Roman Epic Research Articles

Mad about Winning: Epic, War and Madness in the Games of Statius' Thebaid

Statius' Thebaid is the maddest of Roman epics, as Hershkowitz has recently shown in her excellent study of madness in epic1. For insight into epic madness, start here2. Epic madness is always problematic: the boundaries between appropriate heroic fervour and unacceptable furor are impossible to place securely and often blurred3. This paper will not attempt to define the limits of epic madness; instead it attempts to do full justice to the complexity of Statian madness in the Tbebaid, which Hershkowitz presents as driven by a single pattern of madness4. She isolâtes a master-pattern of increasing madness leading to increasing energy in the plot, only to subside in lassitude5. Her interest in this one pattern shapes her readings of all Statius' heroes. However, in my

IV. TheAeneid

At the heart of theAeneidthe hero descends to the world of the dead and in its innermost recess is reunited with his father. Anchises, Aeneas’s link to his destroyed Trojan past, reveals to his son the future of his race in the form of a procession of the souls of Roman heroes as yet unborn. In this place where time past, present, and future is held together, theAeneidalso comes to a heightened consciousness of its own literary genealogy, as literary memory is overlaid on family and racial memory. The whole of the Underworld episode is modelled on Odysseus’ visit to the land of the dead inOdyssey11: Aeneas’ meeting with his father reworks Odysseus’ meeting with his mother Anticleia (Od.11.152–224), which is immediately followed by the Catalogue of Heroines (Od.11.225–332), the formal model for Virgil’s very masculine Parade of Heroes. But the tears and words with which Anchises greets his son (6.684–9) allude to the Roman epic of Ennius and specifically to the scene at the opening of theAnnalsin which Ennius established his own place within the epic tradition, by narrating a dream in which the phantom of Homer explained to the sleeping poet how, through a Pythagorean metempsychosis, the true soul of Homer was reincarnated in the breast of Ennius himself. In restaging this scene of succession in the dreamlike setting of the Underworld Virgil hints at his own relationship to the dead epic poets to whose company he seeks admittance. The encounter of Aeneas and Anchises occurs within a set-piece of Homeric imitation; Anchises’ running commentary on the Parade of Heroes functions as a summary of the matter of Ennius’ historical epic, which it ‘completes’ by extending the story to Augustus’ achievement of world-empire and restoration of a Golden Age (6.791–800). Ennian historical epic is thus framed in a Homeric mythological episode; in the first part of his speech (6.724–51) Anchises encapsulates another branch of the hexameter tradition, with a philosophico-theological account of the nature of the world and of the soul that is indebted both to Anticleia’s explanation to Odysseus of what happens to humans after death (Od.11.216–24) and to the Ennian Homer’s more philosophical account of these matters, but couched in markedly Lucretian language: a miniature didactic ‘de rerum natura’ to set beside the miniatureAnnalsthat is to follow.

The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica

R. Hunter: The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica 13 The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica Richard Hunter Epic poetry seeks to map the world, both as a physical and as an ideological construct. Just as Homer was the source of all literature, all philosophy, and all political science, so epic is the all-encompassing literary embodiment of all that is known. If it was the Shield of Achilles—itself both microcosm and macrocosmwhich was for later ages the most obvious epic site where spatial and cultural dispositions were clearly inter-dependent,1 it was the Odyssey which taught for all time how geographic and cultural maps could never be totally distinct entities. The persistence ofdiis pattern of thought in later Greek science (especially medicine) and ethnography has often been documented. Recent years have explored to excellent effect the consequences which diis aspect of the Greek heritage had in Roman epic and in the Aeneid in particular, one need only think of the complementary, though very different, books of Philip Hardie and Claude Nicolet.2 It is now well understood that the Aeneid does not merely plot the foundation of Roman imperial power, but also marks out the space of that power, geographically, morally, and politically. A fundamental technique in Vergil's project is the interplay of "epic time" and "historical time:" the institutions and ideology of Augustan Rome are retrojected into (or, perhaps, mapped on to) the epic past, thus confirming that the new order, far from being "new" in an absolute sense, is of pristine antiquity. In seeking to understand the earlier history of this process, the Argonautica of Apollonius seems an obvious starting-point. The Argonautica-oi so I have argued elsewhere~was a crucial text in the development of Vergil's strategy, both because some of Apollonius' concerns are similar to those of Vergil, and because the Roman poet chose to read the Greek epic 1 Cf., e.g., P.R. Hardie, "Imago mundi: Cosmological and Ideological Aspects of the Shield of Achilles," JHS 105 (1985) 11-31. 2 PJl. Hardie, Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford 1986); C. Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the early Roman Empire (Michigan 1991) translating L'inventaire du monde: géographie etpolitique aux origines de l'Empire romain (Paris 1988). There is also much of interest on this subject in D. Quint, Epic and Empire. Politics and Generic Formfrom Virgil to Milton (Princeton 1993). 14Syllecta Classica 6 (1995) in such a way as to fashion the prior text to his own purpose.3 Moreover, there are good reasons to dunk diat the Argonautic story had always been a narrative in which the boundaries of "history" and "myth" were available for negotiation; the aetiological dimension was fundamental to the whole narrative, not merely a casual offshoot of it.4 More specifically, the Argonautica of Apollonius yields close parallels to some of Vergil's techniques of "mixing time." Thus, for example, it is now generally accepted diat the account, in the mouth ofLykos, of the history of the Mariandynoi reflects recent events and, in particular, the political aspirations of the people ofHeraclea Pontica (2.774-810);5 whatever the details, it is clear diat mythic history is in this passage accommodated to recent history in a way diat becomes very familiar in the Roman epic. Moreover, Apollonius lived in a period of considerable interest in geography and geographical writing, some of which is doubtless reflected in his epic.6 There are, therefore, reasons to hope that wider enquiries concerning the relation between the Argonautica and the political and social world in which it was written may not be fruitless, although this relation has, until recently, attracted remarkably little critical attention.7 In diis paper I shall examine two different aspects of the Argonautic "map," in both of which, however, we can see how the geographical and the moral or cultural parameters of the poem run together. In Section I, I shall deal briefly with the passage of the Argo through the Symplegades and the voyage along the southern Pontic shore, and in Section II, I shall be concerned with the religious horizons of the epic. I Much...

Vergil's Aeneid and Fourth ("Messianic") Eclogue in Dryden Translation

It seems to be a fact of literary history that Vergil's great Roman epic, the Aeneid (29-19 B.C.), is the most popular work of the imagination in the history of Western civilization, in the sense that it has probably been read by more people than have read any other literary work in the past two thousand years. Naturally, it has often been translated, but the most prestigious translation remains that by John Dryden (1697), which itself ranks as the third most popular translation in English literature, behind only the King James Bible and Pope's Iliad. Dryden's work is also the only long poem of merit in English literature between Milton and Pope. Yet it is almost impossible to find an annotated translation of the Aeneid, that is, a translation with the kind of introductory and explanatory material that would enable readers to understand and appreciate Vergil's achievement. Similarly, Dryden's translation has not been as available as it deserves. To meet these needs, Howard Clarke offers Vergil's story in Dryden's version, with the kind of information that would make the experience of reading these two classics both convenient and informative. A small bonus has been the addition of Vergil's Fourth (or 'Messianic') Eclogue, the brief poem that predicted the birth of a wonderful child and thereby made Vergil seem something more than just a pagan poet. Since Dryden's translation was a product of its time, the late seventeenth century, when the conventions of translation were much looser than they are now, his work has sometimes been criticized for its liberties and inaccuracies. Both the Introduction and the Notes to this edition take account of these complaints and single those passages where Dryden has significantly deviated from Vergil's original. Also, Dryden's spelling and punctuation have been modernized to facilitate reading.

Greek Chronography in Roman Epic: The Calendrical Date of the Fall of Troy in the Aeneid

The last chapter of Politian's first Miscellanea dealt with the amica silentia lunae through which the Greeks sailed back to Troy (Aen. 2.255). He argued that the phrase should not be taken literally, as a statement that Troy fell at the new moon, but in an extended sense, as a poetic indication that the moon had not yet risen when the Greeks set sail. This reading had one merit: it explained how Virgil's moon could be silent while the Greeks were en route but shine during the battle for the city (Aen. 2.340). Yet Politian's effort to identify the phase of the moon described by Virgil was anything but clear:Non igitur aut sera fuerit aut pernox luna, tum nec lunae quidem omnino coitus, sed tempus arbitror potius quamdiu illa non luceret.Accordingly, though his arguments were sometimes repeated by commentators and teachers, they won little assent from scholars who occupied themselves seriously with the passage. In his Adversaria Turnebus took silentia lunae as referring ‘ad noctis taciturnitatem…non ad interlunium’. In the first chapter of his De rebus per epistolam quaesitis Giano Parrasio sharply criticised the fuzziness of Politian's explanation: ‘Ambages istae sunt, ambages’. More important, he quoted a line from the Little Iliad:νὺξ μ⋯ν ἔην μέσση, λαμπρ⋯ δ' ⋯πέτελλε σελήνη.This he rendered ‘Nox erat intempesta, nitebat et aurea coelo Luna’, and inferred from it that the moon had been up when Troy fell. In his Virgilius collation scriptorum Graecorum illustratus, finally, Fulvio Orsini published a scholium on Euripides' Hecuba, one which quoted both the line from the Little Iliad and an analysis of it by the Peripatetic Callisthenes. He too took the line as refuting Politian.

Sensitivity to Shame in Greek and Roman Epic, with Particular Reference to Claudian and Nonnus

English shame and German scham derive from the Gothic schama, ‘to hide, cover, conceal’. German Hemd (shirt) and English and French chemise are other derivatives. In some languages the word for ‘shame’ and the word for ‘wound’ are the same. A wound exposes and can thereby advertise vulnerabilty and a cause for shame. Hiding or covering may seek to guard against wounding, humiliating exposure. Shame is self-evidently an important human emotion. Insofar as animals are innocent of shame, experience of it is a mark of humanity. Much human behaviour is influenced by fear of shame and embarrassment. Living in the face and eyes, shame is very close to the experienced self. Self-image and self-esteem are heavily determined by one's susceptibility to shame. Experience of shame is impossible without a sense of individuation, without a sense of discreteness from the world and of being an object in the eyes of another. Study of shame sensitivity therefore offers many clues to an individual's or a culture's behaviour, sense of identity and relationship to the environment.

Beowulf's Obsequies and the Roman Epic

BEOWULF STUDIES have long since passed beyond the phase in which the poem was valued as much for its museum-like qualities as for whatever esthetic merit could incidentally be found.' It is indeed a rich trove of Germanic lore, but scholarship of late has restored a much wider context, one that the poet himself would have thought most essential to an understanding of his work. I refer to the general acknowledgment that Beowulf, for all its surface paganism, is fundamentally Christian.2 Nearly every pagan element has been justified by what is now known of the poet's esthetic and religious presuppositions. As they have learned more about English culture in the eighth century,3 scholars have been able to reinterpret those passages which used to be dismissed as pious interpolations. In addition, some have claimed that the poem's Christian authorship implies fields of thought other than the accumulated wisdom of the Church Fathers. With respect to the literary culture of the age, I should like to examine a question, or problem, set aside by most early scholars, who were unwilling to concede any influence but that of pagan Germania. It is the question whether certain parts of Beowulf were inspired by the Roman epic. It must be emphasized that one should not visualize the poet as having Virgil at hand while he composed. Neither the Aeneid nor any

Sosia and Roman Epic

THE first act of Plautus' Amphitruo contains well-known description by slave Sosia of his master's victory over Teleboans. The passage has given rise to a great deal of discussion, main points at issue being whether Sosia's narrative is to be taken seriously or not, and on what original or model it was based. In this article I shall try to offer a brief survey of some of interpretations that have been put forward, to advance reasons for supposing passage to be burlesque in character, and to note and consider certain similarities which it bears to epic. Some critics have taken view that Sosia's words constitute a piece of serious writing. In his edition of play Palmer remarks that the ultimatum of Amphitruo . . . pitched battle and crushing defeat of enemy . . . are all in proper Livian style;' on line 87 of first act he comments that the description rises a good deal higher than comic slave: it is quite Homeric. Fraenkel in Plautinisches im Plautus speaks of Plautus enriching his diction with language of tragedy and claims an affinity in style between Ennian drama and Sosia's canticum.2 Webster in Studies in Later Greek Comedy says that narrative evidently interested Plautus and his public not as a piece of comic parody, but as a magnificent description in itself.3 Janne sees references to campaign of M. Fulvius Nobilior against Ambracia, and in fact supposes play to be a command piece, written for Fulvius' triumph, and celebrating birth of Hercules, to whom Fulvius had dedicated a temple.4 Bignone,5 Arnaldi,6 and Rostagni7 may also be mentioned among those who take battle story as serious in intention. Others have regarded passage as some form of parody. Leo thought that it was aimed at similar announcements by messengers in tragedy, comparing Euripides' Heraclidae 830ff.8 Sedgwick's interpretation seems to be along somewhat similar lines.9 Mlle. A. M. Guillemin considers

Character Portrayal in Early Roman Epic

Character Portrayal in Early Roman Epic

Virgil and the Roman Epic

Virgil and the Roman Epic

Vergil's Use of Interea, a Study of the Treatment of Contemporaneous Events in Roman Epic

Vergil's Use of Interea, a Study of the Treatment of Contemporaneous Events in Roman Epic

Aspects of the Speech in Vergil and the Later Roman Epic

Aspects of the Speech in Vergil and the Later Roman Epic