Flavian Poetry Research Articles

The Representation of Slavery in the Greek Novel: Resistance and Appropriation by William M. Owens

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 421 and obsession with atonement and purification. Offering his life on behalf of his fellow citizens, a quintessentially Roman response to divine anger, Coroebus fits the role of the “providential outsider” much celebrated in Flavian rhetoric. The Callimachean hero also glances at the Flavian “myth” of the young Domitian offering his life and being spared by the gods during the siege of the Capitol in 69 c.e. Coroebus’ “Romanized” narrative of self-sacrifice and redemption is anticipated by the representation of Perseus and Ganymede on Adrastus’ cup: associated by a long tradition with regal attributes such as the ability to keep monstrous enemies under control (Perseus) and apotheosis (Ganymede), both characters can be read, like Coroebus himself, as projections of emperors past and present. In Chapter Six, Rebeggiani interrogates Statius’ response to Roman readings of the Theban war as the product of cultural incompatibility. Rebeggiani defines the place occupied in Roman cultural memory by the Gallic assault of the year 390 b.c.e., and he focuses on the relevance of that event for the crisis of 69 c.e.: the Flavians, as Rebeggiani points out, construed Vitellius’ invasion of Italy as a barbaric assault, and compared his burning of the Capitoline to the destruction of Rome by the Gauls. Moreover, to address Flavian emperors, the panegyrists resumed the narrative of the “providential outsider” who rescues Rome in a time of crisis, and Vespasian even appropriated Greek versions of the Celtomachy. With this background, Rebeggiani reads the Argive assault on Thebes in Thebaid 10 as a projection of foreign attacks on Rome and identifies Menoeceus as a mythical projection of the providential outsider figure. Menoeceus is thus connected to panegyrical presentations of the young Domitian as a saviour in the crisis of the year 69: after all, the Theban prince “is the only character who manages to conquer immortality in a poem that starts with a prophecy of Domitian’s transformation into a god” (258). To conclude, not everyone will feel compelled to believe that Statius conceived of himself as an “adviser of kings”; however, Rebeggiani demonstrates beyond doubt that Statius’ poetry was instrumental in articulating the complex ideology of Domitian’s time, and this book will be an instructive reading for anyone interested in Flavian poetry and in the intellectual history of the early Roman empire. University of Toronto Lorenza Bennardo The Representation of Slavery in the Greek Novel: Resistance and Appropriation . By William M. Owens. London: Routledge. 2020. Pp. ix, 244. The central thesis of the book, from which all its other observations flow, is that the two earliest surviving Greek novelists, Xenophon of Ephesus and Chariton of Aphrodisias , had a different audience (largely slave), point of view (largely pro-slave), and social status (potentially servile background themselves) than the later three, Longus, Achilles Tatius, and Heliodorus. The book is divided into six chapters: while Chapters One and Two deal with Xenophon’s Ephesiaca (“Enslavement and Folktale”) and Chariton’s Callirhoe (“Narratives of Slavery Explicit and Implied, Told and Retold”), Chapter Three (“Two Novels about Slavery”) argues that Xenophon and Chariton’s shared background led to similar approaches to their material. The last three chapters are devoted one each to Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (“Slavery as Nature and Art”), Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon (“Slavery and Literary Play”), and Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (“Love and Slavery, Philosophy and the Novel”). A short afterword summarizes the conclusions. 422 PHOENIX The subversion of servile status that Owens detects in the first two novelists (10–17) leads him to contemplate the audience and also the status of Xenophon and Chariton in Chapter Three (88–120). Ancient critique was derisive, dismissing the novel as sufferable for nannies to read over cribs but not suitable to the curriculum (so Macrobius in his commentary on Cicero, Somnium Scipionis 2.7–8). Owens notes that in antiquity those nannies would have normally, or nominally, been slaves, and that the grammatici, tutors to the aristocratic young, at least as evidenced by Suetonius, were more often than not slaves themselves (esp. 219–220). He extrapolates from this a readership that might have comprised a substantial number of slaves or manumitted slaves, to whom these...

Statius, Thebaid 8 by Antony Augoustakis

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 419 imagery conflicts with Lucretius’ aim of bringing dark subjects before his reader’s eyes. Fratantuono presents a rather bleak view of the DRN, despite its many positive pleasurable aspects and the fact that Lucretius surely intended Epicureanism to appear attractive to his reader. Where the content is less palatable, Lucretius’ reader is armed to feel calm detachment (Epicurean ataraxia). This is overlooked by Fratantuono, perhaps understandably, since his book is “not . . . a primer in Greek philosophy” (x). Yet Lucretius without Epicureanism is scarcely Lucretius at all. Fratantuono suggests the goal of his book might be “to instil a deeper love for Lucretius in his readers” (xi). However, the Lucretius Fratantuono presents, with science divorced from poetry and philosophy subordinate to narrative, is far from the Lucretius this reader knows and loves. Wellington College Matthew Johncock Statius, THEBAID 8. Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary by Antony Augoustakis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2016. Pp. lxxv, 449. In the last decade, Antony Augoustakis has contributed significantly to our understanding of Flavian poetry: himself the author of thought-provoking interpretations, he has also engaged other scholars in the task of further defining the “Flavian Renaissance.”1 Now he approaches Statius within the more traditional and, to a certain extent, more rigid compass of a full-scale commentary on Statius’ Thebaid 8 (the first since Caspar von Barth’s handling of the book in his collection of notes on Statius’ works),2 thus adding a welcome and long-awaited contribution to the Oxford University Press’s corpus of commentaries on single books of the Thebaid.3 This detailed and careful volume enriches the landscape of Statian studies with a solid, up-to-date resource and was certainly worth the wait. The volume contains a general introduction, the Latin text with critical apparatus, an English translation, the commentary, and an extensive (but not overwhelming) bibliography . Augoustakis masters an impressive number of primary and secondary sources, and his handling of the bibliography is forward looking. He systematically uses the most recent works on the transmission and reception of Statius4 to assert their relevance in improving our knowledge of the manuscripts and clarifying the poet’s position in the culture of modern Europe. Additionally, he takes into account unpublished or in-progress contributions , allowing us to glimpse future developments in the study of Flavian literature. The introduction balances information and interpretation. Information is provided concisely and effectively, with reference to the most recent critical literature: Statius is 1 He has edited volumes such as Flavian Epic (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies) (Oxford 2016) and Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic (Oxford 2013). 2 C. von Barth, P.P. Statii quae exstant (3 vols., Zwickau 1664). 3 See M. Dewar (ed.), Statius, Thebaid IX (Oxford 1991); R. Parkes, Statius, Thebaid 4 (Oxford 2012); and K. Gervais (ed.), Statius, Thebaid 2 (Oxford 2017). 4 See especially J. B. Hall, A. L. Ritchie, and M. J. Edwards, P. Papinius Statius: Thebaid and Achilleid (3 vols.; Newcastle 2008); H. Anderson, The Manuscripts of Statius (3 vols.; Arlington 2009); V. Berlincourt, Commenter la Thébaı̈de (16e–19e s.): Caspar von Barth et la tradition exégétique de Stace (Leiden 2013). 420 PHOENIX discussed as poet between two worlds5 and a biography is provided that focuses on the poet’s relationship with his father as its most relevant and securely historical element. In presenting the Thebaid, attention is paid to exemplary critical readings of the poem as a whole, and to links of Book 8 with Books 2, 4, and 7. Augoustakis gathers an exhaustive list of Greek and Latin sources for Amphiaraus’ katabasis and hero worship (xxiv–xxx) and Tydeus’ cannibalism (xxx–xl), and he covers in detail the reception (lviii–lxxiii) of Thebaid 8, from antiquity (noting potential intertexts in Tacitus and Juvenal) to the Renaissance and beyond, with insights into the vernacular tradition, fifteenth-century neo-Latin epic, and the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English translations that so vastly contributed to "the dissemination of the poem to wider audiences” (lxxii). The extent of Statius’ influence on later centuries inevitably limits Augoustakis to providing us with what is chie...

Antony Augoustakis, Flavian Poetry and Its Greek Past. Mnemosyne Supplements Volume 366. Monographs on Greek and Roman Language and Literature.

Antony Augoustakis, <i>Flavian Poetry and Its Greek Past. </i>Mnemosyne Supplements Volume 366. Monographs on Greek and Roman Language and Literature.