Quis magna tuenti / somnus? Scenes of Sleeplessness (and Intertextuality) in Flavian Poetry

Abstract

In recent studies on Flavian literature, the theme of sleep and sleeplessness, has heretofore been approached mostly thematically and focused on single authors. This chapter discusses the harbinger of analysis that defines, both intra- and intertextually, the aesthetics and poetics of Statius, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus in relation to their epic models. It is well known that sleep and sleeplessness feature prominently in Greek and Latin epic poetry. The intertextual fabric of the poetics of sleep and dreams in Statius, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus is greatly indebted, as is true with other themes as well, to the presence of ὕπνος in Homer and in Apollonius Rhodius. The chapter encounters various categories of beings subject to sleeplessness (divine, human, and animal). The causes of insomnia are habitually explicit in both the Greek and Latin poets, apart from rare cases such as Statius' fascinating poem, Siluae . Keywords: Flavian poetry; Greek epic poetry; insomnia; Silius Italicus; Valerius Flaccus