Silius Italicus Research Articles

The Sorrow of Scipio in Silius Italicus' Punica

In thePunica, Silius Italicus narrates the events of the Second Punic War from the rise of Hannibal and his siege at Saguntum to the rise of Scipio Africanus and his triumph over Carthage. The importance of Scipio in the final books of thePunicais foreshadowed by events earlier in the poem; these early appearances of Scipio emphasise not only his future heroism and divine favour, but also his youth and immaturity. Although a development of his character can be traced through thePunica, the figure of Scipio is complex and contradictory. There are two significant episodes that bring Scipio into the forefront of the epic action—hisnekyiain Book 13 and his choice at the crossroads between Virtus and Voluptas in Book 15. These events are critical in understanding Scipio's role in thePunicaand as such have already received considerable scholarly attention. My focus will be onPunica13 and Scipio's trip to the underworld, but rather than analyse this passage in terms of Scipio's development and heroism, I would like to make a number of connections betweenPunica13 and passages in the first half of the epic, and, in doing so, suggest a somewhat different reading of Silius' presentation of Scipio that looks back to the disasters leading up to Cannae, rather than ahead to Rome's triumph at the end of the epic. I will begin, therefore, with a discussion of what bearing the structure of thePunicahas on its meaning and suggest different uses of symbols and imagery between the two halves of the poem, before turning to Scipio in the second half of the epic.

The Story of a Fragment of L. Annaeus Cornutus

As testified by a fragment, which survived in the oeuvre of Charisius, a grammarian from the late Antiquity, L. Annaeus Cornutus dedicated his critical work on Virgil to Silius Italicus, the author of the epic entitled Punica, who belonged to Nero's circle of literati in his youth. Given the knowledge of the history of Nero's literary circle and the findings of a careful examination of the fragment, it can be assumed that this work of Cornutus, which might have been quoted by Pliny the Elder in his Dubius sermo, was probably written and published in the early 60s (A.D.).

Testing the Legend: Horace, Silius Italicus and the Case of Marcus Atilius Regulus

After Marcus Atilius Regulus made inroads into North Africa as consul in 256 B.C. during the first Punic War, the Carthaginians were apparently ready to negotiate a settlement, but Regulus offered terms so harsh that they were refused out of hand. At this point Xanthippus, the Spartan mercenary-general, arrived on the Carthaginian side and soon made an impact as a shrewd and uplifting leader, not least because, in a dramatic reversal of fortunes, he captured Regulus, by then proconsul, by ambush in 255. Regulus' subsequent fate, embellished in the later literary-historical tradition, was enshrined in die familiar version here represented by Valerius Maximus:Sed quae ad custodiam religionis attinent, nescio an omnes M. Atilius Regulus praecesserit, qui ex victore speciosissimo insidiis Hasdrubalis et Xanthippi Lacedaemonii ducis ad miserabilem captiui fortunam deductus ac missus ad senatum populumque Romanum legatus, ut se et uno et sene complures Poenorum iuuenes pensarentur, in contrarium dato consilio Carthaginem petiit, non quid <em> ignarus ad quam crudeles quamque merito sibi infestos † deos † reuerteretur, uerum quia iis iurauerat, si captiui eorum redditi non forent, ad eos sese rediturum. potuerunt profecto di immortales efferatam mitigare saeuitiam. ceterum, quo clarior esset Atili gloria, Carthaginienses moribus suis uti passi sunt, tertio Punico bello religiosissimi spiritus tarn crudeliter uexati urbis eorum interitu iusta exacturi piacula.

Lucan's Reception of Ovid's Metamorphoses

Two new trends emerged in Latin literary studies at the close of the last millennium. One was the surge of interest in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as an Augustan-age alternative to Vergil’s Aeneid; the other was the revaluation of the post-Augustan epics written by Lucan, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus. Both trends helped lift the fortunes of these poets, which reached bottom as classicism and romanticism peaked in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. It is consequently tempting—and partly correct—to ascribe the rehabilitation of the Metamorphoses, on the one hand, and Neronian and Flavian epic, on the other, to a set of common causes. But more significant recently may have been the methodological tendency to dissociate Ovid from his followers in the epic genre. It used to

Brevity, Conciseness, and Compression in Roman Poetic Criticism and the Text of Gellius' Noctes Atticae 19.9.10

Brevity, Conciseness, and Compression in Roman Poetic Criticism and the Text of Gellius' Noctes Atticae 19.9.10 Amiel D. Vardi Gellius Reproduces in Noctes Atticae 19.9.10 four early Latin epigrams he reports to have been recited by his teacher Antonius Julianus, on which he remarks: quibus mundius, venustius, limatius, tersius Graecum Latinumve nihil quicquam reperiri puto. tersius Salmasius followed by most editors: persius Q, pessius Z, pressius Fγ Now that Salmasius' admiration for the Parisian Q and the whole δ family has abated,1 there is no reason to prefer the emendation over the reading of F and γ, especially since the readings of both manuscripts of the δ family could easily have originated in . But Jacobus Gronovius, in his 1706 edition, objects to pressius on the grounds that the idea of conciseness is not relevant in this context.2 A consideration of both this reading and the emendation is therefore appropriate. There is no other occurrence of tersus in Noctes Atticae, though the word is quite a common literary term from the time of Quintilian on. In his Institutio Oratoria it is used with reference to oratory (12.10.20, 50), to elegy (10.1.93, tersus atque elegans), and to Horace's advantage over Lucilius (10.1.94, tersus ac purus). It serves the younger Pliny, again both for prose style (Ep. 2.3.1, 7.25.4) and for elegy (9.22.2, tersum, molle, iucundum), and Porphyrio ascribes it to Horace's style (ad Hor. S. 1.4.8, tersus atque eleganter). The meaning of the term seems always to be that of "polished" or "refined" and is thus not much different from limatus, which precedes it according to the vulgate reading in [End Page 291] NA 19.9.10. The combination limatius, tersius would thus be somewhat pleonastic, but such coupling of synonyms is not alien to Gellius' style,3 and the combination tersum ac limatum is also found in Quintilian (Inst. 12.10.50). The reading limatius, tersius in the Gellian passage therefore has no obvious lexical deficiencies, and if pressius had failed to satisfy, it would indeed have been a happy emendation. Pressus is an older stylistic term, commonly employed in rhetorical discussions by Cicero, the younger Seneca, Quintilian, the younger Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius. In this context it normally serves, side by side with brevis, as a Latin equivalent for , to designate the virtus dicendi of brevity, which was added to the Theophrastean by the Stoics but, except in narratio, not always favored by rhetoricians with a taste for the grand style, especially Cicero and his admirers.4 The term is coupled with limatus by Cicero (Brut. 35, Orat. 20) and Quintilian (Inst. 2.8.4, 11.1.3 twice), with reference to the genus subtile or the Atticist style. It serves Gellius in three other places (1.3.21, 2.6.5, 10.6.2), all in the adverbial comparative form pressius but not in the sense "concise," which would be its meaning in 19.9.10.5 With reference to poetry, pressus is found in this sense in Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.46, on Homer's style; 12.10.38, an advantage of the Greek language over Latin), and Silius Italicus employs the metaphor pressis metis, taken from chariot racing, with reference to epic narrative and corresponding to breviter . . . revolvere (Pun. 8.48). Terminology apart, the demand for brevity in poetic texts is quite common, and precedes that in rhetorical theory.6 In Roman poetic theory it is emphasized by Horace, both in Ars Poetica (25, 335-37) and in his criticism of Lucilius (S. 1.4.11-13, 1.10.50-51).7 Whereas in the passages from Ars Poetica Horace and the Hellenistic doctrines he follows8 [End Page 292] seem to adopt the rhetorical virtutes dicendi to poetry,9 the metaphor of the muddy stream ( flueret lutulentus) used in his Sermones suggests dependence on a completely different tradition, that of the poetic ideal of and Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo, already evoked in Catullus' poem 95.10 This fortuitous coincidence of rhetorical and Callimachean doctrines, often also formulated in the same terminology,11 continues to obfuscate the theoretical...

Silius' Rome: The Rewriting of Vergil's Vision

A recent English-language textbook on Greek and Roman historical epic begins its account of Silius Italicus by describing the author of thePunicaas ‘not a literary person. Most of his long life was spent in the Roman civil service’. Then, after suggesting that the poet was seeking to make up for earlier missed opportunities by writing what is the longest surviving Latin epic, the potted biography concludes by declaring that his actual demise was in line with Stoic theory: ‘Silius met a bookish end…he starved himself to death.’While these remarks will not be left unchallenged, the very venom of the reaction to them is instructive. Scandalised, a reader of an earlier version of this paper thought that they should never be mentioned or at best buried in a footnote. After all, Wallace Stevens worked for a living too. No, show us that Silius is agoodpoet.

Silius Italicus 10.108 and Jupiter's eagles

(The text is that of the most recent edition of Silius Italicus: Punica, by Josef Delz [Stuttgart, 1987].)

Silius Italicus et Valerius Flaccus

A comparative study of Valerius Fìaccus'Argonautica and Silius Italicus'Pi/mca reveals several similitudes between the two poets. All these clues are likely to suggest that Silius sometimes took hints from Valerius, especially concerning the images of storms and fights, and also in episodes such as the collective suicides of the Sagontines and of the Capuans. This imitatio is attended by aemulatio, founded on hyperbole, descriptive outbidding, and contamination with other sources. It implies that Silius knew, at least partially, the Argonautica when he began to write the Punica about 80 A. C, and consequently, that Valerius began his own epic between 70 and 76 A. C.

Domizio Calderini and the Text of the Elder Pliny’s Natural History: Evidence from the ‘Lost’ Commentary on Silius Italicus

When the late fifteenth-century humanist Domizio Calderini began his project of lecturing and then compiling printed commentaries on such ‘difficult’ authors as Juvenal, Martial, Statius and Propertius, the elder Pliny’s Natural History, with its treasure trove of multifarious information, was one of his main sources. Indeed, the frequency with which the notes on Silius Italicus which are the subject of this paper draw on the Natural History was one of the factors supporting their attribution to Domizio Calderini. The notes stemming from Calderini’s lectures on Silius probably date from 1470-73. In his extant works, in the commentaries on Martial, Juvenal, Statius Silvae and Ovid Ibis, Calderini makes specific references back to his lectures on Silius sixteen times with such phrases as ‘in commentariis Silii recitavimus’ (ad Stat. Silv. 2.2.61) and ‘ut apud Silium exposuimus’ (ad Mart. 1.87.5).

Ending epic: Statius, Theseus and a merciful release

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.Nietzsche,Beyond Good and EvilStatius'Thebaidis a rarity. More of the surviving Latin epics of the classical period are incomplete or unfinished than not: Lucan'sBellum civile, Valerius Flaccus'Argonautica, Statius'Achilleid, perhaps Silius Italicus'Punicaand of course Virgil'sAeneid(although his dissatisfaction may relate to polish rather than scope: we do not know). Only Ovid'sMetamorphosesand Statius'Thebaidseem complete. Yet the question of epic endings casts a fascination upon critics, especially perhaps where the ending does not exist or where there is evidence that it is not the ending planned by the author. Critics use their interpretations of the endings to inscribe meaning in the preceding text and to clinch one reading against another. The readings advanced enact different kinds of closure or refuse to see any closure at all.It seems paradoxical that one of the few epics to survive complete has not yet received a full stint of attention devoted to its ending. In this paper, my purpose is to situate the end of theThebaidin its literary and ideological context. This involves examining how the close of the poem interacts with earlier epic, particularly with theAeneid. My argument is that Statius offers a supplement to, or even a critique of, the open-endedness of theAeneidin the form of a triptych of resounding endings. I shall then suggest that there are other elements in Statius' closural strategy which are highlighted by a consideration of his Romanisation of his Greek material.

John Kynaston (1728-83), A Neglected Shakespearean

T HE OBITUARY COLUMNS OF THE JULY 1783 GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE (hereafter GM) announced death June, at Wigan in Lancashire, [of] rev. Jn. M.A. a gentleman whose friendly labours have frequently embellished our Magazine. After a short biographical sketch, obituarist, John Nichols, wrote that from 1764 on Kynaston had resided, in not best state of health, at Wigan principally, loved and respected by a few select friends; amongst whom writer of this article is happy to place himself: though he never had pleasure of seeing Mr. K. he has often been delighted, and his own literary labours facilitated, by this valuable correspondent.' It was not until November 1791, however, that a certain R. B. wrote to GM and, among other matters, casually mentioned a criticism of Silius offered by my old friend Kynaston, thus making possible identification of Kynaston with contributor of a 1772 Critical Enquiry concerning Propriety of Some Passages in Silius Italicus by Q from Wigan.2 From 1771 through 1782, writing as Q contributed some thirty-five to forty-five items to GM. Interestingly enough, Nichols, who acknowledged Kynaston's help in his Literary Anecdotes, did not mention that Kynaston used Q as his signature. Uncertainty about actual number of items (letters, poems, miscellaneous observations on other contributors) arises from fact while all are signed Q thirteen of items are not attributed to Wigan or Caerhaes, Cornwall, near Tregony, as are all others. Kynaston's first contribution to GM, printed in September 1772 issue, was also his first appearance in role of literary critic, defending text of Hamlet's Or to take arms against a of troubles (3.1.58) against emendations of Pope and Warburton.3 He pointed out a parallel passage in Vinctus of AEschylus, Athenian Shakespeare, from which one stroke of imagery might seem to have been literally copied. .. and another, in which figure is, certainly, as harsh as that, quoting verses 671 and 810-11 from that tragedy.4 Lewis Theobald, years earlier, had quoted a parallel passage from Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes, and in 1785 Stephen Weston was to quote verse 885 of Prometheus Vinctus, unaware that Kynaston had anticipated him by more than ten years. Only Theobald's note gets into New Variorum edition. In December of same year, Kynaston added parallels to sea of troubles from two modern poets, Baudius and an anonymous modern Greek songwriter, quoted by the very ingenious M. de Guys ... in his SentimentalJourney thro' Greece. 5 Not content with addition to his note on Hamlet in December 1772 GM, Kynaston turned to The Tempest in another contribution of same month. The design of his remarks was chiefly to bring into one point of view several qualities which

Las cláusulas anómalas en la obra de Silio Itálico: estudio métrico y estilístico

This paper offers a study of the working of non-regular clauses in dactylic hexameter in Silius Italicus’ Punica and makes a comparison between his procedures and the «model poets», mainly Virgil’s. Silius Italicus uses non-regular clauses much less frequently than Virgil, but with similar stylistic values. The most frequent clauses are those we will call si bona norint and armaque nostra , which usually appear related to enjambement. However, Silius Italicus’ main innovation lies in his use of both types of clauses, combined with enjambement and chiasmus.

Silius Italicus as ‘Doctvs Poeta’

The second half of the first century A.D. is the age of the senatorial poet at Rome. While previously Rome's poets frequently were outsiders adopted into the system (Vergil and Horace in particular come to mind in this connection), now members of the inner circles of government could actively display their literary talents and preferences. There can be little doubt that the reign of Nero is mainly responsible for this state of affairs — there is a revival of Roman poetry such as has not been seen since the age of Augustus, evidenced by the diverse works of Lucan, Persius, and even the emperor himself. Previous emperors had dabbled in poetry, but as hardly anything more than a hobby. Now the most important personages in the Roman state could openly engage in creative writing. This trend, beginning under Nero, continues in the Flavian Age, many of whose most prominent members, including the founder of the dynasty himself, originally came to the forefront under the last of the Julio-Claudians. The poetic capabilities of the emperor Domitian are praised by Quintilian (10.1.91) and by Valerius Flaccus (1.12-14); the latter seems at least to have begun his epic with its Greek mythological theme under Vespasian. An author who is often less well regarded had first come to public attention under Nero and remained prominent under the Flavians — Silius Italicus.

Flavian Epicists on Virgil's Epic Technique

Despite some notable recent essays in the rehabilitation of the Latin epic of the first century A.D., there remains a prejudice that post-Virgilian epicists are slavishly imitative in a way that Virgil (and his contemporaries in other genres) are not. The following three studies, in Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus, are contributions to an argument, currently being conducted on a wide front, that imitation, even of a very close kind, may behave in a dynamic and creative way; in particular I wish to show how the epigone may function as an implicit literary analyst or critic, anticipating the results of twentieth-century criticism. My three examples take their starting-point from what I see as a general modern consensus about the nature of Virgilian epic, but the direction could be reversed, that is, we might use post-Virgilian epic as a critical aid toourreading of Virgil.I take individual passages from the Flavian epics in whichtwo(or more) passages of theAeneidare laid under contribution; analysis of such passages reveals that the later poets were reading Virgil with an eye to structural correspondences or contrasts, and to image-structures reaching from the small scale of the ‘multiple-correspondence simile’ to the large scale of patterns that arch over the whole text, features that have been at the centre of much modern Virgilian criticism. Repeated reading of theAeneidreinforces the impression of a vast structure of self-allusion and self-comment aiming for a maximal transparency of the text to itself, in so far as theprima materiaof language will allow, and demanding a ‘simultaneous reading’ that is more spatial than temporal. The fragmentary state of previous large-scale Hellenistic poetry makes it difficult to judge of the originality of Virgil in this extreme extension of the features of repetition and self-allusion that characterize all literary works; but, for example, every increase in our knowledge of Callimachus'Aitiamakes it seem more likely that it was constructed in a similar way.

Textual Strategies and Political Suicide in Flavian Epic

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.

Archimedes and the Invention of Artillery and Gunpowder

The part that Archimedes' weapons played in the defense of Syracuse was fully attested by Polybius (Histories, 8:2:3.2-8.4) and repeated with some variations by Livy (Ab Urbe Condita, 24:34) and Plutarch (Vitae, 14:7). While some have felt that their accounts were overromanticized, more have considered that the descriptions were accurate and within the capacity of Hellenistic technology.' Later and less reliable authors added the weapon of fire-incendiary materials (Silius Italicus, Punica, 14:300-315), prototype Greek fire (Galen, De Temp, C3.2), a burning mirror (Anthemius, On Burning Mirrors), or just scientific means (Lucian, Hippias, C.2). Fire may well have been used in the siege; it was a standard weapon of the period. However, there is no authentic evidence that Archimedes made any special use of it. Nonetheless, legends of both the Greek fire and the burning mirror have survived to the present day, and belief in the latter story is still strong.2 The attribution of one other weapon to Archimedes does not appear to be so well known, yet it is much more extraordinary still-the

The Fall of the Capitol Again: Tacitus, Ann. II. 23

In JRS 43 (1953), 77 f. I stated that in a number of passages Silius Italicus (1. 625 f.; 4. 150 f.; 6. 555 f.) seems to attest a version of history according to which not only the city but the Capitol also was taken by the Gauls. I therefore suggested that the same version I should be recognized in Ennius, Ann. 164 f.:qua Galli furtim noctu summa arcis adortimoenia concubia uigilesque repente cruentant.

Silius Italicus, Cataphracti, and the Date of Q. Curtius Rufus

Silius Italicus, Cataphracti, and the Date of Q. Curtius Rufus

Some Recollections of Virgil's Drances in Later Epic

Previous articleNext article No AccessNotes and DiscussionsSome Recollections of Virgil's Drances in Later EpicRichard T. BruèreRichard T. Bruère Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 66, Number 1Jan., 1971 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/365688 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1971 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Antony Augoustakis The Other as Same: Non‐Roman Mothers in Silius Italicus’ Punica Augoustakis, Classical Philology 103, no.11 (Jul 2015): 55–76.https://doi.org/10.1086/590094

Some Aspects of Time in the Punica of Silius Italicus

Some Aspects of Time in the Punica of Silius Italicus