpexos certo domat ordine crines ac sua dilecta ceruice monilia transfert; et picturato cohibens uestigia limbo incessum motumque docet fandique pudorem. qualiter artifici uicturae pollice cerae accipiunt formas ignemque manumque sequuntur, talis erat diuae natum mutantis imago. (Ach. 1.326–34) Then she softens his stiff neck and pushes down his heavy shoulders and loosens his strong arms and masters his uncombed locks in a particular arrangement and transfers her necklace to his beloved neck. A dress with an embroidered hem holds back his steps. She teaches him how to walk and move and speak modestly. Just as wax, mastered by the artist’s thumb, takes on shapes and is obedient to fire and to hand, so was the image of the goddess shaping her son.

As Peter Heslin observes, ‘Thetis has usurped the role of the Roman father, presenting her son to the world in her own image.’79 Yet the language of ‘shaping’ and ‘forming’ used to describe Thetis’ effects on Achilles’ body and behaviour also recalls Seneca’s exhortation to his mother regarding the education of his niece Novatilla (‘shape her way of life now, form it now’).80 Furthermore, the comparison of education to sculpting recalls Quintilian’s discussion of the relative contributions of training and inborn talent, summed up through a comparison to the sculptor Praxiteles’ addition of aesthetic value to an unworked block of marble. (Both passages have been quoted in full above.) Thetis remains aware of her son’s wild nature and the possibility of controlling it. She asks Lycomedes to ‘break this untamed girl by ruling her and hold her to her sex,’ using an image applied to the breaking of horses.81 Her effects on the young man’s social performance suggest that the formation of identity is not limited to the years of early childhood but remains subject to construction throughout the life course, a claim also implied in Seneca’s exhortations to Lucilius to choose exemplary models for his conduct. Statius employs the extreme temporal compression characteristic of mythological narrative in order to exaggerate the effects of nurture. Physical and

125 Statius’ Achilleid emotional developments that would take years to complete in a naturalistic narrative occur immediately. Thetis’ divine powers enable her to instantly alter her son’s appearance and behaviour from masculine to feminine, while the narrative represents Ulixes’ stimuli as producing a similarly radical change in Achilles. As Achilles seizes the weapons offered by Ulixes, his body immediately grows (Ach. 1.879–80).82 Ulixes complements his physical alteration of Achilles by persuading the young man to change mental attitudes as well. He distinguishes between the models of behaviour presented by Peleus and Thetis (1.873–4) and condemns Thetis’ disguise as a form of violation: ‘Your crafty mother violated you with feminine disguise.’ Achilles agrees that he ‘obeyed [his] mother too much,’ and that her concealment of him was ‘unspeakable.’83 Without the use of Thetis’ divine powers, Ulixes nevertheless has physically ‘shaped’ Achilles into the hero of the Trojan battlefield. Jennifer Trimble likens Ulixes to a ‘rival sculptor of gender and destiny’ to Thetis. He ‘elicits a physical reaction from the future hero that annuls Thetis’s softening of his body ... He has produced a new Achilles, the warrior ready for Troy.’84 The Achilleid reveals the constructed nature of social identity by tracing the causes of Achilles’ behaviour back to stimuli provided by relatives, caregivers, and exemplary models. It presents this insight by means of a narrative paradox: the exemplary man of action typically appears in narrative contexts in which he reacts to caregivers’ instructions or imitates their examples, rather than acting on his own initiative. Achilles’ aspiration to become a warrior follows the example of Peleus and the instruction of Chiron. He adopts a feminine disguise at his mother’s command and resigns it at Ulixes’ prompting. The rape of Deidamia, though represented by Achilles both as a form of disobedience to his mother (Ach. 1.624–5) and as a means of asserting his own identity, nevertheless fails to certify his independent, masculine status. Though after the rape Achilles reveals his identity to Deidamia for the first time in his own terms (‘I am that man … ,’ ille ego, 1.650),85 abandoning his mother’s false representation of him as his sister, he remains in drag among the maidens until Ulixes’ intervention. Only by engendering his own son and entering into a marriage does Achilles begin to establish a social identity independent of both Thetis and Chiron.86 5. ‘Your Child Whom You Leave to Me as a Sad Comfort’: Achilles’ Families Homer’s Achilles establishes his identity as ‘the best of the Achaeans’ through the sack of cities and the killing of enemies on the battlefield. Statius’ Achilles, whose activities have been restricted to a smaller narrative compass, asserts his independence from his former caregivers through acts of violence

126 In the Image of the Ancestors such as the rape of Deidamia and his progression to the Trojan battlefield under the tutelage of Ulixes. Thetis is alternately excessively authoritative, commanding Achilles to leave Chiron and pose as his sister in spite of his own wishes, and excessively lenient, attempting in vain to protect him from the world of maturity, heroic aspiration, and warfare represented by the image of his father’s spear. The conflict between maternal and paternal ideals in the Achilleid recalls a similar distinction drawn by Seneca: Non uides quanto aliter patres, aliter matres indulgeant? illi excitari iubent liberos ad studia obeunda mature, feriatis quoque diebus non patiuntur esse otiosos, et sudorem illis et interdum lacrimas excutiunt; at matres fouere in sinu, continere in umbra uolunt, numquam contristari, numquam flere, numquam laborare. (Sen. Prov. 2.5) Do you not see how differently fathers and mothers have consideration for their children? Fathers order their sons to be roused early in order to start on their studies, they do not permit them to be at rest even on holidays, and they provoke sweat from them and sometimes tears. But mothers want to hold their children to their breast, to keep them in the shade. They want them never to be sad, never to weep, never to work hard.

Achilles represents his episode of disguise as the result of his obedience to his mother, resented yet endured. Yet Thetis’ instruction does not direct him towards the martial ideals represented by Peleus and Chiron. The Achilleid’s narrative of Thetis’ instruction of her son reflects the conflicting ideals of the seuera mater, who can exact obedience from her sons by virtue of her authority, and the indulgent mother who refuses to allow her sons to experience the hardship that inculcates disciplina in young Roman men.87 In the Achilleid, the choice between a brief heroic life and a long inglorious life confronts Achilles much earlier in his career than in the Iliad, which defers it until the tenth year of the Trojan War (Il. 9.410–16). His mother’s desire to preserve him from the war that will claim his life and his wife’s desire for a united family conflict with Achilles’ own desire to become the warrior celebrated by the epic tradition. In addition to the Homeric choice between long and short life, Achilles negotiates a further series of choices as part of his effort to establish an identity independent from his mother. Memories of his father and his fosterer’s desires for him prompt his choice to return to his primary identity as a warrior rather than prolong his concealment in the peace of Lycomedes’ court, and to bereave his new wife and son through his participation in the war rather than maintain familial unity. Through its representation of a conflict between an actively interfering mother and a son’s memory of an absent father, the Achilleid responds to a

127 Statius’ Achilleid series of similarly conflicted parental relationships presented throughout the epic tradition. As discussed in the second part of chapter 3, young epic heroes are often faced with the conflict between a paternal model of heroic action and a maternal model of restraint. The Achilleid’s evocation of the goddesses of earlier epic tradition serves to contrast its Thetis unfavourably with both her Iliadic counterpart and Vergil’s Juno and Venus. The interplay between literary genres in the narrative of Achilles’ concealment complements its dialogue with epic tradition. Through its presentation of Achilles as lover, husband, and father, the Achilleid develops a narrative pattern familiar from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the confrontation of erotic and martial themes within an epic context.88 Through the figures of the anxia mater, marginalized and ignored, and the uxor relicta, loved but abandoned, the Achilleid indicates the contingent aspects of familial influence. Achilles’ desire to emulate his father eventually takes precedence over his mother’s wishes or his obligation to his new family. In the process of developing into his final identity as his father’s epigone, however, he demonstrates obedience to his mother that the narrative characterizes as excessive and remains sensitive to Ulixes’ evocation of his conjugal obligations. The Achilleid develops a paradox introduced by the Iliad, which represents Thetis as a typical saviour of the gods who is nevertheless incapable of preserving the life of her son.89 The Iliad focuses attention thereby on the temporal limitations of the human condition. As Laura Slatkin observes, ‘The Iliad establishes Achilles as the limiting case of human brevity and thus insists on the disparity between his situation and the timelessness of Thetis.’90 Thetis’ opening lament suggests an apparent logical contradiction avoided in the versions of the narrative in which her husband conveys Achilles to Chiron. Why did Thetis entrust her son to a famous teacher of warriors if she didn’t want him to become a warrior? Statius’ focus on Thetis, which contrasts with Homer, Apollonius, and Valerius, calls attention to the conflicting aspirations that parents have for their children. Where the Iliad frequently recalls the prior exercises of Thetis’ power as the typical saviour of threatened gods, the Achilleid multiplies Thetis’ incapacities and frustrations in a briefer narrative compass and contrasts her through a series of narrative frames with a number of other goddesses in prior epic tradition.91 In a scene evoking the Iliadic Thetis’ supplication of Zeus, Vergil’s Venus supplicates Jupiter on behalf of her son Aeneas (Aen. 1.223–96). Venus’ ability to conceive of her descendants as a dynasty, where the survival of one individual is less important than the survival of the entire line, suggests that she accepts the facts of mortality more completely than either Homer’s or Statius’ Thetis has been able to. (It also helps that her son has already produced an heir.) While Statius’ Thetis is consumed by

128 In the Image of the Ancestors the thought of her son’s death, which her immortality inevitably condemns her to witness, Vergil’s Venus argues at the divine council that if her son Aeneas is not fated to survive, she should at least be able to protect her grandson Ascanius.92 In the Achilleid, however, Thetis’ entreaties are ineffective, and they are directed at Jupiter’s less powerful brother Neptune, the ‘second Jupiter’ (Ach. 1.48–9). The futility of Thetis’ interventions on her son’s behalf and her inability to guarantee his survival recapitulate the helpless anxiety of Atalanta in Statius’ Thebaid as her son Parthenopaeus proceeds to the war that will claim his life (Theb. 4.309–44).93 Mothers in epic tradition typically attempt to restrain their sons from participation in war through supplication or lament, but rarely go to the extent of concealing them in feminine disguise. Unlike Thetis’, their arguments against participation in war rarely involve the overt condemnation either of the direction of their sons’ development or of the educators who guide it. The prospective lament of the Iliadic Thetis condemns her helplessness to save the son whom she raised herself (Il. 18.54–62); there is no other educator for her to blame. In Vergil’s Aeneid, the lament of Euryalus’ mother at the death of her son does not condemn his participation in war; it rather concerns her abandonment in old age and her inability to perform her son’s burial (Aen. 9.481– 97). Vergil’s evocation of the laments of the Iliadic Andromache emphasizes the old woman’s isolation and dependency.94 Silius’ Marcia thanks Marus for bringing her son Serranus back to Rome alive from a defeat at Hannibal’s hands (Pun. 6.579–84), and reminds her son of her efforts to restrain him from fighting against the Carthaginians who killed his father: ‘Alas, how often I begged you, my son, not to carry your father’s rage and spirit into combat, nor to let your warlike father’s sorrowful reputation goad you to war!’95 In the preceding episode, however, the elderly preceptor Marus has related the career of Serranus’ father Regulus to Serranus at length, including his torture and murder by his Carthaginian captors (Pun. 6.117–551). Thus Marcia’s efforts to restrain her son are bound to fail, and her evocation of her husband’s murder can only fuel her son’s desire to avenge his father. Thanks to Marus’ instruction, Serranus profits from the example of his father’s patientia and fides. 96 The indirect condemnation of Chiron and his role in her son’s development delivered by Statius’ Thetis in the Achilleid stands out against the tradition of lamenting mothers in epic, who protest against their sons’ participation in war but not against the education that led up to it. Indirect comparison to mortal and animal mothers repeatedly foregrounds the inevitability of Thetis’ bereavement. At the moment of his entry in the narrative, Achilles is carrying lion cubs he has captured during a hunting expedition, while their mother is left behind ‘in an empty cave.’97 The narrator compares Thetis conveying Achilles to Scyros to a bird hopefully setting

129 Statius’ Achilleid up its nest (Ach. 1.212–16). The emptying of such nests typically appears as a comparison in poetic similes of grief at bereavement.98 Comparison to Hecuba and Dido emphasizes Thetis’ fear of the loss of her son. Thetis is introduced into the narrative at the moment at which Paris is ‘bringing back the fulfilled prophecy of his mother’s dream.’ His abduction of Helen begins the war that she foresaw while pregnant with him.99 The narrator confirms both Hecuba’s and Thetis’ premonitions with the comment ‘Alas, parents’ auguries are never worthless!’100 Fernand Delarue observes that Statius’ choice to focalize the war through Hecuba’s dream and Thetis’ fears means that ‘each time a mother’s sensibility interposes itself between the war and ourselves.’101 As in the conclusion of the Thebaid, Statius’ choice of narrative focalization places emphasis on a mother’s bereavement rather than a father’s pride at his son’s participation in war or a son’s experience of its horrors. Statius incorporates several motifs from Vergil’s Dido narrative in order to emphasize Thetis’ fear of abandonment and childlessness. Thetis’ deception of Chiron in removing Achilles to Scyros recalls Dido’s deception of her sister in preparation for her suicide. Both women appeal to bad dreams and the admonitions of a foreign priest.102 Statius compares Thetis combing Achilles’ hair to Latona combing Diana’s, evoking the Diana and Latona simile that introduces Dido in the Aeneid.103 When Achilles falls in love with Deidamia, Thetis responds by asking him to give her ‘another Achilles’ (Ach. 1.321–2); Dido reproaches Aeneas upon his departure for not giving her ‘a little Aeneas’ (Aen. 4.328–30). The latter two evocations of the most famous relicta of Roman epic emphasize Thetis’ incapability of achieving satisfaction through her son’s accomplishments. In the Diana simile, Diana’s successes as a huntress increase Latona’s honour, but Thetis refuses to let Achilles achieve glory as a warrior. Though Achilles gives Thetis the child that she asks for (and that Dido apparently cannot get from Aeneas), it fails to compensate in her mind for his loss. The Roman literary tradition employs Achilles’ concealment on Scyros as an example of generic interplay. Earlier Roman poets evoke Thetis’ attempt to alter her son’s nature through concealment and disguise as a means of exploring the interaction between the martial and erotic spheres.104 The Achilleid suggests that Thetis’ interventions in her son’s career affect the genre of the narrative as well. Rival speakers within Statius’ epic present visions of Achilles’ destiny that alternately evoke the tradition of heroic epic and militia amoris. His future course of action is seen as determining whether the martial or the erotic elements of the narrative will predominate. Thetis and Ulixes alternately ‘shape’ feminine and masculine identities for Achilles, and he himself identifies his need to define himself as a ‘man in love’ through the rape of Deidamia. Other speakers offer different prognostications of Achilles’ future. The god

130 In the Image of the Ancestors Neptune predicts Achilles’ military successes at Troy (Ach. 1.84–9), while the seer Calchas labels Achilles as ‘the overthrower of Asia’ (euersorem Asiae, 1.530). Calchas’ exhortation to Achilles to turn against his mother, remove his feminine disguise, and abandon Deidamia (1.526–35) can also be read as an injunction to return the epic itself from the erotic to the martial track. Statius’ Deidamia, who has no Iliadic counterpart, contests the normative epic tradition associated with departing warriors and abandoned wives by evoking the generic interplay between epic and elegy. Her parting speech recapitulates many of the topoi of the relicta’s lament, as discussed in the second part of chapter 3. She grieves (Ach. 1.930), asks to accompany her husband to the battlefield (1.949–50), and enjoins him not to betray her through an adulterous affair (1.952–5).105 Though he has become the masculine warrior and she the abandoned woman, her evocations of the relicta of Statius’ other epic (who does in fact make an appearance on the battlefield) nevertheless suggest that both her own gender roles and her husband’s remain subject to negotiation.106 In the Achilleid, however, it is Achilles, now in masculine dress, who plays the ‘feminine’ role of the suppliant. He presents his fatherin-law with his son and entreats him to spare both his life and Deidamia’s (1.908–10). For her part, Deidamia reasons that if her husband could deviate from his expected gender role, so could she by accompanying him to the battlefield (1.949–51). The expectations attendant on a husband’s role continue to be redefined throughout the narrative. Ulixes’ attempt to spur Achilles’ ‘just anger’ (iustas … iras, 2.48) by telling him the causes of the Trojan War concludes with the question of how he would react if someone were to carry away Deidamia (2.81–3). Though Achilles offers an appropriately threatening response (2.84–5), he has put his masculine role as family protector in question by abandoning his wife to just the risks that Ulixes evokes. Just as Thetis’ attempt to recreate Achilles in the image of his unwarlike sister conflicts with Chiron’s vision of his fosterling as fulfilling his destiny as the heroic son of Peleus, so too Deidamia’s predictions of Achilles’ future career at Troy present an alternative to those advanced by Calchas and Ulixes. The evocation of erotic themes in her lament undermines the certainty that Achilles will function solely as a martial hero after departing from Scyros. She knows him primarily as a lover and voices her anxiety about him falling in love again: iam te sperabunt lacrimis planctuque decorae Troades optabuntque tuis dare colla catenis et patriam pensare toris, aut ipsa placebit Tyndaris, incesta nimum laudata rapina. ast egomet primae puerilis fabula culpae narrabor famulis aut dissimulata latebo …

131 Statius’ Achilleid attamen hunc, quem maesta mihi solacia linquis, hunc saltem sub corde tene et concede precanti hoc solum, pariat ne quid tibi barbara coniunx, ne qua det indignos Thetidi captiva nepotes. (Ach. 1.943–8, 952–5) And soon the Trojan women, elegant amid their tears and breast-beating, will hope for you and will wish to place their necks in your chains and trade their homeland for your bed, or Helen herself, too much praised for her shameful rape, will satisfy you. But you will tell your slaves about me as a boyhood story of your first fault – or you will conceal me and I will be hidden … But nevertheless, at least hold your child in your heart, your child whom you leave me as a sad comfort. Grant me this one thing, I pray you, that no barbarian wife bear a child for you, that no captive woman give Thetis unworthy grandsons.

Deidamia’s remarks about unnamed slaves and a barbarian wife evoke the Ovidian presentation of Achilles as elegiac amator, besotted with his captive and filled with jealous passion when Agamemon takes her away.107 Deidamia’s lament in Statius therefore establishes a narrative continuity with Ovid’s elegiac vision of Briseis rather than with the Iliad, which relates Achilles’ outrage at Briseis’ abduction primarily to his loss of honour rather than to passion or erotic rivalry.108 Deidamia’s request in Statius that Achilles recall his obligations to his family and not subject her to the threat of a servile rival forms a counterpoint to Briseis’ request in Ovid that Achilles’ new wife not be permitted to torment her thanks to his indifference (Her. 3.77–82). The Briseis of Ovid’s Heroides apparently knows only the Iliad and therefore assumes that her unmarried captor will take a wife upon his return to Greece (Her. 3.71–5). Deidamia’s fear in Statius that Achilles will say nothing about her to his captives recalls the provisionality of her own status in the Achilles tradition. Statius’ mobilization of implicit narrative continuities between the Achilleid and the dominant Achilles tradition represented by the Iliad accentuates the irony implicit in Thetis’ failed efforts to arrest her son’s development into a warrior. The narrative’s oscillations between martial and domestic epic reproduce this momentarily arrested development on the level of generic interaction. The opening episodes of the incomplete epic advance the paradox that a mother should directly intervene in an effort to oppose the expression of the very qualities for which the epic tradition celebrates her son. Deidamia’s image of Achilles as a lover plays against the martial visions of Calchas and Ulixes in the Achilleid as well as against the amator of the Ovidian tradition. Kinship narratives serve both formal and ideological purposes in this epic. Through its representation of Achilles’ filial and conjugal interactions, the Achilleid aligns the hero’s struggle to define his identity with its own effort to define itself in generic and intertextual terms.

5 Silius’ Punica: Kinship and the State States are like families rather than clubs, for it is a feature of families that their members are morally connected to people they have not chosen.1

1. A House No Longer Divided against Itself In contrast to the other Flavian epics, which involve civil and intrafamilial conflict, the Punica presents a narrative of external conflict and familial solidarity. The epic’s leaders offer a variety of perspectives on the balance between their personal obligations to family members, both living and deceased, and their public responsibilities to subjects and followers. The intertwined familial and political concerns of the epic’s principal characters provide a structural foundation for the massive narrative.2 Silius describes several of the Roman commanders as the figurative parents of their followers, evoking a long tradition of representing founders, leaders, and saviours as the fathers of their people. The epic figures Roman armies as dependent children and the commanders who lead them as their caring parents. A simile, for example, compares Paulus to a bereaved mother as he experiences a vision immediately before Cannae of the battlefield piled with Roman corpses, and his soldiers mourn him as a lost father upon his own death in the battle.3 Conflicts over authority, such as those between Fabius and Minucius, are figured as a son’s insubordination to his father, while military success grants the commander symbolic paternal authority over his followers. The performance of each commander in the Punica as father, son, and leader offers a different vision of the correlation between the familial and the political spheres of action. Through its characters’ alternative conceptions of descent and paternal authority, the Punica responds to the representations of intergenerational relationships in epic

133 Silius’ Punica tradition and to the changing attitudes towards kinships both in the Flavian regime and in the upper-class Roman family. This chapter examines the attitudes towards kinship and the state expressed by characters such as Hannibal, Fabius, the tyrant Pacuvius, and Scipio Africanus. Hannibal’s excessive desire to fulfil his father’s wishes for vengeance on the Romans represents the virtue of filial obedience taken to an extreme. While Scipio’s divine descent ordains him for victory, Hannibal is fated to re-enact the failures of his ancestors. As with Hannibal and Scipio, Fabius’ roles as a father and a member of a lineage determine the character of his leadership. I discuss his interrelated performances as the father of his son and as the symbolic father of the army under his command. The resolution of Fabius’ conflict with Minucius, in which the army is reunited with its commander, is represented as a reconciliation between a just father and an errant son. The epic’s construction of Fabius’ authority over his troops as paternal reflects an important aspect of imperial propaganda. Many of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors represented themselves as the symbolic fathers of the state, part of a long Roman tradition of aligning political with paternal authority. The virtuous conduct of Fabius and his son contrasts with the treachery of the Capuan leader Pacuvius, who allies his city with the Carthaginians and commands his son to desist from his laudable plan of assassinating Hannibal.4 His negative exercise of paternal authority contrasts with the superior paradigms of paternity and governance presented by several of the Roman commanders. While Fabius’ paternal authority over his troops associates him loosely with the optimus princeps, Scipio approximates that role more closely through his direct descent from Jupiter and record of successful campaigns.5 His divine paternity both grants him the certainty concerning his success denied to Hannibal and permits him to coordinate familial and political obligations more successfully: he is the ‘avenger of house and homeland’ (ultor patriae domusque, Pun. 16.593). The multiple visions of the ideal relationship between the leader, his family, and the state presented in the Punica respond to both Roman literary tradition and contemporary political developments.6 Roman literature represents performance as a father as an index of leadership, and vice versa. Valerius Maximus, for example, interprets Catiline’s filicide as a parallel to his attempt to overthrow the state: ‘Acting thereafter as a citizen in much the same spirit that he had acted as a parent, he paid punishment equally to his son’s shade and to the country that he had treacherously assaulted.’7 In Roman literary tradition, Regulus, Fabius, and Scipio are central examples of the prioritization of citizen responsibility over familial obligations.8 Regulus ignores the pleas of his family members and sacrifices himself in

134 In the Image of the Ancestors adherence to his conception of Roman honour, believing that his actions will dissuade the Senate from making a shameful treaty.9 Cicero uses Fabius as an example of the positive resolution of the conflict between personal glory and the needs of the state.10 In Cicero’s De Re Publica, Paulus tells the younger Scipio that it is his family’s ancestral tradition to privilege pietas towards the state over ancestors and other relatives: ‘But thus, Scipio, just as your grandfather, just I who engendered you, worship justice and pietas, which is due in great measure to parents and relatives but most of all to the fatherland.’11 Seneca finds his visit to Scipio’s villa an occasion for admiring the hero’s ‘outstanding moderation and pietas’ and the ‘greatness of his soul’ in contrast with the moral decline of his contemporaries. He also observes, however, that Scipio’s excessive personal authority posed a threat to libertas and applauds his voluntary withdrawal from Rome: ‘The matter had come to this, that either liberty would harm Scipio or Scipio would harm liberty.’12 The central role taken by Scipio and other commanders at the end of the Second Punic War has been interpreted as an antecedent of the decline into civil war and autocracy of the first century BC.13 Though deploring the violence of the Roman civil wars, the Punica includes the exercise of paternal authority as part of its conception of the ideal commander. In contrast to Seneca, the Sibyl of the Punica condemns Rome for its mistreatment of the hero rather than representing Scipio’s exile as the result of his threat to libertas.14 The chapter’s conclusion considers how the Punica uses the exemplary figures of Roman history in order to comment on the relationships between individual, family, and state obtaining in the world of its contemporary readers. The epic’s representation of the connection between descent, paternal authority, and monarchal power responds to the kinship discourse of the Flavian regime. Contemporary representations of Domitian celebrate his intertwined roles as emperor and as a member of the Flavian gens. Contemporary artwork, architecture, coinage, and literature emphasize his pietas towards his divine relatives, figure him as the symbolic father of the Roman state, and encourage him to perpetuate the Flavian dynasty. Though completed after Domitian’s death,15 the Punica employs the motifs of divine filiation and charismatic paternal authority in its representation of Fabius and Scipio. Through its models of relationships between leaders, families, and followers, the epic suggests that the ideal leader acts from similar senses of obligation towards family and state. These reflections on political obligation also address the concerns of the contemporary Roman upper class. The first two imperial dynasties were largely successful in marginalizing powerful families and transferring the loyalties of members of the upper class from their lineages to the imperial regime. The system of imperial patronage discouraged the formation of powerful kinship networks and restricted the

135 Silius’ Punica possibility of the perpetuation of political power into succeeding generations. The efforts of various characters in the Punica to persuade their relatives to serve the needs of the state rather than their own families, and the disasters that ensue in cities such as Capua and Carthage when such advice is ignored, reflect both imperial priorities and the new realities faced by upper-class Roman families. 2. Hannibal: Devotion to the Ancestors Silius’ representation of the effects of Hannibal’s devotion towards his ancestors on his leadership demonstrates the limitations of an otherwise laudable virtue. Instead of providing positive examples for emulation by his son Hannibal, Hamilcar hands down a record of defeat and instils furor in his son that removes his concern for Carthage’s welfare. Hannibal’s madness and impiety overshadow whatever virtue inheres in his individual acts of devotion towards his ancestors. The opposition established throughout the narrative between Hannibal and Scipio emphasizes the Carthaginian’s inversion of the epic hero’s typical virtues.16 Scipio’s fides, uirtus, and knowledge of divine will contrast with Hannibal’s stereotypically Carthaginian lack of fides,17 improba uirtus (Pun. 1.58), and deception by the gods. Where the gods favour Scipio, they oppose and deceive Hannibal. He is introduced as a contemptor diuum, Juno and Mercury deceive him with incomplete or misleading prophecies, and he is granted a vision of the divine opposition arrayed against him during his attempt to march on Rome.18 The narrative presents an ironic contrast between the Carthaginian leader’s blind faith in his ability to defeat the Romans and the superior perspectives of other figures in the epic, including Hanno, the gods, and the omniscient narrator. Rather than placing his expression of obligations towards family, state, and gods in parallel (as in the Ciceronian examples discussed above), Hannibal’s inherited furor leads him to place devotion to his ancestors above these other considerations. As the inverse of the filial pietas of Vergil’s Aeneas, Hannibal’s furor leads to the destruction rather than the refoundation of his society. In contrast to the self-generated furor of Sallust’s Catiline and Lucan’s Caesar, other important models for the Carthaginian general,19 this motivation has been passed down to Hannibal through a long line of descent. As in the historiographical tradition, Hannibal’s paternal legacy in the Punica determines the course of his career. After his country’s defeat in the First Punic War, Hamilcar, ‘skilled at nourishing madness, sowed war with the Romans into his son’s youthful breast’ by means of a ritual in the temple of Dido (Pun. 1.81–139).20 The furor that Hamilcar ‘nourishes’ in his

136 In the Image of the Ancestors son accompanies Hannibal throughout the epic, compromising his leadership.21 Though Hamilcar’s paternae Furiae (1.443–4) do not push his son to the extremes of madness experienced by the characters of Statius’ Thebaid, they nevertheless displace Hannibal’s concern for Carthage’s welfare. Hannibal insists on leading Carthage into war with Rome in order to avenge Hamilcar’s defeat, despite the reasonable security considerations raised by Hanno, who regards him as tormented by his father’s unquiet ghost.22 Though the omniscient narrator supports Hanno’s judgment that Hannibal is demens (2.309), and though Hanno clearly points out the dangers that the invasion of Italy will pose to Carthage, Hanno is yet unable to dissuade Hannibal from his furor or convince Hannibal’s fellow citizens to recall him. The furor that passes from Hamilcar to Hannibal provides a further distinction between Carthaginian and Roman attitudes towards ancestral legacies. Fabius, Marcellus, and the elder Scipio all offer more positive examples for emulation to their sons, and madness is not a necessary stimulus to effective action. Through the provision of genealogical information, the narrative emphasizes the antiquity of the legacy of vengeance that Hannibal inherits from his father Hamilcar. Hannibal’s father Hamilcar ‘was descended from the Tyrian family of ancient Barcas,’ a companion of Dido in her flight from Tyre, ‘and he started from Belus in counting down his distant ancestors.’23 These claims, based on generative memory, associate Hamilcar and his descendants through shared descent with the ancient enemies of the protoRomans, Turnus and the Greek conquerors of Troy.24 Hannibal’s war with the Romans, therefore, is an attempt to fulfil simultaneously his individual desire, his father’s wishes, and his destiny as a descendant of Belus. He inspires his troops at Saguntum with the claim that he can trace ‘his origins to eastern Belus.’25 Cognizance of Hannibal’s descent from Belus causes the weight of history and descent to encumber each of his actions to a far greater degree than those of Scipio, who refers only to the preceding generation when describing his ancestral legacy. Allusion to the Aeneid creates clear parallels between the three generations of Barcae and the three generations of Aeneadae.26 Each family includes a grandfather who dies before his mission has been fulfilled (to defeat the Romans in the case of the Punica, to resettle the Trojan refugees in the Aeneid), a father who attempts to complete the mission, and a son still too young to lead. Silius strengthens the parallel with the Aeneid by creating the character of Hannibal’s son, a figure without other attestation in the historiographical tradition (though this inactive character obviously plays a less significant role than Vergil’s Ascanius).27 Following his conception of his lineage’s destiny, Hannibal attempts to reproduce his own social

137 Silius’ Punica characteristics and to perpetuate his own ancestral legacies in his own son. He orders his wife Imilce to repeat the ritual in Dido’s temple that his father performed with him and thereby to transmit the obligation to make war with the Romans to his own son when he comes of age.28 When Carthaginian ambassadors request Hannibal’s permission to sacrifice his son for the good of the state, Hannibal preserves his son’s life by offering the bodies of dead Romans as compensation (Pun. 4.812–13). He thereby promotes the child’s unique qualities as a member of his lineage over the benefit to the state represented by his sacrifice. The rhetorical means by which Hannibal chooses to achieve the laudable goal of averting the sacrifice constrains his son with the obligation to repay the price paid for his life as well as with the original set of obligations transmitted from his grandfather Hamilcar. As among the three generations of Labdacids in Statius’ Thebaid, an ancestral legacy has become a destructive force. While the three generations of Barcae revere their ancestors, both lineages nevertheless foster a propensity to conflict that ultimately destroys the state and leaves descendants unable to escape the corrupting paradigm established by ancestors. Hannibal’s distant kinship connection to Dido through their common ancestor Belus further determines his motivations for action. The ritual in the temple of Dido that opens the Punica constructs another of the epic’s many narrative continuities with the Aeneid. Hannibal becomes the avenger that the Dido of Vergil’s Aeneid predicted would arise ‘from her bones’ to persecute Aeneas’ descendants (Aen. 4.625–9).29 The Punica recalls Dido’s curse in its mention of ‘arms entrusted to descendants’ and in its representation of Dido’s suicide on Hannibal’s shield, where she ‘ordains wars of vengeance for the Tyrians yet to come.’30 Hannibal echoes Dido’s prayer in swearing the oath, as enjoined by his father, to ‘pursue the Romans on land and sea, with fire and sword.’31 He thereby becomes heir not just to Hamilcar’s furor but also to Dido’s. Hannibal’s assertion of an obligation to Dido, enacted through generative memory, contributes to the narrative’s self-presentation as a continuation of the Aeneid. Allusions to the Aeneid further illustrate the character and context of Hannibal’s expressions of pietas towards his ancestors. While Hannibal’s commemorations of his proximate and distant ancestors recall the form of Aeneas’ actions, they contrast significantly in substance. For example, both Aeneas and Hannibal carry shields emblazoned with historical narratives, and both men receive instructions from the gods and dream of their deceased fathers before departing for Italy. Though Aeneas cannot comprehend the narrative on his shield (Aen. 8.730), Hannibal understands all too well the narratives of Dido’s suicide and Hamilcar’s campaign in Sicily recorded on his shield.32 In contrast to Aeneas’ divinely fashioned shield, Hannibal’s shield can only record past events because it has been made by

138 In the Image of the Ancestors human beings. Rather than predicting a glorious future, the presence of Hannibal’s proximate and distant ancestors on his shield indicates that he will recapitulate the past by suffering a defeat similar to theirs. The divine epiphanies and dreams of the Punica similarly emphasize, through allusive contrast with the Aeneid, the difference in Hannibal’s perspective on the interrelation between the fate of his lineage and his people. Vergil’s Mercury commands Aeneas to depart from Carthage in accordance with Jupiter’s will, and specifically enjoins him to take concern for Ascanius’ rightful inheritance of a kingdom in Italy (Aen. 4.268–76). Aeneas reports to Dido that both his dreams of his admonishing father and his guilt at depriving his son of his inheritance impel him to depart from Carthage.33 Failing to seek out the new kingdom in Italy runs counter to both his son’s and his people’s fate. In the Punica, by contrast, Hannibal’s leave-taking from Imilce occurs before Mercury’s deceptive epiphany, and his dreams of his father concern his own glory (Pun. 3.139– 45). The inheritance that he promises to his son is identical to the one that he received from Hamilcar, including the expectation that his son will swear the same oath in the temple of Dido that he swore as a child (3.81–3). He describes his son alternately as a ‘pledge of war’ and as ‘heir to the war,’ an inheritor of his own obligation to make perpetual war with the Romans. He excludes any possibility of structural difference between the careers of each generation.34 Unlike Aeneas, who worries about disinheriting his son, Hannibal has no concern that his son’s inheritance will be obviated if he fails to conquer the Romans in the present invasion. He imagines his own failure and his son’s eventual success in war with the Romans in terms of a further act of ancestral pietas, envisioning his son burying him on the Capitoline hill (3.84–6). From Hannibal’s perspective, the Barcan inheritance consists simply of the imitation of the ancestors, accepting their unfulfilled desires as obligations without achieving their fulfilment. The personal narrative of the three generations of Barcae reproduces in miniature the larger fate of Carthage. While Rome is fated to become the world’s dominant power, Carthage is condemned to repetition, failure, and eventual obliteration.35 The legacies of Hamilcar and Dido are the principal determinants of Hannibal’s behaviour for the majority of the epic. In his mind, his personal obligation to avenge his ancestors supersedes his civic responsibilities. Interest in the welfare of Carthage never provides an equal stimulus for his leadership. After the death of his brother Hasdrubal at the battle of the Metaurus, however, Hannibal’s sense of obligation shifts from fulfilling the desires of proximate and distant ancestors to avenging this most recent loss of a family member. Hasdrubal expects his brother to exact immediate vengeance for his

139 Silius’ Punica killing (Pun. 15.801–2), and Hannibal duly promises Hasdrubal ‘offerings’ (inferias, 15.820) in the form of slaughtered Romans.36 The sea-storm episode of Punica 17 amplifies the theme of Hannibal’s desire to avenge his brother, which supersedes all other familial considerations for him in the epic’s final books. Hannibal’s speech reveals a significant contrast with Aeneas’ perception of the relationship between family and state. Where Aeneas praises a group, the Trojan men who died ante ora patrum, Hannibal directs his makarismos to Hasdrubal alone (17.260–7). Unlike Aeneas, who typically envisions himself as a participant in collective action, in this case as one of many defenders of Troy performing under the gaze of the ancestors, Hannibal can conceive only of avenging an individual family member. Though the object of his devotion has shifted to his brother instead of his father and Dido, Hannibal’s actions and perspective remain structurally identical. He claims at the battle of Zama that he can never give up his hatred of the Romans because his brother’s spirit will shun him if he spares a single Roman life (17.458–66). While memory of his brother has displaced memory of his father as the primary justification of his actions, his perspective remains firmly rooted in and limited to the familial sphere. Hannibal’s human limitations and the gods’ refusal to allow him fuller knowledge of fate prevent him from perceiving that, like his ancestors, he will fail in his struggle against the Romans. He regards the war as a personal inheritance rather than a national conflict, and the furor inherited from Hamilcar leads him to overextend Carthaginian forces in an unwinnable invasion. He attempts to fulfil Dido’s demand for vengeance on the Romans, becoming the ‘avenger from her bones’ that she invoked in her dying curse. His reluctance to withdraw from Italy despite the serious threats posed to his homeland shows the extent to which inherited furor has superseded rational considerations for him.37 After the death of Hasdrubal, Hannibal abandons both distant and proximate ancestors and directs his devotion towards his brother instead. Though the object may have shifted, the paradigm of vengeance and repetition has not. While Scipio’s insistence on avenging his father and uncle presents some parallels with Hannibal’s devotion to his oath, he acts in the context of divine approval and achieves a more successful balance between personal and public obligations. The contrast with Hannibal’s limited conception of his obligations to family and state enables a fuller appreciation of Scipio’s virtues, and by extension those of the optimus princeps. 3. Fabius: Testing Paternal Authority Hannibal’s unthinking devotion to his ancestors contrasts with two conflicted relationships between fathers and sons elsewhere in the epic. Though

140 In the Image of the Ancestors arguments between father and son occur only rarely in the Punica, and are always resolved quickly and in the father’s favour, they involve the largest political and ethical concerns of the epic, namely loyalty to the family and service to the state. Like the Argonautica and Thebaid, the Punica uses narratives of familial conflict to represent political conflict. In contrast to the other Flavian epics, however, the Punica typically displaces intra- and interfamilial conflict to its spatial margins (such as Spain and Syracuse) and Roman civil conflict beyond its temporal boundaries.38 Behaviour at larger levels of social organization typically reflects the pietas expressed by the individual members of families. The characters of the epic are joined in cooperation with the other members of their families and lineages, and generally positive relationships obtain between and within the individual lineages that compose the Roman aristocracy. Violent conflicts never intentionally arise between members of Roman families, while verbal confrontations between family members are quickly resolved in favour of the more authoritative person.39 For example, the fraternal solidarity of the six sons of Crista the Umbrian, the unanima phalanx, contrasts with the fratricidal violence of the Argonautica and Thebaid.40 The peaceful resolutions of conflict between father and son and the typical balance of familial and civic obligations in the Punica contrast with contemporary epic as well as with the historiographical and exemplary traditions. In this generally harmonious context, the epic’s few examples of dissension within the family appear especially significant. Fabius’ son objects to his father’s apparently forgiving response to the challenge of his subordinate Minucius (Pun. 7.536–66), while Pacuvius’ son condemns his father’s decision to break Capua’s traditional alliance with Rome in favour of Carthage and proposes to assassinate Hannibal (11.303–68). Each father experiences a challenge to his patria potestas over his son and to his imperium (7.544) over his followers. The rhetorical means that each father chooses to justify his exercise of both kinds of authority reveals an alternate prioritization of civic and familial obligations. Pacuvius represents these obligations as divergent: his pursuit of tyrannical power supersedes his concern for his city’s reputation as expressed through its adherence to treaties, and he commands his son to subordinate the pursuit of glory to filial obedience. The contrasting example of Fabius’ resolution of conflict with his son offers a model of paternal authority that is both virtuous and justifiable in traditional terms rather than arbitrary and tyrannical. The obligations generated by the affective bonds between family members diverge in these brief episodes from the obligations generated by fides, the force that creates unity among leaders, subjects, and allied states. The epic’s few examples of conflict within the family reflect on the figurations of pietas, fides, and patria potestas in the world of its contemporary audience.

141 Silius’ Punica In their roles as instructors, the fathers of the Punica form part of a larger Roman literary tradition that represents paternal emulation as the most valued and effective means of social reproduction. The accounts of intergenerational conflict in the Punica present contrasting filial and paternal perspectives on virtue and appropriate service, similar to those found in many other literary genres. The instructive episodes of the Punica also draw on epic models of direct and indirect paternal instruction. Marus narrates the exploits of Regulus at length to Regulus’ son Serranus (Pun. 6.102–550), Scipio’s father instructs his son both in the underworld and in a subsequent vision, and the speeches of Fabius and Marcellus to their sons reinforce the theme of heroic emulation through their evocation of the speech of Vergil’s Aeneas to his son Ascanius (Aen. 12.435–40).41 The Punica does not, however, present the more extreme inflections of patria potestas. Like the fathers of Scipio and Hannibal, Fabius and Pacuvius receive immediate obedience from their sons, and justify the exercise of their paternal or magistral authority rhetorically rather than through the threat of violence. Relationships among the generations as amicable as these are rare in Flavian epic. Valerius’ Argonauts and Statius’ Achilles are separated from their fathers, and the three generations of Labdacids in Statius’ Thebaid are violently opposed to each other. The Punica instead chooses to reflect the high valuation set on paternal instruction and emulation in Homer and Vergil. Fabius’ instruction of his son occurs in the context of multiple challenges to his authority as father and leader.42 He emerges from these conflicts with his authority as a paterfamilias and as the symbolic father of his army reconfirmed. The narrator represents Fabius’ concern for his soldiers’ welfare in paternal terms: ‘There was no one keener to protect his own body or a beloved son.’43 Fabius’ insistence on a cautious policy of delay and entrapment clashes with the rhetoric of familial vengeance used by their former commander Flaminius in his exhortation to his troops at Lake Trasimene. Flaminius suggests that the common soldier can think of warfare as reconciling the conflict between familial and national obligations. In this commander’s vision, the ordinary Roman fights not on behalf of an abstract and invisible state but specifically in order to avenge relatives who have fallen in battle. Flaminius appeals first to ‘bitter stimuli,’ the thought of brothers and sons killed in the previous battles at the Ticinus and Trebia.44 Only those who lack the ‘rage caused by personal sorrow’ need think of the country’s suffering in order to find encouragement to fight.45 Fabius opposes the fact of Flaminius’ defeat to the ‘bitter stimuli’ still operating on his men (Pun. 7.226–31). His restoration of discipline prevents the soldiers from the impetuous exaction of vengeance advocated by Flaminius.46

142 In the Image of the Ancestors Yet Fabius’ argument to subordinate the desire to avenge family members in the service of larger strategic goals is not fully persuasive. The soldiers continue to resist, and after Fabius’ departure to attend to the religious obligations of his gens, the Senate promotes his magister equitum Minucius to equal status with the Dictator (Pun. 7.515–16). The insubordination of Minucius, represented as a symbolic son of Fabius, indicates both his failure of filial pietas and the extent of the challenges to Fabius’ paternal authority.47 Roman literature often represents the relationship between a superior and a subordinate as a paternal one. Cicero describes a praetor as the symbolic father of a quaestor, and Seneca inverts the metaphor by calling parents ‘household magistrates.’ Military commanders are often referred to as the ‘fathers’ of their troops.48 The relationship between Silius’ Fabius and Minucius, however, is hardly amicable or filial, and it is further complicated by the hostility of the Senate, which deprives Fabius of his right of sole command. While Fabius holds back the troops remaining under his command, Minucius charges straight into a battle in which he is soon overwhelmed. Fabius’ son argues that both the errant commander and the Senate should be punished for their insult to their family.49 Fabius must therefore confront a simultaneous challenge to his authority from his symbolic son Minucius and actual son Fabius. His manner of resolution reveals his prioritization of national over gentilician tradition.50 Fabius replies to his son that the lives of his fellow Roman citizens and the safety of the state come before thought of personal honour. He dissuades his son from sacrificing Roman lives in order to maintain the reputation of the lineage. Appealing to the example of Camillus, Fabius argues that service to the state and one’s fellow soldiers comes before responding to offences to one’s honour or authority: sanguine Poenorum, iuuenis, tam tristia dicta sunt abolenda tibi. patiarne ante ora manusque ciuem deleri nostras? aut uincere Poenum me spectante sinam? non aequauisse minorem soluentur culpa, si sunt mihi talia cordi? iamque hoc, ne dubites, longaeui, nate, parentis accipe et aeterno fixum sub pectore serua: succensere nefas patriae, nec foedior ulla culpa sub extremas fertur mortalibus umbras. sic docuere senes. quantus qualisque fuisti, cum pulsus lare et extorris Capitolia curru intrares exul! tibi corpora caesa, Camille, damnata quot sunt dextra! pacata fuissent

143 Silius’ Punica ni consulta uiro mensque impenetrabilis irae, mutassentque solum sceptris Aeneia regna nullaque nunc stares terrarum uertice, Roma. pone iras, o nate, meas. socia arma feramus et celeremus opem. (Pun. 7.548–65) Young man, you ought to wash away such harsh words with the blood of the Carthaginians. Shall I allow a citizen to be killed before my eyes and hands? Or shall I permit the Carthaginian to conquer while I watch? Will they not be absolved of the crime of equating an inferior with me, if I have such feelings? Now take this from your aged parent, son, do not doubt it, and keep it fixed eternally in your heart: it is a crime to be angry with your fatherland, nor do mortal men bring any offence more foul to the shades below. Thus our ancestors have taught. How great and how excellent you were, Camillus, when, as an exile expelled from your home, you entered the Capitol on your chariot! How many bodies were slain by your condemned right hand! If it were not for Camillus’ peaceful wisdom and his mind proof against anger, the kingdom of Aeneas would have changed the place of its dominion, and Rome, you would not stand now at the summit of the world. O my son, put aside your anger for my sake. Let us bring our allied arms and let us hasten to assist.

Fabius’ argument is the product of a perspective focused on civic tradition as opposed to ancestral history and the needs of the state as opposed to the family. The example of Camillus illustrates the point that Fabius derives from the collective wisdom of the ancestors (sic docuere senes). The epic’s proem certifies the parallel between Camillus and the present situation: the struggles against the Gauls and the Carthaginians both concern the preservation of Roman dominion (Pun. 1.78 ~ 7.562–3). The narrator indicates the importance for the epic of the memory of Camillus, a ubiquitous example in Roman literature, by describing the preservation of the memorials of his triumph in the Senate house.51 Through the example of Camillus, Fabius articulates the distinction between a leader’s concern for his personal or familial glory and his submission to legal authority. Fabius implies that his son’s focus should be on the obligations attendant on his command, not on the glory of the Fabian gens.52 Fabius justifies his exercise of paternal auctoritas and removes its sense of arbitrariness through reference to civic interests rather than familial ones. The younger Fabius’ immediate acquiescence to his father’s argument reconfirms Fabius’ paternal authority. His subsequent rescue of the endangered troops restores his imperium as their commander and his symbolic paternal role as the preserver of their lives. Although the members of the gens Fabia also could have provided Fabius with several convincing examples of virtuous sacrifice on behalf of the state,

144 In the Image of the Ancestors he chooses to appeal instead to the ubiquitous and publicly accessible exemplum of Camillus. In Livy, examples of earlier Fabii who faced similar conflicts caused by the religious obligations of the gens and the insubordination of junior officers stand behind Fabius’ conflict with Minucius.53 In the Punica, however, Fabius’ choice of Camillus as an instructive example, rather than an earlier Fabius, is consistent with his emphasis on collective welfare rather than familial glory. While Fabius’ example of Camillus serves its immediate purpose of illustrating his argument regarding loyalty to the state, the paternal metaphor once more undermines his emphasis on the collective rather than the individual. Upon rescuing Rome from the Gauls, Camillus’ soldiers hail him as ‘Romulus and the father of his country and a second founder of the city.’54 After their repulse of Hannibal’s forces, Fabius’ troops similarly ‘loudly celebrated him as their father.’ Minucius hails him as ‘holy father’ and apologizes for his earlier insubordination. At the beginning of the following book, ‘the Roman camps call Fabius alone their father.’55 Fabius’ use of the Camillus exemplum also associates him with Scipio, another commander who exercises paternal authority over his subjects.56 Scipio briefly encounters Camillus in the underworld (Pun. 13.722), and the narrator similarly hails Scipio at his triumph as a father of the Roman people in comparing him to Camillus (17.652). The paternal metaphor now applies to Fabius, as it did earlier for Livy’s Camillus and will eventually for Silius’ Scipio, as the leader of his troops, the restorer of their lives, and an idealizing prefiguration of the emperor in his role as a national father. While Fabius is eventually able to recover his authority, the problems caused by his departure from the battlefield point up the incompatibility between his civic and familial obligations. Fabius’ obligations to his kinsmen as the head of his gens conflict with his public duties as Dictator.57 Only his personal authority, presented as paternal, keeps the army unified and ready to implement his delaying strategy. Though he may appeal to republican ideals of collective action and subordination to the state, Fabius’ role as a symbolic father becomes the ultimate source of his authority. The soldiers’ praise, however, undoes Fabius’ intent to subordinate his personal authority to the Senate by figuring his authority as paternal, natural, allencompassing, and immutable, rather than temporally limited and revocable. His paternal charisma controls his troops more effectively than the dictatorial powers initially delegated and then arbitrarily removed by the Senate and flaunted by his subordinate Minucius. Though the representation of Fabius’ intertwined roles as father and leader recall the emperor’s figuration as a symbolic father, Fabius is an inadequate figure of the optimus princeps. His paternal authority is not sufficient to command loyalty from his subordinates when he is not physically present among them, and

145 Silius’ Punica his line of descent from Hercules is distant. As a primarily defensive commander, Fabius also cannot represent the emperor in his aspect as triumphant conqueror. This role is reserved for Scipio, who also enjoys direct filiation from Jupiter and a series of successful conquests that obviate conflict with his troops.58 4. Pacuvius: The Tyrant and His Virtuous Son The brief debate between Pacuvius and his son in Punica 11 exposes the contingent nature of paternal authority.59 In place of Fabius’ persuasive argument, justified through appeal to the traditional example of Camillus, Pacuvius lays claim to a ‘natural’ paternal authority that enables him to arbitrarily overrule legitimate challenges. His supplication of his son and appeal to his pity further contradict the stereotypical image of the authoritative father. Where Fabius subordinates personal ambitions to the state, Pacuvius aims at the acquisition of personal power, which ultimately results in the downfall of his city. The conflict between Pacuvius and his son undermines the identifications made elsewhere in the epic between virtue, ideal governance, and paternal authority. Through its contrasting example, the epic’s other episode of conflict between the generations illuminates the significance of Fabius’ self-justifications. The Punica represents Capua in the image of Rome (Pun. 11.32–54). Citizens attend gladiatorial combats as entertainment, the social classes include senators and plebeians, and the city as a whole is afflicted by excessive luxus and social mobility.60 The narrative of the division within its ruling family presents a cautionary example to the ruling family of contemporary Rome, suggesting that failure to perform adequately in the political sphere removes the justification for control of the familial sphere, and vice versa. The Capua episode is one of the epic’s many allegories of fides. The repetition of narrative motifs such as the intervention of personified Fides and a concluding collective suicide present the Capuan revolt against Rome as an inversion of the Saguntine resistance to Hannibal.61 As the Saguntines demonstrate their loyalty to Rome through their resistance and self-inflicted bloodshed, so too Pacuvius’ son hopes to ‘sanctify the treaties’ between Rome and Capua by assassinating Hannibal.62 While the Saguntines are united in their resistance to Hannibal, Pacuvius’ son is the representative of a partisan conflict that divides both his city and his household. He is a follower of Decius Magius, the leader of the opposition to Pacuvius. Within his household, he is the mens una (11.307) that resists Hannibal. This brief episode once more isolates the familial sphere as the locus of interrelated paternal and political authority. In contrast to Fabius, Pacuvius’ contempt for fides compromises his exercise of both forms of authority.

146 In the Image of the Ancestors Pacuvius’ son combines his interest in the honour of his city and the reputation of his gens in his address to his father: ‘Accipe digna et Capua et nobis’ inquit ‘consulta’ togaque armatum amota nudat latus: ‘hoc ego bellum conficere ense paro atque auulsum ferre Tonanti rectoris Libyci uictor caput. hic erit ille, qui polluta dolis iam foedera sanciet, ensis … summum quod credis et aequas Hannibalem superis, o quantum nomine maior iam Poeno tibi natus erit!’ (Pun. 11.316–21, 325–7) ‘Hear plans,’ he says, ‘worthy of Capua and of ourselves,’ and moving his toga aside he lays bare his armed flank: ‘I am preparing to end this war with my sword and, as a victor, to bring the decapitated head of the African leader to the Thunderer. This will be the sword that will sanctify the treaties now polluted by crimes … What you think to be the greatest and Hannibal whom you equate with the gods – O now how much greater in name than the Carthaginian will be your son!’

Throughout his brief appeal, Pacuvius’ son presents a balance of familial and political concerns, aligning the interests of his family with those of Capua as whole. In his view, assassinating Hannibal will sanctify the treaties (foedera) enacted with the Romans that have been polluted by Pacuvius’ treachery. His heroic ending of the war will also grant their family a famous name.63 The son’s appeal to the treaties contrasts with his father’s hyperbolic demand for a consul to be chosen from Capua, as expressed through his spokesman Virrius (11.56–63). The phrase et Capua et nobis presents familial and political motives as symmetrical, a balance recalled in the narrator’s description of Scipio as ultor patriaeque domusque (16.593). Unlike Fabius, who appeals to Camillus as a public example of valour, altruism, and subordination to the state, Pacuvius uses no ameliorative example to persuade his son. He substitutes an appeal to pity and the arbitrary exercise of paternal authority, alternately demanding and begging for his son’s obedience. He commands his son to support his treachery not on political or pragmatic grounds but through mixed appeals to pity and to paternal authority. Concern for his family supersedes patriotic obligation in his speech: per si quid superest uitae, per iura parentis perque tuam nostra potiorem, nate, salutem,

147 Silius’ Punica absiste inceptis, oro, ne sanguine cernam polluta hospitia ac tabo repleta cruento pocula et euersas pugnae certamine mensas. (Pun. 11.332–6) By whatever life remains to me, by the rights of a father and by your safety, child, which is more important than mine, I beg you to leave off from your undertakings, lest I see my hospitable home polluted with blood and cups filled with bloody gore and my tables overturned in the clash of battle.

In attempting to persuade his son to desist from violence, Pacuvius makes no mention of his role as a political leader or of his obligations as Hannibal’s new ally. Silius denies his Pacuvius a wider political perspective in this episode, limiting him to the immediate concerns of the family and household. For Pacuvius, the sanctity of his household takes precedence over the sanctity of the treaties struck with the Romans. Pacuvius replaces the son’s worry about the polluta foedera with the Romans with concern for the polluta hospitia of their household. In Pacuvius’ mind, violating the laws of hospitality, which reflects only on his family’s reputation, is a more significant offence than breaking a treaty, which threatens the city’s future. Silius amplifies the theme of polluted hospitality through allusion to a variety of epic models and recollections of the theme in later episodes.64 Pacuvius’ appeal to polluta hospitia in rejecting his son’s proposal to murder an unwitting guest echoes Vergil’s description of Polymestor’s murder of his guest Polydorus, while the tables that Pacuvius fears will be overturned (euersas mensas) during his son’s hypothetical assassination attempt recall the chaos in the palace during the Ovidian battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.65 These verbal echoes undermine Pacuvius’ arguments by recalling the contrasts between Polymestor’s greed and violation of hospitality, the barbarity of the Ovidian wedding guests, and the patriotic and disciplined motives of Pacuvius’ son. The images of violence and pollution in Pacuvius’ nightmarish evocation of the assassination attempt prefigure the eventual fall of Capua itself. Elements of his vision of a house consumed by violence, such as the ‘cups filled with gore,’ recur in the suicide of the Capuan leaders.66 Finally, although Pacuvius’ son desists from his assassination attempt and does not pollute his father’s household, Hannibal and his troops nevertheless pollute the entire city through their occupation (Pun. 13.304–5). Pacuvius’ description of the pollution that he wishes to avert from his house metonymically prefigures the pollution of the entire city. As often in Greco-Roman ethical and political discourse, a single household serves as a model of the state, and corruption occurring within it extends to the entire community.

148 In the Image of the Ancestors Pacuvius’ use of the rhetoric of fear emphasizes his abnegation of paternal authority. His rhetorical goal throughout his first speech is to evoke strong emotions in his son: pity in response to his supplication and fear of Hannibal’s power. Pacuvius describes the Carthaginian general’s maiestas aeterna (Pun. 11.344) as a deterrent to would-be assassins, but makes no mention of his own paternal dignity.67 In his second speech, Pacuvius adopts a more extreme form of persuasion, insisting that his son must kill him first before he can kill Hannibal.68 He tests the limits of his son’s ambitions by interposing himself as a sacrificial substitute for Hannibal. Pacuvius thereby confirms his simultaneous abandonment of paternal authority and his city’s abandonment of political self-determination. By handing over the power of life and death, an aspect of authority traditionally imagined to be part of patria potestas, Pacuvius reverses the typical relationship of authority between father and son. The use of a mode of persuasion marked as ‘feminine’ complements Pacuvius’ abnegation of paternal authority. His plea to his son to kill him first recalls Statius’ Jocasta, who insists that Eteocles must drive his horse over her body before he can attack his brother (Theb. 11.341–2). At the same time, Pacuvius indicates the consequences of having chosen to subordinate Capua to a foreign power. His son may as well kill him before killing Hannibal, because his own life will be worthless if Capua returns to Roman control. Pacuvius’ simultaneous resignations of paternal and political authority contrast with the actions of authoritative Roman fathers such as Fabius and Marcellus, who associate their exercise of paternal power with Roman selfdetermination and with ancestral tradition. As character types, Silius’ Pacuvius and his son resemble the figures of the tyrant and the virtuous son familiar from Vergil, Valerius and Statius.69 As in these other epics, the tyrant serves as a cautionary example of the consequences of excessive power and helps to define the character of the optimus princeps through negative contrast. Like Pacuvius’ son, Vergil’s Lausus is worthy of a better father than Mezentius (Aen. 7.653–4). The rebel Decius Magius provides a model of uirtus for Pacuvius’ son, as Valerius’ Jason does for Acastus, though without the deception perpetrated by the Valerian character.70 Statius’ Creon attempts to prevent his son Menoeceus from sacrificing himself at the prompting of personified Virtus. Pacuvius’ insistence on restraining his son appears to be motivated by desire to maintain his own power and his fear for his son’s safety, rather than jealousy. The other tyrants, however, typically fear the courage of virtuous young men. As Valerius’ narrator observes, ‘Virtue is not welcome to the tyrant,’ and Statius’ Eteocles fears Menoeceus’ notissima uirtus (Theb. 10.701).71 The Punica presents other pairs of tyrants and virtuous sons in the royal houses of Sardinia and Syracuse. Hampsagoras ignores the Trojan ancestry that should make him a natural ally

149 Silius’ Punica of the Romans and invites the Carthaginians to Sardinia. His son Hostus is described as ‘a beautiful child, and not worthy of such a parent.’72 Hiero and his grandson represent a structural inversion to the pattern of tyrant and virtuous descendant. While the virtuous grandfather Hiero was loyal to the Romans, his depraved grandson Hieronymus attempts to ally with the Carthaginians (Pun. 14.82–4, 96–8). These examples show that when fathers in epic restrain their sons from the pursuit of virtue or glory and fail to offer them a pattern of virtuous behaviour to emulate, the sons typically demonstrate their virtue through disobedience. The obedience of Pacuvius’ son to his father’s corrupt demands therefore stands out as an unexpected consequence. When Silius’ Pacuvius dissuades his son from his virtuous plan to assassinate Hannibal, his son loses the greater part of his fame by acceding to his father’s wishes. The tyrant’s family is not an undifferentiated moral unit. His son’s ambitions expose the immorality of Pacuvius’ lust for tyrannical power without concern for fides. This episode turns on the conflict between two culturally privileged patterns of behaviour, loyalty in the political sphere and obedience in the familial sphere. The Senecan controversiae discussed in chapter 1 provide a direct parallel in their examples of military heroes restrained by anxious fathers. As a father who attempts to restrain his son from the pursuit of virtue, Pacuvius presents a similarly admonitory example to the fathers of the contemporary Roman upper class. As observed in chapter 1, the chances that sons would transcend the status of their fathers were greater in the context of the increased social mobility of the first century. Contemporary Roman literature addresses this threat to the father’s traditional authority. Flavian epic associates the father’s ‘unnatural’ fear of being surpassed by his son with tyranny and immorality. The pursuit of honour is the primary concern for the sons of Fabius and Pacuvius, and both are restrained by fathers who demand filial obedience. Pacuvius the Capuan father appeals to pity, a father’s rights, concern for personal safety, and the sanctity of the house in persuading his son to obey him. These methods of persuasion remain strictly within the sphere of the household, diverting attention from Pacuvius’ larger crime against fides in the political sphere. Fabius the Roman father, however, adopts a broader perspective, focusing on the needs of the state rather than his gens, and on historical tradition rather than the dishonour caused by the Senate’s insult. The exemplum of Camillus suggests that proper filial obedience is not the result of acquiescence to a parental whim or fulfilment of the needs of a single family, but justifiable in traditional terms and encompassing the needs of the entire Roman state. Reading the Pacuvius episode in the light of the other conflicts between tyrants and their sons in earlier epic indicates that though obedience to paternal wishes is worthy of praise, it should be properly limited when it

150 In the Image of the Ancestors interferes with the pursuit of decus and gloria. Acquiescence to paternal demands is not an absolute good but one that must be mediated by circumstances. Pacuvius’ treachery represents an ancestral example from which it is praiseworthy to dissent. The episode resists an oversimplified reading of filial devotion. Its indication of the proper response to a negative example instead assists in clarifying the rules of ancestral emulation and filial obedience established throughout the epic. 5. Scipio: Double Paternity Each of the conflicts between a father and a son in the Punica turns on alternative prioritizations of the aspects of identity conferred by familial and political membership. Thus Fabius urges his son to promote his identity as a Roman over his identity as a Fabius, while Pacuvius begs his son to regard the violation of hospitality and bloodshed within a private house as more significant than the breaking of an interstate treaty. Scipio similarly experiences and resolves conflicts between contradictory aspects of his familial and political identities.73 His descent from Jupiter ultimately proves to be a more important determinant of his perspective and destiny than his human lineage. Scipio’s acts of vengeance on behalf of his human ancestors present some parallels with Hannibal’s. Both leaders, for example, describe their enemies as offerings to their ancestors, and both carry shields that depict images of their ancestors. Authoritative figures such as the narrator and the gods, however, locate Scipio’s expressions of pietas in the context of the virtuous enactment of divine will as opposed to Hannibal’s furor and improba uirtus. Scipio’s direct descent from Jupiter, meanwhile, contributes to his representation as a model for the optimus princeps. The Punica presents parallels between the form and substance of Scipio’s acts of pietas towards his ancestors and those of Vergil’s Aeneas. Scipio replicates Aeneas’ most significant acts of filial pietas, such as the rescue of his father, the catabasis, and the funeral games.74 Scipio’s commemoration of his father continues unabated even after he receives the revelation from his mother that the elder Scipio did not in fact engender him (Pun. 13.634–47). His acts of pietas and description of his conquests as vengeance for his father reveal the contrasts between his ancestral legacy and those of other characters in the epic. The furor that Hannibal inherits from Hamilcar limits him to a fixed paradigm of behaviour that he intends to replicate in his son. Fabius subordinates the reputation of his gens to the needs of the state and appeals to the traditional wisdom of an anonymous ancestral collective (the senes), represented by the ubiquitous example of Camillus rather than the specific examples of earlier members of his lineage. Scipio, by contrast,

151 Silius’ Punica transcends his human father’s legacy and alternately appeals to both his human and divine fathers in justifying his leadership. Yet he himself does not privilege the bond of consanguinity: even after the revelation of his true paternity, his sense of obligation drives him to describe his successful campaigning as vengeance for his presumptive human father rather than fulfilling the destiny predicted by his divine father. The comparison between the pietas of Scipio and Aeneas, however, illuminates only one aspect of Scipio’s character. Scipio is the hero of uirtus, not Vergilian pietas, possessing only the pietas towards parents that Cicero classes below pietas towards the state.75 The narrative complicates the presentation of each of Scipio’s acts of pietas towards his human ancestors, indicating through allusive contrast the lesser importance of this virtue in relation to others such as fides and uirtus. Scipio’s rescue of his human father, the first of his allusive acts of pietas, follows an unsuccessful suicide attempt forestalled by Mars (Pun. 4.457–9). Scipio’s unachieved suicide contrasts with the freely sought death of Vergil’s Lausus, who successfully defends the life of his father Mezentius without divine instigation.76 Scipio’s survival to accomplish greater tasks obviates his chance to present an example of superlative pietas. Mars instructs Scipio that ‘greater things still remain, but better things cannot be given’ than the opportunity to save his father’s life.77 Scipio provides an example of successful leadership guided by pietas rather than the extraordinary and impractical pietas represented by Lausus’ self-sacrifice. Scipio’s interactions with and symbolic representations of his human ancestors reveal the differences between his historical and ethical perspectives and those of Vergil’s Aeneas. In contrast to Vergil’s Anchises, who presents his son with an account of the afterlife and a comprehensive view of the future course of Roman history, Scipio’s human father provides only a brief retrospective on his death in battle (Pun. 13.663–86). He cites his own defeat as an example warning his son to ‘moderate the madness of his warfare.’78 The implications of this advice, which conflict with Scipio’s destiny to defeat the Carthaginians in Spain and Africa, will be discussed in further detail below. Where Aeneas’ shield depicted the future of Rome and Hannibal’s shield a record of historical grievances, Scipio’s shield excludes a historical perspective in favour of the images of his father and uncle (17.396–8). These contrasts indicate that Scipio’s role as the defeater of Hannibal is more limited than Aeneas’ role as a founder of a new civilization. Scipio’s commemoration of his ancestors through the sacrifice of Carthaginian enemies as ritual offerings presents certain parallels with Hannibal’s. Hannibal proposes to offer the lives of Romans as hostia (Pun. 4.813) to the Carthaginian priests in return for sparing the life of his son

152 In the Image of the Ancestors and ‘offerings to the dead’ (inferias, 15.820) to avenge the death of his brother Hasdrubal. Scipio’s ritual violence, however, occurs in a different ethical and religious context. In contrast to Hannibal, a victim of unrestrained furor and gigantomachic opponent of the gods, Scipio is figured as the instrument of divine will and praised for his continentia (15.268–71). This ethical frame justifies Scipio’s furor upon the death of his father and uncle in Spain as an incidental lapse explicable through his bereavement: ‘His angry pietas raged at the sinister gods.’79 Scipio’s momentary furor at the death of his ancestors contrasts with Hannibal’s perpetual furor inherited from his father. Through the example of Flaminius’ demands for vengeance from his soldiers that leads directly to the disaster at Trasimene, the epic has already exposed anger as the result of the obligation to avenge deceased relatives as an insufficient model for leadership. Scipio’s eventual control of his anger implicitly presents an ethical imperative for Domitian, son of a victorious commander in a civil war. His divinely sanctioned role also underwrites his ritual offering of the lives of his Carthaginian enemies, who become piacula for his human father.80 Scipio’s vengeance for his human father occurs as part of a larger effort to fulfil the destiny predicted by his divine father. In later episodes of the Punica, Silius does not hesitate to represent his Romans as victims of furor, engaging in excessive violence in combat.81 Yet this traditional representation of war does not presume to undermine the image of the emperor as successful military commander. Scipio’s imperfections, few in number, do not add up to a devastating critique of monarchal power.82 Though he is the best model available in the Punica for the optimus princeps, he is not the optimus princeps himself, and his role as the most prominent of the generals is balanced by the presence of numerous other successful commanders. Scipio’s awareness of his role as his nation’s saviour contrasts with Hannibal’s narrow focus on avenging Hamilcar’s defeat. The Sibyl admonishes Scipio that his role in the war goes beyond personal vengeance and that Rome’s fate is interlinked with his: ‘I sang of you, bound up with the future eras and deeds of the Aeneadae … Learn, boy … your own fate and the fate of Rome that depends on yours.’83 The Sibyl regards Scipio’s vengeance for his father as only the first part of his campaign, to be successfully achieved in his Spanish campaign (Pun. 13.507). The rest of her prophecy (13.508–15) concerns his wider domains of public service, including his consulship and campaign in Africa, in which familial considerations are given lesser priority. Her use of the allusive phrase disce, puer evokes Aeneas’ instruction of his son Ascanius at the end of the Aeneid (12.435– 40). Like Aeneas, Scipio’s human father appeals to personal example to guide his son away from the paradigms of anger and vengeance.84 Unlike

153 Silius’ Punica Hannibal, who risks Carthaginian security in order to avenge his ancestors, Scipio unites and balances the motives of public service and ancestral vengeance. As he returns from Spain, the narrator refers to him as ultor patriae domusque (16.593). The symmetry of the phrase suggests the harmony that can ideally exist between these potentially conflicting motives. The Punica represents Scipio’s success as a commander as the result of his divine descent and selection by fate.85 Scipio’s concealed but direct divine paternity contrasts with those of Fabius and Paulus, who claim more publicly acknowledged but more distant descent from the gods Hercules and Jupiter respectively (Pun. 2.3, 8.341–2). Scipio receives the most important information regarding his destiny directly from his divine rather than his human father. Jupiter’s support of his son takes the form of publicly visible omens reiterated throughout the epic.86 His prophecy to Venus describes Scipio as created to play the role of Rome’s defender (Pun. 3.590–1). The Punica, however, contrasts with both historical and epic tradition in leaving Scipio himself unaware of his paternity throughout the epic’s first two hexads, and concealing knowledge of this aspect of his identity from most characters. The epic’s characters often hint at the true facts of Scipio’s paternity.87 Though several publicly witnessed omens, such as the eagles and thunderbolts, hint at Scipio’s close association with Jupiter, his divine paternity never becomes common knowledge like that of Aeneas or Achilles.88 The narrative presents several comparisons between Scipio and other direct descendants of the gods. Their similarity in descent enables these figures to serve as instructive models for Scipio’s progress from youthful warrior to triumphant commander. The comparison with Aeneas initiated by Scipio’s rescue of his father at the Ticinus and continued throughout the epic indicates his more limited but equally essential contribution to Roman destiny and the subsidiary role played by his pietas in relation to his other virtues. In the underworld, Scipio encounters Alexander, another son of Jupiter, who functions as a model of the successful aggressive commander.89 The advice that Scipio receives during his encounter with Alexander introduces a potential disjunction between the instruction offered by Scipio’s human and divine fathers. Alexander’s advice to Scipio to pursue conquest aggressively (Pun. 13.772–5) reflects Jupiter’s support for his son’s acquisition of command and subsequent campaigns in Spain and Africa, but implicitly contradicts the advice of his human father to observe caution.90 A similar contrast between aggression and caution occurs during Scipio’s debate with Fabius in the Senate. Fabius employs the example of Scipio’s human father as part of an argument for caution, while Scipio contradicts him on the basis of his knowledge of divine will received from Jupiter (Pun. 16.592–700). Virtus’ encouragement to Scipio

154 In the Image of the Ancestors to emphasize the divine rather than the human aspect of his paternity complements Alexander’s implicit encouragement to Scipio to ignore his human father’s advice in favour of the destiny indicated by his divine father. Her models for Scipio’s instruction are other direct descendants of Jupiter. She instructs Scipio by presenting the examples of heroes who were admitted to heaven because their actions were consonant with their divine birth, classing Scipio with four other sons of Jupiter (Hercules, Bacchus, and the Dioscuri) and a son of Mars (Romulus/Quirinus; 15.77– 83). Virtus’ advice is confirmed during Scipio’s triumph, in which comparisons to Bacchus, Hercules, and Quirinus recur along with a further confirmation of Scipio’s descent from Jupiter (17.647–54). (We may recall the references to many of these divine sons as contrasts to Achilles in the Achilleid.) In his encounters with Alexander and Virtus, Scipio resolves the potential conflict between his two paternal legacies by electing to pursue the aggressive model encouraged by his divine father rather than the more cautious model represented by his human father. As with Statius’ Achilles, paternity is not a stable index of identity for Scipio. The epic’s concealment of Scipio’s divine paternity, which contrasts with the typical knowledge of divine ancestry in epic, prompts the renegotiation of his identity in each successive interaction. The narrative relates the ability of several characters to perceive Scipio’s true paternity to their morality and their awareness of fate.91 The persuasive speeches addressed to Scipio by Virtus and Voluptas reflect their assumptions about his paternity.92 Voluptas makes no reference to Scipio’s divine parentage and addresses him as if he were subject to mortal limitations. She emphasizes the forgetfulness of accomplishments that accompanies death as a reason for choosing the life of pleasure (Pun. 15.44–5, 63–7). Scipio’s recent experience, however, invalidates her argument. His divine descent enables him to undertake the catabasis during which he encounters individuals (including members of his own family) who remember their accomplishments and are cheered by their ongoing commemoration on earth. Virtus, on the other hand, knows that Scipio is the son of Jupiter. The frame of the episode, that of Hercules at the crossroads, already assimilates Scipio with Jupiter’s son Hercules. Virtus argues that ‘the gate of heaven lies open’ for Scipio because he is ‘one of those who preserves his origin from heavenly seed.’93 Her awareness of Scipio’s paternity means that her prediction of his triumph can be read as an act of filial pietas as well as the fulfilment of his civic obligation. By ‘placing the proud laurel in the lap of Jupiter’ at his triumph, Scipio signifies both his public success in serving the state and his personal worship of his divine father.94 At this moment of transition in Scipio’s progression from youthful limitations to semidivine triumph, his double paternity renders his identity

155 Silius’ Punica subject to conflicting interpretation. The narrative’s identification with Virtus’ interpretation recurs in further conflicts over Scipio’s destiny. A similar asymmetry in knowledge of Scipio’s paternity determines an aspect of the contrast between two African rulers, the loyal and virtuous Masinissa and the perfidious Syphax. Masinissa’s perception of the truth of Scipio’s paternity complements other aspects of his virtue. These include the fire omen, which predicts Masinissa’s future alliance with the Romans and classes him with virtuous Roman rulers such as Ascanius and Servius Tullius.95 He greets Scipio as ‘son of the Thunderer,’ and is promised ‘the great rewards of noble virtue.’ By contrast, Syphax, the other African ruler encountered in Punica 16, greets Scipio by noting his similarity in appearance to his human father: ‘How happily I remember the face of a Scipio! Your appearance recalls your father’s.’96 This identification is part of his recollection of hospitality received from the elder Scipio, and an echo of Evander’s welcome of Aeneas.97 Syphax’s emphasis on Scipio’s human paternity, however, is an early indication of his treachery and ignorance of divine will. Syphax initially nominates himself as a mediator between Rome and Carthage, which runs counter to Jupiter’s promise of Roman victory. The disruption of his sacrifice to Jupiter reveals the god’s awareness of Syphax’s future disloyalty and imminent defeat by Scipio (Pun. 16.262– 71). In the context of the epic’s divine narrative, the different perceptions of Scipio maintained by each African king function as indices of their fides and uirtus, the values that the Punica champions.98 Roman perceptions of Scipio’s paternity create ironic contrasts between the consanguineous and social aspects of his ancestral legacy. Like Syphax, the Roman crowd mistakes Scipio’s true paternity and assumes that his physical resemblance to his human father and uncle is the most important aspect of his paternal legacy (Pun. 15.133–4). Fabius’ conflict with Scipio in the Senate over his proposed invasion of Africa similarly turns on alternative identifications of Scipio’s paternity, though obviously Fabius’ morality is not put in question like that of Syphax or Voluptas.99 Fabius enjoins Scipio to follow the pattern of his human father, who pulled back his army midway through its journey to Spain in order to block Hannibal’s descent from the Alps (16.632–6). For his part, Scipio’s confidence in the success of his invasion comes from knowledge received from his divine father (16.664–5). Though ignored or questioned earlier in the epic, Scipio’s paternal authority and semidivinity are reconfirmed at his triumph. The narrator honours him with the title inuicte parens (17.651), previously applied to Fabius. In this scene, Scipio is also compared to Bacchus and Hercules, direct descendants of Jupiter (17.645–50). The final lines of the epic, a reconfirmation of his own descent from Jupiter through the substantiating example of

156 In the Image of the Ancestors his victory (17.653–4), indicate through their privileged position the importance of the theme of divine descent. Scipio’s divine filiation, publicly visible support from the gods, commemoration of his human ancestors, and perspectives on his own virtues are consonant with his role as the epic’s closest approximation of the optimus princeps. In the epic’s final books, Scipio replaces Fabius’ ideology of subordination to the authority of the Senate with the individual charismatic leadership characteristic of the emperor. Various figures (including Alexander, Virtus, and the elder Scipio) encourage Scipio to pursue military glory without mention of the limitations imposed by the state’s authority.100 This conception of leaderly authority appears more compatible with the monarchal power exercised by the princeps rather than the collective action of the republic. Scipio’s successful balance of public and familial obligations reflects particular aspects of Domitian’s self-presentation. Jupiter’s prophecy describes Scipio as born to repel the Carthaginian invasion, and Virtus figures Scipio’s triumph as a form of worship of his divine father. Domitian undertook the commemoration of his deceased family members through the construction of temples and the organization of the Flavian imperial cult. He also posed as Jupiter’s martial vicegerent and took a title (Germanicus) from his conquests compared by contemporaries to Scipio’s title Africanus (Mart. 2.2).101 Though the hostile literary tradition may have questioned Domitian’s justification in adopting this title, the Punica locates its praise of Domitian’s conquests in an unironic panegyric intended to associate him with Scipio (3.607–29). The delayed revelation of Scipio’s divine paternity mirrors the similar pattern of revelations in the Flavian dynasty. Vespasian did not claim divine descent, yet his apotheosis retroactively granted his sons Titus and Domitian divine paternity. As emperor, Domitian granted several members of his family divine honours, buttressing his claim to be a member of a divine family. Scipio also reflects Domitian’s ethical priorities in his role as a hero who champions uirtus and fides over pietas. The emperor stopped producing Pietas coin types early in his reign, after completing the transition of power.102 He began to issue Fides Publica types in 84, the year in which he accepted the ten-year consulship and a year before he assumed a perpetual censorship, and issued these types more frequently than his father Vespasian.103 Scipio supersedes the incomplete models of the optimus princeps presented by the other Roman commanders, in no small part on the basis of his divine descent. 6. Ancestry and Paternal Authority in the Punica and in Flavian Rome Though the multiplicity of central figures in the Punica has presented difficulties for its critics, the epic has also been admired for its differentiation

157 Silius’ Punica and individuation of each of the major commanders.104 This chapter has argued that attitudes towards family and state contribute significantly to the characterization of each of the epic’s major figures. Fabius’ charismatic paternal authority and Scipio’s divine filiation reflect aspects of the selfrepresentations of both the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors.105 In their roles as the symbolic fathers of the army and the Roman people, Fabius and Scipio recall the emperor’s role as a national father. Fabius symbolically contains his troops, while Scipio’s troops depend on him alone during the African campaign (Pun. 7.6–8, 17.399–400).106 The corrupting effects of Hannibal’s ancestral legacy indicate the limits of pietas towards ancestors, while the tyrant Pacuvius’ conflict with his son demonstrates that the traditional appeal to paternal authority may lack moral justification. The epic’s various conceptions of the interrelation between familial and public obligations reflect the similar diversity available in imperial propaganda and in contemporary intellectual tradition. This concluding section assesses the epic’s response to contemporary discourse regarding ancestry, paternal authority, and imperial legitimacy. As the consequences of Fabius’ resolution of conflict with Minucius and his soldiers indicate, paternal authority is viewed as ‘natural’ and inherent rather than contingent. The epic’s conjunction of Fabius, Scipio, and Camillus as exemplars of imperial power contrasts with the previous deployment of these figures in first-century Roman literature. Where Valerius Maximus, for example, describes Fabius and Camillus as examples of moderatio, the Punica uses these figures to suggest the charismatic, hereditary, and semidivine aspects of imperial power. In attempting to persuade the people not to elect his son consul in spite of his merits, Valerius Maximus’ Fabius makes the argument that ‘the greatest authority’ should not ‘be continued in a single family.’107 Though apparently presented in the republican context of consular elections, this argument implicitly criticizes the descent of power through the imperial dynasty, which may have been as contentious an issue under the Flavians as under the Julio-Claudians. The same chapter of Valerius Maximus also offers praise of Camillus’ delay to ensure that his appointment as Dictator occurred in accordance with legal authority as an admirable example of moderatio (Val. Max. 4.1.2). Silius conjoins Fabius and Camillus in the episode of Fabius’ conflict with his son. Camillus serves as Fabius’ exemplum of the subordination of familial aspirations to the needs of the state. This prioritization defuses the threat implied to liberty by the monopolization of the consulship by the Fabii. Camillus returns in a comparison to the victorious Scipio during the triumph episode (Pun. 17.652), in which the conqueror of Hannibal is represented as semidivine and compared to the direct descendants of the gods. Legalistic emphasis on moderatio would be neither relevant nor

158 In the Image of the Ancestors possible in this context. In both episodes, emphasis falls on the commander’s charismatic paternal authority rather than his constitutional limitations. This representation of authority as paternal enables its wielder, whether republican general or Flavian emperor, to supersede the limitations imposed by law without involving him in the negative stereotypes of tyranny. Divine filiation complements figuration as a symbolic father as a source of authority and legitimacy in the Punica. In contrast to the Aeneid, the Punica creates no ancestral connection between its Roman heroes and the Flavian dynasty. Vergil employs genealogical discourse as a form of imperial panegyric, representing Augustus as Aeneas’ descendant and his restored Golden Age as the indirect result of Aeneas’ labours (Aen. 6.788–807). The Punica evokes the Aeneid in celebrating the pietas of Scipio and Marcellus, and evokes the epic’s Augustus panegyric in Jupiter’s encomium of the Flavians. The visions of the future course of Roman history advanced by Jupiter and the Sibyl, however, grant no roles to the descendants of Hannibal and Scipio in the contemporary world (Pun. 3.571–629, 13.809–93). The Barcan gens is destined to die out and formerly Carthaginian territories will become Roman provinces. While the epic praises Scipio as another founder of Rome, comparable to Romulus and Camillus (17.651–4), it envisions no role for his descendants in the Flavian era. Though Jupiter’s prophecy unites the first two imperial dynasties by representing the Flavian emperors as augmenting the fame of the Julio-Claudians (3.595–6),108 it nevertheless calls attention to the lack of genealogical connection between the major figures of the Punica and the Flavian gens by shifting abruptly from praise of Scipio to the Flavians’ Sabine ancestry (3.594–629). In contrast to the Aeneid, then, Scipio and the other Roman heroes serve as ethical models rather than consanguineous ancestors of the imperial house. Though Silius’ Jupiter acknowledges the Flavians’ divine ancestry (3.601–5, 625–9), the epic elsewhere suggests that paternity per se is not a sufficient guarantor of identity, character, or performance. Pacuvius’ son is the virtuous descendant of a tyrant, while Scipio, a direct descendant of Jupiter, is mistaken for an ordinary human being. Ancestry must be complemented by performance, and degeneration from the ancestral standard is always a possibility.109 The Punica creates no connections between the lineages of the major figures celebrated in the poem and prominent individuals of the present day. Genealogical discourse does create a form of continuity, however, between the distant and the more recent past for lesser figures in the epic. Through the invented figure of Tullius, for example, the narrator explicitly connects the Volscian king Attius Tullus to the orator Cicero.110 The image of the raven on Corvinus’ helmet commemorates the duel of his fourth-century ancestor M. Valerius Corvus with a Gaul, while his epithets ‘outstanding in speech

159 Silius’ Punica and famous in name’ associate him with the Augustan orator and literary patron M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus.111 The brief introduction of Galba relates the mythological ancestry advertised by the first-century emperor (Pun. 8.468–71, Suet. Galba 2). The deeds of female ancestors can confer distinction upon their descendants. Thus Cloelius’ ancestry and name are ‘memorable because of the famous virgin’ Cloelia, who swam the Tiber during Porsena’s assault on Rome.112 Despite its aristocratic contempt for lower-status individuals, the narrative offers occasional praise for performance that transcends social expectations. Bruttius the Volscian wins praise for his military prowess and heroic death in spite of his provincial origins and lack of distinguished ancestry (Pun. 6.19–21). The epic, however, generally associates politicians of low social origins with demagoguery and rash leadership. The consuls of the year 216 present the contrast between superior and inferior ancestry. Paulus exemplifies his divine ancestry (8.296–7) through his physical courage, superior military strategy, and heroic death at Cannae (11.307–8). By contrast, the low-born Varro (8.246– 7) makes the rash decision to enter the disastrous battle at Cannae, and Mago subsequently reports to the Carthaginian senate on the flight of this ‘degenerate’ from the battlefield (11.523–4). Furthermore, the downfall of Capua occurs in part because ‘men defiled by contemptible lineage and obscure origins’ gain power, and the popular leader Virrius is accordingly ‘excellent at speaking but of obscure lineage.’113 This representation of the fickle crowd reflects the lack of opportunities for popular political participation in Silius’ world.114 On the collective level, the Punica expresses civic identity in kinship terms. The narrative represents Pacuvius’ treachery, for example, both as despicable in pragmatic political terms and also as a form of violence against kin. The citizens of Capua regard themselves as related to the citizens of Rome because of their descent from kindred founders, Capys and Aeneas (Pun. 13.291–7). In these terms, Pacuvius’ rupture of the treaty with Rome divides the Capuans from their symbolic relatives as well as from their primary political allies. Appeals to collective action between states on the basis of the perception of shared descent (συγγένεια) occur frequently in Greco-Roman epic. These examples of ‘kinship diplomacy’ can also be paralleled by the actual practices of cities and states throughout antiquity. The following chapter discusses kinship on the national level, through an examination of Flavian epic’s representation of the connection between originary mythical ancestors and national groups.

6 From Family to Nation: Descent and Ethnicity in Flavian Epic Thus from a Mixture of all Kinds began, That Het’rogeneous Thing, An Englishman: In eager Rapes, and furious Lust begot, Betwixt a Painted Britton and a Scot: Whose gend’ring Offspring quickly learnt to bow, And yoke their Heifers to the Roman Plough: From whence a Mongrel half-bred Race there came, With neither Name nor Nation, Speech or Fame. In whose hot Veins new Mixtures quickly ran, Infus’d between a Saxon and a Dane. While their Rank Daughters, to their Parents just, Receiv’d all Nations with Promiscuous Lust. This Nauseous Brood directly did contain The well-extracted Blood of Englishmen. Daniel Defoe, from ‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701)1

The individual descent group has provided the largest unit of analysis for the preceding chapters’ discussions of kinship. In mythological foundation narratives, however, the paradigm of descent also describes the relationships between larger populations such as ethnic groups and states. Such narratives provide mythical explanations of the origins of states, the inclusion or exclusion of particular members, and the political relationships between states. Epic was a principal vehicle for the development and transmission of these narratives. The account of Hellen’s offspring in the pseudo-Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, for example, provides a mythical narrative of descent for several of the city-states of ancient Greece.2 Vergil’s Aeneid presents a narrative of the descent of the Roman people from Trojan migrants and

161 From Family to Nation indigenous Latins. This chapter examines the functions of narratives of national descent in Flavian epic, including the origin narratives of the Theban people in Statius’ Thebaid and those of the Saguntines and Capuans in Silius’ Punica. Narratives of national descent serve important thematic purposes within each of these epics. Statius’ Thebaid represents civil war as an expanded version of intrafamilial conflict. The epic briefly relates the well-known myth of the spontaneous generation of the Theban population (Theb. 4.434–42). The Phoenician exile Cadmus sows a dragon’s teeth in Theban soil, from which the Spartoi, fully armed men, spring up and fight. The survivors of this combat become the ancestors of the Theban people. The Theban people as a whole suffer the malign effects of the guilt that persists from the violent events of their city’s foundation, Cadmus’ murder of the dragon and the proto-civil war that immediately follows. The Roman origin myths, which include Romulus’ murder of Remus and two proto-civil wars, one between Italians and Trojans and another between Rome and Alba Longa (Livy 1.23), similarly provide precedent for the recurrence of civil war throughout Roman history. The affinities between the Theban and Roman origin narratives suggest the conceptual relevance, for a Roman audience, of the Thebaid’s reflections on the connection between shared descent and national identity. Silius’ Punica recapitulates several of the national aetiologies presented in the Aeneid, including the origination of the Roman people from Trojan and Latin ancestors and the enmity between Romans and Carthaginians caused by Dido’s dying curse. The narrative represents various states as politically affiliated thanks to the shared descent of their founders from common ancestors (συγγένεια). Yet some of the appeals to shared descent as a rationale for military intervention or political affiliation are rejected in the epic. The Romans refuse to honour the Saguntines’ request for military assistance, while the Capuans revolt against Rome in favour of Hannibal. Silius’ epic uses the paradigm of descent in order to question the ability of political myths to establish or maintain unity among the diverse communities that people an empire. Through their presentation of myths of national kinship, the Flavian epics address some of the social and political concerns of the later first century. The Julio-Claudian dynasty had established its legitimacy in part from its claim of descent from Venus through Anchises and Aeneas. The Flavian dynasty, however, claimed descent neither from the Julio-Claudians nor from a Trojan ancestor. In addition to making Vespasian a divine ancestor of his sons, the poets of the Flavian era also honoured the emperors by using the topoi of ethnicity. Sabine descent was imagined to underpin the emperors’ virtue and thereby to contribute to the legitimacy of their rule. Other important

162 In the Image of the Ancestors contemporary issues included the cultural integration of ethnically distinct provincials into the Roman elite and the re-establishment of a sense of national unity after the war of AD 69. I begin with a brief survey of perceptions of the relationship between descent and ethnicity among the Roman upper class of the early imperial era. I next examine the models of national descent developed in prior epic from Vergil’s Aeneid through Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, then their application in the epics of Statius and Silius. 1. ‘Everything Is Mixed and Imported’: Descent and Identity in First-Century Rome Narratives of shared origins may be used to produce a fictive image of ethnic homogeneity. The Athenian epitaphios logos, for example, typically describes the citizens of Athens as autochthonous. In contrast to the migrant founders of other states, the original Athenians are born from the land, which nurtures them as their common mother. These unique origins are imagined to encourage the development of stronger affective bonds between citizens in comparison with inhabitants of other states, who live in ethnically mixed communities and whose state nurtures them as a stepmother.3 Legal measures attempted to preserve the mythical image of congruity between the ethnic community and its territorial boundary. A law of Pericles, for example, restricted the Athenian citizenship to those born to two citizen parents.4 The rhetoric of Athenian national kinship invokes the assumption that the citizens of the state are inclined to treat fellow citizens, their social ‘brothers,’ better than non-citizen ‘others.’ Like the ‘noble lie’ of Plato’s Republic, the foundational narratives of states are typically fabrications. What matters is not the historicity or factual correctness of the narratives but their ability to command assent.5 Ancient Romans, however, did not maintain the same claims of autochthony, monogenesis, and ethnic homogeneity. As they began to dominate the Italian peninsula, Romans selectively extended their citizenship to other Italian ethnic groups. The subsequent extension of citizenship to non-Italian provincials produced an empire recognized as comprising multiple ethnicities.6 Cicero boasted that Roman citizenship was open to all (Balb. 29). The impossibility of constructing Roman identity exclusively in terms of ethnicity was recognized in antiquity. Josephus observes that as the Romans give their citizenship to entire peoples, ‘former Iberians and Etruscans and Sabines are now called Romans.’7 Seneca views all populations as ethnic hybrids: ‘You will find hardly any land which is still inhabited by its indigenous people; everything is mixed and imported.’8 The rhetoric of power in the early imperial period conflates ethnic with universal kinship by presenting Rome as the universal city,

163 From Family to Nation its monuments as symbols of the entire world. The elder Pliny describes Italy as the ‘nursling and parent of all peoples’ and Athenaeus praises Rome as ‘an epitome of the civilized world.’9 Roman myth reflects these inclusive perspectives on ethnicity. The myth of Romulus’ asylum, for example, describes Rome’s original population as migrant, ethnically mixed, and lower-status.10 The narrative of descent from Trojan founders had traditionally been employed as the charter for Roman military, diplomatic, and cultural interventions in the affairs of other states. Instances of the political invocation of Rome’s Trojan ancestry, by Romans, their dependants, and their enemies, occur from the early third century BC onward.11 Though direct Trojan descent was only claimed by relatively few prominent families, it could be attributed to the Roman people as a whole.12 Definitions of Roman identity in cultural rather than ethnic terms neither obviated the myth of Trojan descent nor implied an absence of awareness of cultural difference. Romans asserted cultural superiority through public displays such as the triumph over conquered peoples and the monumental representation of foreign ethne. Roman literature offers a variety of textual strategies for constructing ethnic difference, including the ethnic jokes of Roman comedy, the (pseudo-)scholarly narratives of the ethnographic tradition, and the slurs of Roman satire.13 In spite of the observable cultural and ethnic diversity of ‘the Roman people,’ however, the narrative of Trojan foundation offered a vision of a population unified through kinship that could be invoked in a variety of political circumstances. The Flavian emperors’ claim to Sabine origins rendered impossible an encomium of the ruling family through genealogical narrative in the manner of the Aeneid. Though typological parallels can be observed between the central figures of Flavian epic and the members of the Flavian dynasty, none of the epic narratives attempts to construct a mythical genealogy linking character and emperor in the manner of the Aeneid. Where genealogical narrative relating to the Flavian regime appears, it develops the positive topoi associated with Sabine ethnic origins, including moral rectitude, chastity, austerity, and hardihood.14 The prophecy delivered by Silius’ Jupiter relating the origins of the Flavian regime offers an abbreviated list of such qualities:15 exin se Curibus uirtus caelestis ad astra efferet, et sacris augebit nomen Iulis bellatrix gens bacifero nutrita Sabino. (Pun. 3.594–6) Thereafter heavenly virtue will lift itself from Cures to the stars, and a warlike clan, nurtured by the berry-bearing Sabine country, will increase the name belonging to the hallowed Julians.

164 In the Image of the Ancestors Within the context of the Punica, the uirtus caelestis that leads the Flavians to the stars aligns them with the characters of Hercules and Scipio and the Stoic paradigm that presents apotheosis as the reward of virtue.16 The simplicity and physical challenges of the rustic Sabine lifestyle contribute to their military success (bellatrix gens) and aversion to luxuria. The association made in the brief encomium between uirtus, leadership, and the city of Cures aligns Vespasian with the virtuous Sabine Numa, the second king of Rome.17 Drawing on a lengthy literary tradition, the Punica presents descent from Sabine ancestors as the warrant of imperial virtue. Through his ‘increase’ of the Julio-Claudian inheritance, the Sabine founder of the second imperial dynasty restores Rome after the violence of the civil war and the moral decline associated with Nero and Vitellius. As in other episodes of Roman civil conflict, the violence of the war of AD 69 obliterated both familial and ethnic distinctions. Members of the same family killed one another in combat, while Otho and Vitellius devastated the Italian countryside ‘like foreign shores’ or ‘like enemy territory.’18 The elimination of dissension among the divided cities of Italy, the rebellious units of the army, and the provinces of the empire was an issue of central importance at the beginning of the Flavian dynasty.19 While the political integration of newly enfranchised Italians had been a dominant issue of the first century BC, the later first century AD also witnessed the cultural integration of high-ranking Italians and provincials into the Roman social hierarchy. Claudius had extended senatorial rank to Gauls, and the Flavian emperors admitted a larger proportion of nonItalians to the Senate than their predecessors.20 This change in the composition of the Senate prompted a shift in the perception of the relative importance of ethnicity for members of the elite. The abuse of foreigners in the imperial period, such as the famous complaints of Juvenal’s Umbricius, appears to have been largely directed at members of the lower classes. Tacitus observes a salutary decline of luxuria following the entry of ‘men from municipia, coloniae, and even the provinces’ into the Roman senate. The historian similarly relates the exemplary morality of the emperor Vespasian to his origins (Ann. 3.55.3– 4). Senators of provincial origin acquired the same level of education and cultural attainment as their Italian-born counterparts, and did not attempt to preserve their native culture. Prejudices against them appear to have declined throughout the first century.21 The encomiastic poetry of Statius and Martial, for example, praises individuals from Africa, Britain, and Spain for the convincing character of their cultural performance as Romans and confirms their entry into the dominant culture.22 The Flavian epics, following the example of the Aeneid, similarly suggest that descent is less important than cultural performance or individual aspiration in determining ethnic identity. Despite his foreign ethnicity, for example,

165 From Family to Nation the African Masinissa in Silius’ Punica is perceived to have strong moral and cultural affinities with Rome.23 As an exemplar of pietas, uirtus, and fides, his moral performance is praiseworthy in Roman terms (Pun. 16.140–8). The fire omen, meanwhile, associates him with such commendable Roman figures as Ascanius and Servius Tullius.24 The affinity between this African and the Roman characters of the poem would appear at first to be a sharp contrast with the Aeneid, which represent the various North African peoples as wholly sundered in terms of culture from both the Phoenician Dido and the Trojan Aeneas (e.g., Aen. 4.40–3). Yet in Roman epic, as the following section shows, descent is only one factor among many in determining ethnic identity and political affiliation.25 The demands of the rhetorical context, rather than points of origin or physical characteristics perceived as immutable determinants, shape each character’s claim to ethnic origins. 2. ‘A Mixed Race’: Descent and Identity in Roman Epic The Aeneid presents innovations on the myth of Trojan foundation developed through the preceding three centuries.26 The epic constructs national identity in terms of shared descent from mythical founders. As discussed in the preceding chapter, the narrative presents the historical conflicts between Rome and Carthage as the result of enmity between populations descended from founders opposed in hatred. Dido’s prayer ‘that they and their descendants fight each other’ prefigures the Punic wars. Though Dido herself may be a sympathetic character, Vergil associates her with a number of conventional Punic stereotypes.27 The use of ethnic stereotyping both distances the Roman reader and implies continuity between the character of the founder and her people. Ethnic identities in the Aeneid, however, are also mutable. Even as it appears to provide a mythological justification of Roman cultural unity, the Aeneid offers evidence of the contingent nature of its characters’ claims of ethnic identity through descent. The ethnic identity of the Roman people and their founder provides a case in point. At the end of the Aeneid, Jupiter promises Juno that Trojan cultural elements will not predominate over Latin in the fusion of the two peoples. Rather, the god claims that a genus mixtum will eventually emerge from the intermarriage of the two peoples: sermonem Ausonii patrium moresque tenebunt, utque est nomen erit; commixti corpore tantum subsident Teucri. morem ritusque sacrorum adiciam faciamque omnis uno ore Latinos.

166 In the Image of the Ancestors hinc genus Ausonio mixtum quod sanguine surget, supra homines, supra ire deos pietate uidebis ... (Aen. 12.834–9) The people of Ausonia will retain their ancestral speech and customs, and their name will be as it is. The Teucrians will sink beneath them, mixed with them only in body. I will give them customs and holy ritual and I will make them all Latins with a common speech. From this point you will see that the race that arise, mixed with Ausonian blood, will transcend other peoples, will transcend the gods in piety …

Under Jupiter’s dispensation, the Latins will not have to abandon their language, customs, or distinctive ethnonym as they intermarry with the Trojans. Ancient ethnographers regarded cultural markers such as language, custom, ethnonym, and religious ritual as some of the defining features of populations.28 Though the Trojans may have dominated the epic’s narrative focus up to these concluding lines, in the future they will be subordinated to their Latin counterparts (subsident Teucri). Jupiter further promises to unite the mixed race in common customs and religious rituals (morem ritusque sacrorum). The new race’s common possession of these distinctive cultural properties will guarantee its unity. The evidence from elsewhere in the epic, however, presents a challenge to Jupiter’s claim of Trojan subsidence. The proem’s prefiguration of Juno’s support for Carthage in the Punic wars suggests that she will continue to perceive the Romans as the hated Trojans beyond the conclusion of the narrative.29 The narrator also observes instances of continued Trojan prominence in the present day. Noble families claim descent from Trojan ancestors, and Trojan migrants found other Italian cities besides Alba Longa. Roman religious icons and cultural institutions such as the penates and the lusus Troiae originate from Troy.30 In contrast to most other ancient migration narratives, the Trojan women do not complete the journey to Latium, and thus the population of Trojan migrants is almost exclusively male.31 The Roman people therefore originate, according to the Aeneid, from the intermarriage of Trojan men and Latin women. Although elements of cultural identity may certainly be passed down through the female line, the father’s dominant position within the family structure suggests the future replication rather than subsidence of Trojan culture. The Aeneid complements its indirect assertion of Trojan dominance within the Roman hybrid with an examination of the performance of gender by various ethnic populations. The other characters of the epic offer alternative views of the gendered behaviour of the Trojan refugees. Apollo addresses the Trojans as ‘tough sons of Dardanus,’ while Numanus Remulus derides them as overcivilized and effeminate and applies the rhetoric of

167 From Family to Nation masculine hardihood to his fellow Italians.32 The context of a national aetiology lends significance to the Trojans’ establishment of their claim to masculinity. Numanus’ criticisms implicitly question the Trojans’ fitness to be the fathers of the Roman people. The Flavian epics draw on the Aeneid’s examination of the relationship among descent, gender, and national identity in a variety of narrative contexts. Statius’ Thebans are often derided as effeminate, for example, thanks to their Phoenician origins and cult worship of the effeminate god Bacchus, a descendant of the ruling dynasty (Theb. 9.476–80, 790–800, etc.). Silius represents the Capuans as having inherited the ‘overcivilized, effeminate’ aspects of Trojan identity scorned by Numanus and others in the Aeneid. The ‘hardy, masculine’ Romans who conquer Capua show that they have excluded this potentially dangerous aspect of their national inheritance.33 Characters’ perceptions of ethnic identities in the Aeneid vary in accordance with their aspirations to affiliate with new communities or to assert connections with an ancestral community.34 The most complex series of redefinitions of claims of ethnic identity occurs in response to Faunus’ prophecy instructing Latinus to marry his daughter Lavinia to a foreigner instead of a Latin (Aen. 7.96–101). Earlier in the epic, however, Aeneas claims an ancestral attachment to Italy. Apollo’s oracle instructs the Trojans that they should ‘seek their ancient mother,’ Dardanus’ originary homeland in Italy. In the Trojan embassy to Latinus, Ilioneus repeats the claim that ‘Dardanus arose’ from Italy.35 Faced with Aeneas’ claim to Italian origins, Latinus reinterprets ‘foreign’ (externi) as ‘coming from foreign shores’ in order to align his visitors with the terms of his father’s prophecy.36 In response to Latinus, Amata attempts to identify Turnus, her cousin and preferred choice of son-in-law, as a foreigner: ‘And if the first origins of Turnus’ house be traced back, his ancestors were Inachus and Acrisius and the middle of Mycenae.’37 Though also a supporter of Turnus, Juno contradicts Amata by identifying Turnus as an Italian native. She offers the evidence of his more proximate line of descent in her argument against Trojan interference in Latin affairs at the divine council: ‘Turnus stands on his native earth. Pilumnus was his grandfather, the goddess Venilia was his mother.’38 From his cousin’s perspective, Turnus can be made into an Argive. From the perspective of Juno and most of Turnus’ supporters, however, his identity as a native Italian legitimizes his effort to oppose the Trojans. Ethnicity in the Aeneid, then, is not an immutable given but an element of identity that can be constructed rhetorically. In each of these episodes, characters may choose from a range of genealogical narratives in order to identify their own ethnicities or those of other people. Iarbas, Amata, and Numanus Remulus perceive Aeneas and the Trojans as Asian foreigners.

168 In the Image of the Ancestors They express their hostility through the evocation of a series of Asian stereotypes, including effeminacy, luxury, and unusual clothing.39 When identifying himself as a descendant of Dardanus, however, Aeneas claims a primordial attachment to Italy. He also appeals to an even more distant descent from Atlas in order to assert a link of lateral kinship with the Arcadian Evander in support of his request for the king’s military assistance (Aen. 8.126–51). The Aeneid’s multiple ascriptions of ethnic identity complicate its account of Roman origins. The narrative presents different perspectives on the relative importance of the contributions of Trojan and Latin descent to the Roman hybrid.40 It also offers competing claims regarding the importance of descent relative to the other factors that determine ethnic identity. Francis Cairns interprets the fluidity of ethnic attribution as evidence of the epic’s inclusive and unifying perspective: The nationalism esteemed by Virgil is not petty or chauvinistic. Rather it is based on morality: for Virgil, Turnus is alien to Italy not because of his Greek blood – for he also has Italian blood – but because he is devoted to discord and to the irrational and short-sighted continuation in Italy of old Greek feuds. Similarly, Aeneas is an Italian not just because of his racial origins, although they are important, but because he comes to Italy as the bringer of peace and concord.41

Subsequent epic explores several of the contradictions latent in Vergil’s national aetiology and offers alternative approaches to describing the relationship between founder and people. In each narrative, ethnic affiliations are not unproblematic givens but rhetorical claims debated from various perspectives. The episodes of the spontaneous generation of populations in Ovid’s Metamorphoses respond to the account of Roman origins in the Aeneid by presenting an alternative model of national identity. The motif of spontaneous generation extends the androcentric implications of the Aeneid’s origin narrative. As Alison Keith has observed, Roman epic typically assigns actual human mothers a marginal role in the perpetuation of societies. Epic instead represents the land itself as a mother and the inhabitants of ancient cities as the children of their male founders.42 While the Aeneid’s origin narrative reserves the privileged roles for the founder Aeneas and the Trojan men who marry Latin women, the Metamorphoses’ narratives of spontaneous generation wholly exclude women from the process of originating society. Cadmus generates the Spartoi, the originary Theban population, by sowing the dragon’s teeth, while the metamorphosis of ants into the Myrmidons occurs as the result of Aeacus’ prayer. Unlike Aeneas, however, the founders in these origin narratives maintain a different character from the peoples that they

169 From Family to Nation generate.43 The Thebans retain the originary propensity for civil war featured by the Spartoi, while the Myrmidons have the virtues of the ants from which they derive.44 These accounts of monogenesis and spontaneous generation challenge the Aeneid’s narrative of cultural continuity and ethnic hybridity. Both Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Lucan’s Bellum Civile question the validity of key elements of the myths that confer legitimacy on the JulioClaudian dynasty. Ovid’s narrator calls attention to the contingency of Augustus’ claim of descent from a divine father. Julius Caesar ‘was to be made a god,’ so that his adoptive son ‘would not be born of mortal seed.’45 While texts such as the Aeneid may lend support to the Julian clan’s assertion of its descent from Venus through Anchises and Aeneas, the concluding episodes of Ovid’s Metamorphoses suggest that Augustus’ claims of descent rest on a purely textual foundation.46 Descent from the Trojan founder is not an unquestionable fact but a creation of the notoriously mendacious poets. Lucan’s account of the violence ignited by Caesar’s invasion of Italy offers further criticism of the Julian myth of descent. The repeated assertion of national kinship in the narrative of Trojan origins fails to create the national unity that would preclude civil war. Lucan portrays the collapse of Roman society in the proem’s image of ‘a powerful people turning a victorious sword-hand against its own guts, and battle lines linked in kinship.’47 The civil war severs the bonds of both consanguinitas and consubstantiality. Caesar’s claim to be a patriot (BC 1.203) even as he begins the civil war suggests the powerlessness of the Trojan myth to command national or familial loyalty. The myth does not prevent Ilian soldiers, for example, from joining Pompey’s forces and fighting against Caesar, even though they recognize him as a Trojan descendant (BC 3.211–13). Caesar’s massacre of Aeneas’ descendants at Pharsalus shows that he shares none of the founder’s concerns for the future success of his people. Having destroyed his Trojan ancestor’s creation in Italy, he promises to rebuild the city of Troy on its original Asian site.48 The hostile portrait of Caesar undoes many of the redeeming features of the myth of Trojan descent. Neither this myth nor the image of the body politic, an attractive alternative to kinship narratives for states that do not lay claim to ethnic homogeneity, can command assent from the Roman people in this epic. A brief episode of Valerius’ Argonautica examines the effect of migration on the perception of a people’s ethnic identity. The murals on the temple of Sol present an ecphrastic narrative of the origins of the Colchian people. Herodotus identifies the Colchians as descended from the Egyptians through their racial and linguistic similarities and common practices of circumcision and linenworking.49 Valerius, however, emphasizes the change in the Colchians’ cultural identity that has resulted from their new habitation:

170 In the Image of the Ancestors nec minus hinc uaria dux laetus imagine templi ad geminas fert ora fores cunabula gentis Colchidos hic ortusque tuens, ut prima Sesostris intulerit rex bella Getis, ut clade suorum territus hos Thebas patriumque reducat ad amnem, Phasidis hos imponat agris Colchosque uocari imperet. Arsinoen illi tepidaeque requirunt otia laeta Phari pinguemque sine imbribus annum et iam Sarmaticis permutant carbasa bracis. (Arg. 5.415–23) The leader Jason, made happy by the varied images on the temple, directs his gaze to the twin doors. He looks here at the birth of the Colchian people and their origins. He sees how King Sesostris first made war on the Getae, and how, terrified by the defeat of his people, he draws them back to Egyptian Thebes and their ancestral river. He settles some of his people by the fields of the Phasis and commands them to be called Colchians. They long for Arsinoe and the happy peace of warm Pharos and the fertile year (even though it lacks rain), and already they are exchanging their linen clothing for Sarmatian breeches.

Though the Colchians maintain a nostalgic fondness for their Egyptian homeland, they have already irrevocably changed their ethnic identity. Though descended from Egyptian ancestors, the alteration of ethnonym, language, and traditional dress signifies the abandonment of this originary culture. Brief though it may be, this inset narrative implicitly provides a basis for questioning the claim of cultural continuity between Rome and Troy presented in the Aeneid. Though Vergil’s Romans claim Trojan descent, migration has similarly caused a change of ethnonym, language, and dress for this people. If the Colchians can no longer be called ‘Egyptians,’ it may be illegitimate to continue calling the Romans by the metonymic ‘Trojans.’ The contingent relationship between descent and ethnicity or national identity is a common theme of the narratives of descent in Roman epic from Vergil to Valerius. Vergil’s Aeneas claims multiple affiliations as the result of his descent. The Trojan inheritance that he grants to the Roman people is enriched by his connections to Evander the Arcadian through descent from Atlas and to the land of Italy through Dardanus. The narratives of spontaneous generation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, however, impose a gap between founder and people. The Spartoi, Myrmidons, and other spontaneously generated peoples impart cultural aspects (such as frugality or propensity to civil war) to their descendants that have no connection to the cultural traits of their founders (Cadmus, Aeacus). Lucan’s civil war narrative directly questions the cogency of the Trojan myth. Through

171 From Family to Nation the figure of Caesar, who begins the civil war, the Bellum Civile shows that a myth of shared descent does not lead to unity among Romans. Through the example of the Colchian people, Valerius’ Argonautica suggests that migration and resettlement may lead to cultural discontinuity. This paradigm of cultural fission contrasts with the strong connections between Roman and Trojan identity posited in the Aeneid. The following sections discuss the descent of the Theban people in Statius’ Thebaid and the Saguntines and Capuans in Silius’ Punica. In their accounts of myths of national descent, Statius and Silius draw on a complex inheritance from prior epic. In the figure of Menoeceus, Statius develops the myth of Theban descent from the Spartoi presented in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Silius’ Punica recapitulates the myths of Roman and Carthaginian foundation presented in Vergil’s Aeneid. Like Lucan’s Bellum Civile, however, both epics examine the failure of narratives of shared descent to guarantee political unity. 3. ‘The Latest-Born Descendant of the Serpent’s Race’: Statius’ Menoeceus and the Descent of the Theban People The myth of the Spartoi represents the Theban people as united by their shared descent.50 Yet ethnic homogeneity does not produce social harmony or political stability. Statius instead connects the motif of spontaneous generation to the destruction of society in civil war. The narrative of monogenesis both obscures the presence of an indigenous Boeotian population51 and suggests the fragility of a society that depends on a single line of descent for its cultural identity. The Thebans’ propensity for civil war is directly related to the circumstances of their generation. Menoeceus, who sacrifices himself in response to an oracle commanding the sacrifice of the ‘latest-born descendant of the serpent’s race,’ embodies this violent inheritance. The Thebaid presents alternative conceptions of Theban community in episodes involving Menoeceus. In Thebaid 8, Menoeceus briefly exhorts his followers to recover the body of a fallen comrade. He supports his argument by offering a vision of the community that foregrounds its ethnic homogeneity, yet allows for the possibility of incorporation of a foreigner through marriage. Myths of autochthony (as in the Athenian example) are typically used to exclude foreigners from the community. Menoeceus offers an atypically inclusive deployment of the myth that testifies to his humanitas. In Thebaid 10, Tiresias’ oracle demands the sacrifice of Menoeceus. As the youngest descendant of the Spartoi, he must be offered to appease the dragon killed by Cadmus. In entreating his son to stay alive, Menoeceus’ father Creon privileges his son’s role in the nuclear family over his membership in an extended

172 In the Image of the Ancestors descent group that entails obligations to the wider community of Thebans. His attempt to restrain Menoeceus from an act of uirtus, on the one hand, is typical of his negative characterization as a tyrant. On the other, it is also a pathetic opposition of paternal love and authority against the demands of community and fate. Menoeceus himself privileges his adherence to his wider obligations over narrower familial claims. The successive rhetorical manipulations of Menoeceus’ posthumous legacy feature a similar variety of perspectives on the relationship between descent and identity. The Thebans’ praise of Menoeceus as their new conditor after his self-sacrifice associates him with the founding members of the national family. In her mourning for her son, however, Menoeceus’ mother focuses on the relationship between his descent and his personality. She interprets his self-sacrifice as a consequence of his descent from the violent Spartoi and a sign that he lacks the more sympathetic traits associated with her line. Creon’s response to his grief, meanwhile, puts the city at greater risk. In a misguided effort to pay honour to his son, he forbids burial to the Argives, prompting the second assault on the city led by Theseus. These episodes present the relationship between the origins of a people and their obligations to one another as a subject for debate by the characters. The Menoeceus narrative of the Thebaid shows that even a monogenetic model of ethnic origins cannot provide a sufficient charter for national unity. Strife divides the citizens of Thebes despite their closeness in terms of shared descent. In this regard, Statius suggests, the conceptual connection between shared descent and national unity implied in the Aeneid lacks cogency. A brief review of the association between spontaneous generation and civil war in Ovid’s Metamorphoses will help to set Statius’ use of the Theban origin myth in context. Civil wars in Roman epic are fought between large groups of warriors who, while they may be citizens of the same nation, are not typically closely related in terms of blood. The frequent description of civil war as a ‘battle between brothers,’ therefore, is a powerful metaphor. Its moments of literalization in episodes of violence between actual family members are necessarily rare. The Spartoi generated by Ovid’s Cadmus, however, are all members of a single family, ‘earth-born brothers.’ Ovid’s Spartoi keep the ‘outsider’ Cadmus excluded so as to keep their conflict a pure civil war with no elements of external war.52 In this situation, the metaphor of fraternal conflict has become literal and the family and the state describe an identical set of individuals. The fratricidal battle at Thebes’ foundation foreshadows the constant return of civil war to the city. Theban characters recall their city’s violent origins while involved in successive civil wars. Ovid’s Pentheus exhorts his followers against the Theban Bacchants through an appeal to their shared descent: ‘Be mindful, I pray you, of what stock you sprang from!’53 In

173 From Family to Nation contrast to the conflict between the earth-born men, not every warrior in this later civil war is necessarily related to every other combatant. The target of Pentheus’ violence is his cousin Bacchus, however, and so the war is still the outgrowth of a conflict between kin. Though Pentheus intends to exhort his fighters by reminding them of their ancestors’ physical courage, the reader also recalls that they spring from a stock that is prone to making civil war. The violence that immediately follows upon spontaneous generation and recurs through successive eras therefore suggests a congruence between civil and familial conflict.54 In the manner of Ovid’s Pentheus, Statius’ Menoeceus evokes the myth of spontaneous generation in order to exhort his followers in a civil war. As he endeavours to recover Atys’ body, he shames his troops by recalling the reputation associated with their common descent:55 instabat pubes Tegaea iacenti, nec prohibent Tyrii, ‘pudeat, Cadmea iuuentus, terrigenas mentita patres! quo tenditis,’ inquit, ‘degeneres? meliusne iacet pro sanguine nostro hospes Atys? tantum hospes adhuc et coniugis ultor infelix nondum iste suae; nos pignora tanta prodimus?’ insurgunt iusto firmata pudore agmina, cuique suae rediere in pectora curae. (Theb. 8.599–606) The young men of Tegea were advancing on Atys’ corpse, and the Thebans do not stop them. Menoeceus says: ‘For shame, Cadmus’ youths – you lie that your fathers were born from the earth! You degenerates, where are you heading off to? Is it better that our guest Atys lies dead, having fought for our blood? This unhappy man was still only our guest and the avenger of a wife not yet his. Are we betraying such pledges?’ Strengthened by proper shame, the battle-lines surge forward, and concern for his own people returns to each man’s breast.

Menoeceus recalls his troops’ claim to be descended from the violent Spartoi, the original Thebans generated from Mars’ serpent. His reference to their terrigenas patres echoes Ovid’s description of the terrigenis fratribus (Met. 3.118) generated by Cadmus. Through his insult degeneres, Menoeceus attempts to calls attention to the gap between his troops’ lacklustre military performance and the expectations derived from the knowledge of their descent.56 Personified Virtus returns to this theme when she claims that Menoeceus’ prowess on the battlefield certifies his descent from the Spartoi (Theb. 10.662– 3). Menoeceus’ troops, however, are in fact emulating their ancestors through the recapitulation of their endlessly unfulfilled desire for civil war.57

174 In the Image of the Ancestors Menoeceus’ brief exhortation presents a vision of the entire city of Thebes as a single family, united by a common ancestry and a single blood (sanguine nostro). His description of Atys as an outsider both reinforces the image of an ethnically homogeneous city and permits (in contrast, for example, to the Athenian paradigm) inclusion through marriage.58 Because he did not survive to marry Ismene, Atys has not yet been welcomed either to the royal or to the national family (tantum hospes adhuc). His valour is therefore to be doubly commended because he fought to defend people not yet connected to him in kinship (coniugis ultor / … nondum iste suae).59 The emphasis on incompletion implies that Atys would be no longer a hospes after marriage but a full member of the community – one who might even respond to an exhortation evoking (cultural rather than biological) descent from the dragon’s teeth. Though Menoeceus regards all Thebans as equal in terms of their shared descent, few of his fellow citizens share his expansive and inclusive view of community. Tiresias’ oracle lays emphasis on the uniqueness of the young man’s line of descent rather than his equality with other Thebans.60 Menoeceus’ direct descent from the Spartoi enables him to expiate an act of originary violence through his self-sacrifice. According to the oracle, the city’s success in war now depends on the appeasement of Mars’ dragon with Menoeceus’ blood: Martius inferias et saeua efflagitat anguis sacra: cadat generis quicumque nouissimus extat uiperei, datur hoc tantum uictoria pacto. (Theb. 10.612–14) Mars’ serpent demands offerings and violent ritual. Whoever is the latest-born descendant of the serpent’s race, let him die. Victory is given only on this condition.

Statius’ evocation of an unexpiated act of violence at Thebes’ foundation creates a parallel with the story of Rome’s origins. Horace, for example, attributes the recurrence of civil conflict of Rome to the inability of successive generations to expiate the murder of Remus.61 The distinction between the perspectives of Menoeceus and the oracle also recalls the varied uses of claims to Trojan ancestry at Rome. ‘Trojan’ can be applied universally to the Roman people or more narrowly to identify the few prominent families that claimed Trojan descent. Like the Trojan families of Vergil’s Aeneid, Menoeceus’ descent enables him to embody the nation’s identity more directly than others. Both Virtus’ recapitulation of the oracle (Theb. 10.668) and Menoeceus’ dying words (10.768–9) emphasize the unus pro omnibus motif. In his battlefield exhortation, Menoeceus represents the citizens of Thebes as members of a single family, from whom sacrifice on the battlefield is

175 From Family to Nation expected. His father Creon, by contrast, views the state as composed of a collection of unrelated families without such strong obligations to one another. Hearing the oracle alters Creon’s perspective on his obligations to Thebes. He instantly changes from ‘mourning the common fate of his fatherland’ to thinking only about his son and the possibility of a plot by Tiresias against his line.62 Creon tries without success to dissuade his son from responding to the oracle’s demand for sacrifice. He does not wish his son to sacrifice himself for ‘foreign fathers and strangers’ children.’63 Creon not only discards the concept of the national family but redefines other Thebans as foreigners and strangers. His vision of the community is directly opposed to his son’s. Menoeceus uses the concept of shared descent from the Spartoi in order to assert the common identity of Thebans as fellow citizens. Though the direct line of descent is uniquely possessed by members of his family, he describes others as sharing in it, using the language of political symbolism rather than biological certainty. His father Creon, however, describes Thebes by reference to an isolating and non-communitarian model of descent, as composed of a collection of foreign families occupying the same territory. While it is common to redefine fellow citizens as foreigners in the context of Roman civil war,64 Creon’s rhetoric of exclusion goes beyond these norms. The people he excludes as unworthy of Menoeceus’ sacrifice are not his political enemies but the Theban loyalists. They are also soon to become his subjects, and during his brief reign they suffer the consequences of his prioritization of his son’s memory over the welfare of the state. Creon’s efforts to dissuade Menoeceus from his self-sacrifice recall the typical characterization of tyrant fathers in Flavian epic.65 In the manner of Silius’ Pacuvius, Creon illegitimately attempts to set his paternal authority above divine and political authority. Though not yet the king of Thebes, and an inferior interpreter of the gods’ will in comparison to Tiresias, Creon claims that his wishes are what ‘Thebes prefers’ (10.718). In his view, pietas erga parentes supersedes pietas erga patriam, a self-centred prioritization that reverses the Ciceronian argument that the state possesses a superior claim in comparison to families on its citizens’ service. He begs his son: ‘If you have any shame, pity your own relatives first. This is pietas, this is true honour.’66 The narrator implicitly contradicts Creon by labelling Menoeceus pius (10.756) at the moment of his suicide. The young man’s disobedience to his father still constitutes a valid interpretation of the requirements of pietas. Tyrannical father and virtuous son similarly disagree on the expression of other virtues. Like Valerius’ Pelias, Creon tries to restrain his son from performing an act of uirtus that will lead to gloria and decus (10.711–12). Like Valerius’ Acastus, Menoeceus deceives his father in order to achieve these ends (10.722–34).

176 In the Image of the Ancestors Menoeceus’ deception of his father offers a variation on the epic’s central narrative paradigm of fraternal conflict. Before the encounter between father and son, personified Virtus encourages Menoeceus to hasten to complete his self-sacrifice lest he lose to his brother the opportunity to fulfil the oracle (Theb. 10.671).67 In sacrificing himself, however, Menoeceus has been deceived by Virtus. The oracle and its consequences represent one of many instances of the Thebaid’s ironic separation of divine, human, and narratorial perspectives. Though his sacrifice has been commanded by the gods with the promise of victory attached, Menoeceus’ death ultimately leads to further bloodshed at the hands of Theseus. Creon refuses to permit the burial of the Argives in a misguided effort to pay honour to his son and thereby gives rise to a second assault on the city led by the Athenian king in response to supplication by the Argive widows.68 The implied competition between the brothers Menoeceus and Haemon (Theb. 10.727–34), a milder version of the competitive urge that drives Eteocles and Polynices, leads to deception and bereavement. The narrative therefore questions to what degree Menoeceus’ self-sacrifice benefited the city in the long term. The Thebaid refuses to permit the straightforward admiration of the young man’s heroics by calling attention to the misconception under which he performs his self-sacrifice, his painful deception of his father (10.773), and the greater suffering inflicted by Theseus’ assault. In her lament upon her son’s death (Theb. 10.793–814), Menoeceus’ mother complements her husband Creon’s selfish challenge to the Ciceronian vision of civic participation. Like the oracle and her husband, she once more uses descent as the basis of her argument. Where Creon describes those outside his immediate family as foreigners undeserving of his son’s sacrifice, his wife distinguishes her son from his fellow Thebans in terms of his aristocratic birth. In her view, it would only be appropriate to sacrifice the socially insignificant on behalf of the state (10.793–4). In order to make sense of her son’s behaviour for herself, she constructs a narrative that confirms Virtus’ claim that Menoeceus proved the truth of his descent from the Spartoi. By sacrificing himself, in his mother’s view, Menoeceus proved that he inherited too much of his nature from the feral Spartoi and too little from his human mother:69 nimirum Martius anguis, quaeque nouis proauum tellus effloruit armis – hinc animi tristes nimiusque in pectore Mauors, et de matre nihil. (Theb. 10.806–9) No wonder: it was Mars’ serpent, and the earth that flowered with the new weapons of our ancestors. From here came his grim spirit and the excess of Mars in his breast, and nothing from his mother.

177 From Family to Nation Though the passages share no common language, the complaint of Menoeceus’ mother is also conceptually similar to Dido’s abuse of Aeneas as the heartless descendant of Caucasian cliffs and the nursling of tigresses (Aen. 4.365–7). In both cases, descent is cited as the cause of ungrateful behaviour. From a more community-oriented perspective than the grieving mother’s, however, Menoeceus’ act of self-directed violence may be viewed as altruistic, and a contrast with his father Creon’s subsequent ferocity to the Theban people. In this sense, he participates not in the savagery associated with his male line of descent, but in the humanitas that his mother would associate with her line. Like the Achilleid, the Menoeceus episode also develops the theme of inheritance of different aspects of character and disposition from the male and female lines. The rhetorical conflict over Menoeceus’ posthumous legacy begins as soon as the Thebans recover the young man’s body. Their chosen term for the hero, conditor (Theb. 10.788), recalls the earlier conflict between the Spartoi and the parallel episodes of civil war at Rome’s two foundations by Aeneas and Romulus.70 Future episodes of violence will inevitably demand further self-sacrifice by the Thebans and the creation of new conditores. Menoeceus’ memory next becomes a point of reference in Creon’s argument with Eteocles that he should conserve the remaining Theban lives by duelling with his brother to settle the contest for the throne.71 The narrator’s description of the intensity of Creon’s grief for his son is set against Eteocles’ claim that Creon uses the appearance of grief to mask his primary motivation, lust for power (11.264–7, 298–302). The narrator appears to vindicate Eteocles’ perspective after his death: ‘Once having been given kingship, Creon already begins to turn aside from fatherhood and to eliminate Menoeceus.’72 The corrupting power of the Theban throne has already been made evident in its effects on Eteocles and Polynices. The echo of the Vergilian Cupid’s assault on Dido in the description of Creon’s ‘elimination’ of Menoeceus also suggests its similarity to an assault by a supernatural force.73 The narrator’s judgment on Creon assimilates him to the narrative pattern established by the conflict between Eteocles and Polynices, in which desire for sole rule supersedes all familial feeling.74 Creon’s abnegation of his paternity also presents a contrast to Oedipus’ belated recollection of his paternity after the death of his sons (11.605–26). Despite the narrator’s claim that he has ‘eliminated Menoeceus,’ Creon’s grief for his son palpably affects his leadership of Thebes, as he continues to set his interests as a bereaved father above those of the city. Though he opposed his son’s suicide, Creon nevertheless profits from the popularity that he achieves with the Theban people as a result. He rejects Theseus’ offer of peace as he experiences a vision of his son Menoeceus weeping at the burial of

178 In the Image of the Ancestors the Argives (Theb. 12.695–7). Creon both chooses an inappropriate means of honouring his son and fails to assess the relative importance of paying such honour in comparison with several other considerations: the humanitas owed even to enemies, the futility of war with Theseus, and the Thebans’ need to rest after their war with Argos. Creon’s brief tenure in the kingship features the same inability to properly prioritize the needs of the family over those of the state that structured his earlier conflict with his son over the oracle. The grief caused by the loss of a family member has been transformed into a motive for further undeserved suffering. The spontaneous generation of the Thebans is evoked frequently throughout Menoeceus’ appearances in the Thebaid, in his battlefield exhortation, in the oracle, and in his mother’s lament. These episodes, however, represent only a handful of the epic’s many revisitings of the city’s origins.75 While recitations of origins can often serve to unify a community by providing a sense of shared purpose and destiny, for the Thebans the narrative of Cadmus and the Spartoi recalls an episode of originary violence that recurs across successive generations. Through its use of the Theban origin myth, Statius’ Thebaid examines the impact of a narrative of national kinship on a community’s self-perception. On the one hand, the myth of spontaneous generation can be read as distinguishing Thebes from Rome. Livy’s account of Romulus’ asylum (1.8.5–6) expressly disavows the role of spontaneous generation in the origins of Rome by observing that the claim of ‘being born from the earth’ euphemistically conceals low social origins. Rome’s hybrid origins and disavowal of autochthony, on this reading, preserve it from the genetic determinism that dooms the descendants of the Spartoi. A less optimistic interpretation would observe the numerous parallels between the foundations of Thebes and Rome and the frequent recurrence of civil war in both societies. The fratricide at both cities’ foundations suggests that they are doomed to the repetition of violence without the possibility of final expiation. The Menoeceus episode also explores the negative consequences of the myth of Trojan descent as presented in the Aeneid. Statius’ Menoeceus narrative suggests that the stability of the state should not be associated with the ruling family’s claim to be directly descended from the founder. The result of monogenetic descent in the Thebaid is a propensity to civil war. Statius’ Thebaid explores the dangers inherent in a monogenetic model of ethnic affiliation. Though the brothers’ feud is presented as nefas while Menoeceus’ self-sacrifice is labelled virtuous, these responses to the imperatives of descent are alike in one respect: the Theban people as a whole suffer greatly as a result. A single line of descent leaves a people fewer options for emulation. Through the lack of alternative models, they are more likely to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. The Thebaid thereby presents a

179 From Family to Nation negative alternative to the propagandistic constructions of the Roman community, including the Aeneid’s myth of originary intermarriage and successive absorption of subject peoples. The Thebaid’s account of Theban ethnicity also departs from the complex and internally conflicted image of Roman hybridity presented in the origin narrative of Vergil’s Aeneid. Silius’ Punica, to which we now turn, offers a fuller examination of the moral and political consequences of an origin narrative featuring hybrid descent. 4. ‘I Am a Man of Dardanian Blood’: Descent and Fides in Silius’ Saguntum and Capua Though located at the periphery of the Roman world, the city of Saguntum serves as a stand-in for Rome in the Punica, and its defenders perceive themselves as protecting the capital.76 The narrative represents Saguntum and Rome as sharing both moral qualities and common descent. Both populations regard themselves as people of Fides with common cause against the perfidious Carthaginians.77 The Saguntines assert their syngeneia with Rome in their request for military assistance at the end of Punica 1, yet are denied essential support by their ally. This episode represents a contrast to the Thebaid’s narrative of ethnic homogeneity. It reopens the question of the connection between origins and national identity raised by the genealogical narrative of the Aeneid and incompletely answered by the Vergilian Jupiter’s concluding prophecy. To what extent does a myth of shared descent obligate a people to offer assistance to other peoples who are perceived to be linked in kinship? As W.J. Dominik has argued, the programmatic first two books make positive readings of the Romans’ moral conduct throughout the epic difficult to sustain.78 The Capua episode more specifically examines the political cogency of the myth of Trojan descent. The Capuans regard their city as having been founded by the Trojan Capys, the father of Anchises. Yet the frequently reiterated appeal to common descent from Trojan founders does not keep the Capuans loyal to Rome, nor does it initially restrain the Romans from their desire to raze the seditious city. The Roman response to the claims of descent advanced in both the Saguntum and Capua episodes present disturbing alternatives to the larger vision of Italian unity seemingly affirmed elsewhere in the Punica. The epic employs narratives of descent in order to question the fit between mythical charter and historical practice. Though the epic briefly describes other hybrid ethnic groups, the motif of hybridity is developed most fully in the case of the Saguntines.79 The inhabitants of the Spanish city are descended from Greek migrants from Zacynthos and Rutulian migrants from Ardea. The inhabitants of the city claim multiple ethnic affiliations in different discursive situations, alternately emphasizing

180 In the Image of the Ancestors the Rutulian, Trojan, or Greek components of their ethnicity. In the majority of situations, however, emphasis is laid on the Rutulian component of the Saguntine hybrid. According to the account at the beginning of the Saguntum episode, the city’s original population grew through a series of migrations: haud procul Herculei tollunt se litore muri, clementer crescente iugo, quis nobile nomen conditus excelso sacrauit colle Zacynthos ... mox profugi ducente Noto aduertere coloni, insula quos genuit Graio circumflua ponto atque auxit, quondam Laertia regna, Zacynthos. firmauit tenues ortus mox Daunia pubes sedis inops, misit largo quam diues alumno magnanimis regnata uiris, †nunc Ardea nomen†. (Pun. 1.273–77, 288–93) Not far away from the shore, walls built by Hercules rise up on a gently ascending slope. Zacynthos, buried on the high hill, hallowed them with his noble name … Soon after, led by the wind Notus, exiled colonists turned their way there, those whom Zacynthos bore and nurtured,80 an island surrounded by the Greek sea and once the realm of King Laertes. Soon after, the young men of Daunia, lacking a place of habitation, strengthened its humble beginnings. Ardea sent them, a city ruled over by great-spirited men, rich in its numerous offspring, now only a name.

Though other ancient accounts of Saguntum’s foundation mention the migration of colonists from the island of Zacynthos, the Punica is the only source to identify an eponymous founder Zacynthos.81 The foundation story establishes the city’s role as a reflection of Rome and the role of the Punica as a successor to Homeric and Vergilian epic. Though Hercules built the city walls, his companion Zacynthos grants the city its name. His death and burial legitimize the settlement of subsequent migrants from his eponymous island.82 The founding of the city by a migrant descendant of the Trojan royal line and its subsequent growth through episodes of migration directly evoke the Roman foundation legend.83 The account of the composite population of the city serves a generic function: the narrator’s description of the population evokes two epic predecessors of the Punica, the Odyssey and the Aeneid. The Zacynthian settlers are identified in Odyssean terms,84 while the Rutulians’ role as the reconciled opponents of Vergil’s Trojans is recalled both in the Saguntum episode and throughout the epic generally. The account of the subsequent history of these populations in Saguntum forms part of the Punica’s continuation of the mythical narrative presented in its epic predecessors.

181 From Family to Nation As with the founding of Rome, the latecomers predominate, and claims to Rutulian and Trojan identities tend to prevail over Zacynthian, Greek, or hybrid Saguntine. This primacy is suggested by the introduction of the warrior Murrus, the first Saguntine to be encountered as an individual character.85 The narrator describes the Saguntine defender through an account of his mixed descent: emicat ante omnis primaeuo flore iuuentae insignis Rutulo Murrus de sanguine (at idem matre Saguntina Graius geminoque parente Dulichios Italis miscebat prole nepotes). (Pun. 1.376–9) Murrus dashed out before the others, outstanding in the first flower of his youth. He was of Rutulian blood – but the same man was also Greek, because he was born from a Saguntine mother, and in his descent from his two parents he mixed Dulichian descent with Italian.

The narrator’s introduction of Murrus indicates that individuals of hybrid descent can potentially claim multiple ethnic affiliations. The narrator first identifies the young man as ‘of Rutulian blood’ (Rutulo … de sanguine). Next, he qualifies this assertion by claiming that Murrus can also claim Greek ancestry because of his mother’s ancestral connection (matre Saguntina Graius … Dulichios … nepotes). The description ends by identifying Murrus as being of mixed descent. This introduction of the first individuated Saguntine character offers a programmatic image of the hybridity of the city’s population. The narrator’s ordering and qualification of these claims suggest the dominance of the Rutulian component of Saguntine ethnicity. Rutulian identity, correlated with descent in the male line, takes precedence over Greek or indigenous elements. The paradigm associating blood and paternity is confirmed by the parallel example of the hybrid sons of Xanthippus. As the sons of a Spartan father and a Carthaginian mother, they consider their father to have made the primary contribution to their identity and make their claims to ethnic affiliation based on him. Though they have never seen Sparta, its achievements during the First Punic War fill them with pride, they ‘burn to prove their ancestry through their warfare and their Spartan father through their deeds,’ and they consider Sparta their ‘paternal’ (patrium) land.86 The father’s privileged role in determining his children’s ethnic identity is expressed indirectly in the case of Murrus and directly in the case of Xanthippus’ sons. These examples of hybrid identity in the Punica recall the Aeneid’s account of Roman origins, in which Trojan dominance is assured through the intermarriage of Trojan fathers and Latin mothers.

182 In the Image of the Ancestors The mass suicide that concludes the Saguntum episode provides a complementary image of hybridity with an indirect assertion of the dominance of Rutulian identity. The Saguntines load the pyre with objects that both bespeak their diverse origins and programmatically evoke the Aeneid: portantque trahuntque longae pacis opes quaesitaque praemia dextris, Callaico uestes distinctas matribus auro armaque Dulichia proauis portata Zacyntho et prisca aduectos Rutulorum ex urbe penates. (Pun. 2.600–4) They carry and drag the labours of long peace and prizes sought in war: clothes embroidered by mothers with Galician gold, and weapons carried over from Dulichian Zacynthos by their forefathers, and the household gods brought over from the ancient city of the Rutulians.

The Saguntines destroy their treasured possessions, the arma and penates that symbolize the unity and integrity of their community. The use of these thematic terms from the Aeneid suggests the recapitulation of the fall of Troy. Saguntum will perish without the compensatory narrative of migration and resettlement of the penates. Even at the moment of their destruction, the inhabitants of Saguntum reproduce the narrative of their varied ethnic origins. The arma and penates are respectively associated with the two different origin points of Saguntine migration. The toponyms in the passage’s concluding lines point to the Saguntines’ two originary homelands (Zacynthos and Ardea) and indirectly evoke their present habitation in Spain.87 The reference to the penates further suggests the dominance of the Rutulian component of Saguntine ancestry. As the symbol of religious continuity with the ancestral city, penates assert the origins of a community more decisively than arma.88 The passages that encapsulate the Saguntum episode, the introduction of Murrus and the destruction of the arma and penates, programmatically define Saguntine hybridity and suggest the dominance of the Rutulian component. Within the general context of hybridity, the narrative develops claims of unitary ethnic identity for most characters. The narrator emphasizes Greek ancestry for two Saguntine characters, Eurydamas and Mopsus, for the purposes of recalling narratives from the Odyssey in the former case and of characterizing a mode of fighting in the latter.89 Yet for almost all Saguntine characters, the narrator tends to foreground Rutulian ancestry.90 The claim of Rutulian identity predominates even in the case of characters whose names bespeak origins from other regions of Italy. The narrator, for

183 From Family to Nation example, attributes Rutulian origins to Tiburna, the wife of Murrus, although she bears the ethnonym of Tibur, not part of Rutulian territory.91 The perception of Rutulian descent as the predominant component of Saguntine hybridity suggests a parallel to the claims of the primacy of Trojan ancestry within the context of Roman hybridity advanced by the Aeneid and reproduced in subsequent Roman epic. The foregoing examples demonstrate how the narrative introduces the motif of Saguntine hybridity through the description of various characters. These narratorial accounts of the origins of characters and objects, however, are essentially static units of epic narrative. The moment of encounter with individuals of a different ethnicity prompts a members of an ethnic group to assert the characteristics that they perceive as defining them as separate.92 The Saguntum episode demonstrates how claims of ethnic affiliation are not immutable but vary according to specific rhetorical needs. The failed effort at kinship diplomacy with the Romans in the Saguntine embassy to the Senate represents the epic’s fullest assertion of claims of ethnic affiliation. There is ample epic and historical precedent for the Saguntines’ request for military assistance based on their syngeneia with the Romans. The Aeneid offers a paradigmatic example of kinship diplomacy: Aeneas requests assistance against the Italians from Evander by appealing to their shared descent from Atlas through Maia and Electra, the god’s daughters.93 Roman epic also reflects the historical practice of kinship diplomacy that informed Roman interstate policy beginning from its early period of overseas conquest. Ennius’ Annales reflects the efforts of Pyrrhus of Epirus in the 270s BC to represent himself as a descendant of Achilles intent on punishing the descendants of the Trojans.94 Variations of Pyrrhus’ claim occur twice in the Punica, which represents descent from Achilles as motivating Hieronymus of Syracuse and Philip V of Macedon to oppose the Romans and ally with the Carthaginians (14.93–6, 15.291–2). The refusal of military assistance to the Saguntines, therefore, suggests the Romans’ failure of fides rather than the inadequacy of the kinship diplomacy paradigm. Sicoris’ speech requesting military assistance (Pun. 1.634–71) makes a ‘primordialist’ claim to his people’s ethnic identity, one asserting direct continuity between mythical origins and his contemporary world.95 As he views the ‘walls of kindred Rome’ and asks the Romans to ‘extend a kindred hand,’ Sicoris draws on the Aeneid’s narrative of the descent of the Roman people.96 He claims that he and his people can trace their origins directly back to Rutulian ancestors and to ‘mother Troy.’ The ambassador thereby asserts the reconciliation of the originary conflict between these peoples related in the Aeneid. The latter half of Sicoris’ appeal for assistance rhetorically constructs the relationship between Rome and Saguntum in terms of

184 In the Image of the Ancestors kinship between populations (1.658–71). According to Sicoris, Roman awareness of their syngeneia with other communities that descend from Trojan ancestors has historically guided their military interventions in interstate affairs (1.662–5). As in the other accounts of Saguntine identity presented throughout the episode, Sicoris emphasizes the dominance of the Rutulians within the hybrid population (1.665–9). He presents himself as a Rutulian in exile, who maintains the same relationship to Ardea that Aeneas maintains to Troy. This claim obscures the gap of nearly a millennium between the foundation of Saguntum and the characters’ present day, the latter decades of the third century BC. Such telescoping of history, also featured elsewhere in the Punica, is characteristic of a primordialist approach to ethnic origins.97 Sicoris concludes his appeal by using the metaphor of the body politic, suggesting that his city’s relationship with Rome transcends consanguinity in order to approach consubstantiality. Though separated by great distance, Romans and Saguntines are not merely members of the same family but also limbs of the same body (1.670–1). While the Romans may certainly be criticized for their refusal to honour the Saguntine request for military assistance,98 it can also be observed that Sicoris’ account of his city’s syngeneia with Rome is highly tendentious and undermines several of its own claims. Sicoris commences the latter half of his supplication with an appeal to Rome’s Rutulian and Trojan origins and a preliminary description of the Saguntines (Pun. 1.658–61). He describes the Saguntines as descendants of Rutulians forced (coacti) to leave Ardea. The narrator earlier identifies Ardea’s overpopulation as the reason for the Rutulian migration.99 Sicoris appears to corroborate this account: uetus incola Dauni, (testor uos, fontes et stagna arcana Numici), cum felix nimium dimitteret Ardea pubem, sacra domumque ferens et aui penetralia Turni, ultra Pyrenen Laurentia nomina duxi. (Pun. 1.665–9) I swear by you, springs and hidden pools of Numicius, that I am a former inhabitant of Daunus’ territory. When too prosperous Ardea sent forth young men, I brought Laurentine names beyond the Pyrenees, carrying the holy relics and house and shrine of my ancestor Turnus.

Sicoris’ use of the first-person singular pronoun suggests a telescoping of historical time: he speaks as if one of the original migrants.100 Though his appeal may open with an affirmation of the resolution of the conflict between Trojans and Rutulians, the memories of that conflict have not disappeared elsewhere in

185 From Family to Nation the Punica. The narrator earlier appears to observe (though there is a textual problem at this point) that only the city’s name is left of Ardea. The catalogue of forces before the battle of Cannae recalls that Ardea was ‘once hostile to the Trojans.’ Other epic accounts of Ardea similarly point to its defeat in the war in Latium and eventual disappearance as an independent actor.101 There is no historical basis for the Rutulian migration to Saguntum, and it is not clear from the Punica precisely when Silius imagines it to have taken place.102 Following Ovid’s narrative of the destruction of Ardea, the period of prosperity during which the city could have sent out surplus population would have occurred before Aeneas’ arrival in Latium. Yet when speaking in the voice of one of the original migrants, Sicoris claims that he ‘took the holy relics and house and shrine of his ancestor Turnus,’ implying that the migration occurred after the war in Latium. Sicoris’ self-presentation as a penatiger and his claim that the city was ‘too prosperous’ (felix nimium) imply the city’s destruction. The penates, the symbol of a city’s religious identity, would not likely be removed from a truly prosperous and independent city. Sicoris’ ancestor instead takes the penates from fallen Ardea as Aeneas removes them from fallen Troy.103 The phrase felix nimium, furthermore, echoes Dido’s lament before her suicide, viewed in that epic as precipitating the capture of Carthage by its African enemies (Pun. 1.667 ~ Aen. 4.657–8). Sicoris’ argument for Saguntum’s syngeneia with the Romans on the basis of a shared Rutulian ancestry depends on an internally contradictory narrative of Ardea’s past. Ardea cannot have been prosperous and overpopulated after its destruction by the Trojans, nor can the descendants of the Rutulian migrants have been likely to sympathize with the Romans descended from the Trojans who burned their former capital. Sicoris’ appeal for assistance rests on a narrative of descent that implies ongoing hostility, not obligation. The Saguntine ambassador next recalls events of the ‘recent’ past, from the point of view of the characters.104 The examples of Roman military intervention in the First Punic War and the preceding century are intended to support his argument that the Romans traditionally honour appeals to syngeneia: uos etiam Zanclen Siculi contra arma tyranni iuuisse egregium, uos et Campana tueri moenia, depulso Samnitum robore, dignum Sigeis duxistis auis. (Pun. 1.662–5) You considered it a mark of honour to have assisted Messana against the weapons of the Sicilian tyrant. You also thought it worthy of your Trojan ancestors to have protected the city walls of Capua by thrusting back the strength of the Samnites.

186 In the Image of the Ancestors Both of these examples of Roman military intervention in fact undermine Sicoris’ case for syngeneia as the basis of political alliance. In 264, the Mamertines, originally a Campanian people, made an appeal to Rome on the grounds of homophylia for support against Hiero II of Syracuse. According to Polybius (1.10.2), however, the Senate was initially reluctant to support the Mamertines, as they had earlier captured Messana through treachery. The invasion took place not in response to syngeneia but in order to forestall the growth of Carthaginian power in Sicily and in the hope of gaining plunder.105 The second example, the Romans’ defence of Capua against the Samnites, could more plausibly be described as a response to kinship diplomacy. Yet the revolt of Capua against Rome later in the Punica shows that the political obligations implicit in such a relationship can be ignored in favour of expediency. In the space of fourteen lines, Sicoris offers multiple definitions of the relationship between Saguntum and Rome. On the surface, his appeal suggests that the assimilation and reconciliation between Rutulians and Trojans predicted in the Vergilian Jupiter’s prophecy has been fully achieved. The ambassador’s evocation of Saguntum’s Rutulian ancestry in order to command the Romans’ sympathy depends on the assumption that Romans perceive the descendants of Rutulians as being just as significant members of the state as the descendants of Trojans. The claim of consanguinitas, however, implies that Rutulian ancestry predominates in both cities. While this may be true for Saguntum, Silius’ Rome elsewhere privileges its Trojan ancestry.106 Though the Rutulians persist as a individuated ethnic group in the Punica and lend their ethnonym to designate the Roman people as a whole, the historical record is silent concerning them after the beginning of the fourth century BC.107 Next, Sicoris claims that the Romans have traditionally responded to the claims of communities that claim shared descent. Yet Sicoris’ examples of intervention tell against his argument: assisting the Mamertines poses an ethical difficulty for the Romans, while later in the epic the Capuans revolt in favour of Carthage. From another perspective advanced in the narrative, the relationship of syngeneia between Saguntines and Romans does not exist at all. Hannibal attempts to refute the claim of Saguntine syngeneia in his accusation that the Romans would be defending foreign penates (Pun. 2.32) if they came to the aid of Saguntum. Dismissing the city’s claims to Rutulian ancestry, Hannibal emphasizes instead the construction of its walls by Hercules. He argues that because the god once sacked Troy, he supports the Carthaginians in their effort to conquer the descendants of the Trojans.108 The Roman refusal to honour the Saguntines’ request, however, does not imply a rejection of the claim of syngeneia on its own terms. Rather, it suggests

187 From Family to Nation the lesser importance of the claim relative to other considerations. The Capua episode, to which I now turn, similarly shows the subordination of myths of shared descent to political expediency. The previous chapter outlined the narrative associations between the Saguntum and Capua episodes, including the motifs of fides and mass suicide. The narrator introduces the Capuan revolt following a catalogue of other insurgencies among various Italian and Celtic communities (Pun. 11.1– 27). These defections are described as the result of emotional instability, a typical characteristic of barbarians in the ethnographic tradition. The spectrum runs from the leuitas animosa of the Tarentines (11.16) to the furor of the Locrians (11.20). They offer proof of the contingency of fides and its subordination to unstable fortuna (11.3–4). The other ethnic groups, however, share no syngeneia with Rome. The narrator represents Capua’s alliance with Carthage as a greater offence against fides because of the Trojan foundation that it shares with Rome: ‘Who would believe that walls of Trojan origin would be allied with the barbarous tyrant of the Numidians?’109 The narrator’s remonstration recalls the speech of Sicoris the Saguntine ambassador, in which he reminds the Romans of their defence of Capua from the Samnites in the preceding century (1.662–5, quoted above). The literary tradition preceding Silius offers a variety of choices regarding Capua’s ethnic composition and the identity of its founder. Both the elder Cato and Livy identify the city as an Etruscan foundation.110 A tradition of Greek historiography, however, identified Capua as a Trojan foundation. Vergil attributes its founding to the Trojan Capys, whom he identifies as Aeneas’ shipmate and cousin.111 In an aetiological song performed for the occupying Carthaginians, however, Silius’ Teuthras identifies the founder as the elder Capys, the father of Anchises (Pun. 11.295–7). The Punica therefore identifies the city as a Trojan foundation, though it departs from the tradition of the Aeneid in setting the foundation of the city two generations before the arrival of the Aeneadae. The Capuans’ applause at Teuthras’ account of their descent from Capys marks their inability to perceive the obligations of loyalty attendant on their syngeneia with the Romans.112 The invented names of Capuan soldiers recalling important figures in the proto-history of Rome, such as Ascanius, Numitor, and Laurens, present further suggestions of syngeneia between Romans and Capuans.113 Decius Magius, the leader of the opposition to Pacuvius’ alliance with Carthage, shares the narrator’s indignation at Capua’s defection from its alliance with Rome (Pun. 11.157–90). Among many other arguments, Decius alludes to the kinship between Capys and Aeneas and the shared descent enjoyed by Capua and Rome as a reason for his city to remain loyal to its beleaguered ally:

188 In the Image of the Ancestors ille ego sanguis Dardanius, cui sacra pater, cui nomina liquit a Ioue ducta Capys magno cognatus Iulo, ille ego semihomines inter Nasamonas et inter saeuum atque aequantem ritus Garamanta ferarum Marmarico ponam tentoria mixtus alumno ductoremque feram, cui nunc pro foedere proque iustitia est ensis solaeque e sanguine laudes? (Pun. 11.177–84) I am a man of Dardanian blood. My forefather Capys, the kinsman of great Iulus, left his sacred rites and his name taken from Jupiter to me. Shall I pitch my tent, mixed in with a nursling of Marmarica, among the half-human Nasamonians and the savage Garamantians, like animals in their way of life? And shall I put up with a leader whose sword stands in place of justice and a treaty and whose only glory comes from shedding blood?

Decius describes Carthaginians strictly in terms of their African identity, as Nasamonians, Garamantians, and Marmaricans, omitting reference to the Phoenician component of their descent. The collocation of two of these ethnonyms recurs in another context that stresses the cultural incompatibility of African peoples with Romans. Scipio assures the ghost of Appius that he will hasten to perform his burial, and contrasts Roman practice with the burial customs of Nasamonians, Garamantians, and other cultures.114 The epic elsewhere suggests that people of Phoenician descent enjoy social superiority to those of native African descent. In his exhortation of his troops before the battle of Cannae, Hannibal offers differential rewards to followers ‘deriving a Phoenician name from Tyrian descent’ and ‘allies of foreign blood.’ He promises the former group Italian land, the latter Carthaginian citizenship.115 Though Decius’ rhetoric may be more vituperative, he shares ethnocentric prejudices exhibited by the Carthaginians themselves. The Capuan loyalist’s reference to the future possibility of his ‘mixture’ (ille ego ... mixtus) with the foreigners evokes the allusion to the genus mixtum of the Romans in the Vergilian Jupiter’s concluding prophecy in the Aeneid. If Capua should ally with Carthage, the Carthaginians would eventually intermarry with the descendants of the Trojans. Earlier epic can present hybrid descent in positive terms. On the shield of Aeneas, for example, Vergil’s narrator presents a vision of the universal extension of Roman empire, one in which ethnic particularities will eventually be subsumed.116 Silius’ Decius, however, indicates the limits of Roman hybridity by expressing his fear of miscegenation. In his racist view, the purity of Trojan blood must be preserved against admixture with ‘half-humans’

189 From Family to Nation (semihomines). Decius’ response to Capua’s alliance with the Carthaginians therefore denies both of the aspects of hybridity presented in the Aeneid. His emphasis on Trojan descent denies the actual hybridity of the Roman race, while his refusal of ethnic mixture denies the universalizing vision on Aeneas’ shield. Decius appeals to Capua’s shared descent as a means of criticizing its disloyalty to Rome. For their part, the Romans must receive a divine reminder of the importance of shared descent. Their desire to punish a disloyal ally initially takes precedence over any special considerations for Capua’s status as a kindred city.117 The contrast with Marcellus’ lenient treatment of Syracuse, an unrelated city, is particularly notable.118 The Romans attack Capua in the grip of furor (Pun. 13.209, 216–17), and a series of allusions to Turnus’ maddened assault on the Trojan camp in Aeneid 9 frame the episode.119 Afterwards, the conquerors fail to display humanitas towards individuals linked to them through syngeneia. Pan’s divinely imposed restraint of the Roman soldiers depends only in part on the recollection of the city’s foundation by a Trojan. The god accompanies his evocation of shared Trojan descent with an appeal to expediency, noting the value of preserving Capua as an urban centre for the region (13.319–24). In their readiness to destroy shrines and people linked to them through syngeneia, halted only by divine intervention, Fulvius’ soldiers recall the followers of Lucan’s Caesar, similar victims of furor who have sworn to kill their family members and destroy temples upon his orders (BC 1.8, 1.374–82). The Punica thereby subtly suggests the connection between contempt for syngeneia and propensity to civil war. Though the Romans leave Capua’s buildings standing, they execute the city’s nobility, enslave the citizen population, and remove the community’s powers of self-governance.120 The account of animosity between Rome and an Italian city in the episodes of the defection and capture of Capua dissolves the images of Italian unity offered elsewhere in the epic. In the catalogue of Roman forces at Cannae (Pun. 8.356–616), the Punica presents an anachronistic vision of unity and equality between Romans and Italians. In order to suggest that the entire peninsula was united against Hannibal, the Punica relates the contribution of communities that historically either did not participate in the battle of Cannae or were actually opposed to Rome at the time.121 The fictive assertion of equality and unity among the participants conceals the important juridical distinctions between Roman cives and Latin socii and foederati that obtained throughout the third century BC and long after, causing great resentment of Roman dominance among Italians. The defection of Capua exposes the fragility of this myth of Italian unity and suggests the contingency of political relationships based on shared descent.

190 In the Image of the Ancestors Silius’ catalogue attempts to preserve the particularity of Italian ethnic identities in the general context of unity. The narrative appears to offer an anachronistic celebration of the diverse ethnic groups submerged beneath the ‘Roman’ label. The catalogue lists several (fictitious) examples of cultural features that individuate the various Italian ethnic groups. For example, the narrator describes the Bruttians’ livelihood from hunting (Pun. 8.571), the Sabines’ distinctive dress (8.419–20) and the Salernians’ distinctive weapons (8.582–4), the Etruscan customs adopted by Rome (8.484–8), and the Marsians’ magic ritual (8.495–510). In the Punica’s version of Roman history, the loyal service to Rome of various subordinated ethnic groups need not entail the loss of particularized ethnic features, such as the ethnonym, livelihood, distinctive dress and weapons, and social and religious customs. Many of these ethnographic details, however, originate in the Vergilian narrative of the war in Latium. The snake-charming Marsi (Pun. 8.495–510) recall Vergil’s Umbro (Aen. 7.750–60).122 Elements of the lifestyle of the Bruttii, Lucani, and Hirpini, such as their nourishment from hunting (Pun. 8.568–72), recall the account of Italian life given by Vergil’s Numanus Remulus (Aen. 9.603–13).123 While indicating the unique identity of Italian ethnic groups, the details also serve to recall the originary context of violence that produced the Roman hybrid. The recollections of the war in Latium in the catalogue suggest that a propensity to civil war is part of the Roman inheritance, a feature also emphasized by the Roman names of the catalogue that evoke the subsequent civil wars.124 Even as it prefigures future civil wars, the Punica asserts the unifying potential of external invasion. Hannibal’s invasion prompts a response from an anachronistically unified Italy whose communities enjoy an imagined equality with Rome. The epic’s frequently reiterated claims that the war with Carthage offered a stimulus to Roman virtue can be interpreted as further support for this vision of unity and equality. A society whose mores have been tested and refined through external invasion (Pun. 3.573–90, 10.657–8) will not be prone to the civil discord often represented as the result of declining virtue (e.g., Sall. BCat. 9–10). Echoes of Flavian propaganda have been recognized in this vision of Italian unity, including Vespasian’s restoration of Italy and Domitian’s attempt to promote Italian agriculture.125 Within the context of unity through heroic resistance, however, Silius foreshadows the civil conflicts to follow. Capua’s defection to Hannibal shows the failure of a myth of common origin to guarantee political loyalty. As Tacitus relates, Capua supported Vitellius against the Flavians in the war of AD 69 (Hist. 3.57). Despite the fleeting moment of cohesion at the battle of Cannae, Rome’s subsequent history will be one of civil conflict, in which history will repeat itself as Capua again chooses the losing side.

191 From Family to Nation 5. Conclusion The narratives of national descent in the epics of Statius and Silius recapitulate aspects of the Roman foundation legends presented in the Aeneid. Like Vergil’s Aeneas, both Statius’ Cadmus and Silius’ Capys found cities in exile. Capys is also a member of the Trojan dynastic line descended from Dardanus. Though each city has a hybrid population, one ethnic group is ultimately regarded as culturally dominant: the Trojans in Rome and Capua, the descendants of the Spartoi in Thebes, and the Rutulians in Saguntum. As with the Aeneid’s claim of Trojan primacy within the Roman hybrid, evidence of ethnic and cultural hybridity alternates with the assertion of unilineal descent. The figure of Menoeceus in the Thebaid embodies the problematic aspects of the Theban myth of national descent. Menoeceus’ varied identities as a member of a nuclear family, of a larger descent group, and of the wider Theban community generate a series of conflicts of obligation. His heroic action initially suggests the possibility of expressing uirtus despite the hostility of the gods and the fracturing of the Theban community. Yet the narrative both distances the young man’s self-sacrifice from the victory promised by the oracle and shows how it leads directly to greater destruction at the hands of Theseus. The multiplicity of Menoeceus’ roles (as son of Creon, descendant of the Spartoi, and citizen of Thebes) leave him no straightforward role to follow. Figures of varying degrees of relatedness and affection urge him to different courses of action. In contrast to the Aeneid, which posited a connection between Trojan descent, the legitimacy of the ruling dynasty, and the cultural identity of the Roman people, the Thebaid refuses to harmonize individual and national descent. By locating a fratricidal conflict at the moment of Thebes’ foundation, the city’s origin myth predicts a recurrent propensity for civil war. Statius’ Thebans reveal their attachment to their primordial narrative of descent by repeatedly reciting their ancestral history at critical moments of loss, danger, or success. Yet these claims appear to entail the same dangers for the community as the Labdacids’ ancestral crimes do for their descendants. A malign inheritance afflicts both the community and the ruling dynasty and recurs throughout successive generations. Though Thebes is a smaller community than Rome, and contains a far more ethnically and culturally homogeneous population, it is still prone to civil war. Statius suggests that the size and ethnic diversity of the community are not the essential causes of strife. Civil war is rather a consequence of human greed for power. Silius’ evocation of the ‘glory days’ of the Second Punic War includes full awareness of the causal connection between the defeat of Carthage and the

192 In the Image of the Ancestors subsequent episodes of civil conflict at Rome. The narratives of ethnic kinship presented throughout the epic distinguish the factors that contribute to the unity and stability of the Roman state from those that lead to moral decline and internecine conflict. Though successful examples of kinship diplomacy are attested in the historical record, the Punica shows that syngeneia yields to expediency in the cases of Saguntum and Capua. Silius thereby questions the ability of myths of common descent to serve as the charter uniting diverse ethnic communities.

7 The Poetics of Kinship

I’le not with Silius goe to Maroes graue, And at his dust a holy fury craue, To praise this vessel ... Pythagoras saw no Troie, yet wish I His wittie transmigrations were no lie. That whil’st I treat of such renowned men Some Heroes spirit might direct my pen. John Abbott, from Iesus Praefigured, or a poëme of the holy name of Iesus in five Bookes (1623)1

A younger contemporary of the Flavian epic poets associates literary production with prestigious descent on the one hand and with the creation of affiliation with an unrelated predecessor on the other. The younger Pliny praises Passennus Paulus for the writing of verse that recalls both Propertius and Horace. While Passennus’ work brings to mind his biological descent from the former poet, his recent work also suggests that he could be taken as a figurative descendant of the latter poet as well. The case of Passennus indicates to Pliny that ‘kinship has significance in literature’: Vir est optimus honestissimus, nostri amantissimus; praeterea in litteris ueteres aemulatur exprimit reddit, Propertium in primis, a quo genus ducit, uera suboles eoque simillima illi in quo ille praecipuus. si elegos eius in manus sumpseris, leges opus tersum molle iucundum, et plane in Properti domo scriptum. nuper ad lyrica deflexit, in quibus ita Horatium ut in illis illum alterum effingit: putes si quid in studiis cognatio ualet, et huius propinquum. (Ep. 9.22.1–2)

194 In the Image of the Ancestors He is the best man, the most honest man, and most devoted to me. Furthermore he emulates the older writers in his own work and reproduces them and returns them to life – especially Propertius, from whom he traces his descent. He is a true descendant and most similar to him in regard to the aspects in which Propertius excelled. If you take his elegies in hand, you will read a polished, delicate, and pleasant work, and one clearly written in the line of Propertius. Recently he turned to lyric poetry, in which he modelled Horace just as he had modelled the other poet in those works. If kinship has any significance in literature, you would think that he was a relative of Horace.

Earlier in his collection of letters, Pliny remarks on the significance of kinship for his own literary situation. When replying to a friend’s suggestion that he should write history, he points to his own adoptive father, the Elder Pliny, as an instance of ‘family precedent’ in such a literary enterprise: Me uero ad hoc studium impellit domesticum quoque exemplum. auunculus meus idemque per adoptionem pater historias et quidem religiosissime scripsit. inuenio autem apud sapientes honestissimum esse maiorum uestigia sequi, si modo recto itinere praecesserint. (Ep. 5.8.4–5) In my case family precedent is an additional incentive to work of this kind. My maternal uncle, who was also my father by adoption, was a historian of scrupulous accuracy, and I find in the philosophers that it is an excellent thing to follow in the footsteps of one’s forbears, provided that they trod an honest path.2

In the end, however, the younger Pliny politely declines the request to write history, and elsewhere in the collection claims to pursue his literary fame through oratory and poetry. The literary career of the elder Pliny serves his adoptive son as a springboard rather than a terminus. As recent readers have observed, the younger Pliny represents the elder Pliny through various letters of the collection as a model to be surpassed in mode of life, social rank, and literary achievement.3 The younger Pliny specifies his literary inheritance from the elder Pliny in his own terms in an attempt to control the reception of his work. The examples of Passennus’ actual descent from Propertius and his fictive cognatio with Horace, along with the younger Pliny’s account of the elder Pliny, show that relationships of both biological and fictive descent are important components of his audience’s perception of literary identities. In this concluding chapter, I examine the models of kinship that one of the Flavian poets applies to himself and his work in order to define his place in the tradition. Two of the familial claims that Statius makes for himself and his poetic production serve as case studies. The poet makes anxious

195 The Poetics of Kinship ‘paternal’ and humble ‘conjugal’ claims for his art in the conclusion to the Thebaid that contrast with the bolder ‘filial’ claims made in the epicedion for his father, Silvae 5.3. Like the younger Pliny commenting on Passennus and the elder Pliny, Statius attempts to guide the reception of his work through the terms of a narrative of descent. The chapter concludes by briefly contrasting the practices of Silius and Statius. Silius aligns his work with those of Homer and Ennius in terms of its common purpose, to raise men’s fame to the sky, rather than constructing a relationship of descent between himself and his epic predecessors. This practice coheres thematically with the epic’s privileging of a typological rather than genealogical connection between its major figures and those of its present day. Silvae 5.3 celebrates the contributions made by the elder Papinius to all aspects of his son’s poetic art. In the terms established by this narrative, which serves as an idealizing statement of a poetic vocation, poetry is a familial inheritance, transmitted through privileged descent and nurtured by paternal instruction in the craft. Statius’ exceptional pietas appropriately complements the poetic gift that his father has given him. Were he to sing of his father’s deeds, Pietas herself would judge him the equal of Homer and Vergil (Silv. 5.3.61–3). The poet presents his relationship of pietas with his biological father as permitting him to rival a series of literary predecessors. He attempts to guide the reception of his past and future production through his representation of his own art and his father’s integral role in shaping it. This mode of argumentation has affinities with the practice of Horace in Satires 1.4 and 1.6. I shall begin with a comparison of the rhetorical purposes of the two poets’ portraits of their fathers.4 Like Horace in the Satires, Statius praises his biological father in Silvae 5.3 as surpassing all other figures in terms of his importance to his art. Yet in contrast to the Augustan satirist, who regards his father primarily as an ethical teacher, Statius’ father serves as a instructor in poetic craft and doctrina and a provider of poetic inspiration and occasion for his son. This distinction in the framing of the father’s role for the poet occurs in part as a consequence of the different social status of each father and the different genres in which each son works. The elder Horatius’ social status can be a drawback for his son: the Augustan poet is ‘the man whom everyone slanders as born from a freedman father.’5 Horace characteristically represents the satirist as engaged in moralizing criticism. The strength of his moral character, guaranteed by his father’s teaching, therefore provides his primary qualification to write satire.6 The generic term for these productions, ‘conversations’ (sermones), connotes everyday speech rather than elevated diction, and ordinary occurrences furnish their inspiration and occasion.7 Horace’s emphasis on the contributions of

196 In the Image of the Ancestors his biological father also enables him to mark his independence from Lucilius, his predecessor in the genre, and from Maecenas, who performs the symbolically paternal role of a patron.8 Statius, however, works in the more elevated genre of epic and the encomiastic Silvae, a genre with clear affinities to epic.9 He describes his work in epic as involving laborious revision and requiring extraordinary forms of inspiration, such as the ‘Pierian fire’ of the Thebaid and the combined efforts of the Muse and Apollo in the proem of the Achilleid.10 The majority of the Silvae respond to special events (births, marriages, deaths, consulships, festivals, banquets) and exceptional structures and objects (villas, baths, artworks). To a greater degree than the poet of sermo presumes to, then, Statius privileges labour, craft, doctrina, and divine inspiration in his epic production, and occasion and inspiration from the real world in the Silvae. The change in the poet’s goals requires him to make a different set of demands on his father. For Statius’ purposes, his father’s social identity is a boon rather than a drawback. The elder Papinius’ identity as a poet and his victories at poetic competitions inspire his son to similar accomplishment.11 His father’s presence as a spectator provides a stimulus for Statius’ own success in poetic competitions (Silv. 5.3.215–33). In contrast to Horace, who eventually turns away from the path marked out by the career of his freedman father by becoming a poet and joining the exalted company of Maecenas, the most filial of the Flavian poets continues to follow in his father’s footsteps. Through his relationship with his biological father, he can also imagine surpassing prior literary tradition. Statius initially presents poetic production as a filial activity by developing the theme of poetic incapacity that results from bereavement. Without his father’s guidance, the poet of the Thebaid has ‘unlearned’ his craft and no longer enjoys his privileged association with the gods of poetry (Silv. 5.3.3–7). The poet develops this association between the death of his father and his inability to compose through comparison with other acts of intergenerational mourning. Calliope’s cithara falls silent as she mourns for the elder Papinius in the same way that she had mourned at the death of her son Orpheus.12 Though death in the Silvae is most often a stimulus for poetic activity,13 the poet also intermittently claims that it represents an inappropriate occasion for his song (Silv. 2.1.5–9, 5.1.18–29). In his lament for his father, however, the poet focuses on his inability to perform rather than the unsuitability of the occasion. Unable to draw on the usual divine sources of poetic inspiration, the poet becomes capable of producing the longest poem in the collection only once his father grants him the continued gift of song from beyond the grave.14 While he lived, his father guided his son’s work, and his son continues to depend on his support after his death.

197 The Poetics of Kinship The narrator complements his initial figuration of poetic production as a filial activity by representing his song as an act of exceptional filial pietas. Statius conventionally represents pietas as an ill-regarded virtue. In the Thebaid, personified Pietas complains that ‘I am nothing now to the people of earth, and there is no reverence for me anywhere.’15 In the Silvae, the narrator indicates that it requires an unusual degree of pietas for any son to mourn his father in the first place. The typical sons of his generation are unfilial, eager for their inheritances, and thus impatient for the deaths of their fathers. Thus exceptional sons like Claudius Etruscus and Statius himself are worthy of praise.16 The role of personified Pietas in the epicedion for the elder Papinius certifies the strength of the narrator’s filial devotion. Though he describes personified Pietas as typically ‘forgetful of humanity’ (oblita uirum), recalling her attitude towards humanity in the Thebaid, here he enjoins her to participate in the mourning for his father (Silv. 5.3.89). Statius expresses his wish to create a monument for his father (Silv. 5.3.47–63) and to lead a chorus in praise of the elder Papinius’ mores et facta at the site. Were he able to achieve his wish, Pietas herself would judge him the equal of Homer and Vergil as the result of his devotion to his father: atque tibi moresque tuos et facta canentem fors et magniloquo non posthabuisset Homero, tenderet aeterno Pietas aequare Maroni. (Silv. 5.3.61–3) And as I sang for you of your character and deeds, perhaps Pietas would not rate me second to grand-speaking Homer and would strive to equate me with the immortal Vergil.

When he comes to describe his own poetic production in response to his father’s death, Statius once more relates its potential success to the quality of his filial devotion. The poetic stimulus provided by the death of his father permits the narrator to dream of surpassing his predecessors in epic song. For Statius, then, poetry is an activity that depends both for its commencement, its successful completion, and its positive reception on a father’s continual involvement. In his description of his father’s monument, Statius generates a series of contrasts with the temple of Vergil’s third Georgic to indicate that his own future production should be read as holding an equal, if not superior, position to Vergil’s in the epic tradition and surpassing it in filial piety. By describing his father’s monument, Statius calls attention to his ambition to emulate Vergilian epic. The image of the altar, ‘a work equal to temples’ (par templis opus, Silv. 5.3.48), directly recalls the narrator’s description in the proem to the third Georgic of the temple that he intends to build to celebrate Octavian (Geo. 3.13–48). Vergil’s temple is a poetic image of his

198 In the Image of the Ancestors forthcoming epic.17 Where Vergil erects his temple as an act of loyalty to his patron and leader, Statius does so out of his desire to honour his father. He disavows the athletic games that Vergil intends to establish around his temple in favour of a gathering of poets who would join him in honouring his father (Geo. 3.17–22, Silv. 5.3.53–7). Where Vergil envisions himself handing out prizes to the victors and singing of battles, Statius declares that he will sing of his father (Geo. 3.21–2, 46–8; Silv. 5.3.58–63). Statius’ use of the Vergilian association between epic and temple enables him to present a traditional assertion of poetic ambition in the context of filial devotion. The theme of his father’s accomplishments might potentially produce a monumental epic. The later portions of Silvae 5.3 complement this vision of hypothetical production by describing how Statius’ father provided his son with the pedigree and the instruction in the poet’s craft that enabled him to produce the actually existing (though perhaps still incomplete) epic Thebaid.18 The first and most important inheritance that the elder Papinius transmits to his son, exceeding a father’s minimal contribution of life, is his vocation as a poet: me quoque uocales lucos Boeotaque tempe pulsantem, cum stirpe tua descendere dixi, admisere deae; nec enim mihi sidera tantum aequoraque et terras, quae mos debere parenti, sed decus hoc quodcumque lyrae primusque dedisti non uulgare loqui et famam sperare sepulcro. (Silv. 5.3.209–14) The goddesses admitted me as well, as I knocked at the tuneful groves and Boeotian valleys, when I said that I descended from your line. For not only did you give me the stars and the seas and the lands, things customarily owed to a father, but you were the first to give me the honour of the lyre (however much it is), and not to speak in a common way and to hope for fame after death.

In relating his first efforts as a poet, Statius draws on a traditional association between poetic initiation and divine epiphany. Like Hesiod (Theog. 22–35) and other poets, Statius’ poetic career begins with an encounter with the Muses. His announcement of his descent is sufficient to guarantee his suitability for his vocation. Like Horace and Pindar, the elder Papinius’ youth was marked by extraordinary omens. ‘Gracious Apollo entrusted a lyre’ to him ‘while still a boy, and dipped [his] face in his sacred stream.’19 Statius has no need to receive such omens himself, as his pedigree is equivalent in terms of its ability to certify his status. Statius’ account of his education in the poet’s craft at his father’s hands complements his announcement of his poetic pedigree. His father not only

199 The Poetics of Kinship hands down a poetic vocation through his paternity but also directs his son’s progress in his art. A lengthy section on his activities as a teacher indicates the extent of his doctrina.20 As his father’s most devoted student, Statius benefits from his father’s learning and experience as poet: te nostra magistro Thebais urguebat priscorum exordia uatum; tu cantus stimulare meos, tu pandere facta heroum bellique modos positusque locorum monstrabas. labat incerto mihi limite cursus te sine, et orbatae caligant uela carinae. (Silv. 5.3.233–8) With you as my teacher, my Thebaid pressed hard on the works of prior poets. You showed me how to invigorate my songs, how to set out the deeds of heroes and the ways of war and the locations of places. Without you, my course falters, its track is uncertain, and the sails of my bereaved ship are shrouded in gloom.

Statius attributes to his father’s instruction his skill at narrating ‘the deeds of heroes and the ways of war’ (facta / heroum bellique modos) as displayed in the Thebaid. These are the narrative properties typically assigned to epic by the other poetic genres.21 Successful command of these modes of narration enables the epic poet to rival his predecessors. Thanks to his apprenticeship to his father, the Thebaid ‘pressed hard’ (urguebat) on the earlier works of the tradition. As in the prior section of the poem in which the narrator describes his potential to rival Homer and Vergil, Statius’ account of his relationship with his father once again enables him to lay claim to a privileged place among his literary predecessors. At the moment of his death, the elder Papinius provides his son with the potential to produce an epic equal to those of Homer and Vergil. Statius employs the figure of his biological father in order to negotiate his agonistic relationship with his literary predecessors, his poetic ‘fathers.’ In claiming that his father was instrumental in the creation of the Thebaid, the narrator offers particular suggestions as to how the epic and its creator should be perceived. He implicitly claims that the finished product reflects his father’s emphasis on craft and doctrina. These bold claims contrast with the poet’s humbler vision of the future reception of his work in the Thebaid itself.22 In the epic’s conclusion (Theb. 12.810–19), the narrator expresses the relationship between the Thebaid and the Aeneid through a conjugal metaphor, representing his completed epic as a dutiful wife who follows respectfully after a husband. His injunction to the completed epic to follow the Aeneid at a reverent distance indicates a subordinate posture with regard to his predecessors that

200 In the Image of the Ancestors recalls the claim at the conclusion of the Hopleus and Dymas episode that he plays a ‘lesser lyre’ than Vergil (Theb. 10.445–8). His allusion in the epic’s final lines to the fates of Creusa and Eurydice suggests a degree of anxiety regarding the survival of the work. Through ‘filial,’ ‘paternal,’ and ‘conjugal’ narrative, Statius offers complex statements (their components mediated, as always, by generic context) of his position in the poetic tradition. Throughout his corpus, Statius offers varied characterizations of his relationship with his predecessors. While in the Thebaid’s conclusion, Statius orders the epic not to ‘make an attempt’ (tempta) on the Aeneid, he claims in the Silvae that the Thebaid ‘makes an attempt’ (temptat) ‘on the joys of Mantuan fame with its bold string’ thanks to Vibius Maximus’ assistance.23 In a passage from Silvae 5.3 quoted above, he similarly observes that thanks to his father’s instruction, the Thebaid ‘pressed hard’ (urguebat, 5.3.234) on the works of prior poets. The Thebaid in turn offers a series of different perspectives from the Silvae on the poet’s position within the tradition. At the conclusion of the Hopleus and Dymas passage, the narrator claims that his heroes will be remembered. This traditional claim for epic’s power to guarantee the survival of a hero’s memory is attached, however, to an announcement of the poet’s inferiority to Vergil: ‘You also, holy souls, will outlive the mindful years, although my songs rise from a lesser lyre.’24 Other passages of the epic, however, construct a less deferential image of the relationship between the poet and his predecessors. Helen Lovatt has shown, for example, how the exceptionally ‘nobly born’ horses of Statius’ chariot race serve as symbols of the poet’s claim of successful emulation of both Vergil and Homer.25 In each passage, genre, narrative positioning, and intertextual significance contribute to the statement of the relationship between poet and predecessor. As we have seen, the narrator of Silvae 5.3 voices anxiety regarding his ability to create future poetic productions without his father’s guidance, while simultaneously claiming a privileged place for his work in the epic tradition thanks to his pietas. The conclusion of the Thebaid draws a similar set of connections between paternal guidance, poetic production, and place in the tradition. In this passage, however, the narrator speaks from the perspective of an anxious father rather than a bereaved son: durabisne procul dominoque legere superstes, o mihi bissenos multum uigilata per annos Thebai? iam certe praesens tibi Fama benignum strauit iter coepitque nouam monstrare futuris. iam te magnanimus dignatur noscere Caesar, Itala iam studio discit memoratque iuuentus.

201 The Poetics of Kinship uiue, precor; nec tu diuinam Aeneida tempta, sed longe sequere et uestigia semper adora. mox, tibi si quis adhuc praetendit nubila liuor, occidet, et meriti post me referentur honores. (Theb. 12.810–19) Will you endure longer and will you outlive your master to be read, o my Thebaid on which I laboured much for a dozen years? Certainly Rumour here at hand has already made a welcome path for you and begun to show my new work to future generations. Already great-souled Caesar thinks it worthwhile to recognize you, already the Italian youth learn you and recite you with eagerness. Live on, I pray. Don’t make an attempt on the divine Aeneid, but follow at a distance and always worship her footsteps. If any envy still spreads clouds before you, it will soon perish, and deserved honours will be paid after my death.

In the Thebaid’s conclusion, the narrator gives the work its name and instructs it to follow the Aeneid. Statius’ naming of his epic within its own text contrasts with the typical procedure of his predecessors.26 As an act characteristically performed by a father in ancient Rome, naming is an assertion of legitimacy, similarity, and obligation. Through the provision of a name, the father asserts his role in the creation of his child, whom he enrols in the family line.27 His action complements his acknowledgment of responsibility for the child’s welfare, which he may have performed at birth.28 With such acknowledgment, however, typically comes anxious uncertainty as to whether his offspring will thrive. The narrator’s posture as an anxious father draws on the lengthy literary tradition of anxiety attendant on sending a literary creation out into the world without a protector to vouch for its authenticity and to guarantee its survival. Such protection is conventionally represented in paternal terms. Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus observes that when a discourse ‘is beaten up and unjustly abused, it always requests its father’s aid, because it is unable to aid or defend itself.’29 In Ovid’s Tristia, the poet and his books address each other as if they were a father and his sons. In Tristia 1.1, the poet instructs his book in safe behaviour, as he will not be there to guide or protect it, while the book intercedes for its ‘father’ in Tristia 3.1.30 Statius’ remarks regarding the survival of the Thebaid recapitulate these anxieties and signal a contrast with the bold claims made in the conclusion to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Where Ovid claims that he will outlive his body (uiuam, Met. 15.879) thanks to the continued recitation of his work, Statius questions his work: ‘Will you endure?’ (durabisne). His acknowledgment of the fact of his own death is not coupled, as in Ovid, with a claim that his fame will survive. His death will instead permit the recognition of his work’s true worth. One answer to the problem of

202 In the Image of the Ancestors the epic’s lack of protector once it leaves Statius’ hands, however, comes in his assertion of Caesar’s choice ‘to recognize’ (noscere) the completed work. Noscere implies the kind of acknowledgment of legitimacy performed by family members (Verg. Ecl. 4.60, Ovid Met. 13.27–8). When Statius can no longer be physically present to defend the Thebaid, the emperor and the Italian students of the epic will do so. After expressing ‘paternal’ concern for the survival of his epic, a ‘conjugal’ paradigm governs Statius’ account of the relationship between the epic and its predecessors in the tradition. The narrator commands his completed poem to follow the Aeneid and to ‘worship its footsteps.’ As several critics have recently observed, the image of a female Thebais following after its distinguished predecessor at a respectful distance evokes two famous scenes from prior epic: Creusa’s attempt to accompany Vergil’s Aeneas in their escape from the captured city of Troy, and Orpheus’ attempt to lead his wife Eurydice out of the underworld.31 The women’s attempts to follow their husbands, however, are unsuccessful (Aen. 2.736–44, Met. 10.56–9). By presenting his completed epic in the image of these unfortunate wives, the narrator thereby reprises the theme of anxiety over the possibility of its loss and disappearance from the passage’s opening lines.32 The ‘paternal’ and ‘conjugal’ rhetoric of the Thebaid’s conclusion neither effaces nor supersedes the other, bolder claims for his art made elsewhere in the epic and in the Silvae. Rather, the poet’s envoi to his completed epic serves particular encomiastic purposes. In a reversal of the Ovidian claims of confidence with regard to the Metamorphoses’ survival and professions of inability to protect the Tristia, Statius entrusts the Thebaid to the emperor’s symbolically paternal protection. The implicit comparison of the epic to a dutiful wife, meanwhile, serves thematic purposes. The conjugal metaphor forms an appropriate conclusion to Thebaid 12, which takes the extraordinary efforts of bereaved wives on behalf of their husbands as one of its major themes. Statius provides a thematic and encomiastic conclusion to his epic by characterizing the relationship between his work and its tradition in a particular set of familial and gendered terms. Attention to the contrasts in Silius’ means of constructing his relationship with his predecessors in the Punica may help to illuminate both poets’ practices. Silius includes overt reference to four of his literary predecessors, Homer, Ennius, Cicero, and Vergil.33 The first two are characters of the Punica, encountered in battle narrative and in the underworld. The latter two are referenced more indirectly, through individuals identified as their ancestors or through figures who share similar names. Several contrasts with Statius’ practice are visible. The very multiplicity of literary figures celebrated in the Punica prevents the establishment of the narrowly agonistic relationship implied by the

203 The Poetics of Kinship conclusion of the Thebaid, where explicit reference to the Aeneid overshadows the poet’s multiple engagements with a vast range of intertexts. In constructing his relationship with earlier poets, Silius disavows both the claim of metempsychosis, as used by Ennius and later poets, and the claim of a lacuna in his predecessor’s work, as used by Statius in the Achilleid (1.3–4).34 Through the terms defined in the epic’s proem, the narrator of the Punica aligns his project with those of Ennius and Homer, setting his own work in a parallel rather than subordinate relationship with his predecessors. According to his characters’ accounts of the epics of his predecessors, both of the earlier poets raise the heroes that they celebrate to the sky. Apollo’s encomium of Ennius and the Sibyl’s commentary on Homer suggest projects similar to the one that the narrator defines for himself in the Punica. As he guides his poet to victory in a battle in Sardinia, Silius’ Apollo foretells Ennius’ later poetic endeavours: hic canet inlustri primus bella Itala uersu attolletque duces caelo, resonare docebit hic Latiis Helicona modis nec cedet honore Ascraeo famaue seni. (Pun. 12.410–13) This man will be the first to sing of Italian wars in illustrious verse, and he will raise leaders to the sky. He will teach Helicon to resound with Latin poetry nor will he yield his place in honour or fame to the old man of Ascra.

Apollo’s claim that Ennius ‘will raise leaders to the sky’ recalls Jupiter’s forecast to Mars of the apotheosis of Romulus in the divine council of Ennius’ Annales: ‘There will be one whom you will raise into the blue regions of the sky.’35 Silius’ Sibyl similarly announces to Scipio that Homer ‘raised your Troy right up to the stars.’36 These claims recall the narrator’s account of his project in the proem of the Punica: ‘I begin to sing of the arms, by which the glory of the Aeneadae raises itself to the sky.’37 Chapter 5 observed that Silius’ epic rejects a genealogical connection between its major figures and the Flavian dynasty of his present day, a contrast with the Aeneid’s use of genealogical narrative as a means of privileging the Julian house. Silius’ choice of typological alignment as his means of affiliation with the poetic tradition complements the narrative’s construction of typological rather than genealogical associations between the commanders of the Second Punic War and the imperial house. Silius overtly aligns his own project with those of Ennius and Homer through his representation of their work. Though Silius does not represent himself as a figurative descendant of either poet, an encomiastic epigram of Martial represents him as the heir of both Cicero and Vergil:

204 In the Image of the Ancestors Silius haec magni celebrat monimenta Maronis, iugera facundi qui Ciceronis habet. heredem dominumque sui tumuliue larisue non alium mallet nec Maro nec Cicero. (Mart. Epig. 11.48) Silius, who possesses eloquent Cicero’s fields, frequents this monument of great Vergil. Neither Vergil nor Cicero would prefer a different heir and master of his tomb and shrine.

Silius’ worship at Vergil’s tomb is also attested in Pliny (Ep. 3.7.8).38 An heir charged with caring for a tomb, however, need not be a lineal descendant.39 Unlike Statius, who celebrates his father, or Pliny, who connects Passennus Paulus to his biological ancestor Propertius, Silius has a relationship of ‘heredity’ with Cicero and Vergil that is entirely figurative. The only overt statements regarding Silius’ relationship with the person of this most important of his poetic predecessors occur outside of his corpus. The Flavian epic poets signal the changed narrative and generic priorities of their new works by revising their predecessors’ models of kinship. Valerius differentiates his epic from its Hellenistic predecessor by creating Argonauts who are both adventurers and family men. Statius’ Thebaid offers a rebuttal to the positive ‘dynastic principle’ dramatized in the Aeneid by representing descent as a corrupting force. His Achilleid implicates Achilles in a series of familial commitments left unexplored in Homeric tradition but familiar to Roman elegy. Silius’ Punica examines the relationship between the family and the state and the exercise of leaderly and paternal authority through a series of interactions between fathers and sons. The remarks of Pliny quoted at the beginning of this chapter make clear, however, that perceptions of an author’s descent, both biological and literary, affect the way his literary work is consumed in early imperial Rome. In this context, Statius’ positioning of himself as an anxious parent in the conclusion of the Thebaid and as an ideally pious son in the Silvae are palpable efforts to guide the reception of both works. Through his poetics of kinship, he lays claim to a privileged space in the literary tradition.

NOTES

Introduction 1 Descent through the male line will hereafter be referred to as agnatic descent, in contrast to cognatic descent, traced through a combination of male and female ancestors. 2 Examples of intrafamilial conflicts briefly related in Homer include Phoenix’s narrowly averted murder of his father (Il. 9.444–84) and the story of Orestes (Od. 1.29–43). 3 Examples include the mourning of Anna for Dido (Aen. 4.675–85), Euryalus’ mother for her son (9.481–97), Mezentius for Lausus (10.846–56), Evander for Pallas (11.152–81), and Juturna for Turnus (12.872–84). 4 To take three recently published examples from other literary fields: Harney (2001) examines the reaction of medieval Spanish romance to changes in contemporary marriage and inheritance customs. Belsey (1999) reads several Shakespearean plays as contributions to contemporary debates regarding marriage, parental authority, and filial obligation. McCrea (1998) demonstrates how a perceived failure of patriarchal authority, caused in part by a contemporary demographic crisis among the upper classes, provided a narrative stimulus for the creation of fictive kin relationships in eighteenth-century English literature. Chapter 1 1 For the authority of the paterfamilias and its limitations, see Shaw 2001, Saller 1992, and Saller 1986. For Roman marriage, see Treggiari 1993. Bettini (1991) examines various familial relationships, including those between father and son, paternal uncle and nephew, maternal grandfather and grandson, etc. For relationships between Roman fathers and daughters, see Hallett 1984. For relationships between brothers, see Bannon 1997.

206 Notes to pages 7–12 2 For Brutus and Manlius, see Livy 2.4–5 and 8.7. For the elder Horatius, see Hor. Sat. 1.4 and 1.6. For the elder Papinius, see Stat. Silv. 5.3. For Roman poets’ representations of their fathers, see Önnerfors 1975. 3 The hesitation to apply the title of ‘parent’ to prospective filicides most clearly indicates the gap between normative expectation of parental behaviour and actual practice. As she reconsiders her plan to murder her children, Seneca’s Medea remarks that ‘the mother returns, with the wife entirely banished’ (materque tota coniuge expulsa redit, Med. 928), while Statius’ Tisiphone observes shortly before the duel that claims the lives of Oedipus’ sons that their father appears to be losing his former desire to destroy them: ‘He is a father now’ (iam pater est, Theb. 11.107). 4 See Lentano 1996, Konstan 1983. 5 Dilexi tum te non tantum ut uulgus amicam, / sed pater ut natos diligit et generos, Catul. 72.3–4. See also Prop. 2.18.33–4; [Tib.] 3.1.25–6; James 2003: 41–52. 6 See Dangel (1987). 7 Hardie 1993a: 91–8. Henderson (1998a: 229) relates the imitation of ancestral models to the formation of ‘epic tradition, classical tradition, Tradition tout court, how fathers-who-were-sons re-make sons-who-will-be-fathers in their own form.’ 8 For epic as an androcentric genre, see Keith 2000: 1–7. 9 See Harney 2001: 16–24. 10 Harris 1990: 20. 11 For the role of the Roman gens, see C.J. Smith 2006. 12 For example, Hallett (1984: 38–59) examines the circumstances under which elite Roman women are identified as their fathers’ daughters, their husbands’ wives, or their brothers’ sisters. For kinship as a process, see Carsten 2004: 31– 82; Novy 2001a. 13 Bettini 1991: 175. 14 For the construction of legendary and historical genealogies in ancient Rome, see C.J. Smith 2006: 32–44; Wiseman 1974. 15 See Il. 1.280; Aen. 12.216–18; Theb. 12.575–86; Ripoll 1998: 69–85. 16 Aeneas is addressed as ‘son of a goddess’ (nate dea) eleven times by other characters (Aen. 1.582, 1.615, 2.289, 3.311, 3.374, 3.435, 4.560, 5.383, 5.474, 5.709, 8.59), in contrast to the three occurrences in which he is addressed as ‘son of Anchises’ (Anchisiade, 6.126, 6.348; Anchisa generate, 6.322). He is designated as Anchises’ son eight times by the narrator (Anchisiades, 5.407, 8.521, 10.250, 10.822; satus Anchisa, 5.244, 5.424, 6.331, 7.152). 17 See Aen. 7.177; Theb. 2.215, 6.268; Pun. 10.566–7. For the role of the imagines in aristocratic Roman society, see Flower 1996. 18 See Aen. 1.641–2, Theb. 5.725–6, Pun. 8.383–9, etc. 19 See Frank 1995 in reference to the role of Hercules in Sen. HF. Sol: Arg. 6.442, 6.518, 8.459; Hannibal: Pun. 15.639–40; see Burck 1984a: 99–100.

207 Notes to pages 12–16 20 Ferrum mea semper et arcus / mater habet, uestri feriunt caua tympana patres, Theb. 9.799–800. 21 Es germana Iouis Saturnique altera proles,/ irarum tantos uoluis sub pectore fluctus, Aen. 12.830–1. 22 Natum exhortater, ni mixtus matre Sabella / hinc partem patriae traheret, Aen. 8.510–11. 23 Fas et me spernere Phoebum, / si tibi collatus diuum sator, Theb. 7.733–4. 24 See Querbach 1976: 57–8. 25 Hollis (1994) observes that the simile of the Parthian king associates Thiodamas’ succession as prophet with dynastic succession (Theb. 8.286–93). 26 For illegitimacy in Roman literature and culture, see Beltrami 1998; Rawson 1989; in Greek culture, see Ebbott 2003; Ogden 1996. 27 For the thematic functions of variations on the phrase in the Aeneid, see Lee 1979: 56–7. 28 See Keith 2000: 8–35; Petrini 1997: 106–8. 29 Suis daret ut pugnae documenta, Pun. 10.112; 10.122–69. See Niemann 1975: 225–32. 30 Od. 3.103–200, 4.266–89, 4.555–60. For other epic scenes of instruction by preceptors, see Il. 9.252–9, Met. 12.536–76, Pun. 6.117–551. 31 Seneca’s Pyrrhus returns to the theme of his inheritance of ancestral dispositions in his argument with Agamemnon (Tro. 339–48). 32 Hammond (1957, 75) observes that the percentage of identifiable patricians of republican ancestry in the Senate declines from ‘about 16 per cent under Augustus’ to ‘slightly over 2 per cent’ in AD 69. Garnsey and Saller (1987, 123) estimate that senatorial families died out at the rate of 75 per cent per generation in the early empire: ‘The turnover … must have diluted the value of lineage in claims to rank and status, as few imperial senators (unlike their Republican predecessors) could profit from the collective memory of their ancestors’ achievements.’ 33 For the admission of noui homines and provincials to the Senate, see Levick 1999: 173; Devreker 1980: 261–7; Syme 1958: 566–97. 34 Hopkins (1983) refers to these individuals as the ‘grand set’ as opposed to the ‘power set.’ As B.W. Jones (1992: 165) observes, ‘Whilst the early emperors did their best to dispense with the grand set, Domitian positively encouraged them, without, of course, giving them any real power.’ For discussion of senators from the ‘grand set’ promoted early to the consulship, see B.W. Jones 1992: 163–9. For a list of Domitian’s consular victims and exiles, see B.W. Jones 1992: 182–92. 35 See Suet. Cal. 34; Dio 60.25.2–3; Edwards 2003: 48. 36 Bodel (1999: 271) observes that what had been an occasion for advertising a family’s distinction in the late republic became ‘a purely civic ceremony’ in the early empire. 37 Hopkins 1983: 174.

208 Notes to pages 16–19 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45

46 47

48 49 50 51 52

53

54

55

See Hopkins 1983: 149–93. See Hoffer 1999: 229–33. For discussion of the ‘fiction of free birth by imperial fiat,’ see Damon 2006: 247. See Rawson 2003: 10. Severy 2003: 56. For points of entry to the vast bibliography on the Augustan marriage laws, see Severy 2003: 50–6, McGinn 1998; Treggiari 1993. The lex Fufia Caninia restricted the number of slaves that an owner could manumit in his will, while the lex Aelia Sentia set barriers to their citizen status. See Severy 2003: 153–6. See Severy 2003: 153–6. The term later applied to this ‘camp money,’ castrense peculium (Tit. Ulp. 20.10, Just. Inst. 2.12.pr), further suggests the emperor’s symbolically paternal role, as peculium was the allowance permitted by the father to those under his potestas. See Severy 2003: 89–90; Campbell 1984: 211–12, 229–36. Severy 2003: 110. Item cum iudicet senatus omnium partium pietatem antecessise Ti. Caesarem Aug(ustum) principem nostrum (SC de Cn. Pisone patre lines 123–4). Text and translation from Potter and Damon 1999: 32–3. For discussion, see Severy 2003: 230–1. See Grelle 1980. For the revival of the lex Iulia, see Mart. 6.2, 6.4, Pliny Pan. 42.1, Garthwaite 1990. For the lex Voconia, see Pliny Pan. 42.1. See B.W. Jones 1992: 106–7. Silv. 5.2.65, 176. See Bernstein 2007; Zeiner 2005: 201–9; A. Hardie 1983: 148. Vinson (1989) argues that the hostile literary tradition generated after Domitian’s assassination (e.g., Pliny Ep. 4.11, Suet. Dom. 22, Juv. 2.29–33) offers fantasies about the personal behaviour of this emperor in order to portray him as a hypocrite who revived the lex Julia but committed incest with his niece and could not regulate the sexual behaviour of his own wife. See also Stewart 1994. Titus established the college of Sodales Flaviales after Vespasian’s death and began construction of the Templum Divi Vespasiani around the year 80. Domitian rededicated this temple as the Templum Divi Vespasiani et Titi and built the Templum Gentis Flaviae on the site of his birthplace. See Mart. 9.1, 9.20, 9.34; Stat. Silv. 4.3.17–18; Suet. Dom. 1.1; CIL 6.29788, 15.7451; Darwall-Smith 1996: 153–79. See Tac. Hist. 2.77, Jos. BJ 4.596–7. For Vitellius’ failed effort to establish his sons as dynastic successors, see Tac. Hist. 2.59.3 with Morgan 1991; Sutherland, Carson and Mattingly 1984: 268–73, nos. 8, 57, 78–9, 100–3. See Dio 66.12.1; Suet. Vesp. 25; Levick 1999: 88–91. Pigon (1992: 240–1) suggests that Dio/Xiphilinus may have conflated the quarrel of Helvidius Priscus and Vespasian in the Senate with the emperor’s unrelated announcement regarding the succession. Helvidius also may have been objecting to Titus’

209 Notes to pages 20–4

56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68

69 70 71

72

73 74 75

character in particular rather than to the principle of hereditary succession in general. See CAH XI2: 44–5 (Griffin). See Mart. 6.3.1–2, Stat. Silv. 1.1.74, Sil. Pun. 3.625. Newlands (2002: 115) observes that the presence of Domitian’s eunuch Earinus in Silv. 3.4 marks the ‘troubling sterility of [his] household.’ See B.W. Jones 1992: 47–8. See Saller 1994: 74–101. See Flower 1996: 262. See Zeiner 2005; for the concept of ‘distinction,’ see Bourdieu 1984. Newlands 2002: 6. Belsey (1999: 1–25) offers a perceptive discussion of the distinction between practices and values in the study of literary representations of the family. See, for example, Ter. Heaut. 213–19; Adelph. 985–95; Cic. Cael. 33; Eyben 1991: 121–36. For criticism of the evolutionary narrative of patria potestas, see Shaw 2001; Saller 1994: 102–32. Shaw (2001: 61–2) argues that moralizing narratives (such as Sall. Cat. 39.5, Val. Max. 5.8), rather than actual practice, created the image of supreme paternal authority. See Dench 2005: 112–3, 290. Quaeri solitum est in philosophorum disceptationibus, an semper inque omnibus iussis patri parendum sit, Gell. 2.7.1. Non tam duri quidam et tam scelerati patres sunt, ut illos auersari et eiurare ius fasque sit?, Sen. Ben. 6.4.2. See Reydams-Schils 2005: 131–4. As Roller (1997: 112–13) observes, declamation ‘generally places two or more accepted social values into competition.’ For father-son conflict in declamation, see Gunderson 2003: 75–9; Shaw 2001: 70–1; Sussman 1995. Ante patriae quam patri negauit manus, Contr. 1.4.3. For other examples of a generalized model of instruction by elders, see Cic. Off. 1.123, Tac. Dial. 34.1. For instruction of his son by the elder Cato, see Sen. Contr. 1. praef. 9, Pliny NH 29.14; by Cicero, see Part. 1 and Off. 1.1; by the elder Seneca, see Contr. 1. praef. 1; for late ancient examples, see LeMoine 1991. See also Bonner 1977: 10–19. Καὶ γὰρ γυναικὸς ἄρχει καὶ τέκνων, ὡς ἐλευθέρων µὲν ἀµφοῖν, οὐ τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον τῆς ἀρχῆς, ἀλλὰ γυναικὸς µὲν πολιτικῶς τέκνων δὲ βασιλικῶς, Arist. Pol. 1259a39–41. Est principium urbis et quasi seminarium reipublicae, Off. 1.54. See also Cic. Rep. 1.38, Plat. Legg. 776a; Arist. Pol. 1252a-b; Dyck 1996: 173. Sic, quoniam plura beneficia continet patria et est antiquior parens quam is, qui creauit, maior ei profecto quam parenti debetur gratia, Cic. Rep. fr. 1a Ziegler. Cic. Rep. 6.16; see also Off. 3.90. The two forms of pietas, however, are made equivalent at Inv. 2.65. See Bonjour 1975: 60–1.

210 Notes to pages 24–32 76 Livy 2.5, 4.29, 8.7. See Mancuso 1999; Feldherr 1998: 108–11 (on Manlius), 200– 3 (on Brutus); Saller 1994: 114–17. 77 Odysseus: Od. 2.46–7, 2.233–4, 5.11–12. Cicero as parens patriae: Pis. 6; Caesar as pater patriae: Suet. Jul. 76.1; Augustus: RG 6. See Stevenson 1992. Aeneas as the father of the Roman race: Verg. Aen. 12.166. 78 Pater atque princeps (Hor. Carm. 1.2.50); pater orbis (Stat. Silv. 3.4.48), parens orbis (Mart. 9.5[6].1). See Leberl 2004: 288; Sauter 1934: 30. 79 See Roller 2001: 233–47. 80 Nusquam ut deo, nusquam ut numini blandiamur: non enim de tyranno sed de ciue, non de domino sed de parente loquimur, Pliny Pan. 2.3. 81 For a continuation of this tradition, see Spaltenstein 2002: 5–19. 82 For a representative example, see Ahl 1984. 83 For ancient kinship diplomacy, see Jones 1999. 84 See Hardie 1993a: 98–119. Chapter 2 1 The Lemnian episode: Arg. 2.78–431; see A.R. 1.609–914, Stat. Theb. 5.49–498. The oracle: Arg. 5.259–62. 2 For ‘collusive dissimulation’ in the Argonautica, see Hershkowitz 1998b: 242–74. 3 The narrative subordinates the tradition in which Pelias seized Aeson’s throne, thereby causing the elder generation to pity him (olim miserantes Aesona patres, Arg. 1.72; see Pind. Pyth. 4.106–15), to one in which Pelias rules Haemonia from his youth (1.22); see Zissos 1999. For other accounts of the relationship between Pelias and Aeson, see Spaltenstein 2002: 37, 42–3. 4 For the association of sea travel with moral decline, see, for example, Hor. Carm. 1.3, Ovid Met. 1.128–50, Sen. Phaed. 525–32. For the eradication of affective ties between family members in the age following upon the voyage of the Argo, see Catul. 64.397–404. The Chorus of Seneca’s Medea observes that, in contrast to the present decline, the generations before the Argonautic expedition ‘saw pure times; deception was far distant’ (candida nostri saecula patres / uidere, procul fraude remota, Med. 329–30). See Feeney 1991: 330–5. 5 For discussion of Euripides’ Medea as a critique of Periclean imperialism, see Newman 2001a. For discussion of Seneca’s Medea in the context of Roman imperialism, see Benton 2003; of Roman marriage law, see Abrahamsen 1999. 6 See Hom. Od. 12.70, Verg. Geo. 3.6, Stat. Silv. 2.7.51, Juv. 1.10–14. 7 For the comparison between Valerian and Apollonian Jasons, see Hershkowitz 1998b: 105–25; Hull 1979. For Valerius’ use of Argonautic and non-Argonautic intertexts, see Hershkowitz 1998b: 38–100. 8 Tuque, o pelagi cui maior aperti / fama, Caledonius postquam tua carbasa uexit / Oceanus Phrygios prius indignatus Iulos, Arg. 1.7–9. This interpretation follows Kleywegt 2005: 13–14.

211 Notes to pages 32–6 9 The dangers of the storm cause Jason to realize the significance of attempting to surpass the ancestors (Arg. 1.627–8). The Centauromachy is pictured on the Argo itself (Arg. 1.140–8) and recalled by Aeson (1.336–8). 10 Jupiter’s prophecy: Arg. 1.546–54; Mopsus’ prophecy: 8.395–99; encounter between Peleus and Achilles: 1.256–73. For associations between the Argonautic expedition and the Trojan War, see Hdt. 1.2–3, Verg. Ecl. 4.34–6, Barnes 1981. 11 Saeuus … gigas, Arg. 4.200. See Otte 1992: 83–6. 12 See Taylor 1994. 13 Arg. 1.531–60. For the so-called Weltenplan, see Manuwald 2004; Taylor 1994: 219–21; Wacht 1991; contra, Spaltenstein 2002: 10–11, 207–9. 14 See Zissos 2003. 15 Monitus sed tradat ut acres / magnorumque uiros qui laudibus urat auorum, Arg. 1.475–6. 16 See Ripoll 1998: 28. 17 In the event, only Sthenelus is permitted to watch the Argonauts (Arg. 5.82–8). His motives contrast with those of the Apollonian character, who wishes to observe the Argonauts in their nonfamilial aspect as Greek ‘compatriots’ (ὁµήθεας ἄνδρας, A.R. 2.917), not as descendants. 18 See Hershkowitz 1998b: 190–241. 19 Fraudataque tempore segni / uota patrum, Arg. 2.376–7. Apollonius’ Heracles, by contrast, makes no similar evocation of the ancestors (A.R. 1.865–8). For Hercules in the Argonautica, see Ripoll 1998: 88–112; Schenk 1986. 20 Quo simul adsumpta pulsus fide, luctus et irae / et labor, et dulces cedunt e pectore nati, Arg. 4.88–9. 21 Fare, an patriam spes ulla uidendi, Arg. 5.551; nec quisquam freta nec patrias iam respicit urbes, 5.562. 22 The attempt of Valerius’ Aeetes to insult the Argonauts as ‘exiles’ without families (exulibus, Arg. 7.44; see 7.50–3) reveals the depth of his misapprehension. 23 Control of property: Daube 1969: 75–91; arranging marriage: Treggiari 1993: 125–60. For contrast with Greek society, see Crook 1967. 24 For Medea as infelix, see Arg. 6.490, 7.296, and 7.371; Stadler 1993: 146; Hull 1975: 5. 25 For pietas in the Argonautica as second to gloria, see Ripoll 1998: 258–75. 26 See Saller 1994: 102–32. 27 Connections with Roman culture include the division of Pelias’ Haemonia into tyrannus, patres, and populus (Arg. 1.71–2); Jupiter’s prophecy of the rise of Rome (1.558–60); and Jason’s figuration as a Roman triumphator (7.649, 8.133). See Burck 1981: 2.558–85. Comparisons refer to recent historical events such as the eruption of Vesuvius (Arg. 4.507–9) and a clash between Roman legions (6.402–6). 28 Though the dating of the composition of the Argonautica remains a subject of active scholarly debate (for the latest contributions, see Kleywegt 2005: 19–20;

212 Notes to pages 36–41

29 30

31

32

33 34 35

36 37

38

39

40 41 42

Zissos 2003), it is generally agreed that Valerius began the epic at the latest only a decade after the civil war of AD 69. Val. Max. 9.11.5–7; cf. App. BC. 4.18, 4.24; Tac. Hist. 3.25, 3.51. See Jal 1963: 393–417. Jupiter reveals that, like the desultores of earlier Roman civil wars, Medea will change her loyalty again and support her father (Arg. 5.687–9; see Diod. Sic. 4.56, Apollod. 1.9.28). Pelias as tyrannus: Arg. 1.30, 1.71, 1.244; Laomedon: 2.577, 4.59; Amycus: 4.751; Styrus: 5.258, 6.44, 8.153; Aeetes: over 10 occurrences, including Arg. 5.264, 5.319, 5.387, 5.470, 5.547, 5.659, etc. The tyranni outnumber the reges of the epic, such as the unfortunate Thoas of Lemnos and Cyzicus of the Doliones, or the ‘gentle’ Lycus of the Mariandyni (mitis, Arg. 4.470). For discussion of the tyrannical type in the Argonautica, see Zissos 2003: 673–7; McGuire 1997: 147–84; Pederzani 1988: 28–31; Scaffai 1986; Cecchin 1984: 297–300, 306–9. See Hershkowitz 1998b: 190–3. Arg. 2.611–12. Jason prays similarly to Phrixus per genus atque pares … labores, 5.194. Both Jason and Aeson think about inciting revolutions against Pelias (Arg. 1.71– 3, 1.759–61), and Jason at first assumes that Dymas is trying to start a revolution against Amycus (4.157–9). Valerius’ Bebrycians scatter upon the death of their tyrant Amycus (Arg. 4.315–6; contrast A.R. 2.98–136). Arg. 1.22–3; see Aen. 7.45–6, Theb. 1.390–1. Arg. 1.693–850; see Manuwald 2000. Ripoll (1998: 486–7) observes an evocation of the struggle between Tiberius and Germanicus in the conflict between Pelias and Aeson. Cum uelut quodam specu inclusa nunc propinquorum sanguinem lamberet, nunc se ad clarissimorum ciuium strages caedesque proferret, Pliny Pan. 48.3. Braund (1996b) observes that Pliny’s Domitian further shows his lack of humanitas and socialitas by dining alone (Pan. 49.6). Fraternaque surgit Erinys, Arg. 4.617. Compare Vergil’s Allecto, able ‘to arm like-souled brothers in conflict’ (unanimos armare in proelia fratres, Aen. 7.335). Absyrtus’ murder is prefigured at Arg. 7.339–40 and 8.106–8. See A.R. 4.421– 81, Hershkowitz 1998b: 15–16. See Scaffai 1986, La Penna 1999. By sailing with Jason, Zetes and Calais implicitly oppose their father Boreas, who claims ‘my children will not affect me at all’ in raising the storm to sink the Argo (nil me mea pignora tangent, Arg. 1.605). Yet Boreas also helps his children in their battle against the Harpies (4.502). For Boreas’ ‘primitivist’ ideology, see Zissos 2006. As the Argo’s replacement helmsman after the death of Tiphys,

213 Notes to pages 41–6

43

44

45 46 47 48 49 50

51

52

53

54 55 56

Erginus works against his father Neptune’s attempt to keep human beings off the sea (1.414–19, 5.65–6). As Hershkowitz (1998b: 183–4, 253) observes, this attribution of dissimulation evokes the most negative aspects of the Apollonian Jason. By contrast, Ripoll (1998: 198–201) argues that Acastus has made a free choice in favour of gloria. Examples include Apollonius’ Nycteus, Acrisius, and Echetus (A.R. 4.1090–5) and Statius’ Crotopus (Theb. 1.594–5). For the murder of women in Roman epic, see Keith 2000: 101–31. See Manuwald 2004; Hershkowitz 1998b: 72–8; Burck 1976. As Spaltenstein (2002: 443) observes, Valerius leaves indeterminate whether Hesione is aware of her father’s crime. Solitoque parentibus haeret / blandior et patriae circumfert oscula dextrae, Arg. 7.122–3. Ante dolos, ante infidi tamen exsequar astus / Soligenae falli meriti meritique relinqui, Arg. 5.222–3. As Fantham (1998) observes, Vergil presents Amata’s case as just in purely secular terms. See also Brazouski 1991. The consilium was expected to moderate the judgments of the paterfamilias. As the following examples show, its decisions could be enforced by sanctions. The censors expelled a senator for divorcing without consulting a consilium (Val. Max. 2.9.2). Seneca describes a father’s consilium for judgment of his son that included the emperor Augustus (Clem. 1.15). The emperor Hadrian exiled a father who killed his son for committing adultery with his stepmother (Dig. 48.9.5). See Dixon 1992: 47; Lacey 1986: 137–40; for the judgment of adultery, see Treggiari 1993: 265–8. Quod accidit etiam si de una re quaeratur aliqua, sed eam plures petant, uel eodem iure, ut proximitatis, uel diuerso, ut cum hic testamento, ille proximitate nitetur, Quint. Inst. 3.6.95. Two of the praetores urbani of the first century BC forbade inheritances to men on the grounds of character: the son of Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus (Val. Max. 3.5.2) and Vecilius the leno (Val. Max. 7.7.7). See Crook 1967: 121. Pliny records his formation of a council to examine the disinheritance of Asudius Curianus, which concluded that the mother had acted from just cause (Ep. 5.1.6). For disinheritance in Roman society, see Champlin 1991: 107–11. Seneca’s Atreus and Thyestes also quarrel over a ram with a golden fleece (Thy. 225–35). For discussion of the ram and the golden fleece as symbols of royal power, see Newman 2001a, Newman 2001b. Jason and the sons of Phrixus are slightly closer relatives in Valerius than in the traditional genealogy. For details, see Spaltenstein 2002: 42–3; Clausen 2002: 217–18. See Keith 2000: 128; Wijsman 1996: 221; Lüthje 1971: 224. Franchet d’Espèrey (2004: 60–1) observes that the Argonauts should logically support Perses, who wants Aeetes to give back the Fleece. In forcing them to

214 Notes to pages 47–52

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59

60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67

68

69 70

71 72 73

support Aeetes, however, the goddesses motivate Medea’s conflict between love and loyalty. Sat magna laborum / dona fero, satis hoc uisu quaecumque rependo, Arg. 6.548–9. A further example of divine interference in a relationship of created kinship occurs when Juno separates Hercules and Hylas, whom the narrative represents as involved in both a pederastic and a quasi-paternal relationship (Arg. 4.25). See Hershkowitz 1998b: 150–8; Malamud and McGuire 1993: 208–10. Spaltenstein (2002: 307) argues that this divine intervention seems pointless, because Jason could not have heard the news of his father’s death in the middle of his sea voyage. Valerius has chosen, however, to emphasize Juno’s perception of what is needful rather than what would be plausible in a naturalistic narrative. Divine messengers and ghosts can also appear in Roman epic to inform their loved ones of their deaths. Ovid’s Morpheus, for example, appears in the guise of Ceyx to inform Alcyone of her husband’s death (Met. 11.650–73). Tantumque nefas mens conscia uatum / conticuit, patriae exitium crudele senectae / et tot acerba canens, Arg. 3.301–3. Patriam cur amplius optem / si non et genitor te primam amplectitur Aeson, Arg. 7.493–4. See Spaltenstein 2004: 96; Spaltenstein 2005: 338. Aeson looks forward to welcoming back Jason as a heroic conquerer (Arg. 1.343–7) and offers himself as an exemplary suicide for the instruction of his son Promachus (1.771–3). See Clare 2004, Dominik 1997, Aricò 1991. Compare Aen. 7.336. For Valerius’ Venus as a Fury, see Arg. 2.101–6. Arg. 2.115–95. The Apollonian Hypsipyle’s lying account, by contrast, describes a more gradual eradication of affective bonds within the family (A.R. 1.813–17). For Venus as alma in the Aeneid, see Aen. 1.618, 2.591 (alma parens), 2.664 (alma parens), 10.332. Contrast Valerius’ observation ‘for she does not only appear nourishing’ (neque enim alma uideri, Arg. 2.101). The repetition of participles formed from merere, ‘to deserve,’ in the introductions to the Lemnian and Colchian episodes prompts further recognition of the incommensurability of divine and human moral standards. Arg. 2.242–6; Aen. 9.446–9. For the apostrophe, see Gibson 2004. For the role of pietas, see Dominik 1997: 38–41. Repeated associations of each woman with Bacchus (Arg. 2.253–78, 6.755–7, 7.301–4, 8.446–50) assist in developing the inverted parallel. The Lemnian women’s brief hesitation after hearing Fama’s lies anticipates the longer accounts of Medea’s vacillation before Venus’ assault (Arg. 2.167–9, 7.101–52). See Manuwald 1999, Williams 1997, Schenk 1991, Burck 1970. Cur talia passus / arma, quid hospitiis iunctas concurrere dextras / Iuppiter, Arg. 3.16–18.

215 Notes to pages 52–9 74 Cyzicus evokes the battle of Pharsalus by addressing the Argonauts as an ‘Emathian band’ (Emathiae manus, Arg. 2.640). A second allusion to civil war occurs when Castor and Pollux, the exemplars of fraternal love, almost fight each other in the darkness (Arg. 3.186–9). For parallels between the battles at Cyzicus and Colchis, see Schenk 1999: 70–289. 75 A similar ritual may also occur between Aeetes and the Argonauts, Arg. 7.344–5. The evocation of the Roman marriage ceremony emphasizes the connection between Aeetes’ broken promise and his loss of control over his daughter’s marriage. For the dextrarum iunctio, see Treggiari 1993: 149–51, 164–5; in epic, Ovid Met. 6.506–7. 76 Ovid Met. 12.189–535. See Plut. Thes. 30.3; Diod. Sic. 4.70.3–4; Gantz 1993: 280–1. 77 Arg. 8.21–3; Ovid Met. 4.416–542; Stat. Theb. 1.12; Spaltenstein 2004: 26. 78 Arg. 6.755–7, 7.301–4, and 8.446–50. 79 The disguised Athena of the Odyssey remains with Odysseus and Telemachus for extended periods, but does not masquerade as a relative of either man. Various gods in the Iliad (16.715–25, 22.226–47) direct Hector’s conduct through brief episodes of imposture as his relatives. 80 Ἥρης ἐννεσίῃσι µετάτροπος, A.R. 3.818; τῇ δ’ ἀλεγεινότατον κραδίῃ φόβον ἔµβαλεν Ἥρη, 4.11. 81 Whether Valerius’ Argonauts would have visited Circe as in Apollonius (A.R. 4.659–752) and, if so, how Medea would have reacted to her ‘real’ aunt after her encounter with the disguised goddess must remain matters of speculation. Perhaps, as in other episodes, the Argonauts would have followed the example of Vergil’s Trojans, who avoid Circe’s island (Aen. 7.5–24). 82 In supplicating Jason not to abandon her to the Colchians, Apollonius’ Medea similarly claims to be Jason’s daughter, wife, and sister (A.R. 4.368–9). The exemplary destructive wife ironically reproduces the language of created kinship used by Andromache, the exemplary faithful wife in Homer (Il. 6.429–30). 83 Pii … patris, Arg. 5.336; nondum miseros exosa parentes, 5.349; turbata, 5.341. 84 See Hallett 1984: 133–49. 85 Contrast Ovid’s Picus, who rebuffs Circe’s proposal of marriage (Met. 14.377–81). 86 See Salemme 1993: 65. 87 Coniunx, Arg. 7.497. Ovid’s Medea similarly calls Jason coniunx during her soliloquy (Met. 7.68). 88 Uellus habe, Arg. 8.157; Albano fuit haec promissa tyranno, / non tibi. nil tecum miseri pepigere parentes, / Aesonide, 8.153–5. Compare Amata’s appeal to her ius maternum (Aen. 7.402). 89 Venus takes the role of pronuba usually occupied by Juno (Arg. 8.232–8). The goddess gives Medea the jewels that she will later use to destroy her Corinthian rival (8.236). Mopsus sees omens of future discord in the failure of the incense to burn (8.247–9). See Salemme 1993: 76–84.

216 Notes to pages 60–7 90 The description of Medea’s sadness (deiecta residens in lumina palla, Arg. 8.204) evokes Thetis’ sadness (sedet deiecta in lumina palla, 1.132). 91 See Hershkowitz 1998b: 68–72. 92 Valerius constructs a detailed series of parallels between Medea’s rival suitors, Vergil’s Iarbas and Turnus, and Ovid’s Phineus, that cohere thematically with the macrostructural parallel between Jason and Aeneas. Anausis’ indignation at Medea’s betrothal to Styrus recalls the similar reaction of Vergil’s Iarbas to the news of the involvement of Dido and Aeneas (see Arg. 6.42–4, Aen. 4.198– 218). ‘On fire’ (flammatus, Arg. 8.300) like Vergil’s inflamed Turnus (Aen. 7.456–66), Styrus attempts to fight for his kidnapped fiancée like Ovid’s Phineus (praereptae coniugis ultor, Met. 5.10). Divine intervention is similarly the cause of Styrus’ drowning and Turnus’ defeat (Arg. 8.318–68, Aen. 12.843–918). 93 For generational conflict over the control of marriage, see Harney 2001: 105–56. For conflict between lineage-based and individualist matrimonial strategies, see Bourdieu 1977: 58–71. 94 From the dynastic perspective, Perses’ deposition of his half-brother is a double insult, as he is not a member of the agnatic line of descent. While the Sun is his father in other sources (Diod. Sic. 4.45, Hyg. Fab. 27), in Valerius Perses only shares the same mother with Aeetes (Arg. 5.266). While Aeetes’ lineage appears to have no future after the loss of Absyrtus, Medea’s son Medeus unexpectedly regenerates the dynasty through the female line (5.687–9). 95 As Syed 2005: 131–2 observes, Vergil’s choice to make Dido a descendant of Belus (Baal/Sol) associates her with these other passionate descendants of the Sun. Chapter 3 An earlier version of the first part of chapter 3 appeared as Bernstein 2003. 1 See Helzle 1996: 189–90; Juhnke 1972: 61. 2 Nam uos / haud humiles tanta ira docet, generisque superbi / magna per effusum clarescunt signa cruorem, Theb. 1.443–6. 3 Magni de stirpe creatum / Oeneos, Theb. 1.463–4; claro generata Thoante, 5.38. 4 See Keith 2000: 18–19. 5 See Ripoll 1998: 35; P.R. Hardie 1993a: 97–8. For the repetitive cycle of crimes against kin in the Theban royal house, see Heinrich 1999, Davis 1994. 6 See Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 207–31; Hershkowitz 1998a: 247–301. 7 See also Hyg. Fab. 4; Apollod. 1.9.2; Ovid Met. 4.416–542; Gantz 1993: 176–80. 8 See Vessey 1986: 2967–74; Ahl 1986: 2817–22. 9 For discussion of the Fury’s first intervention, see Criado 2000: 19–44; Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 216–26; Hershkowitz 1998a: 247–8, 260–8; Fantham 1997; Ahl 1986: 2822–27; Venini 1964.

217 Notes to pages 67–75 10 Theb. 2.102–19. Franchet d’Espèrey (1999: 94–8) reads Laius’ epiphany as a contribution to the narrative’s motivation as opposed to a mere doublet of Tisiphone’s intervention. See also Taisne 1994: 178–82; Ahl 1986: 2841–5. 11 Tiresias hopefully addresses Laius as o iam satis ulte (Theb. 4.612), an intertextual response to Seneca’s Laius, who describes himself as pater inultus (Sen. Oed. 643). See also Taisne 1991; Frings 1991: 71–3; Vessey 1973: 235–58. 12 Iam nostra subit / e stirpe turba quae suum uincat genus / ac me innocentem faciat et inausa audeat, Thy. 18–20. See Tarrant 1985: 90. 13 See Georgacopoulou 1998: 97–8; P.R. Hardie 1993a: 8. 14 Furens animi, Aen. 5.202. The gens Sergia claimed the Trojan Sergestus as their legendary ancestor, an association also drawn by Vergil (Aen. 5.121); see Wiseman 1974: 154. 15 Thy. 970–1112; see also Theb. 4.305–8. 16 Peperi nocentes, Phoen. 369; nefasque nullum per nefas nati putant, 300. Compare Jocasta’s similar claim in Statius: peperique nefas, Theb. 7.514. 17 Idem ego, nate, tuum maculaui crimine nomen, Aen. 10.851. 18 Dulces furias, Theb. 1.68; notum iter ad Thebas, 1.101. 19 See Helzle 1996: 189–90; Frings 1991: 9–10; Hill 1990: 110–16. For aposiopesis in Statius, see Dominik 1994b: 262. 20 Parthenopaeus also identifies himself through his mother (Theb. 6.635–6, 9.799– 800), but not in an effort to exclude mention of a father whom he conceives of as stigmatized. For Parthenopaeus’ paternity, see Dewar 1991: 175–6. For Achilles’ disavowals of paternity, see chapter 4. 21 Non indignati miserum dixisse parentem / Oedipoden, Theb. 2.435–6. 22 See Hyg. Fab. 87; Apollod. 2.14; Schol. ad Eur. Or. 15; Gantz 1993: 551. 23 Auctore Phoebo gignor; haud generis pudet, Ag. 294. 24 Adrastus as mitis: Theb. 1.448, 5.668, 7.537, 11.110. Keith (2000: 98) characterizes Adrastus as ‘the most consistent advocate of peaceful settlement.’ Ahl (1986: 2852) observes the suggestive contrast with Polynices’ previous experience of a father figure. See further Delarue 2000: 329–33; Dominik 1994a: 76–9, 92–4; Aricò 1972: 107–31. 25 Caviglia (1973: 166) observes that Adrastus offers ‘an indirect response to Oedipus’ curse’ (my translation). 26 Theb. 1.246–7, 4.590, 7.94–5, 7.208–9. 27 See Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 66, 336–7; Caviglia 1973: 118; and Legras 1905: 188. 28 Theb. 2.222, 6.290–3. Heuvel (1932: 268) adds Athamas and Niobe to the list of Adrastus’ criminal ancestors. 29 See Fortgens 1934: 130–1. 30 Feeney 1991: 355. See further Criado 2000: 44–51; Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 65– 6, 336–7; Hershkowitz 1998a: 260–8; Dominik 1994b: 9–13, 70–3; Ahl 1986:

218 Notes to pages 75–84

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37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53

2834–41. Jupiter’s desire to offend Juno by causing her beloved city to suffer may be a further motivation; see Delarue 2000: 301. Soceros nec tristibus actis / auersatus erat; sponsam quin castus amanti / squalor et indigni commendat gratia luctus, Theb. 8.556–8. Theb. 9.665–7. See Dewar 1991: 217. Introduction: Theb. 1.390–1 ~ Aen. 7.45–6; statues: Theb. 2.215–23 ~ 7.177–91; see Vessey 1973: 94–5. For dynastic marriage, see Delarue 2000: 330; Keith 2000: 74. Theb. 1.679 ~ Aen. 2.10. See Hill 1990: 115–16. For Flavian epic characters’ awareness of epic tradition, see Feeney 1991: 340–4. Nagel 1999: 386–7. Feeney (1991: 356–8) argues that the Coroebus narrative prepares the reader for subsequent examples of the gods’ moral failings. See also Dominik 1994a: 63–70; Vessey 1973: 102. See Helzle 1996: 211–12; Frings 1991: 35–6. See Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 33–9; Hershkowitz 1998a: 247–301. Regendi saeuus amor, Theb. 1.127–8; nuda potestas, 1.150. See Hill 1990: 104; Bonds 1985: 233. See Helzle 1996: 212. Though Polynices produces a son, there is no mention of any interest on Eteocles’ part in producing an heir to his throne. This omission may conceivably be a consequence of his perception of his family as stigmatized. See Hill 1990: 111; Henderson 1998a: 234–40; Frings 1992: 47–53. Alius misero ac melior mihi frater ademptus, Theb. 9.53 ~ heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi, Catul. 101.6. See Helzle 1996: 198. For Roman conceptions of the ideal fraternal relationship, see Bannon 1997. Primus sanguinis auctor, Theb. 2.463 ~ ordo / sanguinis antiqui, 1.677–8; Cadmus origo patrum, 1.680. Boyle 1997: 55. Ripoll 1998: 35, my translation. As Henderson (1998b: 82) observes: ‘Statius pictures Gallicus as a classic parvenu at the capital, and bullishly proud of it … leaving his origins in his wake.’ Gloria patrum, Silv. 1.2.108; multum de patre decoris, / plus de matre feras, 1.2.272–3. As Newlands (2002: 102) observes, ‘Violentilla here plays a key role in the creation and perpetuation of a strong family unit. More so than Stella, she is to be the transmitter of values traditionally thought of as male.’ Stemmate materno felix, uirtute paterna, Silv. 4.4.75. See ILS 6043; Coleman 1988: 136–7. Huic ampla quidem de sanguine prisco / nobilitas; sed enim ipse manu praegressus auorum / facta, Theb. 3.600–2. See Nauta 2002: 229–33. His placidos genitor mores largumque nitorem / monstret auus, pulchrae studium uirtutis uterque, Silv. 4.8.57–8. Disce, puer, Silv. 5.2.51 ~ Aen. 12.435. See Bernstein 2007.

219 Notes to pages 84–9 54 55 56 57 58

59 60

61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73

See Zeiner 2005; Nauta 2002: 204–35; White 1975. See Coleman 1999. πόλεµος δ’ ἄνδρεσσι µελήσει, Il. 6.492. See Katz 1981. For epic as an androcentric genre, see Keith 2000: 1–7. For public and private spheres of action in the Aeneid, see Wiltshire 1989. Arg. 1.315–47; see Hershkowitz 1998b: 128–36; Fuà 1986. Compare the opposition in Silius’ Punica between the demands of Serranus’ mother Marcia (Pun. 6.584–7) and his preceptor Marus, who relates the career of Serranus’ father Regulus at length (6.117–551). Mars: aboletque domos, conubia, natos, Theb. 8.385. Parthenopaeus: patriae matrisque suique / immemor, 9.737–8. In response, men re-examine their own performances of gender, and exhort each other to fight ‘like men,’ as at, for example, Aen. 11.732–40, Met. 12.470–6, 498–509. See Keith 2000: 27–31. Arg. 1.700–29, Theb. 10.719–20, Pun. 11.329–31, 360. For maternal weeping in Roman culture, see Dixon 1988: 4. The Thebaid’s use of comparisons further complicates the opposition between the domestic and the military spheres and suggests affinities between the activities of fighting men and those of mothers and wives. Hippomedon defends Tydeus’s corpse like a cow protecting her calf (Theb. 9.110–19), an allusion to Menelaus’ protection of Patroclus at Hom. Il. 17.4–6. Prothous and his horse are joined like a vine with an elm (Theb. 8.539–47), one of the topoi of Roman marriage (Stat. Silv. 5.1.48–50, Catul. 62.49–58, etc.). Theb. 1.393–4, 12.178; see also 7.479. See Markus 2004: 106–7. Pollmann 2004: 47. Theb. 1.56–87; see Ahl 1986: 2822–27. Hom. Il. 1.544, etc; Enn. Ann. 203 Skutsch, Verg. Aen. 10.2. For the ambiguity of the Vergilian Jupiter’s authority, see Fowler 2000: 218–38. Theb. 11.134–5. Contrast the behaviour of Homer’s Zeus and Vergil’s Jupiter (Il. 22.208–13, Aen. 12.725–7). See Bernstein 2004. Dis appropriates Jupiter’s thunder, the most potent symbol of his authority (Theb. 11.411–12). See Delarue 2000: 351; Feeney 1991: 356. Pietas offers a further duplication of the supplications of Jocasta and Antigone that is similarly nullified by the Furies (Theb. 11.457–96). This personification of dutiful affection embodies the women’s pleas for filial and fraternal love. See Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 266; Feeney 1991: 388; Vessey 1973: 277. Theb. 7.564–607, 11.387–8; see Micozzi 1998: 119–21; Frings 1992: 40–3. Tisiphone guarantees Polynices’ participation in the civil war by keeping him alive in the horse race (Theb. 6.513–17). See Feeney 1991: 345–9, 376–8.

220 Notes to pages 89–97 74 For the structural importance of narrative repetition in Statius, see Heinrich 1999, Davis 1994. 75 Eur. Phoen. 452–587, Sen. Phoen. 443–664; see Markus 2004: 118–20; Smolenaars 1994: 213–17; Vessey 1973: 270–82. In an alternative tradition (for example, Hom. Od. 11.271–80, Soph. OT 1223–96, Sen. Oed. 1032–41), Jocasta commits suicide immediately after discovering Oedipus’ identity as her son. 76 Theb. 7.517. This motif, along with others, evokes the episode of Veturia’s supplication of her son Coriolanus in Livy (2.40), in which she is also accompanied by Coriolanus’ wife and children. See Smolenaars 1994: 217; Soubiran 1969. 77 Haec sunt calcanda, nefande, / ubera, perque uterum sonipes hic matris agendus, Theb. 11.341–2. 78 The narrator refers to ‘the great war from a single womb’ (unius ingens / bellum uteri, 11.407–8). 79 Hershkowitz 1998a: 271–82 discusses Jocasta as a ‘politico-sexual reward.’ 80 Genetrix te, saeue, precatur, / non pater … ast ibi uix unus pugnas dissuadet Adrastus / aut fortasse iubet, Theb. 11.346–7, 351–2. 81 Turnus’ references to his prospective in-laws as pater and mater (Aen. 12.13, 74) strengthen the parallel with the Homeric scene. See Fantham 1998: 146–8. 82 ἀρνύµενος πατρός τε µέγα κλέος ἠδ’ ἐµὸν αὐτοῦ, Il. 6.446, 22.33–76. 83 Hershkowitz (1998a: 290–2) observes that the affinity between Jocasta and the Furies undermines the opposition between pietas and furor. Dominik (1994a: 116) observes that Jocasta is the only one to realize the inability of human beings to overcome the Furies. See Smolenaars (1994: 220–1) for parallels between Jocasta and Allecto/‘Calybe’. 84 See Fantham 1998, Brazouski 1991. 85 Theb. 11.580–633. Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 300 emphasizes the tragic aspect of Oedipus’ return to humanity and fatherhood. 86 See Georgacopoulou 1998. 87 Theb. 2.334–52. See Bessone 2002, Rosati 1996. 88 Theb. 1.74–81, 1.401–81, 2.244–305. 89 For Argia’s use of elegiac topoi and vocabulary, see Bessone 2002; Helzle 1996: 164–78. 90 Keith (2000: 65–100) discusses women such as Vergil’s Amata and Lucan’s Julia as ‘engenderers’ of wars involving their husbands. 91 See Treggiari 1993: 410–13. 92 For mythological narratives of kingship by marriage, see Finkelberg 1991. Scodel (2001) shows how Penelope’s suitors in Homer shift from pursuing an uxorilocal marriage (Od. 15.521–2, etc.) to a virilocal marriage determined by the contest of the bow (19.571–81, 21.68–79). 93 Compare the offers of Homer’s Alcinous (Od. 7.310–14) and Apollonius’ Hypsipyle (A.R. 1.827–41). Scodel (2001: 312) observes the occasional preferential occurrence of uxorilocal marriage in epic, such as the residence of Priam’s sons-in-law in his palace (Il. 6.247–50).

221 Notes to pages 97–100 94 Sunt illic soceri mihi suntque sorores / coniugis, et Thebas haud ignoranda subibo, Theb. 12.201–2; cf. Oedipodis … magni nurus, Theb. 12.260. 95 Other associations of courage with indifference to sexual identity include the comparison of Hippomedon protecting Tydeus’ corpse to a cow ‘forgetful of its lesser sex’ as it shields its calf (sexusque oblita minoris, Theb. 9.118) and the narrator’s criticism of Jocasta’s failure of decorum as she supplicates Eteocles (non sexus decorisue memor, 11.318). 96 Theb. 10.632–85. See Ripoll 1998: 318–23, 361–7. 97 Theb. 9.539. Comminus occurs more frequently in conjunction with ire (2.511, 8.529, 9.343–4, 12.13). See also 10.213–14, 11.99. 98 For the Thebaid’s poetics of excess, see Hershkowitz 1998a: 249–60. 99 Hopleus and Dymas: Theb. 10.347–448. For discussion, see Pollmann 2001 and Markus 1997. Euryalus’ helmet: Aen. 9.371–4. 100 Theb. 12.270–7. Argia’s search for Polynices also recapitulates Ide’s search for the corpses of her sons (3.133–46). See Pollmann 2004: 151–2. 101 See Pagán 2000: 437. 102 See Soph. Ant.; Apollod. Bibl. 3.7.1; Hyg. Fab. 72; Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 317–18; Gantz 1993: 519–22. 103 For affect and obligation in the relationship between Roman brothers and sisters, see Hallett 1984: 152–80. 104 Cedo, tene, pudet heu! pietas ignaua sororis! / haec prior – , Theb. 12.384–5. Competition between the women continues upon their arrest by Creon’s soldiers: ambitur saeua de morte animosaque leti / spes furit (Theb. 12.456–7). Yet the goals of the sisters-in-law, unlike those of the brothers, are ultimately cooperative: they have turned from initial competition to identification and collaboration. See Hershkowitz 1998a: 292–6. 105 Theb. 12.336–7, 394–7. As Pollmann (2004: 166) observes, ‘In both cases affection and the will to reconcile prevail over factual truth.’ See Lovatt 1999: 138–9. 106 Theb. 12.413–15. This comparison indirectly reprises the earlier comparison between Polynices and Phaethon (6.320–5), recalling his destructive influence. See Lovatt 2005: 32–9; Nagel 1999. 107 See Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 318–19. For Roman ideals of unanimity in marriage, see Treggiari 1993: 251–3; Shelton 1990. 108 Silv. 2.2.143–6, 154–5. See Newlands 2002: 186–190; Nisbet 1978. 109 Lesueur (2003) relates the praise of women and marital pietas in Thebaid 12 to the role of Statius’ wife Claudia in inspiring the epic (Silv. 3.5.35–6). This idealizing portrait, however, is the only evidence for the character of Statius’ marriage. It is therefore advisable to interpret Statius’ representations of marital relationships in generic and ideological rather than personal terms to avoid both a circular argument and the biographical fallacy. 110 Nec minor his tu nosse fidem uitamque maritis / dedere, Silv. 3.5.50–1.

222 Notes to pages 100–6 111 Theb. 12.115–16, Silv. 2.7.120–35. For the possibility that the Polla of Silv. 2.2 is identical to the addressee of Silv. 2.7, see Nisbet 1978; contra, van Dam 1984: 454–5. 112 For Niobe, see Theb. 3.191–200, 4.575–8, 6.124–5, 9.680–2; for the Pandionids, see 8.616–20, 12.478–80. For their role as symbols of lament, see Loraux 1998, Loraux 1986b. 113 For feminine lament in Greek epic, see Murnaghan 1999; in Roman epic, see Fantham 1999b; in the Aeneid, see Wiltshire 1989; in the Thebaid, see Micozzi 1998. 114 Theb. 3.151–68. See Markus 2004: 120–2; Micozzi 1998: 98–103. 115 For Aletes’ historical perspective, see Davis 1994; as a critic of power, see Ahl 1986: 2830–2. 116 See Franchet d’Espèrey 1999: 310–13; Lovatt 1999: 139. 117 See Vessey 1973: 312–14. 118 Nec querimur caesos: haec bellica iura uicesque / armorum, Theb. 12.552–3. 119 See Pagán 2000, Braund 1996a. 120 For funereal contexts, see Ovid Tr. 1.5.53–6, Met. 8.533–55; in catalogues of forces, see Il. 2.488–90, Enn. Ann. 469–70 Skutsch; in catalogues of battlefield killings, see Aen. 12.500–4, Pun. 4.525–8, etc. See Pollmann 2004: 280. 121 Lamenting women can be described in terms appropriate to military conflict. Eurydice, the bereaved mother of Archemorus, leads ‘mourning battle-lines’ to find her son’s corpse (plangentiaque agmina ducens, Theb. 5.652). The Argive women are a manus (12.512), a term that can be applied to war-bands (OLD s.v. manus 22). The comparison of the women as they settle at the altar of Clementia to cranes returning to the Nile (Theb. 12.515–18) associates them with both the Argive army (Theb. 5.11–16) and Homer’s Trojan forces (Il. 3.1–6). See Pollmann 2004: 211. 122 At Il. 9.393–400, Peleus will ‘search out a wife’ (reading µάσσεται at 9.394 with Kirk 1985: III.114–15) for his son, who will accept one of his choosing. Chapter 4 1 Trans. Shackleton Bailey 1970. 2 Though incomplete, the Achilleid is indisputably an epic. For discussion of Statius’ innovations in genre, see Heslin 2005: 71–86; Delarue 2000: 191–231; Aricò 1996: 199; Koster 1979; Schetter 1960: 143–9. For views on how the epic might have progressed, see Heslin 2005: 57–103; Aricò 1986: 2931–2; Méheust 1971: xvi-xxi. 3 See Il. 24.56–61, Aen. 4.10–13, V. Fl. Arg. 6.594. 4 The practice of Statius’ Thetis contrasts with versions where she attempts to immortalize her son by placing him in a fire (A.R. Arg. 4.869–79, Apollod.

223 Notes to pages 107–13

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16 17 18

19

20 21 22 23 24

3.13.6); see Mackie 1998; King 1987: 271. For the sources of the Achilleid, see Dilke 1954: 10–12; Legras 1908: 37–42. For ancient versions of the Achilles legend, see Heslin 2005: 193–205; Roussel 1991; King 1987. For the treatment of Achilles’ education in Euripides and Old Comedy, see Michelakis 2002: 100–5; in late antiquity, see Pavlovskis 1965. See Thaden 1997: 22; Shell 1993: 196. Quamquam acta uiri multum incluta cantu / Maeonio (sed plura vacant), Ach. 1.3–4. Il. 18.54–60, 436–41; 1.396–7. The brief reference to Chiron’s instruction of Achilles apparently does not imply an extended period of fosterage from early childhood, and Phoenix’s nurture of the youthful Achilles occurs in Peleus’ house (Il. 9.485–95, 11.832). See Fantham 1979. Silv. 2.1.87–91; see Bernstein 2005. For Chiron, see Fantham 1999a, 2003. Novy 2001b: 3. For example, Cic. Brut. 210–11, Tusc. 3.1.2, Sen. Ep. 99.14, Tac. Germ. 20, Juv. 6.592–4, Quint. Inst. 1.1.4–5; see Dixon 1988: 120–9. Quae disciplina ac severitas eo pertinebat, ut sincera et integra et nullis pravitatibus detorta unius cuiusque natura toto statim pectore arriperet artis honestas, Tac. Dial. 28.7. Dixon 1999: 220. Chiron’s other students include Actaeon (Apollod. Bibl. 3.4.4), Asclepius and his sons (Il. 4.193–4, 218–19), Jason (Pind. Pyth. 4.101–19), and Medeus, son of Medea (Theog. 1001). See Mackie 1998; Gantz 1993: 91; Brillante 1991; Kirk 1973: 159. O dolor, o seri materno in corde timores, Ach. 1.42. Cic. De Orat. 2.38. See Treggiari 2003: 160. Consummatos autem plus doctrinae debere quam naturae putabo ... denique natura materia doctrinae est: haec fingit, illa fingitur. nihil ars sine materia, materiae etiam sine arte pretium est; ars summa materia optima melior, Quint. Inst. 2.19.2–3. Omnes hi maiores tui sunt, si te illis geris dignum; geres autem, si hoc protinus tibi ipse persuaseris, a nullo te nobilitate superari, Sen. Ep. 44.3; studia te tua clarum et nobilem efficient, Ep. 21.2. Et iuuet haec audire patrem, pudeatque dolosam / sic pro te timuisse Thetin, Ach. 1.873–4. See Heslin 2005: 267–76. See Saller 1994: 64. For Roman serial marriage, see Bradley 1991: 125–76; Corbier 1991, 1992; Humbert 1972. See Bradley 1991: 13–102. See Heslin 2005: 183.

224 Notes to pages 113–16 25 Ford 1992: 64. See Il. 20.104–6, 203–41. 26 Illo ex Achille, genere qui mundum suo, / sparsus per omne caelitum regnum, tenet: / Thetide aequor, umbras Aeaco, caelum Ioue, Sen. Tro. 344–6. 27 See Pind. Isthm. 8.34–8; A.R. Arg. 4.800–2; Apollod. Bibl. 3.13.5; Roussel 1991: 48–9. 28 For the irony of Achilles’ lineage-boasting to his rape victim rather than a conquered enemy, see Heslin 2005: 164–6. 29 Il. 11.783–4, Arg. 1.255–73. Contrast their silent parting in the presence of Thetis at A.R. Arg. 1.553–8. Peleus brings Achilles to Chiron in Apollonius and Valerius (A.R. Arg. 4.869–79, V. Fl. Arg. 1.255–73). As Mendelsohn (1990: 297) observes, the Greek iconographic tradition generally makes Peleus responsible for conveying Achilles to Chiron, whereas the Roman iconographic tradition of the first century AD and following makes Thetis responsible. See LIMC 1.1.37– 200; Legras 1908: 46. For Peleus’ exclusion, see Heslin 2005: 170–3. 30 Intertextual echoes suggest that Achilles emulates his father as a rapist as well as a warrior. The language describing the rape of Deidamia in Statius (ui potitur uotis, 1.642) recalls Peleus’ rape of Thetis in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: potitur uotis ingentique implet Achille, Ovid Met. 11.264. See Heslin 2005: 266–7; Cyrino 1998: 230–2; Dilke 1954: 126. 31 Carsten 2004: 145. 32 Pater, Ach. 2.102; equation with Peleus: 1.275–7, 1.895–6; sleeping in his embrace: 1.195–7. Contrast Achilles’ facile account of his affection for Lycomedes, his new father-in-law, 1.895–6. 33 Roman caregivers could apparently expect to possess some emotional claims on their former charges. See Cic. Amic. 74; Pliny Ep. 5.16.3; Dixon 1988: 160. 34 Dixon 1992: 112. See Gaius 1.97, Inst. 1.11. 35 Et te iam fecerat illi / mens animusque patrem, Silv. 2.1.102–3. Compare Ter. Adelph. 126: natura tu illi pater es, consiliis ego. 36 Nielsen (1987) characterizes the relationship between Melior and Glaucias as one of ‘quasi-adoption,’ based on affection, which fulfilled the need for ‘lasting familylike relations’ without the legal formalities of adoption. See Bernstein 2005; Dixon 1992: 128–30. 37 Ille mihi tutor relictus adfectum parentis exhibuit, Pliny Ep. 2.1.8. 38 See Sherwin-White 1968: 144. 39 For tutela, see Saller 1994: 181–203; Dixon 1992: 43–4, 105–6. 40 Pelea iam desiste queri thalamosque minores, Ach. 1.90. 41 Impar genus, Ach. 1.256; for the generic resonance of this phrase, see Heslin 2005: 118–21; humilemque experta maritum / te propter, 1.268–9. As Mendelsohn (1990: 302) observes, ‘The hybrid child by his very nature reminds his mother of her flawed marriage.’ 42 Genitum … paene Ioui, Ach. 1.650–1; magno nurus addita ponto … ingentes caelo paritura nepotes, 1.655–6.

225 Notes to pages 116–20 43 Murder of his brother: Pind. Nem. 5.6–12, Paus. 2.29.9, Ovid Met. 11.266–70, Apollod. Bibl. 3.12.6, Schol. A ad Il. 16.14. Suicide of Peleus’ first wife Antigone: Apollod. Bibl. 3.13.3. See Gantz 1993: 222–3, 226. 44 Peleus te nato socerum et Thetis hospita iungunt / allegantque suos utroque a sanguine diuos, Ach. 1.898–9. See Dilke 1954: 139. 45 For example, Ovid Met. 4.697–703, AA 1.555–6, Her. 16.171–8; see Fantham 1979: 458. 46 Stemmate materno felix, virtute paterna, Silv. 4.4.75. 47 Tac. Agr. 4, Pliny Ep. 1.14. See also Suet. Jul. 6.1; Plut. Cat. Min. 3.1; Saller 1994: 74–101. 48 See Salway 1994; Syme 1988b: 639. On the condicio nominis ferendi, see Champlin 1991: 144–6; Syme 1988a: 159–73. 49 As Saller (1994: 87) observes, ‘In contrast to Cicero, Pliny never refers to the familia of his friends or clients in recommendations, but always to the domus including cognate kin.’ 50 Maternum genus impar nec tamen indecorum, Tac. Hist. 2.50 ~ impar genus, Ach. 1.256. See Sall. Jug. 11.3; Dilke 1954: 102. 51 Tu caeli pelagique nepos, Ach. 1.869; o dignissima caeli / progenies, 2.86–7. 52 See Heslin 2005: 237–76 for the paradigm of Bacchic initiation in the Achilleid and its connection to Dionysiac worship in early imperial Rome. See also Taisne 1976: 365–7. 53 See Cyrino 1998: 235–8. 54 Achilles’ definitive exclusion from divine rule in the Achilleid contrasts with Hercules’ implication in a narrowly averted succession crisis in Seneca’s Hercules Furens (Sen. HF 64–5, 609–10, 959–60). 55 Laudandum in quibusdam quod geniti inmortales, quibusdam quod inmortalitatem uirtute sint consecuti: quod pietas principis nostri praesentium quoque temporum decus fecit, Quint. Inst. 3.7.9. 56 Domitian as ‘another’ Jupiter: Stat. Silv. 5.1.37–8, Mart. 9.36.2; as a ‘Roman’ Jupiter: Silv. 3.4.18; as ‘our’ Jupiter: Silv. 1.6.27. See Sauter 1934: 54–78. For Martial’s comparisons of Domitian to the gods, see Leberl 2004: 293–301. 57 A point-for-point comparison between Domitian and the figures of the Achilleid cannot be sustained. For criticism of such readings, see Ripoll 1998: 498; Dewar 1988: 252–3. 58 Fantham 1999a: 66. 59 Nutritor, Ach. 1.276; magister, 1.39, 2.109; alumnus, 1.118, 1.526, 1.868; cunabula paruo / Pelion, 1.38–39. Alumnus/a has the meaning of ‘native’ (see OLD s.v. alumnus1 2a) at Ach. 1.70, 1.402, 1.420, and 1.629. 60 Il. 11.221–6, 19.326–7; Od. 19.392–466. See Bremmer 1976. One mythological tradition (Schol. Pind. Nem. 5.7 [12]) makes Chiron the maternal grandfather of Peleus; see Robbins 1993: 11. His fosterage of Achilles thereby conforms to the Homeric pattern of fosterage by maternal relatives.

226 Notes to pages 120–5 61 See Bradley 1991: 13–75; Dixon 1988: 146–55. CIL 6.5405, 6.8925, and 6.13221 provide examples of the commemoration of such caregivers. 62 Semiferi, Ach. 1.868; biformes, 2.165. Chiron as a lawgiver: 2.163–5. See Brillante 1991; Kirk 1973: 152–62. 63 Ach. 1.147–55. Achilles’ uis festina (1.148) appears at the same time as the gods’ decision to begin the Trojan War. See Méheust 1971: 13; Schetter 1960: 132. 64 Romans did not, however, define age groupings as precisely as modern Western societies; for example, the term adulescens could be applied to a 25-year-old (Suet. Vesp. 8.4) and a praetor (Pliny Ep. 1.14), while a 50-year-old could be called iuuenis (CIL 8.9158). See Eyben 1993: 15–16; Kleijwegt 1991: 52–6. 65 Multas uias adulescentiae lubricas, Cic. Cael. 41; lubricum iuuentae, Tac. Ann. 6.49. 66 See La Penna 1996: 176–7. 67 Ipse sedens uasto facta exspectabat in antro, / si sparsus nigro remearem sanguine; nec me / ante nisi inspectis admisit ad oscula telis, Ach. 2.126–8. 68 See Apollod. 3.13.6; Schol. ad Hom. 16.37; Heslin 2005: 173–5; Robertson 1940; Frazer 1979: II.71. 69 Barchiesi 1996: 55, my translation. See Apollod. 3.13.6; Etym. Magn. 181; Heslin 2005: 175–81, Mendelsohn 1990: 301. 70 Quamquam ibi fida parens, adsueta pectora mauult, Ach. 1.197. 71 Epic warriors are frequently compared to the lions and wolves that eat the raw flesh of their prey: for example, Il. 5.554–8, 11.548–55; Aen. 9.339–41, 10.723–8; Theb. 2.675–81, Pun. 2.683–91. See Wijsman 2000: 235–6; King 1987: 19–24; Fenik 1968: 24. 72 See Muellner 1996. For discussion of the connection between Achilles’ threat to eat Hector raw and Chiron’s training, see Robbins 1993: 15–16. 73 Saeuus applied to Achilles: Aen. 1.458, 2.29; Met. 12.582. Applied to animals: Aen. 9.792; 7.18 (saeuire); Met. 4.102, 4.404, 7.387, 12.219. Immitis applied to Achilles: Aen. 1.30, 3.87. 74 Heslin (2005: 299) characterizes the narrative of Achilles’ upbringing as ‘an invitation to deconstruct the Iliadic hero.’ 75 For the similes of the Achilleid, see Legras 1908: 60–4. 76 See Anacreon 417, Ovid Am. 2.12.25–6. For the latter image, see also Verg. Geo. 3.209–41; Ovid Met. 9.46–9; McKeown 1987: III.274–5. 77 Ulixes is also compared to a hunting wolf at Ach. 1.704–8. Compare Luc. BC 4.237–42, 4.437–44. See Legras 1908: 63. 78 Robbins 1993: 16. 79 Heslin 2005: 129. 80 See also Pliny Ep. 7.9.11; Juv. 7.237; Trimble 2002: 237; Dilke 1954: 108. 81 Tu frange regendo / indocilem sexuque tene, Ach. 1.355–6. See Stat. Silv. 5.3.193–4; Eleg. in Maec. 1.84; Sil. Pun. 1.262; Spaltenstein 1986: 46. 82 For the phallic joke in these lines, see Heslin 2005: 241–2.

227 Notes to pages 125–30 83 Callida femineo genetrix uiolauit amictu, Ach. 2.35; paruimus nimium, 2.17– 18; maternumque nefas, 2.44. 84 Trimble 2002: 238. 85 Achilles’ words echo those of Ovid’s Sol, another rapist concealed in feminine disguise (Met. 4.226). 86 See Heslin 2005: 267–76; Mendelsohn 1990: 305–6. 87 For the ideal of the seuera mater, see Dixon 1988: 1–7. 88 For the theme of militia amoris in the Achilleid, see Koster 1979. 89 See Slatkin 1991: 17–53. For discussion of the Iliad’s references to Thetis’ rescue of Zeus (Il. 1.396–8), Hephaestus (18.394–8), and Dionysus (6.136–7), see Slatkin 1991: 56–9. 90 Slatkin 1991: 38. 91 See Heslin 2005: 105–37; Aricò 1996: 196; Rosati 1994: 58–9; Aricò 1986: 2933– 4; Legras 1908: 48–50. 92 Aen. 10.46–50. Harrison (1991: 71) argues that Venus has only made ‘an insincere concession’ for rhetorical purposes, yet it is nevertheless one that Thetis has not been able to make. Thetis is also incapable of the transference of attachment expressed by Vergil’s Andromache, who hopes that Ascanius can live out her hopes for her murdered son Astyanax (Aen. 3.486–91). 93 Thetis condemns her ‘immoderate’ son’s martial practice (Lapitharum proelia ludi / improbus, Ach. 1.40–1), while Atalanta asks her son: teneroque unde improba pectore uirtus (Theb. 4.318–9). See Mendelsohn 1990: 298–9; Schetter 1960: 141–2. 94 Il. 22.477–514, 24.725–45. See P.R. Hardie 1994: 161; Wiltshire 1989: 47–53. 95 Quotiens heu, nate, petebam, / ne patrias iras animosque in proelia ferres, / neu te belligeri stimularet in arma parentis / triste decus, Pun. 6.584–7. 96 Punica 6 develops the theme of ancestral models by juxtaposing Marus’ instruction of Serranus with Hannibal’s visit to Liternum, where he refuses to learn from the pictures depicting his father Hamilcar’s defeat. See Fowler 1996; Delarue 1992: 163–5. 97 Uacuis … antris, Ach. 1.169. See Mendelsohn 1990: 300–2. 98 For example, Hom. Od. 16.216–18; Verg. Geo. 4.511–15; see also Geo. 2.207–11. 99 Plenaque materni referens praesagia somni, Ach. 1.22. See Schol. A ad Il. 3.325; Eur. Tro. 920–2; Hyg. Fab. 91; Gantz 1993: 562–3. 100 Heu numquam uana parentum / auguria! Ach. 1.25–6. 101 Delarue 2000: 193, my translation. 102 Ach. 1.127–41, Aen. 4.478–98. See Heslin 2005: 114–18. 103 Ach. 1.343–8, Aen. 1.498–504. 104 See Hor. Carm. 1.8.13–16, Ovid Trist. 2.409–13. 105 See Bessone 2002: 189; Aricò 1996: 195; Rosati 1996; Rosati 1994: 42–54. 106 See Heslin 2005: 137–45.

228 Notes to pages 131–4 107 See Ovid Am. 1.9.33–4, 2.8.11; Her. 3, AA 2.711–16; Rem. 777–8; Trist. 2.373– 4, 4.1.15–16; Prop. 2.22A.29–30; Hor. Carm. 2.4.3–4; McKeown 1987: I.272. For comparable examples of narrative ‘continuities’ between Ovidian elegy and other mythological narratives, see Barchiesi 2001: 9–28. 108 Achilles protests to the members of the embassy that he ‘loved Briseis from the heart although she was won by [his] spear’ (ὡς καὶ ἐγὼ τὴν / ἐκ θυµοῦ φίλεον δουρικτητήν περ ἐοῦσαν, Il. 9.342–3). The rhetorical context requires Achilles to attempt to equate his loss of Briseis with Menelaus’ loss of his wife, and he will later (Il. 19.59–60) come to regret his response to her removal. See Kirk 1985: III.108. Chapter 5 1 Walzer 1983: 41. 2 Ripoll (1998: 49–53) observes that the epic’s first hexad represents the war with Rome as a family affair for the Barcae, while Scipio’s vengeance for his father and uncle provides the theme for the epic’s third hexad. 3 Pun. 9.41–3, 10.405–6. See Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2533; Kißel 1979: 125. 4 Pun. 11.303–68; Livy 23.8.1–9.13. 5 I refer to the elder Scipio, the presumptive social father, as Scipio’s ‘human father,’ and to Jupiter, the biological father, as his ‘divine father.’ See Marks 2005: 187–94, 209–44; Ripoll 1998: 492–5; Fucecchi 1993: 48; Reitz 1982: 95. 6 See Pomeroy 2000: 160–2; Mezzanotte 1995. 7 Eodem deinde animo ciuem gerens quo patrem egerat, filii pariter manibus et nefarie attemptatae patriae poenas dedit, Val. Max. 9.1.9; see also Cic. Cat. 1.14, Sall. BCat. 15.2, App. Civ. 2.2. 8 For Hannibal as a rhetorical and ethical exemplum, see von Albrecht 1964: 54. 9 See Cic. Off. 1.39, 3.99; Hor. Carm. 3.5; Sil. Pun. 6.364–551. 10 Cic. Off. 1.84; see Dyck 1996: 220. See also Cic. Sen. 10–14. 11 Sed sic, Scipio, ut auus hic tuus, ut ego, qui te genui, iustitiam cole et pietatem, quae cum magna in parentibus et propinquis, tum in patria maxima est, Cic. Rep. 6.16. See also Cic. Part. 78, Inv. 2.161, Off. 3.90. 12 Egregiam moderationem pietatemque … magnitudinem animi ... ; eo perducta res erat, ut aut libertas Scipioni aut Scipio libertati faceret iniuriam, Ep. 86.1, 3. See Tipping 1999: 200–4, 233–6. 13 See McGuire 1997: 55; Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2556–8. 14 Pun. 13.514–15. Sen. Ben. 5.17.2 conjoins the fates of Camillus and Scipio as examples of the country’s ingratitude. 15 For the dating of the individual books of the Punica, see Laudizi 1989: 29–54; Wistrand 1956.

229 Notes to pages 135–8 16 Ripoll (1998: 49–53, 128–30) contrasts Hannibal and Scipio as impius and pius ultor and as negative and positive imitators of Hercules. See Marks 2005: 88–92. 17 For example, Pun. 1.5–6, 2.655–6, et passim. For Roman stereotypes of Carthaginian perfidiousness, see Starks 1999, Horsfall 1990a. 18 Hannibal as contemptor diuum: Pun. 1.58. Misleading prophecies: 1.123–39, 3.163–221. Juno reveals the gods’ defence of Rome: 12.701–28. For Hannibal as a Gigantomachic opponent of the gods, see Fucecchi 1990; von Albrecht 1964: 143. Feeney (1991: 301–12) offers a severely critical reading of the divine action of the Punica. 19 See Kißel 1979: 104–12. 20 Sollers nutrire furores / Romanum seuit puerili in pectore bellum, Pun. 1.79–80; see Laudizi 1989: 102–7; Tupet 1980. Nepos observes that Hannibal uelut hereditate relictum odium paternum erga Romanos … conseruauit (Hann. 1.3). For discussion of other versions of the initiation scene, see Lancel 1998: 30–1; Cipriani 1984: 15–32. 21 See Küppers 1986: 61–72. For madness in the Greco-Roman epic tradition (excluding, however, discussion of the Punica), see Hershkowitz 1998a. 22 Pun. 2.296–8; see Livy 21.10.3. For Hamilcar’s ghost, see Pun. 3.139–40; compare Aen. 4.351–3. 23 Sarrana prisci Barcae de gente, uetustos / a Belo numerabat auos, Pun. 1.72–3. 24 Inachus is the apical ancestor of the Argives and the great-great-grandfather of Belus; see [Apollod.] Bibl. 2.1. Vergil’s Turnus claims Inachus as his ancestor through Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius, the great-great-grandson of Belus, and places his image on his shield (Aen. 7.789–92). For the descendants of Belus in the Aeneid, see Hannah 2004. 25 Eoi deductus origine Beli, Pun. 2.49. For other references to descent from Belus, see 3.650, 8.30–1. 26 See Ripoll 1998: 52. 27 See Ripoll 1998: 66–9; Fucecchi 1992. 28 Pun. 3.81–3. See Laudizi 1989: 114–16. 29 See P.R. Hardie 1993a: 64; Hexter 1992; Feeney 1991: 303; Küppers 1986: 73–92; Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2494–6. 30 Mandata nepotibus arma, Pun. 1.18; mandabat Tyriis ultricia bella futuris, 2.423. 31 Romanos terra atque undis, … / ferro ignique sequar, Pun. 1.114–15. See Küppers 1986: 83. 32 Pun. 2.406–31. See Laudizi 1989: 108–11; Küppers 1986: 154–64; Vessey 1975. 33 Aen. 4.351–5. See Eidinow 2003. 34 Pignus belli, Pun. 3.80; belli … heres, 4.814. Augoustakis (2005) observes a thematic parallel in Tyrrhenus’ frustrated hopes for Thrasymennus at Pun. 5.14. 35 See Quint 1991.

230 Notes to pages 139–42 36 Hannibal’s offer recalls the similar promise he made to the Carthaginian priests who asked to sacrifice his son (Pun. 4.811–13). Burck (1984a: 104) compares Hannibal in his role as Hasdrubal’s avenger with his obligation to avenge Dido. 37 Pun. 17.149–235. Note Silius’ use of the typical epic vocabulary of madness: for example, infrendens, mentisne ego compos, 17.221; ardentem furiis, 17.236. 38 For the civil war theme in the Punica, see McGuire 1997: 92–3, 136–41; McGuire 1995. 39 Though Solimus fatally wounds his father, Satricus immediately absolves him from all guilt associated with the unintentional murder (Pun. 9.66–177). Fucecchi (1999: 332–3) contrasts this unwitting parricide with murders in Lucan committed by characters who are fully aware that they are members of the same families (e.g., BC 2.149–51, 4.169–88, 7.460–9). 40 Pun. 10.98; contrast also Vergil’s animosa phalanx (Aen. 12.277) of eight brothers who respond to Tolumnius’ killing of their ninth brother by causing the resumption of civil hostilities. See Niemann 1975: 225–32. 41 Pun. 13.663–86, 15.180–99, 15.353–63; see Ripoll 1998: 53; Burck 1984b: 63–8. 42 For Fabius as the dominant figure of the epic’s second hexad, see Delarue 1992: 160–3; Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2523–31. For the conflict with Minucius, see Kißel 1979: 118–20. 43 Nec membris quisquam natoue pepercit amato / acrius, Pun. 6.623–4. The narrator claims that Fabius supersedes and contains his entire army (7.6–8). 44 Aspera … hortamenta, Pun. 5.153–4; compare Agamemnon’s exhortations at Il. 4.223–421. See Niemann 1975: 118–19; Juhnke 1972: 202; Rebischke 1913: 76. 45 Doloris / privati rabies, Pun. 5.157–8. Paulus presents the opposite valuation at Cannae, promoting his fellow soldiers over his own family. He prefers to die with his soldiers, even at the expense of his sons’ welfare, rather than return home in defeat (8.345–8). 46 Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy (1986: 2520–1) note the symbolic contrast between Fabius and Flaminius as good and poor helmsmen (Pun. 1.687–9, 4.713–17). A comparison assigns Fabius godlike authority (7.254–9). He also outdoes his ancestors, the 306 Fabii who perished at the Cremera (7.63–4; see Livy 2.48–50, Ovid Fasti 2.195–242). 47 In Plutarch’s account (Fab. 8.2), Metilius compares Fabius’ threatened punishment of Minucius to Manlius Torquatus’ execution of his son. 48 Cic. Div. Caec. 61; domesticos magistratus, Sen. Ben. 3.11.2. Military commanders: Livy 2.60.3, Tac. Ann. 2.55.4. See Stevenson 2000: 27; Ogilvie 1970: 385. 49 Pun. 7.539–46. See P.R. Hardie 1993b: 66–7; Nicol 1936: 40. 50 The exemplary tradition surrounding Fabius offers a similar account of his relative prioritization of family and state: during his son’s consulship, Fabius chose to honour his son’s office rather than assert his superiority as a father by dismounting before him. See Livy 24.44, Val. Max. 2.2.4, Plut. Fab. 24, Gell. NA 2.2.13.

231 Notes to pages 143–7 51 Pun. 1.626. For Camillus, see CIL VI.1308 = ILS 52; Cic. Dom. 86; Sest. 143; Cael. 39, etc.; Verg. Aen. 6.825; Liv. 5, 6. passim, 7.1.9–10; Val. Max. 1.5.2, 1.8.3, 2.9.1, etc. For Fabius’ use of Camillus, see Tipping 1999: 170–80. 52 Fabius’ use of the Camillus exemplum in the Punica contrasts with its function in the corresponding Livian episode. There Minucius, not Fabius, sarcastically employs the example of Camillus’ successful assault on the Gauls as a contrast with Fabius’ apparent passivity (Livy 22.14.9–11). See Chaplin 2000: 43–4. 53 Examples include C. Fabius Dorsuo (Livy 5.46.2–3, 5.52.3) and Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus (Livy 8.29.8–35.12). See Chaplin 2000: 108–14; Tipping 1999: 155–7. 54 Romulus ac parens patriae conditorque alter urbis, Livy 5.49.7; 7.1.9–10. For Livy’s Camillus as parens patriae, see Stevenson 2000; as a figure of the optimus princeps, see Oakley 1997: 377–9. 55 Et magna memorabant uoce parentem, Pun. 7.735; sancte, ait, o genitor, 7.737; Romana parentem / solum castra uocant, 8.2–3. 56 Kißel (1979: 128) observes that Marcellus represents a transitional figure between the defensive Fabius and the aggressive Scipio. 57 For the interaction of the gens and the community, see C.J. Smith 2006: 299–335. 58 See Marks 2005: 209–44. Ripoll (1998: 126–8) contrasts the spiritual filiation between Regulus and Hercules with Fabius’ descent from Hercules. 59 See Bettenworth 2004: 375–93. For structural divergences with Livy’s account (23.9.10–12), see Burck 1984b: 18–21. 60 See Bettenworth 2004: 342–4; McGuire 1997: 226–7. Contemporary literature made examples of the region’s proverbial luxury and political fickleness: see Sen. Ep. 51.5–7, Tac. Hist. 4.3.1. 61 For personified Fides in the Punica, see Pun. 2.700–1, 13.284–5; Burck 1988; von Albrecht 1964: 55–86. For the Saguntum episode, see Dominik 2003; McGuire 1997: 207–19; Küppers 1986: 107–70. For the role of the Furies in the collective suicides, see Pun. 13.291–8, 2.526–631; McGuire 1997: 219–25. Ripoll (1998: 405–16) interprets the downfall of the Capuan conspirators as a partial expiation of the crime against the Saguntines. See also Schenk 1989: 360–3. 62 Foedera sanciet, Pun. 11.321. See also Livy 23.8.11; Ripoll 1998: 392. 63 In Livy’s account, by contrast, the son merely wishes to obtain pardon from the Romans, an echo of Decius’ wish to atone for the crimes the Capuans have perpetrated against the Romans, and to win honour (dignitas) and favour (gratia) for his city (Livy 23.7.6, 8.9). The Livian son makes no mention of possible benefits for his family; it is his father Pacuvius who will later restore familial concerns to the discussion. 64 See Bettenworth 2004: 384–5. 65 Pollutum hospitium, Aen. 3.61; euersae … mensae, Met. 12.222. For Silius’ use of Ovidian allusion, see Wilson 2004, Bruère 1959, Bruère 1958. 66 Tabo repleta cruento / pocula, Pun. 11.335–6; Stygio spumantia pocula tabo, 13.294.

232 Notes to pages 148–53 67 Contrast Livy 23.8.3. 68 Pun. 11.353–60. See Livy 23.9.7–8. As Bettenworth (2004: 390) observes, this episode’s promotion of pietas to parents over the rights of guests is unique in epic. 69 See Bettenworth (2004: 376–7). For a possible allusion to Ovid’s conflict between Sol and Phaethon, see Wilson 2004: 230; Bruère 1959: 233. 70 See Ripoll 1998: 241–2; von Albrecht 1964: 77–8. 71 Uirtus haut laeta tyranno, Arg. 1.30. See also Tac. Ann. 11.20; Agr. 41; Zissos 2003: 670; Ripoll 1998: 317. 72 Ortum Iliaca … ab origine nomen, Pun. 12.344; proles pulchra uiro nec tali digna parente / Hostus erat, 12.346–7. 73 For Scipio in the Punica, see Marks 2005; Fucecchi 1993; Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2542–55; Heck 1970; Bassett 1966. 74 Pun. 4.466–71 ~ Aen. 2.707–23; Pun. 13.650–704 ~ Aen. 6.679–892; Pun. 16.275– 591 ~ Aen. 5.42–603. 75 See Ripoll 1998: 282–5. 76 Aen. 10.762–832. Lausus is one of many models including Aeneas, Turnus, and Achilles; see Marks 2005: 115–22; for allusion to Vergil’s Daedalus and Icarus, see McGuire 1997: 206. Statius combines praise of the pietas of Scipio and Lausus at Silv. 3.3.188–91. Scipio later regrets that he missed the opportunity to sacrifice himself on the Spanish campaign in order to save his father’s life (Pun. 13.657). 77 Et adhuc maiora supersunt, / sed nequeunt meliora dari, Pun. 4.476–7. 78 Martis moderare furori, Pun. 13.670. 79 Pietas irata sinistris / caelicolis furit, Pun. 13.391–2. 80 Pun. 4.464–5; see also 16.87–9, Livy 21.46.7. Scipio later refers to Carthaginians as his ancestors’ hostia (15.433). See Marks 2005: 82–3. 81 For example, Claudius Nero decapitates Hasdrubal and exhibits his head on a spear (Pun. 15.794–823), thereby displaying far greater brutality than Hannibal, who buried his Roman enemy Paulus with honour at Cannae (10.503–77). See Augoustakis 2003; Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2540–2. 82 Marks 2005: 201–6; contra, for example, McGuire 1997: 98–102. 83 Te permixtum saeclis rebusque futuris / Aeneadum cecini… disce, puer …, / iam tua deque tuis pendentia Dardana fatis, Pun. 13.499–500, 504–5. See von Albrecht 1964: 45. 84 Personal example: documenta domus, Pun. 13.671 ~ exempla tuorum, Aen. 12.439. Moderation: Pun. 13.670, 685–6. 85 The historical Scipio apparently generated the myth of his divine descent himself (Livy 26.19.3–8). See Marks 2005: 104; Scullard 1970: 18–23; Walbank 1967. 86 Pun. 4.128–30, 15.138–48, 16.586–91, 17.52–8. 87 Mars (Pun. 4.476); Proteus (7.487). Scipio unwittingly swears perque caput nullo leuius mihi numine patris / magnanimi iuro (10.437–8). Scipio similarly honours his mother as magni mihi numinis instar (13.623).

233 Notes to pages 153–6 88 A simile observes that the eagle tests children of doubtful parentage (Pun. 10.108– 11), suggesting that Scipio must corroborate the indications regarding his descent presented by the eagle omens through his successful performance as a commander. 89 The Sibyl’s encomium of Alexander (Pun. 13.763–6) evokes both Jupiter’s encomium of Domitian and the Augustus panegyric of the Aeneid (Pun. 3.612– 16, Aen. 6.791–805), associating Alexander, Scipio, and Augustus as precursors of Domitian in his aspect as triumphant conqueror. In his representation of Alexander, Silius creates a clear contrast with Lucan’s vituperation of the commander (BC 10.20–52). The Punica nowhere associates Alexander with brigandage, tyranny, or the loss of liberty. For Scipio and Alexander, see Marks 2005: 142–7; Fucecchi 1993: 39–42; Kißel 1979: 177–80. For Alexander’s engendering by Jupiter, see Plut. Alex. 3.1–2, 27.3–6. 90 Pun. 13.663–86, esp. 13.669–70. Scipio’s human father, however, later encourages his son to attack Carthago Nova without hesitation (15.183–99). 91 Contrast the approach of Marks (2005: 187–94), who characterizes Silius’ references to Scipio’s paternity as ‘mixed signals’ reflecting the contradictions of the received tradition. 92 For the Virtus and Voluptas episode, see Marks 2005: 148–61; Ripoll 1998: 251– 3, 367–9; Heck 1970. 93 At quis aetherii seruatur seminis ortus, / caeli porta patet, Pun. 15.77–8. 94 Laurumque superbam / in gremio Iouis … deponere, Pun. 15.119–20. 95 Pun. 16.115–34, Aen. 2.679–86, Livy 1.39. See Ripoll 2003. 96 Nate Tonantis, Pun. 16.144; magna … praemia clarae uirtutis, 16.157–8; quamque ora recordor / laetus Scipiadae! reuocat tua forma parentem, 16.192–3. 97 Aen. 8.154–6. For Syphax as a failed Evander, see Pomeroy 2000: 154–5. 98 See Marks 2005: 169–79; Ripoll 1998: 285. 99 Pun. 16.592–700. See Marks 2005: 50–5, 101–10; Tipping 1999: 238–41; Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2554–7; Kißel 1979: 143–6. 100 Jupiter: Pun. 3.590–2; Alexander: 13.772–5; Virtus: 15.113–20; the elder Scipio: 15.199. See Ripoll 1998: 248–53; Fucecchi 1993: 38–44. 101 See Marks 2005: 218–44; Laudizi 1989: 45–6. Fears (1977: 136) identifies BMC II no. 381, which represents Domitian holding a thunderbolt and crowned by Victoria, as ‘the first extant official proclamation of the emperor’s status as the divinely invested vicegerent of Jupiter.’ Other important parallels in the Punica include Scipio’s continence, a reflection of Domitian’s program of moral reform. Suetonius (Dom. 10.3) observes that Mettius Pompusianus aroused Domitian’s anger in part by naming his slaves Hannibal and Mago, thereby implicitly comparing himself to Scipio; see McGuire 1995: 110. 102 Pietas types produced in the years 82–83 honour Domitian’s lost son and recognize Domitia’s virtues. Domitian ceased to produce Pietas types after 83. See Susplugas 2003: 80–1, 90–1.

234 Notes to pages 156–62 103 See Susplugas 2003: 93; Mezzanotte 1995: 363–5. 104 For reviews of various approaches to the problem, see Marks 2005: 61–7; Ripoll 1998: 17–18. For praise of Silius’ skill at characterization, see Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy 1986: 2519–20. 105 See Ripoll 1998: 492–5. 106 For these ‘synecdochic heroes,’ see Marks 2005: 78–81; P.R. Hardie 1993a: 3–10. 107 Ne maximum imperium in una familia continuaretur, Val. Max. 4.1.5. 108 See Ripoll 1998: 63. 109 At the horse race during Scipio’s funeral games for his father and uncle, Durius urges his horse Pelorus to prove the truth of his descent and show through victory that divine ancestry is superior to mortal (Pun. 16.426–30). Immediately afterwards, however, Durius drops his whip and loses the race. 110 Pun. 8.404–11. See Ripoll 2000. 111 Egregius linguae nomenque superbum, Pun. 5.77. See Livy 7.26; D.H. 15.12; Val. Max. 8.13.1; Spaltenstein 1986: 342. 112 Sed iuueni … hinc est / et genus et clara memorandum uirgine nomen, Pun. 10.501–2. 113 Quos uile genus despectaque lucis origo / foedabat, Pun. 11.48–9; praecellens Virrius ore, / sed genus obscurus, 11.65. See Spaltenstein 1986: 434, 515. 114 See Pomeroy 2000: 160–2. Chapter 6 1 Aitken 1964: 127–8. 2 [Hes.] fr. 9, 10a M-W; see Hall 2002: 24–9; Hall 1997: 42–3. The ‘Hellenic Genealogy’ offers a mythological encapsulation of the relationships between four ethnic groups: the Aeolians and Dorians (as descendants of Hellen’s sons Dorus and Aeolus), and Achaeans and Ionians (as descendants of Hellen’s grandsons Achaeus and Ion). As Hall (2002: 28) observes, the narrative ‘reflects the ethnic charter myths through which [these peoples] began to subscribe to a broader Hellenic identity.’ 3 See Demosth. 60.4, Isoc. 4.24–5, Lys. 2.17, and Plato Menex. 237b-39a. See Ogden 1996: 168; Loraux 1993: 49–52; Loraux 1986a: 148–55. For the contrast with Rome, see Dench 2005: 96–117. 4 See Ogden 1996: 166–88. 5 See Shell 1993: 21–2; A.D. Smith 1987: 57–68, 174–208. 6 See Dench 2005: 93–151; Momigliano 1984; Sherwin-White 1973: 437–44. 7 Ἴβηρες γοῦν οἱ πάλαι καὶ Τυρρηνοὶ καὶ Σαβῖνοι Ῥωµαῖοι καλοῦνται, Jos. Ap. 2.40. 8 Uix denique inuenies ullam terram quam etiamnunc indigenae colant; permixta omnia et insiticia sunt, Sen. Helv. 7.10.

235 Notes to pages 163–6 9 Omnium gentium alumna eadem et parens, Plin. NH 3.24; ἐπιτοµὴν τῆς οἰκουµένης, Athen. Deipn. 1.20. See Ovid Fast. 2.684; Sen. Helv. 6.2–3; Mart. Spect. 3.1–2; Edwards and Woolf 2003: 1–4. 10 Verg. Aen. 8.342–3, Livy 1.8.5–6, Vell. 1.8.5, Luc. BC 7.438, Plut. Rom. 9.1. See Beltrami 1998: 92–102; Briquel 1994, Bremmer and Horsfall 1987: 38–43; Momigliano 1984. 11 The city of Segesta, for example, invoked its foundation by Aeneas in order to claim kinship with Rome in 263 BC. See Diod. 23.4.2; Zon. 8.9.12 = Dio 1.150; Cic. Verr. 2.4.72; Walbank 1957: I.69. For its claims of consanguinity in imperial times, see Tac. Ann. 4.43.2, Suet. Claud. 25.3. See C.P. Jones 1999: 81–93, 106– 21; Elwyn 1993; Bremmer and Horsfall 1987: 12–24; Momigliano 1984. 12 See Wiseman 1987, Wiseman 1974. 13 See Dench 2005: 37–92; Beard 2003; R.R.R. Smith 1988. 14 For the Flavians’ Sabine ancestry, see Suet. Vesp. 1–2. For the poetic topoi of Sabine ethnicity, see Verg. Geo. 2.532, Hor. Carm. 3.6.37–44, Epist. 2.1.25, Ovid Am. 2.4.15, Mart. 9.40.5, Juv. 10.298–99, etc. 15 See Mezzanotte 1995: 357–62. 16 See Ripoll 1998: 358–61. 17 See Livy 1.18.4; Ovid Fast. 6.259–64; Plut. Numa 3.3–6; Dench 1995: 85–94, 155–6. 18 Parricide and fratricide: Tac. Hist. 3.25, 3.51. Otho’s march through Italy: non Italia adiri nec loca sedesque patriae uidebantur: tamquam externa litora et urbes hostium urere, uastare, rapere, Hist. 2.12.2. Vitellius’ invasion: ut hostile solum uastabantur, Hist. 2.87.2. 19 See Levick 1999: 107–69. 20 Claudius: Tac. Ann. 11.23–5, CIL 13.1668. Devreker (1980: 261–4) observes that a greater provincialization of the Senate occurred in the Flavian era than under Trajan. Only roughly sixty per cent of senators with known origins were Italians, while the proportion of senators of eastern origin increased from fifteen per cent under Vespasian to twenty-six per cent under Domitian. See Levick 1999: 173. For cautions with regard to the use of such statistics, see Talbert 1984: 31–3. 21 See Dench 2005: 109–17; Noy 2000: 31–6; Talbert 1984: 31–8. 22 See Stat. Silv. 4.5.45–9 with Zeiner 2005: 51–2; Mart. 11.53, 12.21. 23 See Ripoll 2003. 24 Pun. 16.115–34; Aen. 2.679–86, Livy 1.39. 25 For the multiple paradigms of ethnicity available to ancient writers, see Dench 2005: 234–64. 26 See Bremmer and Horsfall 1987: 12–24. 27 Pugnent ipsique nepotesque, Aen. 4.629. See Syed 2005: 143–70; Horsfall 1990a. 28 See Hall 2002: 193.

236 Notes to pages 166–9 29 Aen. 1.12–33. See Feeney 1990, Horsfall 1990a. 30 Noble families include the Memmii, Sergii, Cluentii, and Atii (Aen. 5.117–23, 5.568). Cities include Patavium, founded by Antenor, and Capua, named after Capys (1.242–49, 10.145). For the early imperial revival of Lavinium, see Dench 2005: 202–3. For the lusus Troiae, see Aen. 5.553–603. In the Punica, Silius attributes Trojan foundation to Patavium (Pun. 8.602–3, 12.212–16), Capua (11.295–7), and Sulmo (9.72–6). 31 With the exception of the unnamed mother of Euryalus (Aen. 9.217–18). See Horsfall 1989. 32 Dardanidae duri, Aen. 3.94. Numanus’ speech: 9.598–620; see Horsfall 1990b. For the role of gendered stereotypes in Horace’s nationalist discourse, see Shumate 2005. 33 For the Capuans’ luxus, see Pun. 11.33–43; for their effeminacy, see Pun. 13.308–13. 34 For discussion of ethnic identity as an achieved status, see Hall 1997: 26–32. For discussion of multiple ethnic identifications and political allegiances, see A.D. Smith 1987: 149–53. 35 Antiquam exquirite matrem, Aen. 3.96. Ilioneus: 7.240. For Vergil’s use of the varied traditions regarding Dardanus’ origins (e.g., Serv. Aen. 3.167), see Horsfall 1991, Horsfall 1989. 36 Externa ab sede, Aen. 7.255; externis … ab oris, 7.270; see Cairns 1989: 120. 37 Et Turno, si prima domus repetatur origo, / Inachus Acrisiusque patres mediaeque Mycenae, Aen. 7.371–2. For Turnus’ Inachid ancestry, see Hannah 2004. 38 Et patria Turnum consistere terra, / cui Pilumnus auus, cui diua Venilia mater, Aen. 10.75–6. 39 See Dench 2005: 276–7. 40 Toll 1997 argues that Vergil’s model of ethnic kinship encouraged Italians, relatively new members of the Roman citizen body, to identify themselves with the Romans to whom they had historically been opposed. Henderson (2000) interprets Vergil’s references to Ardea as demonstrating the power of the Trojan myth to supersede other narratives of Italian colonization. 41 Cairns 1989: 124–5. 42 See Aen. 3.96, 8.638, 10.172, 11.71; Keith 2000: 36–64. 43 For ‘foundational alterity’ in narratives of migrant founders, see Loraux 2000: 13–18. 44 Met. 3.1–137, 7.614–60. The Corinthians arise from mushrooms (7.392–3). 45 Ne foret hic igitur mortali semine cretus, / ille deus faciendus erat, Met. 15.760–1. 46 See P.R. Hardie 1997: 190–2. 47 Populumque potentem / in sua uictrici conuersum uiscera dextra / cognatasque acies, BC. 1.2–4. For the metaphor of the body politic, see Livy 2.32.8–12, Cic. Off. 3.22. 48 Luc. BC 9.990–9. See Ahl 1976: 209–22.

237 Notes to pages 169–76 49 Hdt. 2.103–5; see A.R. Arg. 4.272–8; Caviglia 1999: 494–5. 50 See Theb. 4.434–42; Hdt. 4.147; Eur. Phoen. 638–75; Ovid Met. 3.1–137; Apollod. 3.4.1–2; Gantz 1993: 468–9; Vian 1963. 51 Eteocles differentiates Thebans from Boeotian allies (Theb. 7.381–2). The Thebaid contains 44 occurrences of Tyrius and 23 of Sidonius, against 25 occurrences of Ogygius and Ogygidae, 8 of Aonii, Aonidae, Aonides, and one of Hyanteus. For the presence of Boeotian indigenes before Cadmus’ arrival, see Paus. 9.5.1, Strabo 9.2.3. 52 Terrigenis … fratribus, Met. 3.118. One of the Spartoi warns Cadmus: nec te ciuilibus insere bellis (3.117). The warriors generated by Ovid’s Jason fight a similarly civil and familial war (7.141–2). 53 Este, precor, memores, qua sitis stirpe creati, Met. 3.543–7. The exhortation to recall descent foregrounds the contrast between Bacchus’ divine and Pentheus’ mortal origins. 54 Lucan both applies the Theban paradigm to Roman civil war and observes that the violence among the Spartoi prefigures the conflict between Eteocles and Polynices (BC 4.549–51). Valerius’ Spartoi similarly engage in intrafamilial violence as a reflection of the larger conflict between Aeetes and Perses (Arg. 7.638). 55 For Menoeceus’ exhortation, see Dominik 1994b: 146–8; for the Atys episode, see La Penna 1996: 174–5; Vessey 1973: 289–92. 56 Menoeceus’ language echoes the Vergilian Priam’s accusation of Pyrrhus of degeneration: mentiris, Aen. 2.540 ~ mentita, Theb. 8.601; degeneremque Neoptolemum, Aen. 2.549 ~ degeneres, Theb. 8.602 (occuring in an identical metrical position). 57 As Heinrich (1999: 178) observes, ‘The very war is proof enough of the legitimacy of the present generation of Thebans.’ 58 Atys, who originates from Cirrha (Theb. 8.556), recalls Vergil’s Coroebus, a foreign warrior engaged to the Trojan princess Cassandra (Aen. 2.341–6). 59 Statius’ narrator describes Atys as atypical in his willingness to look past the shame of Ismene’s descent (Theb. 8.556–8). 60 See also Eur. Phoen. 942–46; Smolenaars 1994: 291; Mastronarde 1994: 417–19. 61 Hor. Epod. 7.17–20. For the parallels between Romulus’ murder of Remus and the deaths of the Spartoi, see Bremmer and Horsfall 1987: 37. 62 Patriae … communia lugens / fata, Theb. 10.617–18. 63 Externi te nempe patres alienaque tangunt / pignora? Theb. 10.709–10. Pignora ironically reverses the last words of Menoeceus’ battlefield exhortation (nos pignora tanta / prodimus? 8.604–5). 64 See Roller 1996: 327–8. 65 See Ripoll 1998: 219–21. 66 Si pudor est, primum miserere tuorum. / haec pietas, hic uerus honos, Theb. 10.711–12. See Delarue 2000: 360; Ripoll 1998: 287–96. 67 For the personifications of Statius’ Thebaid, see Feeney 1991: 376–91.

238 Notes to pages 176–80 68 See Heinrich 1999; Dominik 1994a: 50–3. For Menoeceus’ suicide as a further endangerment of Thebes, see Lovatt 2005: 240; Heinrich 1999; contra, Vessey 1973: 117–22. 69 See Keith 2000: 62; Fantham 1999b: 229–30. 70 Cadmus the earlier conditor ‘sows battles’ among the Spartoi (condentem proelia, Theb. 1.8). For the connection between condere and the violence of civil war in Vergil and Ovid, see James 1995. 71 Antigone also supplicates Creon in seeking mercy for her father Oedipus ‘by the holy shade of Menoeceus’ (sanctasque Menoeceos umbras, Theb. 11.709). 72 Iam flectere patrem / incipit atque datis abolere Menoecea regnis, Theb. 11.659–60. 73 Vergil’s Dido ‘slowly begins to eliminate Sychaeus’ (paulatim abolere Sychaeum, Aen. 1.719) after Cupid’s assault on her. The echo suggests parallels between the fates of Carthage and Thebes. Creon forgets his son’s pietas and humanitas as Dido forgets her loyalty to Sychaeus, with dangerous consequences for both cities. Abolere is also used to describe Mars’ ‘elimination’ of ‘homes, marriages, and children’ from the minds of the warriors (aboletque domos, conubia, natos, Theb. 8.385). 74 See Dominik 1994a: 89–90. 75 Other accounts include the narrator’s proem (Theb. 1.4–14) and the speeches of the anonymous Theban critic of Eteocles (1.180–5), Aletes (3.179–206), the Thebans after the death of Amphiaraus (8.227–36), Antigone and Ismene (8.607–13), and Eteocles in his claim on Jupiter’s service (11.210–25). Theban history is also recalled through objects such as Harmonia’s necklace (2.269–305) and Crenaeus’ shield (9.333). For the role of Theban history in the Thebaid, see Davis 1994. 76 See Pun. 1.339–40, 1.384–90, 1.648–50; Dominik 2003; Küppers 1986; Vessey 1974. 77 See Pun. 1.329–33, 1.634; Burck 1988; von Albrecht 1964: 55–86. 78 See Dominik 2006, Dominik 2003. 79 The island of Sardinia is described as having been settled by Greek, Trojan, and Libyan migrants (Pun. 12.355–69). Other hybrid ethnicities include the Etruscans (4.719–21; Bremmer and Horsfall 1987: 93) and Patavians (8.602–3; Venini 1978: 196–7), both represented, like the Romans, as the descendants of migrant Asians and indigenous Italians. 80 For the interpretation of augere as alere, see Delz 1969: 94. 81 Other accounts include Livy 21.7.2–3, Pliny HN 16.216, Strabo 3.4.6 (159). Though numerous Spanish cities claimed Greek founders, there is likely no historical foundation for the accounts of migration to Saguntum from Zacynthos and Ardea. As Hall (1997: 34–66) has shown, mythical accounts of the migration of populations represent not dim memories of actual historical events but the attempt by various ethnic groups to assert dominance within a region. 82 Compare Canopus (Pun. 11.431) and Baios (8.539); see Spaltenstein 1986: 48. See also Aen. 11.24–5.

239 Notes to pages 180–5 83 84 85 86

87

88 89

90 91

92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

See Asso 2003: 231. Laertia regna, Pun. 1.290. See Henderson 2000: 16. See Küppers 1986: 131–3. Marte probare genus factisque Lacona parentem / ardebant, Pun. 4.361–2. For the activities of Xanthippus and the Spartan mercenaries in the First Punic War, see Lazenby 1996: 102–6. Galicia (Callaico, Pun. 2.602) in the northwest is on the opposite side of Spain from Saguntum on the east coast. Silius has chosen the toponym for its associations with gold; see Spaltenstein 1986: 143. See Ovid Met. 3.538–59; Luc. BC 1.196–7, 7.394; Val. Fl. Arg. 2.474; Stat. Theb. 11.216; OLD s.v. penates 2. The brief account of Eurydamas’ ancestor (Pun. 2.177–84), one of Penelope’s suitors, reinforces the narrative association between the Punica and the Odyssey. In the case of the archer Mopsus, who fights with the arrows frequently typified as Cretan in Roman epic (e.g., Aen. 11.773, Met. 8.22, BC 3.185–6), the narrator subdivides the ethnic category ‘Greek’ in order to distinguish migrants from other parts of the Greek world than Odysseus’ kingdom. Thus the narrator describes Mopsus the Cretan immigrant as ‘the stranger from Gortyna in a foreign war’ (externo Gortynius aduena bello, Pun. 2.148), who remains ethnically distinct rather than becoming assimilated into the Saguntine population. See Pun. 1.437, 1.584, 2.541, 2.567, etc. Dauni … a sanguine (Pun. 2.557); see Spaltenstein 1986: 162. Other Italian characters bearing ethnonyms include Hiberus (1.392), Picens (4.175), Ligus (4.591), and Aequanus (5.176). See A.D. Smith 1987: 109–19. Aen. 8.127–51. Gransden (1976: 100) contrasts Aeneas’ personal supplication, ‘relying on the blood-relationship between Arcadians and Trojans,’ with the embassy to Latinus that he deputized to Ilioneus. For Pyrrhus’ use of the Trojan myth, see Enn. Ann. 167 Skutsch; Paus. 1.12.1; Erskine 2001: 157–61; C.P. Jones 1999: 46–8. See A.D. Smith 1987: 174–208. Consanguineae … moenia Romae, Pun. 1.608, consanguineam protendere dextram, 1.655. For the telescoping of history in the Saguntum episode, see Dominik 2003. See Dominik 2006, Dominik 2003. Pun. 1.292; see Spaltenstein 1986: 51. See Duff 1934: I.54. †Nunc Ardea nomen†, Pun. 1.293; Phrygibusque grauis quondam Ardea, 8.358. For the destruction of Ardea, see Verg. Aen. 7.412, Ovid Met. 14.572–80; Henderson 2000.

240 Notes to pages 185–8 102 The elder Pliny sets the foundation of the city two centuries before the Trojan War (HN 16.216). In the Aeneid, however, Hercules is imagined to have returned from Spain to Italy during the lifetime of Evander. Following the Aeneid’s chronology, therefore, the span of time between the construction of Saguntum’s walls and the outbreak of the war in Italy could be as little as two generations. The chronology of mythological epic narratives, however, is notoriously fluid, and Silius has elsewhere altered the ages of historical characters for thematic purposes. 103 See Henderson 2000. 104 See Fucecchi 2003. 105 Polyb. 1.10–11. See Walbank 1957: I.57–8. 106 Silius uses Daunius and Rutulus as synonyms of ‘Roman’ 23 times. Ethnonyms that evoke Trojan origins, such as Aeneadae, Dardanius, Idaeus, Iliacus, Phrygius, Priamidae, Rhoete(i)us, Sigeus, Teucri, Troi(an)us, Troiugena, etc., occur far more frequently. See Spaltenstein 1986: 208. 107 Livy’s final mention of the Rutulians occurs in 442 BC (Livy 4.11.4), Dionysius’ in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus (D.H. 5.62.3). The last datable reference to the Rutulians occurs in 391 BC (Dio 24 fr. 6). See Venini 1978: 134. 108 For Hannibal’s identification with Hercules, see Asso 2003: 231–41; Ripoll 1998: 112–32. 109 Et Dardana ab ortu / moenia barbarico Nomadum sociata tyranno / quisnam … credat? Pun. 11.30–2. 110 Orig. 3 fr. 69 Peter = Vell. 1.7; Livy 4.37.1. Inscriptional evidence attests to an Etruscan gens Capna = Latin Capia throughout Etruria (e.g., CIL 11.4260, 11.5120, 14.769, 14.1213). See also Polyb. 2.17; Strabo 5.4.3 (242); Laurence 1998: 99–100; Frederiksen and Purcell 1984: 117–18. 111 Hecataeus (FGrH 1 F 62 = Steph. Byz. s.v. Καπύα) identifies the Trojan Capys as the founder. Dionysius’ Rhomos builds a city that he names Capua after his great-grandfather Capys (D.H. 1.73.3). Vergil attributes the founding to Capys (Aen. 10.145), identified as Aeneas’ cousin (Coelius Antipater fr. 52 Peter; see Harrison 1991: 100). For the origin myths of Capua, see Brugnoli 1992; Momigliano 1984: 444; Heurgon 1970: 136–53; Ogilvie 1970: 591–2. 112 See Bettenworth 2004: 371–2. For other references to Capys’ foundation of the city, see 13.117–18, 13.320–1; Brugnoli 1992. For Capys as the father of Anchises, see Hom. Il. 20.239, Enn. Ann. 28–9 Skutsch, Ovid Fast. 4.34. 113 Pun. 13.244; 13.194, 212; 13.195. See Brugnoli 1992. 114 Pun. 13.479–81. See Bassett 1963. 115 Qui Tyria ducis Sarranum ab origine nomen, Pun. 9.202; externo socius … sanguine, 9.209. This speech reflects the promise made by Livy’s Hannibal before the battle at the Ticinus (Livy 21.45); see also Enn. Ann. 234–5 Skutsch; Spaltenstein 1990: 21.

241 Notes to pages 188–96 116 117 118 119

120 121

122 123 124 125

Aen. 8.720–8. See Adler 2003: 193–216; Toll 1997: 45–50. For fuller discussion of this episode, see Bernstein forthcoming. See Marks 2005: 259–63. Allusions to Aeneid 9 include Fulvius’ attack on the Capuan defenders of the gate (Pun. 13.191–218), which resembles Turnus’ similar assault (Aen. 9.672– 716); and Claudius’ solo race through Capua (Pun. 13.171–8), which recalls Turnus’ unaccompanied entry into and departure from the Trojan camp (Aen. 9.722–818). See Burck 1984a: 39–43. For the representation of Fulvius in Silius and Livy, see Ripoll 1998: 400. See Livy 26.15–16, 33; Val. Max. 3.8.1; Vell. 2.44.4; App. Hann. 7.43. Several of the populations that Silius lists in the Italian catalogue either did not participate in the battle of Cannae (such as the Praenestines, Pun. 8.365) or were supporters of Hannibal (the Ligurians, 8.605). Silius’ description of the Senate house commemorates a Roman victory over the Ligurians (1.628). See Venini 1978: 126–34. For the topos of Marsian snake-charming, see Hor. Epod. 5.75–6, 17.27–9; Ovid AA 2.101–22, etc.; Ariemma 2000: 126–7; Venini 1978: 169. The Salernians’ falcatos enses (Pun. 8.583) recall the weapons of Vergil’s Oscans (Aen. 7.732). See Ariemma 2000: 134. See McGuire 1995. For Vespasian’s restoration of Italy, see Levick 1999: 124–34. For Silius’ response to Domitian’s Italian policies, see Mezzanotte 1995: 370–2. Chapter 7

1 Rogers 1970: 13–14. 2 Trans. Radice 1977. 3 As Cova (2001) has shown, the younger Pliny also explicitly signals Verginius’ tranquillitas and Vestricius Spurinna’s otium as better models for his own practice than the elder Pliny’s ceaseless uigilia and studia. See also Henderson 2002: 69–102. 4 See Önnerfors 1975. 5 Quem rodunt omnes libertino patre natum, Serm. 1.6.46. 6 See Schlegel 2000: 94–107. 7 See Freudenburg 1993: 109–84. 8 See Schlegel 2000: 108–17. 9 See A. Hardie 1983: 85–91. 10 Labour and revision: Silv. 4.7.26, Theb. 12.811–12. Divine inspiration: Theb. 1.3, Ach. 1.3, 9. 11 For the elder Papinius’ victories, see Silv. 5.3.112–15. For his career, see McNelis 2002; Holford-Strevens 2000; A. Hardie 1983: 5–14; Vessey 1973: 49–54; and Clinton 1972.

242 Notes to pages 196–201 12 Silv. 5.3.15–18. Statius reprises the theme of poetic incapacity in his epicedion for his fosterling (Silv. 5.5.1–4, 24–34). 13 Statius assures Melior that he performs frequently at funerals (2.1.30–4), claims that his similar loss of a father moves him to offer poetic consolation to Claudius Etruscus (3.3.31–42), and urges a chorus of birds to lament the death of Melior’s parrot (2.4.16–37). 14 ‘You yourself, learned father, provide ill-omened strength and a mournful song from the Elysian spring and the touch of the sinister lyre’ (ipse malas uires et lamentabile carmen / Elysio de fonte mihi pulsumque sinistrae / da, genitor praedocte, lyrae, Silv. 5.3.1–3); ‘Father, give voice and inspiration to my great grief’ (da uocem magno, pater, ingenium dolori, 5.3.28). 15 Nil iam ego per populos, nusquam reuerentia nostri, Theb. 11.467. 16 Silv. 5.3.45–6; see also 3.3.13–16, 20–1. 17 For the temple as a prefiguration of an Aeneid rather than a Caesareid, see Kraggerud 1998. As a structure that outdoes the Pyramids (Silv. 5.3.48–50), Statius’ monument for his father recalls Horace’s description of his poetic monumentum, regalique situ pyramidum altius (Carm. 3.30.2). 18 The dramatic date of Silvae 5.3 is three months after the father’s death (5.3.29–31), which A. Hardie (1983: 13–14) dates to the year 90, two years before the completion of the Thebaid. The poem was only published, however, in the posthumous fifth book of Silvae; in this context, it looks back on a completed Thebaid. 19 Pueroque chelyn commisit et ora / imbuit amne sacro iam tum tibi blandus Apollo, Silv. 5.3.122–3. For the omens attributed to the youthful Pindar, see Dio Chrys. 64.23; to the youthful Horace, Carm. 3.4.9–20. See Nisbet and Rudd 2004: 53–4. 20 Silv. 5.3.146–94. As Holford-Strevens (2000) observes, the syllabus of poets taught by the elder Papinius has been carefully tailored (as seen, for example, in the omission of the dramatists) in order to direct attention to the genres in which his son worked. For the elder Papinius’ doctrina, see also McNelis 2002; Delarue 2000: 8–15. 21 See Verg. Ecl. 6.3, Hor. AP 73–4, etc. 22 See Gibson 2004: 149–51. 23 Quippe te fido monitore nostra / Thebais … temptat audaci fide Mantuanae / gaudia famae, Silv. 4.7.25–8. 24 Uos quoque sacrati, quamuis mea carmina surgant / inferiore lyra, memores superabitis annos, Theb. 10.445–6. See Pollmann 2001, Markus 1997. 25 See Lovatt 2005: 16. 26 The titles of their epics do not appear in the narratives of Homer, Apollonius, Vergil, Manilius, Ovid, Valerius, or Silius. Lucretius includes a statement of his epic’s theme (de rerum natura, DRN 1.25) that serves as a title. Only Lucan names and attaches a possessive to his epic (BC 9.985–6). For arguments

243 Notes to pages 201–4

27 28 29

30 31

32

33

34

35 36 37 38 39

supporting Pharsalia as the epic’s title (against De Bello Civili), see Radicke 2004: 64–5; Ahl 1976: 326–32. For the acknowledgment and naming of a Roman child, see Dixon 1992: 101. For the thematic connection between fatherhood and naming, see Ragussis 1986. For skeptical discussion of tollere liberos, see Shaw 2001. Πληµµελούµενος δὲ καὶ οὐκ ἐν δίκῃ λοιδορηθεὶς τοῦ πατρὸς ἀεὶ δεῖται βοηθοῦ· αὐτὸς γὰρ οὔτ’ ἀµύνασθαι οὔτε βοηθῆσαι δυνατὸς αὑτῷ, Phdr. 275e3–5. The metaphor of paternal protection recurs at Phdr. 278a5–b2. See Trist. 1.1.115, 3.1.73–4. See Dietrich 1999: 50; Nugent 1996: 69–71; and Malamud 1995: 27. The injunction of the conclusion echoes Aeneas’ injunction to Creusa: ‘And let my wife follow my footsteps at a distance’ (et longe seruet vestigia coniunx, Aen. 2.711). Pagán 2000: 444–6 observes the threat to the epic’s survival implied by these comparisons. Statius compares himself to these earlier travellers to the underworld in describing his desire to touch his father once more (Silv. 5.3.266–76). For Homer (Pun. 13.778–97), see McGuire 1997: 233–7; Reitz 1982: 115–17. For Ennius (12.387–419), see Barchiesi 2001: 138–9; Bettini 1977. For Cicero, see Pun. 8.404–11; Ripoll 2000. Two characters’ names evoke Vergil’s: Maro kills Thysdrus in Spain, and Vergilius kills Caudinus at Zama (15.447, 17.441). For Ennius’ dream of Homer, see Ann. 2–11 Skutsch; for allusion to the dream in Lucretius and Persius, see Skutsch 1985: 147–67; in Vergil, see Barchiesi 2001: 132–3; P.R. Hardie 1993a: 102–3. Unus erit quem tu tolles in caerula caeli / templa, Ann. 54–5 Skutsch. Uestram tulit usque ad sidera Troiam, Pun. 13.791. Ordior arma, quibus caelo se gloria tollit / Aeneadum, Pun. 1.1–2. See Henderson 2002: 102–24; Bettini 1976/7. Statius also claims to worship at Vergil’s tomb (Silv. 4.4.53–5). For freedman legatees in charge of tombs, see Champlin 1991: 175–80.

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INDEX LOCORUM

Apollonius Rhodius Arg(onautica) 3.818 56 4.11 56 Aristotle Pol(iteia) 1259a39–41 Athenaeus Deipn(osophistae) 1.20 Catullus Carm(ina) 72.3–4 101.6

24

163

8 79n42

Cicero (Epistulae ad) Att(icum) 10.4.6 105 10.7.3 105 (De) Off(iciis) 1.54 24 De Orat(ore) 2.88–9 111 (De) Rep(ublica) fr. 1a Ziegler 24 6.16 134

(Pro) Cael(io) 41

120

Ennius Ann(ales) 54–5 Skutsch

203

Gellius N(octes) A(tticae) 2.7.1

22

Homer Il(iad) 6.446 6.492 9.342–3

92 85 131n108

Horace Carm(ina) 3.30.2 Serm(ones) 1.6.46

195

Josephus (Contra) Ap(ionem) 2.40

162

Livy 5.49.7

144

198n17

266 Index Locorum Lucan B(ellum) C(ivile) 1.2–4 Martial Epig(rammata) 11.48

169

204

Ovid Met(amorphoses) 3.117–18 3.543–7 11.264 15.760–1

172 172 114n30 169

Pindar Nem(ean) 3.40

107

Plato Phaed(rus) 275e3–5

201

Pliny the Elder N(aturalis) H(istoria) 3.24 163 Pliny the Younger Ep(istulae) 2.1.8–9 5.8.4–5 8.14.4–6 8.14.7 9.22.1–2 Pan(egyricus) 2.3 48.3 Quintilian Inst(itutio Oratoria) 2.19.2–3 3.6.95, 44 3.7.9

115 194 23 39 193–4 25 39

111 118

S(enatus) C(onsultum) de Cn(aeo) Pisone patre 123–4 18

Seneca the Elder Contr(oversiae) 1.4.3 Seneca the Younger Ag(amemnon) 294 (De) Ben(eficiis) 2.21.5 6.4.2 Ep(istulae Morales) 21.2 44.3 86.1 104.21 (Ad) Helv(iam) 7.10 18.8 Med(ea) 329–30 Phoen(issae) 81 82 300 369 (De) Prov(identia) 2.5 Thy(estes) 18–20 313–14 Troad(es) 344–6 Silius Italicus 1.1–2 1.18 1.72–3 1.79–80 1.114–15 1.273–7 1.288–93 1.376–9 1.608 1.655

22

72 39 22 111 111 3, 134 112 162 109 31n4 73 69 69 69 126 68 81 113 203 137 136 135 137 180 180 181 183 183

267 Index Locorum 1.662–5 1.665–9 2.49 2.148 2.423 2.600–4 3.594–6 4.361–2 4.476–7 5.77 6.584–7 6.623–4 7.548–65 7.735 8.2–3 8.358 9.202 9.209 10.112 10.437–8 10.501–2 11.30–2 11.48–9 11.65 11.177–84 11.326–21 11.325–7 11.332–6 12.346–7 12.410–13 13.294 13.391–2 13.499–500 13.504–5 13.670 13.791 15.77–8 15.119–20 16.157–8 16.192–3 16.593 17.221

185 184 136 182n89 137 182 163 181 151 158–9 128 141 142–3 144 144 185n101 188 188 15 153n87 159 187 159 159 188 146 146 146–7 149 203 147 152 152 152 151 203 154 154 155 155 133 139n37

Statius Ach(illeid) 1.2 1.3–4 1.22 1.25–6 1.38–9 1.41 1.42 1.90 1.91 1.188–9 1.197 1.256 1.268–9 1.275–6 1.276–7 1.326–34 1.355–6 1.476–81 1.650–1 1.655–6 1.857–63 1.869 1.873–4 1.898–9 1.943–8, 952–5 2.35 2.86–7 2.96–102 2.126–8 Silv(ae) 1.1.74 1.2.272–3 1.4.68–70 2.1.102–3 3.5.50–1 4.4.71–4 4.4.75 4.7.25–8 4.8.57–8 5.1.42

118 107 129 129 119 112 110 115 117 118 122 116 116 112 120 124 124 106 114, 116 116 123 117 112 116 130–1 125 117 121 121 118–19 83n48 82 115 100 83 83, 117 200 84 18

268 Index Locorum 5.3.1–3 5.3.28 5.3.48 5.3.61–3 5.3.122–3 5.3.209–14 5.3.233–8 Theb(aid) 1.11 1.17 1.101 1.126 1.245–7 1.443–6 1.463–4 1.465–7 1.676–81 1.688–92 2.430–8 2.435–6 2.462–6 3.156 3.600–2 3.695–9 4.318–9 4.609 4.612 5.38 6.280–2 7.483–5 7.519–24 7.733–4 8.385 8.556–8 8.599–606 9.53 9.737–8 9.799–800 10.445–6 10.612–14 10.617–18

196n14 196n14 197 197 198 198 199 67 67 69 67 75 64 64 70 70 73 77 71 80 102 83 96 128n93 67 67n11 64 74 90 90 13 86 75 173 79n42 86 12 200 174 175

10.709–12 10.806–9 11.341–2 11.346–7 11.351–2 11.407–8 11.423 11.467 11.659–60 12.113–16 12.177–82 12.201–2 12.384–5 12.456–7 12.552–3 12.573 12.810–19 Suetonius Vesp(asian) 4.5 Tacitus Agr(icola) 41.1 Ann(ales) 4.60.3 6.49 Dial(ogus) 28.7 Hist(oriae) 2.12.2 2.50 3.55.3–4

175 176 91 91 91 91n78 68 197 177 97 98 97 100 100n104 102 102 200–1

16–17

39 40 120 110 164n18 117 164

Terence Adelph(oe) 126

115n35

Valerius Flaccus 1.7–9 1.30 1.97–8

32 148 32

269 Index Locorum 1.132 1.237–8 1.347 1.475–6 1.605 2.2–5 2.101 2.128 2.153–4 2.376–7 2.556 3.13 3.16–18 3.301–3 4.88–9 4.617 5.222–3 5.336 5.341 5.349 5.406 5.415–23 5.458 5.476–8 5.498–500 5.508–10 5.538 5.551 5.562 5.665–6 6.269 6.548–9

60n90 33 41 32 41n42 48 50n67 50 52 33n19 41 52 52 48 34 40n39 43 57 57 57 42 170 40 46 46 46 46 34 34 40 62 47

6.593 6.661 7.92 7.122–3 7.143–4 7.459–60 7.484–5 7.493–4 8.12–13 8.153–5 8.204

58 58–9 43 42 57 57 60 48 57 59 60n90

Valerius Maximus 4.1.5 9.1.9

157 133

Vergil Aen(eid) 1.95 3.96 4.629 5.202 7.255 7.270 7.335 7.371–2 8.510–11 10.75–6 10.851 12.435–40 12.830–1 12.834–9

14, 33 167 165 68 167 167 40n39 167 12 167 69 14–15 12 165–6

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GENERAL INDEX

Absyrtus, 35–6, 40–1, 45, 58, 63, 212n40, 216n94 Acastus, 30, 34–5, 38, 40–1, 148, 175, 213 Achilles, 105–31 passim; divine descent, 10, 153–4; and kinship diplomacy, 183; and Peleus, 11, 32, 141 Acrisius, 167, 213n44, 229n24 adoption, 19, 114–15, 117, 169, 194, 224n36. See also fosterage Adrastus, 15, 38, 64–6, 69–84, 88–91, 95–9, 217nn24, 25, 28, 220n80 Aeacus, 107, 113, 117, 168, 170 Aeetes, 12, 30–1, 34–47, 51–63 Aegeus, 36 Aegina, 13 Aegisthus, 65, 71–2 Aegyptus, 74 Aeneadae, 38, 136, 152, 187, 203, 240n106 Aeneas: as ancestor of gens Julia, 11, 19, 158, 161, 169; and Ascanius, 84, 136, 138, 141, 152; divine descent, 10, 64, 113, 153; and the ‘dynastic principle,’ 68; and ethnic identity, 167–8, 170, 184; and Evander, 46, 155, 183, 188–9; as exemplar of pietas, 14, 135, 150

Aeolids, 9, 37–8, 46, 234n2 Aeson, 31, 37–8, 41, 48–50, 53, 85 affines, 13, 46, 75, 79, 97, 220nn81, 93. See also brothers-in-law; fathers-inlaw; mothers-in-law; sons-in-law Agamemnon, 12–13, 113, 122, 207n31, 230n44 Agave, 53, 67, 92 Agenor, 66 agnates, 8, 20, 79, 83, 114, 116–17, 205n1, 216n94 Agricola, 41, 109, 117 Alcimede, 38, 85, 94 Alcinous, 59, 220n93 Aletes, 102, 222, 238 Alexander, 153–4, 156, 233nn89, 100 Allecto, 50, 55–6, 212, 220. See also Furies Amata, 44, 71, 85, 91–4, 167, 213n49, 215n88, 220n90 Amazons, 95, 98–9 Amphiaraus, 13, 76, 238n75 Amycus, 11, 32, 37, 212nn31, 35 Anausis, 52, 62–3, 216n92 Ancaeus, 41 ancestors, as collective, 150. See also fathers; imagines maiorum

272 General Index ancestors, emulation of, 13, 15, 22–3, 25–7, 66, 81, 83, 85–6, 92, 101, 104, 141, 150; Aeson and Jason, 3, 50; in Apollonius, 32; as narrative paradigm, 33, 36, 62 ancestors, legacy of, 136–7, 150, 155, 157 Anchises, 14, 68, 151, 161, 169, 179, 206n16, 240n112 Andromache, 58, 85, 92, 128, 215n82, 227n92 ante ora patrum, 14, 33, 42, 139 Antigone: and Argia, 86, 95, 99–101; and Oedipus, 69, 73, 93; efforts at peacemaking, 89–90 Antonius, 111 Apollo: and Adrastus, 65, 76–7; and Aegisthus, 72; and Amphiaraus, 13; and Coroebus, 76; and poets, 196, 198, 203; and Rutilius Gallicus, 82, 84; and the Trojans, 166–7 aposiopesis, 70, 217n19 apostrophe, 51, 214n69 apotheosis, 156, 164, 203 Appius, 188 Ara Pacis, 18 Ardea, 179–80, 182, 184–5, 236n40, 238n81, 239n101 Arethusa, 95 Argia, 65, 78, 82, 85–8, 94–103, 220n89, 221n100 Argives, 14, 74–6, 91, 98, 172, 176, 178, 229n24 Argos, 11, 65–6, 74, 76–8, 84, 86, 89, 96–7, 178 Argus, 45 Ariadne, 58, 63 Asbyte, 86 Ascanius: and Aeneas, 84, 136, 138, 141, 152; and Cupid, 56; fire omen, 155, 165; and Venus, 128, 227n92

Asopus, 13 Astyanax, 108, 227n92 Atalanta, 87, 128, 227n93 Athamas, 38, 53, 66–7, 69, 217n28 Atlas, 168, 170, 183 Atreus, 40, 68, 71, 81, 213n53 Attius Tullus, 158 Atys, 75–6, 173–4, 237nn55, 58, 59 Augustus, 17–19, 24, 158, 169, 207n32, 210n77, 213n50, 233n89; marriage laws, 17, 51 aunts, 30, 55, 58, 67, 215n81 autochthony, 162, 171, 178 bacchants, 53, 59, 92, 93, 118, 225n53 Bacchus, 59, 67, 117–18, 154–5, 167, 173, 214n70, 237n53 Barcae, 12, 136–8, 228n2 Barcas, 136 Belus, 136–7, 216, 229n24 bereavement: of Argia, 97–8; of Creon, 176; of Jason, 49; risk of, 34; of Scipio, 152; of Statius, 196; of Thetis, 128–9; of women in the Thebaid, 87, 101–3 Bessone, Federica, 95 Bettini, Maurizio, 10 bloodline, 73, 80 Boeotians, 171, 237n50 Boreas, 41, 212n42 Boyle, A.J., 81 Briseis, 131, 228n108 Britannicus, 40 brothers, half-, 30, 42–3, 55, 58, 216n94 brothers-in-law, 66, 72, 79 Bruttians, 190 Brutus, 7, 24, 206n2, 210n76 Cadmus, 65–6, 68–71, 83, 92–3, 97, 161, 168, 170–3, 178, 191 Caelius Rufus, M., 120 Cairns, Francis, 168

273 General Index Calchas, 130–1 Calliope, 196 Calpurnia, 115 Camilla, 86, 121 Camillus, 142–6, 149–50, 157–8, 228, 231 Cannae, 15, 132, 159, 185, 188–90, 230n45, 232n81, 241n121 Capaneus, 12–13, 83, 99 Capitoline, 138 Capua, 135, 140, 145–8, 159, 161, 167, 171, 179, 185–92 Capys, 159, 179, 187–8, 191; elder Capys, father of Anchises, 187 caregivers, 109–12, 120, 125, 224n33, 226n61 Carsten, Janet, 114 Carthage, 135–6, 138, 140, 155, 165–6, 185–8, 190–1 Carthaginians, 128, 133, 143, 149, 151, 161, 179, 183, 186–9 catabasis, 150, 154 Catiline, 68, 133, 135 Cato the Elder, 23, 187, 209n71 Cato the Younger, 112 Catullus, 8, 79 censor, 18, 156 Centaurs, 32, 53, 120, 147. See also Chiron Ceres, 99, 121 Chalciope, 30, 45, 48, 55–6, 58, 61, 62 characterization, 49–50, 75, 157, 172, 175, 234n104 Chiron, 104, 106–8, 110–14, 117, 119–30. See also Centaurs Cicero: and agnatic connections, 117; and fathers, 21; and the patria, 24, 134, 151; and Silius Italicus, 202–4; and training in oratory, 111; and youth, 120 Circe, 30, 48, 55–6, 58, 61–3, 215nn81, 85

citizenship, 162, 188 civil war: of AD 69, 19, 36, 162, 164, 190; Cadmus and the Spartoi, 66–7, 71, 161, 170, 172–3; Colchis, 30, 55; Cyzicus, 52; Eteocles and Polynices, 71, 88, 94; Latium, 55; Lemnos, 50–1; Rome, 134, 152, 164; and tyranny, 43; in Lucan, 169–71; in the Punica, 140, 189–92; in Senecan tragedy, 81 Claudia, 87, 100, 221n109 Claudius, 32, 39, 164, 235n20 Claudius Etruscus, 84, 197, 242n13; father of, 22, 84 Claudius Nero, 232 Cloelia, 159 Cloelius, 159 Clytemnestra, 71 cognatic kin, 20, 81–3, 85, 116, 117, 193–4, 205n1 comedy, 7–8, 21, 163 conditor, 172, 177, 238n70 consanguinity, 13, 77, 114, 151, 155, 158, 169, 184, 186, 235n11 consilium, 17, 44, 213 Cornelia, 95 Coroebus, 72, 76, 218n36, 237n58 Corvinus, 158 Crassus, 111 Creon, 78, 86, 97–8, 102–3, 148, 171–2, 175–8, 191 Cretheus, 46 Creusa, 200, 202, 243n31 Crispinus, 18, 84 Crista, 15, 140 Crotopus, 76, 213n44 Cupid, 56, 59, 177, 238n73 Cybele, 31, 47, 52–3 Cyzicus, 47–9, 52–4, 212n31, 215n74 Danaus, 74 Dardanus, 166–8, 170, 188, 191, 236n35

274 General Index daughters: and dynastic marriage, 72, 76, 82, 92–3, 116, 167; and mothers, 59, 92–3; and patria potestas, 34–5, 58, 61–2; and tyrannical fathers, 30–1, 41–5, 56–7 Daunia, 180 degeneracy, 8, 13–15 Deidamia, 104, 108, 112, 114, 116–18, 120, 123, 125–6, 129–31 Deipyle, 87, 95, 103 Delarue, Fernand, 129 Dench, Emma, 22 descent, biological, 12, 91, 107, 113–14, 175, 195–6, 199, 228n5 descent, divine, 10–11, 19, 25, 106, 109, 113, 116, 118–19, 133–4, 153–4, 156–9 descent, fictive, 194. See also kinship, created descent, figurative or symbolic, 14, 99, 132, 193, 203–4. See also kinship, symbolic descent group, 11–12, 64, 160, 172, 191. See also lineage; nobility descent, and identity, 10–13 descent, servile, 17 descent, shared (syngeneia), 38; appealed to by Aeneas, 46; in the Aeneid, 165–8; in the Argonautica, 169–70; in the Metamorphoses, 168–9; of Capuans, 187–90; of Roman people, 160–3; of Saguntines, 179–86; of Thebans, 171–5 descent, Trojan, 163, 166, 169, 174, 189 Diana, 76, 129 Dictator, 142, 144, 157 Dido: her curse on the Romans, 137–9, 165; as model: for Adrastus, 72–3, 76; as model for Medea, 35, 50, 56, 59; as model for Sicoris, 185; as model for Thetis, 129 Diomedes, 13, 64, 112, 117, 121

Dioscuri, 11, 32, 34, 118, 154 disguise, 79, 104, 108, 112, 118, 121–3, 125–6, 128–30; of Venus, 51–2, 55–6, 58 dissimulation, 30, 36, 37, 41–2, 46, 49, 51, 55, 60 distinction, alternate sources, 16, 20–1, 84, 106–7, 111 distinction, and descent, 10–11, 13, 116–17, 159 Dixon, Suzanne, 110 Doliones, 31, 47, 52, 212 Dominik, W.J., 179 Domitian, 16, 18–20, 24–5, 118–19, 134, 190, 200–2; correctio morum, 18, 51; and Scipio, 152, 156; as tyrant, 39. See also gens Flavia Dryas, 76 Dymas, 99, 200, 212n35, 221n99 dynastic principle, 8, 68, 72, 81, 204 education, 23, 106–12, 115, 120–2, 124, 128, 164, 198 Egyptians, 169–70 Electra, 183 elegy, Roman, 7–8, 86, 94–6, 101, 108, 114, 123, 130–1, 204, 220n89, 228n107 Ennius, 183, 195, 202–3, 243n34 Eteocles, 12–13, 65–104 passim, 148, 176, 177 ethnic identity, 161–5, 167–70, 172, 179–84, 235nn14, 25, 236n34 ethnicity, primordialist perspective, 183–4 ethnocentrism, 188 ethnonym, 166, 170, 183, 186, 188, 190, 239n91 Etruscans, 187, 190, 240n110 Euryalus, 51, 94, 99, 128, 205n3, 221n99, 236n31

275 General Index Eurydice, 200, 202, 222n121 Eurystheus, 49 Evadne, 87, 102, 103 Evander, 12, 46, 72, 76, 155, 168, 170, 183, 205n3, 233n97, 240n102 exile, 24, 120, 134, 184; of Cadmus, 66, 161; effect on marriage, 95–7; of Phrixus, 30, 37–8, 97; of Polynices, 78, 95–7; result of crime, 53; of Thyestes, 72; of Tydeus, 69, 79

focalization, 48–9, 129 fosterage, 87, 106–9, 112–15, 119–22, 126, 130. See also adoption; fathers, foster freedmen, 17–18, 20, 22, 108, 115, 195–6; Pallas and Icelus, 17–18. See also Claudius Etruscus, father of funeral games, 74, 87, 150, 234n109 Furies, 13, 40, 50, 65, 67–9, 81, 88–9, 91–3, 101, 103–4

Fabius, 132–4, 136, 139–50, 153, 155–7 Fama, 50, 52, 200, 214n71 familia, and domus, 117 family, conflict within, 30, 50, 52–3, 55, 66–7, 75, 79, 81, 132, 159, 161; fratricide, 53, 65–8, 73–4, 81, 85, 88, 94, 140, 172, 178, 191; filicide, 66, 133, 206n3; parricide, 66, 96, 230n39 family, and legislation, 17–18 family, primary kin, 53, 100. See also fathers; mothers; sisters; etc. family, and the state, 24 family, upper-class, 18, 22, 31, 37, 61, 62 Fantham, Elaine, 93, 119 fathers: foster, 108, 114, 119–20 (see also fosterage); Greek, 34; and naming, 201; tyrannical, 23, 31, 34–5, 38, 42, 47, 148–9, 175. See also paterfamilias; pater Patriae; patria potestas fathers-in-law, 72, 78, 109, 116, 224n32 Faunus, 43, 55, 167 Favorinus, 110, 121 Feeney, D.C., 75 fides, 80, 97, 123, 128, 135, 140, 145, 149, 151, 155, 165, 183, 187; personified Fides, 145, 179, 231n61; Fides Publica, 156 Flaminius, 141, 152, 230n46 Flavius Abascantus, T., 18, 100 Flavius Clemens, T., 20, 118

Gaius, 19, 39, 224n34 Galba, 17, 19, 159 Garamantians, 188 Gauls, 143–4, 164, 231n52 genealogical attractor, 12 genealogies, 10, 206n14 generative memory, 10, 136–7 gens, 16, 134, 146, 149–50, 158, 163–4 gens Fabia, 142–4 gens Flavia, 19, 158. See also Domitian; Titus; Vespasian gens Julia, 11 gentilis furor, 68–9 genus mixtum, 165, 188 Geta, 83, 117 Giant, 32 Glaucias, 108, 115, 121, 224n36 Golden Fleece, 12, 30, 34–5, 38, 41–7, 55–60 granddaughters, 83, 109 grandfathers, 40–1, 45, 76–7, 83–4, 107, 117, 134, 136–7, 149, 167 grandsons, 16, 43, 45, 67, 76, 116, 128, 131, 149 great-grandfathers, 113, 240n111 Hades, 61 Haemon, 176 Hamilcar, 135–9, 150, 152, 227n96, 229n22

276 General Index Hampsagoras, 148 Hannibal, 12, 15, 128, 132–59 passim, 161, 186, 188–90 Hanno, 135–6 Hardie, P.R., 8 Harmonia, 66, 95, 238n75 Harris, Christopher, 9 Hasdrubal, 138–9, 152, 230n36, 232n81 Hector, 15, 85, 91–3, 122, 215n79, 226n72 Hecuba, 85, 91–4, 129 heirloom, 11–12, 76, 104 heirs, 61, 118, 127, 137–8, 203–4 Helen, 15, 129, 131 Helle, 30, 37–8 Helvia, 109, 114–15, 121 Hercules: at the crossroads, 154; and Fabius, 145, 153; and the Flavians, 164; and Hesione, 31, 38, 41–2; and Hylas, 54; at Lemnos, 33, 60; and Saguntum, 180, 186; son of Jupiter, 118 Hesione, 31, 35, 38, 41–2, 47 Heslin, P.J., 112, 124 Hippodamia, 58 Hippolytus, 81 homophylia, 186 Hopleus, 99, 200, 221n99 Horace, 7, 24, 174, 193–6, 198 Hosidius, 83 hospitium, 48, 52–4, 70, 72, 76, 116, 147, 150, 155 Hostus, 149 humanitas, 102, 171, 177–8, 189 hybridity, 166–9, 178–84, 188–91 Hylas, 33, 54, 214n58 Hypseus, 13 Hypsipyle, 51, 58, 64, 71, 87, 99 Iarbas, 167, 216n92 Ide, 101–2, 221n100 Idmon, 33

illegitimacy, 8, 14–15, 207n26 imagines maiorum, 11, 20, 23, 58, 74, 79, 138 Imilce, 95, 137–8 imperial regime, legitimacy of, 16, 19, 157 Inachids, 61, 90, 167, 229n24, 236n37 incest, 66, 69, 71–2, 92, 96 in-laws. See affines Ino, 38, 67 Io, 60–1 Iphiclus, 32 Iphidimas, 120 Ismene, 75, 90, 174, 237n59, 238n75 Iulus, 11, 19, 188 ius maternum, 44, 215n88 Jason, 12, 30–5, 38–9, 41–63, 85, 148, 170 Jocasta, 65, 69–71, 73, 80, 82, 85, 88–94, 97, 101, 103, 116, 148 Julio-Claudian dynasty, 19, 40, 119, 133, 157, 161, 164, 169 Julius Caesar, 135, 169, 171, 189, 210n77 Julius Mansuetus, 36 Juno, 12, 30–2, 35, 42, 47–61, 93, 99, 117, 127, 135, 165–7 Jupiter: and Achilles, 107–8, 113–19; disavows authority, 88–9; and the Flavians, 118–19, 163; hostile to Argives and Thebans, 74–7; protector of hospitality, 52; and the Roman people, 165–6, 186–8; and Saturn, 12, 32; and Scipio, 150–6; and translatio imperii, 54, 61 Juturna, 12, 205n3 Keith, A.M., 168 kinship, as a process, 9 kinship, created, 48, 52, 54, 56. See also descent, fictive

277 General Index kinship diplomacy, 159, 183, 186, 192. See also descent, shared kinship, elective, 87, 99, 101, 114 kinship, lateral, 168 kinship, national, 161–2, 169, 172, 174, 175, 178 kinship networks, 16–17, 36, 62, 134 kinship strategies, 61 kinship, symbolic, 47 kinship, universal, 162 Labdacids, 96, 137, 141, 191 Laertes, 180 Laius, 67, 77, 217n11 lament: of Deidamia, 130–1; of Euryalus’ mother, 94, 128; for Glaucias, 115, 121; of Jason, 52–3; of Menoeceus’ mother, 176–8; of Polynices, 79; of Statius, 196; of Thetis, 110, 127–8; of women in Thebaid, 87, 101–3 Laodamia, 95 Laomedon, 31, 35, 37–8, 41–3 Lapiths, 32, 53, 147 Latins, 12, 161, 166 Latinus, 38, 43, 55, 62, 72, 76, 91–3, 97, 167, 239 Latium, 55, 166, 185, 190 Latona, 129 laudatio funebris, 16 Lausus, 38, 40, 47, 65, 69, 148, 151 Lavinia, 62–3, 91–2, 97, 167 Learchus, 53, 67 Lemnian women, 30–1, 33, 47, 50–2, 60, 62, 86 lex Iulia, 18, 208n49 lex Voconia, 18, 208n49 libertas, 134, 157 lineage, 12, 20, 23, 63–9, 71, 73, 81, 88, 93, 113, 133–4, 136–8, 140, 142, 150, 158–9. See also ancestors; descent group

Linus, 72, 76, 108 Livy, 21, 24, 144, 161, 178, 187 Lovatt, Helen, 200 Lucilius, 111–12, 124, 196 lusus Troiae, 33, 166, 236n30 Lycomedes, 112, 116, 124, 126, 224n32 Maecenas, 196 Maenads, 98–9 Magius, Decius, 145, 148, 187 Mago, 159 Maia, 183 Mamertines, 186 Manlius, 7, 24 Marcellus, 136, 141, 148, 158, 189, 231n56 Marcia, 128, 219n58 marital fidelity, 7, 95, 99 marital unanimity, 87, 95 marriage: of Argia and Polynices, 75–80, 95–101; of Deidamia and Achilles, 130–1; of Ismene and Atys, 174; of Lavinia, 92–3; of Medea and Jason, 57–61; of Thetis and Peleus, 113–14. See also affines marriage, as intermarriage, 165–6, 179, 181, 188 marriage, and law, 17, 51 marriage, and the paterfamilias, 31, 34–5, 44 marriage, and residence, 86, 95–8 marriage, serial, 96, 112 marriage, and the Silvae, 82–4, 99–101 marriage, strategy, 62 marriage, and ties between families, 45, 52 marrying out, 58, 63 Mars, 51–2, 70, 76, 85, 98, 151, 154, 173–4, 176, 203 Marsians, 190 Marus, 128, 141, 219n58, 227n96

278 General Index Masinissa, 155, 165 Medea, 30–1, 35–6, 38, 40–63, 93 Medeus, 36, 216, 223n15 Meleager, 33–4, 49 Melicertes, 67 Melior, Atedius, 108, 115, 119, 121 Menecrates, 84 Menelaus, 15, 95, 219n63, 228n108 Menoeceus, 93, 98, 148, 171–8, 191 Mercury, 135, 138 Messalla, 110, 121 Messana, 185–6 Metaurus, 138 Mezentius, 38, 40, 47, 65, 69, 148, 151 migration, 160, 166, 169–71, 179, 180, 182, 184–5 Minerva, 40, 103 Minicius Acilianus, 117 Minucius, 132–3, 140, 142, 144, 157 monogenetic origins, 162, 169, 171–2, 178 Mopsus, 32, 53, 57, 60 mothers-in-law, 78 mothers: animal, 128; of Agricola, 109; anxia mater, 127; and daughters, 59, 92–3; seuera mater, 126 municipales uiri, 16, 164 Murrus, 181–3 Muse, 10, 196 Myrmidons, 168–70 Nasamonians, 188 national identity, 161, 165, 167–8, 170, 179. See also kinship, national Nemea, 64 Neptune, 11, 32, 41, 46, 115, 117, 128, 130 Nero, 16, 39–40, 164 Nestor, 15, 114 Newlands, Carole, 20 Niobe, 101, 217n218, 222n112

Nisus, 51 nobility, 64, 77–9, 82–3, 107, 111, 113, 116–19, 189; alternatives to, 20 nomenclature, polyonomous, 117 Novatilla, 109, 115, 121, 124 Novy, Marianne, 109 Numa, 164 Numanus Remulus, 166–7, 190 Numidians, 187 Odysseus, 15, 100, 120. See also Ulixes Oedipus, 13, 65–73, 75, 77, 80–2, 85–6, 88–9, 91–7, 99, 101, 116, 177 Opheltes, 87, 108 optimus princeps, 19, 133, 139, 144, 148, 150, 152, 156 orbitas, 53 Orestes, 79, 205n2 origin narratives, 161, 168. See also monogenetic origins Orion, 76 Orpheus, 34, 49, 61, 196, 202 Pacuvius, 133, 140–1, 145–50, 157–9, 175, 187 Pallas (Neronian freedman). See freedmen Pallas (son of Latinus), 12, 205n3 Pan, 19, 189 Pandionids, 101 Paris, 129 Parthenopaeus, 12, 76, 86–7, 121, 128 Pasiphae, 63 Passennus Paulus, 193–5 pater Patriae, 17–18, 24–5, 144, 157 paterfamilias, 17–18, 21–2, 31, 34–5, 37, 43–4, 47, 58, 61–2, 141 patria potestas, 31, 35, 37, 41, 43, 88, 89, 101, 103, 132–4, 155, 157–8, 175, 204; challenged, 140–5; disclaimed, 148; and education, 23–4; evolutionary

279 General Index narrative of, 21, 23, 209n64; limited, 17–18; philosophical debate, 22 Paulus, 24, 132, 134, 153, 159 Peleus, 11, 32, 60, 104, 107, 113–16, 119, 121, 125–6, 130 Pelias, 30–1, 34–5, 37–50, 54–5, 86, 175 Pelops, 58, 74, 77–8 penates, 46, 52, 166, 182, 185–6 Pentheus, 53, 59, 67, 118, 172–3 Persephone, 61, 99 Perses, 30, 36, 39, 40, 42 Phaedra, 63 Phaethon, 14, 100 Philip V of Macedon, 183 Phineus, 40, 49 Phoenicians, 161, 165, 167, 188 Phoenix, 121–2, 205, 223n8 Phorbas, 76 Phrixus, 12, 30, 37–8, 43–7, 55–6, 58, 97; sons of, 45, 47 Picus, 58, 215n85 pietas: of the Aeneadae, 14, 68; of Antigone, 69, 100; of Argia, 99–100; of the Argonauts, 33; of Domitian, 118, 156; of Hannibal, 137–8; of Helvia, 115; of Hypsipyle, 51, 99; of Lausus, 40, 151; of Masinissa, 165; of Scipio, 24, 150– 4; of Statius, 195–7, 200; of the Trojans, 54; personified, 195–7 Pilumnus, 167 Pindar, 107, 121–2, 198 Pirithous, 53, 79 pius, 42, 50, 69, 74, 175, 204 Papinius Statius the Elder, 195–9 Pliny the Elder, 163, 194–5 Pliny the Younger, 17, 19, 23–5, 37, 39, 41, 44, 115, 117, 193–5, 204 political capital, 22 Polla, 87, 100, 222n111 Pollmann, Karla, 87 Polydorus, 54, 147

Polynices, 15, 65–104 passim, 116, 176–7 Praxiteles, 111, 124 Priam, 15, 92, 220, 237n56 Priscilla, 18, 87, 100 Promachus, 38, 214 Propertius, 57, 95, 193, 194, 204 Proserpina, 60–1 Protesilaus, 95 provincials, 16, 159, 162, 164 proximitas, 46 Punic War, First, 135, 181, 185 Pylades, 79 Pyrrhus/Neoptolemus, 15, 113, 120, 207n31, 237n56 Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, 183, 239n94 Quintilian, 44, 111, 118, 124 Regulus, 128, 133, 141, 219n58, 231n58 relicta, 94–5, 101–2, 108, 127, 129–30 Remus, 67, 161, 174 repetition, 53, 83, 89, 138–9, 145, 178 Rhoetus, 53 Roman people, 11, 50–1, 144, 157, 174, 183, 186, 191; descent of, 160–2; hybridity of, 162–3; in the Aeneid, 165–8; in Lucan, 169 Romulus, 21, 66, 144, 154, 158, 161, 177–8, 203; ancestry, 10; asylum, 163, 178 Rutulians, 179–86 Rutulius Gallicus, 22, 82, 84, 218n47 Sabines, 12, 158, 161–4, 190 Saguntines, 136, 145, 161, 171, 179–87, 191–2 Salernians, 190 Saller, Richard, 112, 117 Samnites, 185–7 Saturn, 12, 32

280 General Index Scipio Africanus, 11, 24, 116, 133–6, 139, 141, 144–6, 150–8, 164, 188, 203 Scipio the Elder, 4, 136, 141, 150, 155–6 Scylla, 57 Scyros, 107, 118, 123, 128–30 self-presentation, 11, 19, 64–5, 69–70, 73, 80, 113, 119, 137, 156, 185 Semele, 13 Senate, 16, 18–19, 23, 134, 142–4, 149, 153, 155–6, 164, 183, 186 senatorial class, 4, 17, 61 Sergestus, 68, 217n14 Serranus, 128, 141, 219n58, 227n96 Servius Tullius, 155, 165 Sesostris, 170 Severy, Beth, 17–18 Sibyl, 134, 152, 158, 203, 233n89 Sicily, 137, 186 Sicoris, 183–7 sisters, 12, 30, 55–6, 58, 62, 85–6, 95, 100, 125–6, 129–30 Slatkin, Laura, 127 social capital, 22 social mobility, 16–17, 20, 22, 65, 116, 145, 149 Socrates, 111–12, 201 sons, symbolic, 142 sons-in-law, 12, 15, 43–5, 62, 65–6, 73, 84, 96, 167 Spartoi, 66, 161, 168–78, 191 spontaneous generation, 161, 168–73, 178 Stella, Arruntius, 83, 117, 218n48 stepmothers, 30, 38, 162, 213n50 Sthenelus, 13, 83, 211n17 stigma, 65–6, 69–75, 77, 79–81, 83–5, 95–7, 116 Styrus, 37, 43, 45, 52, 58–9, 62–3 succession, 14, 19–20, 40, 102, 118–19 succession, hereditary, 20, 114 Suetonius, 16, 19, 20, 37

Sulpicius, 111 Sun, 12, 14, 40, 42–3, 45, 52, 60, 63 surrogacy, 58, 91, 112 Syphax, 155, 233n97 Syracuse, 140, 148, 183, 189 Tacitus, 17, 19, 36–7, 39–41, 109–10, 117, 120–1, 164, 190 Tantalus, 65–8, 73–5, 77–8, 81 Tarpeia, 57 Tarquinius Superbus, 21 teichoscopia, 57 Telamon, 42 Telemachus, 15, 215n79 telescoping of history, 184 Teuthras, 187 Thebans, 13, 75, 161, 167, 169, 171–8, 191 theodicy, 11, 50 Theseus, 10, 58, 79, 87, 102, 172, 176–8, 191 Thessander, 96 Thetis, 10, 60, 103–8, 110–20, 122, 124–31 Thiodamas, 14, 207n25 Thoas, 51, 64 Thyestes, 40, 68, 72, 213n53 Tiberius, 18–19, 212n37 Tiburna, 183 Ticinus, 141, 153 Tiresias, 67, 171, 174–5, 217n11 Tisiphone, 66–7, 69, 78, 82, 88, 98. See also Furies Titus, 19, 156, 208n53 tragedy, 7–8, 23, 59, 68, 69, 81, 85, 89–90 Trajan, 19, 25, 235n20 translatio imperii, 32, 43, 54, 61 Trasimene, 141, 152 Trebia, 141 Trimble, Jennifer, 125

281 General Index Trojans, 94–5, 99, 104, 112, 125–6, 130– 1, 136, 139, 148, 160–1, 163, 165–71, 174, 178–91; and Argonauts, 33, 62; and gens Julia, 32; and Polydorus, 54 Trojan War, 32, 57, 60–1, 95, 104, 112, 126, 130 Turnus, 12, 56, 63, 71, 91–3, 136, 167–8, 184–5, 189 Turnus Herdonius, 21 tutor, 110, 115 Tydeus, 13, 64–6, 69–71, 76, 77–81, 95, 99, 101 Typhoeus, 32 tyrants, 25, 31–50, 57, 59, 62–3, 86, 133, 148–9, 157–8, 172, 175, 185, 187. See also under fathers, tyrannical Tyrians, 137, 188 Ulixes, 111–12, 117, 120–1, 123, 125–7, 129–31 uncle, maternal, 15, 68, 117, 194 upper class, Roman, 16–22, 25–6, 31, 35, 37, 58, 61–2, 65, 75, 96, 107, 109–12, 116–17, 119–20, 133–5, 149, 162 Valerius Corvus, M., 158 Valerius Messalla Corvinus, M., 159

Varro, 159 Venilia, 167 Venus, 14, 30–1, 42, 47–8, 50–61, 83, 127–8, 153, 161, 169; as ancestor of gens Julia, 11, 19 Verginius Rufus, 115, 241n3 Vespasian, 16–17, 19, 32, 156, 161, 164, 190 Vibius Maximus, 200 Violentilla, 83, 218n48 Virrius, 146, 159 Virtus, personified, 148, 153–6, 173–4, 176, 233n92 Vitellius, 164, 190 Vitorius Marcellus, 83, 117 Voluptas, 154–5, 233n92 wet nursing, 110, 121 widowhood, 58, 97–8, 100–1 wills, 17, 18 Xanthippus, 181, 239n86 Zacynthians, 179–82 Zama, 139 Zeiner, Noelle, 20, 84