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Textual Strategies and Political Suicide in Flavian Epic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Donald T. McGuire Jr.
Donald T. McGuire Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Extract

When one tries to characterize the Flavian epics as a group, one encounters a series of chronological and historical problems not faced in many earlier eras of Latin literature. For example, though we know the rough outline of literary history from the death of Nero to the accession of Trajan, precise details regarding the lives of Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus elude us — we know most about the career of Silius, thanks in large part to Pliny the Younger's letter noting his death, charting his career, and to a large degree dooming his reputation for posterity.

Despite Pliny's letter, and despite several references in Martial to Silius, the exact chronology of the Punka's publication is impossible to reconstruct. Martial's poems suggest that Silius was at least reading from his work during the early 90's AD, and a publication date from the mid-90's to around 100 seems probable; that is as far as we can go. The same problems face us with the works and careers of Statius and Valerius. Regarding Statius, we know that the Thebaid was published in the early 90's AD, before Statius moved on to his Sitvae and unfinished Achilleid. For Valerius' Argonautka there is even less evidence; arguments for the date of his epic's composition span two decades, between AD 70 and 92.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 18 , Issue 1-2 , 1989 , pp. 21 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1989

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References

1. See Pliny, Epistle 3.7. His remark that Silius ‘wrote with more craft than innate talent’ (scribebat maiore cura quam ingenio) is regularly taken to mean that Silius had no talent whatsoever. One might also question the status of Pliny, author of the Panegyrkus, as the final arbiter of poetic talent.

2. Martial, Epigrams 7.63, 8.66, 9.86, 11.48, 11.49.

3. See Wistrand, E., Die Chronologie der Punica des Silius Italicus (Göteborg 1956)Google Scholar and Sullivan, J.P., Literature and Politics in the Age of Nero (Ithaca, N.Y. 1985) 187Google Scholar.

4. See Vessey, D.W.T.C., Statius and the Thebaid (Cambridge 1973) 55Google Scholar.

5. For a recent summary and analysis of this issue, see Lefèvre, E., Das Prooemium der ‘Argonautica’ des Valerius Flaccus (Wiesbaden 1971)Google Scholar.

6. For attempts to deal with this type of question, see Sullivan (n. 3 above) 180–96; Steele, R.B., ‘The Interrelation of the Latin Poets under Domitian’, CP 25 (1930) 328–42Google Scholar; Venini, P., ‘Silio Italico e il mito tebano’, RIL 103 (1969) 778–83Google Scholar; Schubert, W., Jupiter in den Epen der Flavierzeit (Frankfurt 1985)Google Scholar; Ahl, F., Pomeroy, A., and Davis, M., ‘Silius Italicus’, ANRW 2.32.4 (1986) 2492–561Google Scholar. It shoula be clear throughout this essay how much I owe to this last article and to the other work by Ahl on Neronian and Flavian poetry.

7. Though we should not on this basis dismiss an epic treatment. Cf., for example, the criticism of Butler, H.E., Post Augustan Poetry from Seneca to Juvenal (Oxford 1909) 208Google Scholar: ‘The Theban legend is unsuitable for epic treatment for more reasons than one. In the first place, the story is unpleasant from beginning to end.’ For a fuller discussion of this and other attitudes toward Statius’ use of Theban myth, see Ahl, F.M., ‘Statius’ Thebaid: A Reconsideration’, ANRW 2.32.5 (1986) 2804–11Google Scholar.

8. For a full discussion of the Punica’s relation to both the Aeneid and the Pharsalia, see Ahl, Pomeroy and Davis (n. 6 above) 2493–505, 2555–58; also von Albrecht, M., Silius Italicus (Amsterdam 1964)Google Scholarpassim.

9. See Johnson, W.R., Darkness Visible (Berkeley 1976) 8–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim, for a definition and subsequent discussion of these terms. Unfortunately these terms have become a convenient and facile label with which others now compartmentalize interpretations of Latin poetry.

10. See Ahl (n. 7 above) 2817–22; also ‘The Rider and the Horse: Politics and Power in Roman Poetry from Horace to Statius’, ANRW 2.32.1 (1984) 85–102Google Scholar.

11. Even tyrants who enjoyed local support in Apollonius’ version of the Argonautica turn more monstrous in Valerius’ version. Compare, for example, the reaction of the Bebrycians to their king Amycus’ death in both accounts; Apollonius’ Argonautica 2.98ff., Valerius’ Argonautica 4.315 ff.

12. Cf. Ahl, Pomeroy, and Davis (n. 6 above) 2517f.

13. Pun. 2.696–98; Arg. 1.827–50; Theb. 3.99–113. It is at least worth mentioning that the three suicide scenes present us with three different levels of action, as they encompass individual (Maeon), familial (Aeson and Alcimede), and communal (Saguntines) types of behavior. It is impossible to say to what degree this is due to the conscious collusion of the three poets.

14. See Grisé, Y.Le suicide dans la Rome antique (Paris 1982)Google Scholar, for the most thorough recent analysis of suicide in Roman history and literature. For particular aspects of suicide, see, among other articles, Bayet, J., ‘Le suicide dans la mentalité des Romains’, L’Année sociologique ser. 3 (1951), 35–89Google Scholar; Rutz, W., ‘Amor Mortis bei Lucan’, Hermes 88 (1960) 462–75Google Scholar; Dutoit, E., ‘Le thème de “la force que se détruit elle-même”, et ses variations chez quelques auteurs latins’, REL 14 (1936) 365–73Google Scholar.

15. Grisé’s, Y. inventory of suicides is most instructive. It appears first in ‘De la frequence du suicide chez les Romains’, Latomus 39 (1980) 17–46Google Scholar. See also Griffin, M., ‘Philosophy, Cato, and Roman Suicide’, G&R 33 (1986) 64–77Google Scholar and 192–202.

16. For a basic introduction to Stoicism and suicide, see Rist, J.M., Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge 1969) 233–35Google Scholar. For the philosophy of suicide in Imperial Rome, see Griffin (n.15 above) and also Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford 1976) 367–91Google Scholar.

17. For a Stoic reading of Maeon’s suicide in the Thebaid, see Vessey (n.4 above) 107–116; for a Stoic reading of the Saguntines’ mass suicide in the Punica see Vessey, D.W.T.C., ‘Silius Italicus on the fall of Saguntum’, CP 69 (1974) 28–36Google Scholar. See also, for a general discussion of Stoicism and Roman epic, Colish, M., The Stow Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden 1985) 225–89Google Scholar.

18. For other descriptions of the death of Jason’s parents and brother, in which the most important difference is the survival of Aeson until news of Jason’s return reaches Iolcus, see Apollodorus 1.9.26, Diodorus Siculus 4.50; Ovid has Aeson survive even after Jason’s return in Metamorphoses 7.163ff.

19. See Diodorus Siculus 4.50.

20. For Asiaticus, see Tacitus, Annals 11.3; for Seneca, Annals 15.61–64; for Petronius, Annals 16.18–19; for Thrasea Paetus, Annals 16.33–35.

21. We will subsequently discuss the chief way in which Statius directs his discussion to rulers. As far as the Punica is concerned, we might note here the way in which Silius alters the Vergilian landscape of his underworld so that tyrants alone occupy the realms and punishments of Tartarus (Pun. 13.601 -12).

22. For Dido, see Aen. 4.644, pallida morte futura (‘pale at the prospect of her imminent death’); for Cleopatra, see Aen. 8.709, pallentem morte futura (‘growing pale at the prospect of her imminent death’).

23. See Ahl (n.7 above) 2873–78 for this point.

24. See Dio Cassius 67.12.5, and Wirszubski, C., Libertas as a Political Ideal at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge 1968)Google Scholar 146n.

25. See Ahl (n.7 above) 2889 for a full discussion.

26. For a recent and detailed discussion of such Vergilian characters as Nisus and Euryalus or Pallas, and of the poetic ironies they embody, see A.J. Boyle, The Chaonian Dove: Studies in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid of Virgil (Leiden 1986), esp. 89ff. and 120ff.

27. Theb. 1.428–30.

28. For Mars’ delay in starting the war see Theb. 3.218ff. where Jupiter first sends Mars out, and Theb. 7.6ff. where Jupiter notices that the war has yet to start. For Polynices’ near miss in the chariot race see Theb. 6.513–17.

29. Polybius 3.6; Livy 21.5–6.

30. Other readers of the Punica have read the Saguntum episode along moral and ethical lines. Von Albrecht (n.8 above, 47–55) argues that the Saguntum episode first establishes Fides as one of the chief ‘heroes’ of the epic. Vessey (n.17 above, 37) sees the Saguntines as having gained ‘universal status through their heroism’ and reads the episode, and indeed the entire epic, as ‘an instrument of philosophical and moral revelation’.

31. See Kissel, W., Das Geschichtsbild des Silius Italicus (Frankfurt 1979)Google Scholar, esp. 209–22, for a detailed analysis of the Punica’s structures.

32. See, for example, Pun. 1.268–72, 338–40, and 384–90.

33. Rutuli: Pun. 1.377, 437, 584, 658; 2.541, 567, 604. Daunii: 1.440, 665, 2.244, 557. Greeks and Romans traced Saguntum’s foundation back to colonists from the island Zacynthus or to a combination of Zacynthians and settlers from Ardea. In fact, these epithets for the Saguntines evoke enmity with Rome as much as kinship, given the Vergilian traditions of warfare between the Trojans and the Rutuli, and Silius takes advantage of the ironies of the nomenclature on several occasions.

34. Vessey (n.17 above, 34n.) claims that Silius has ‘kept the details of the massacre within decent limits’. I find the amount of detail here too extensive to dismiss.

35. Again, in discussing this frame to the suicide scene, I must disagree with Vessey. Vessey argues that the lines which, taken together, I term the frame for the suicide scene (2.612f. and 2.696–98) excuse all of the negative aspects of the actual suicide, because these lines state that the Saguntines’ actions were noble; such an argument effectively ignores the intervening eighty lines of Silius’ poetry. Similarly, though Vessey recognizes the topoi of civil war in the suicide scene, he dismisses their importance, arguing that their status as topoi makes their presence insignificant. See Vessey (n.17 above) 34f. and n.40.

36. For a full discussion of Vulteius’ actions and the non-Stoic elements in the episode, see Ahl, F. M., Lucan: An Introduction (Ithaca 1978) 117–21Google Scholar, with its extensive bibliographical note (118).

37. See particularly Letters 70 and 77; again see Griffin’s discussion of suicide (n.16 above, 367–91).

38. For a detailed examination of Menoeceus’ suicide and its connection with the Roman concept of devotio, see Vessey (n.4 above) 117–31.