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The Dissertation Committee for Thomas James Bolt Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:

Delusions of Grandeur: Humor, Genre, and Aesthetics in the Poetry of Statius

Committee:

Pramit Chaudhuri, Supervisor

Neil Coffee

Ayelet Haimson Lushkov

Alison Keith

Andrew Riggsby

Delusions of Grandeur: Humor, Genre, and Aesthetics in the Poetry of Statius

Thomas James Bolt

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin August 2019 Dedication

To my parents

Acknowledgements

I have been fortunate enough to have received support from many sources to whom I am forever grateful. First thanks must go to my supervisor, Pramit Chaudhuri. His patience, guidance, and keen eye for detail have been essential for the successful completion of this project. Each word in this dissertation has benefitted from his thoughtful consideration. He has consistently challenged me to think about literature in more creative and deeper ways, and this dissertation — to say nothing of my scholarly perspective as a whole — is much the better for it. I also thank Ayelet

Haimson Lushkov. Apart from her characteristically insightful commentary on this project, I will always be thankful that she took me under her wing while I was a first-year graduate student and assured me that it was, in fact, okay to become a Latinist. Andrew Riggsby, Alison Keith, and Neil

Coffee provided invaluable insights and feedback on this project. I thank each of them for their generosity and their incisive comments from which this dissertation has greatly benefitted. I have been fortunate to have had many outstanding professors throughout my academic career at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Oxford, and Lafayette College. I would like to thank but two here. I will be forever grateful to Markus Dubischar for instilling in me a love for the ancient world and to Matthew Leigh for instilling in me a love of Latin literature. Both have been sources of inspiration and unflagging support over the years.

I would also like to thank the faculty, staff, and fellow graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin for their help and support. In particular, I want to thank Beth Chichester, whose generosity knows no bounds. Furthermore, I thank the Department of Classics and Graduate

School at the University of Texas at Austin for fellowship support during the Fall 2017 semester and numerous travel grants. Additionally, I thank the Andrew W. Mellon Engaged Scholar Initiative for generous financial support in the summers of 2017, 2018, and 2019 as well as the

2018/2019 academic year. v Lizzy Adams, with whom I have had the good fortune to share an office for numerous years, deserves special mention. It is not an overstatement to say that every good idea in this dissertation has been improved by her thoughtful consideration and acute sense of detail. I thank her for tolerating countless hours of musings and, more importantly, for her friendship and enormous support over the last five years in Austin.

I lack the words to express the deepest debts adequately. This dissertation, not to mention my pursuit of higher education at all, would have been impossible without the unconditional love and support of my parents, Mark and Janet Bolt. Words are not enough to convey my love and appreciation. Lastly, I want to express deep gratitude to Javier Escobedo, whose love and support sustained me through the toughest times in writing this dissertation. Without him, the journey to the end of this project, if it had happened at all, would have been tougher, less enjoyable, and less meaningful. I thank him for always believing in me and for supporting me in every way imaginable.

vi Abstract

Delusions of Grandeur: Humor, Genre, and Aesthetics in the Poetry of Statius

Thomas James Bolt, Ph.D.

The University of Texas at Austin, 2019

Supervisor: Pramit Chaudhuri

In this dissertation, I examine humor in Roman literature with a focus on Statius’

Thebaid, Achilleid, and Silvae. I demonstrate that humor is a prevalent feature of Statius’ poetry and takes forms ranging from humorous irony to hyperbolic parody of epic conventions. By instilling humor in his poetic program, Statius challenges several central facets of epic, such as its aesthetic grandeur and lofty idiom; at the same time, he revitalizes and complicates notions about epic’s generic totalizing impulse. What emerges from Statius’ poetry is an aesthetic that embraces polyvalent and diverse registers as well as complex interactions between the humorous and serious tones that both vie for attention.

In the Introduction and Chapter 1, I outline the problems, theoretical and practical, that humor presents an epic poet. I then sketch out definitions and methodology before analyzing salient examples of humorous irony and wordplay in the Thebaid and Achilleid so as to show humor’s variety and breadth in the Statian epics. In Chapter 2, I turn to satire, the quintessential humorous hexameter genre. I argue that the tight interrelationship of the epic and satiric traditions allows Statius to take humorous literary strategies from satire and employ them in epic with ease. In Chapter 3, I investigate one of these strategies, parodic quotation, and argue that vii Statius employs it to render his epic contemporaries and the canon absurd through humorous de- and re-contextualization. In Chapter 4, I consider Statius’ use of the sublime, an influential ancient aesthetic concept. I demonstrate that Statius consistently renders sublimity humorous, thus destabilizing the sublime’s straightforward loftiness and complicating ideas of epic grandeur. By way of conclusion, I consider the political realities of literary humor in the late first century CE through analysis of the Silvae, a collection whose associations with contemporary politics are overt, before briefly reflecting on the legacy of humor in the broader epic tradition.

viii Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 1

1: Humor in Roman Epic ...... 6

2: Totalizing vs. Essential Epic...... 10

3: Humor in Classics ...... 13

4: Definitions ...... 18

5: Statius' Humor ...... 22

6: Chapter Overview ...... 30

Chapter 1: Deocrum and Genre in Statian Epic ...... 33

Introduction: Aristotle and Literary Decorum ...... 33

1: Genre and Humor in Roman Poetry ...... 38

2: Humor in Statian Epic: Irony and Wordplay ...... 49

3: Conclusions...... 72

Chapter 2: Epic and Satire ...... 73

Introduction: Hexameter and Humor ...... 73

1: Epic and Satire: Theory and Practice ...... 73

2: The Thebaid's Concilium Deorum ...... 88

3: Conclusions...... 94

Chapter 3: Parody and Intertext ...... 96

Introduction: Intertextual Theory ...... 96

1: Centos and Bidirectional Intertextuality ...... 97

2: Parodic Intertext in Statius...... 104

3: Conclusions...... 120 ix Chapter 4: The Sublime ...... 121

Introduction: Literary Taste in the Early Imperial Period ...... 121

1: The Longinian Sublime ...... 124

2: The Sublime and Hyperbole ...... 132

3: The Non-Sublime...... 136

4: The Construction of the Sublime in Statius' Thebaid ...... 143

5: Conclusions...... 170

Appendix: Roman Vocabulary of the Sublime ...... 172

Conclusion ...... 177

1: A Synchronic Conclusion: Humor as a Political Strategy in the Silvae ...... 177

2: A Diachronic Perspective: The Legacy of Genre and Humor Beyond Statius ...192

Bibliography ...... 195

x Introduction

Epic is not usually considered a humorous genre. With its plots of war, suffering, loss, and vengeance, and its characteristically elevated style, that should probably come as little surprise. In the Roman world, the genre’s seriousness was further reinforced by its use in classrooms as instructional material for subjects ranging from perfecting Latinitas and grammar to modeling masculinity and reinforcing gender norms.1 These diverse functions — ranging from the moralizing to the prosaic — leave little room for humor, nowhere more so than in the Aeneid, the mastertext of Latin literature, taught at all levels of Roman education, and variously interpreted by ancients and moderns as ideological critique or subversion: you would be hard pressed, indeed, to find two more humorless phrases applied to a work of literature.2

Mikhail Bakhtin has argued that humor and epic are incompatible. Epic takes place in a past so distant that there is an unbridgeable gulf between reader and action which renders laughter impossible:

“It is precisely laughter that destroys the epic, and in general destroys any hierarchical (distancing and valorized) distance. As a distanced image a subject cannot be comical; to be made comical, it must be brought close… Laughter has the remarkable power of making an object come up close, of drawing it into a zone of crude contact where one can finger it familiarly on all sides, turn it upside down, inside out, peer at it from above and below, break open its external shell, look into its center, doubt it, take it apart, dismember it, lay it bare and expose it, examine it freely and experiment with it. Laughter demolishes fear and piety before an object, before a world, making of it an object of familiar contact and thus clearing the ground for an absolutely free investigation of it. Laughter is a vital factor in laying down that prerequisite for fearlessness without which it would be impossible to approach the world realistically.”3

1 See Keith (2000), 8-35 for a wide-ranging discussion of intersections between Roman education and masculinity. 2 Lloyd, (1977), 250, begins his article entitled “Humor in the Aeneid” by saying, “[t]he Aeneid is not a funny poem…I do not wish to persuade that it is.” 3 Bakhtin (1981), 23.

Humor breaks down the boundary that isolates epic in the past because laughter familiarizes objects that are meant to be distant. And in diminishing hierarchical distance, humor challenges one of epic’s core impulses to heroize (i.e., elevate and render untouchable). Yet while Bakhtin argues that humor “destroys” epic, I posit that it only destroys a certain kind of epic—epic that would valorize the past and cast it heroically. In practice, this vision of epic represents an extreme that is little borne out by the more complex and nuanced works in the literary record, especially those of classical antiquity.

For Bakhtin, epic action occurs at an unbridgeable distance from the audience, and that distance accounts for an important aspect of the genre’s essence: “it [epic] is both monochronic and valorized (hierarchical) … it is walled off absolutely from all subsequent times … This boundary, consequently, is immanent in the form of epic itself and is felt and heard in every word. To destroy this boundary is to destroy the form of epic as a genre.”4 In other words, epic’s temporal remove from the audience is one of the defining aspects of epic.

Bakhtin’s terms are overly general and do not account for much Roman epic where the dividing line between epic action and contemporary Rome is ill-defined or even ostentatiously bridged as in the Parade of Heroes (Verg. Aen. 6.756-853) or the Shield of

Aeneas (8.626-728).5 Roman historical epic, such Lucan’s De Bello Ciuili or Silius’ Punica, poses an even more problems for Bakhtin, as the temporal remove is drastically reduced or, in the case of Ennius’ Annales or Naevius Bellum Punicum, non-existent. Nevertheless,

Bakhtin’s point that epic’s action operates beyond an impermeable boundary from its

4 Bakhtin (1981), 15-16. 5 To say nothing of panegyrical passages such as Luc. 1.33-66, Stat. Theb.1.17 -33, Ach. 1.14-19 or V.Fl. 1.5-21.

audience is at least prima facie plausible for many epics, perhaps best illustrated by the poets’ insistence that epic actors can perform deeds that contemporary humans cannot.6

Bakhtin imagines laughter occurs only in other, lower genres:

“For any and every straightforward genre, any and every direct discourse — epic, tragic, lyric, philosophical — may and must indeed become the object of representation, the object of a parodic travestying ‘mimicry.’ It is as if such mimicry rips the word away from its object, disunifies the two, shows that a given straightforward generic word — epic or tragic — is one-sided, bounded, incapable of exhausting the object; the process of parodying forces us to experience those sides of the object that are not otherwise included in a given genre or given style. Parodic-travestying literature introduces the permanent corrective of laughter, of a critique on the one-sided seriousness of the lofty direct word, the corrective of reality that is always richer, more fundamental and most importantly too contradictory and heteroglot to be fit into a high and straightforward genre.”7

Bakhtin’s insistence that humor “destroys” epic is perhaps less objectionable — or at least it is untestable — inasmuch as modern scholars and ancient audiences alike see little intentional humor in Roman epic. Nevertheless, Bakhtin’s assertion that epic and humor are mutually exclusive is equally untenable in an epic such as Statius’ Thebaid, a poem which, although it ostentatiously sets itself in the epic tradition of the Aeneid and, like the Vergilian epic, claims that it is taught in schools, is suffuse with humor.8

6 Poets distinguish between the epic past and contemporary mortals most overtly in feats of strength, such as epic heroes’ ability to throw massive boulders: Hom. Il. 5.302-304 = 20.285-287 and Verg. Aen. 12. 896-902. 7 Bakhtin (1981), 55, emphasis original. 8 iam te magnanimus dignatur noscere Caesar, | Itala iam studio discit memoratque iuuentus. | uiue, precor; nec tu diuinam Aeneida tempta, | sed longe sequere et uestigia semper adora, “Now, great-hearted Caesar deigns to know you, now the Italian youth learn and recite you with zeal. Live, I pray; nor make an attempt at the divine Aeneid, but follow far behind and always cherish its footsteps,” Stat. Theb. 12.814-817. Interpretation of the envoi, particularly its overt self-styling with respect to the Aeneid, is controversial. There is an extensive bibliography: Gervais (forthcoming), McAuley (2016), 372-373, Rosati (2008), McNelis (2007), 22-23, Leigh (2006), 223-225, Georgacopoulou (2005), 231-242, Pollmann (2004), 284-289, Pagán (2000) 444-446, Dietrich (1999), 50, Hardie (1997), 156-158, Nugent (1996), 70-71, Malamud (1995), 24-27, Henderson (1991), 38-39, and Vessey (1986), 2974-2976.

Immediately after Jupiter orders Mars to begin the Theban war without delay, Venus intervenes in a broadly humorous scene. The goddess wants to stop war from breaking out, so she stands in front of Mars’ chariot to physically stop him from carrying out his orders. After a lengthy speech in which she tries to persuade Mars to abandon his plans, Statius describes

Mars’ attempt to comfort Venus: lacrimas non pertulit ultra | Bellipotens; hastam laeua transumit et alto | (haud mora) desiluit curru clipeoque receptam | laedit in amplexu dictisque ita mulcet amicis (“The War Lord could not bear the tears any longer; he moves his spear to his left hand and, no delay, jumps down from his high chariot and bashes her with his shield as they embrace and soothes her with friendly words,” Stat. Theb. 291-294). 9 Mars comes across as clumsy, as he accidentally hurts Venus with his shield in his eagerness to embrace her. We might redeem Mars with the charitable interpretation that, as part of his allegorized persona as war, he cannot but harm anyone he comes into contact with. Yet Mars resists this straightforward reading because, in the very next moment, Mars is calming Venus with friendly words — an action that is antithetical to his role as war god. Mars comes across as bumbling, slightly inept, and overeager to the point of clumsiness. Yet despite all his eagerness to begin the war, we must wait until Thebaid 7, four Books later, for the action to begin.

It is the central contention of this dissertation that Statius employs humor widely to challenge several central components of epic such as its generic identity, its lofty poetic idiom, and its totalizing impulse. He does so by parodying conventional epic hyperbole and including genres, such as satire, that are highly critical of epic’s poetic idiom. What emerges is an epic with literary registers ranging from the hyperepic to the barely epic. Statius puts epic’s totalizing impulse on trial, setting it on a collision course with the genre’s essentialized core.

9 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

Scholars have identified humorous episodes in the Homeric epics and recent work has investigated Vergil’s use of humor.10 Many of these investigations, however, treat humor only in passing and in isolated incidents. For example, while we may understand that the

Homeric intradivine theomachy is humorous, little has been done on a larger scale to investigate how humor affects Homeric poetics. Work on Ovid’s Metamorphoses is, of course, the exception to this general outline of scholarly treatments of humor in epic.

Nevertheless, Statius’ poetry has remained on the fringes of discussions of humor in epic, although he represents an excellent case-study for this type of investigation. Multiple of his works, both epic and non-epic, survive, and each contains explicit reflection on his poetics.

Moreover, because many of his major influences are extant, we have access to a large intertextual corpus of epic and non-epic works. In turn, this allows us to appreciate his subtle manipulation of and engagement with his predecessors in a way that we cannot with the vast majority of Augustan poets. Furthermore, while scholars have acknowledged Statius’ humor, it still lacks a comprehensive and full-length treatment. Lastly, Statius’ poetry presents a complicated challenge: his Thebaid is not as outwardly humorous as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, but it also is not as straight-faced as Vergil’s Aeneid. Instead, what emerges is an epic whose complex tone and register frequently accommodates both the serious and the humorous simultaneously.

In what follows, I will give a broad outline of humor in Roman epic, the interpretive tensions it generates, and the aesthetic barriers epic poets face in making their epics humorous. I then turn to the state of humor in Classics writ large and briefly explain how humor in Statius fits into the larger trends of the field before proceeding to flesh out the working definitions of humor that underpin this dissertation. I close by returning to Statius so as to illustrate, with an extended concrete example, many of the threads dispersed throughout

10 e.g., McCarter (2019) and Uden (2014).

this chapter. I argue that of Mars’ characterization and palace in Book 7 can be read as humorous.

1: Humor in Roman Epic

In the middle of the first century CE, humor and frivolity in epic become subjects of intense scrutiny, primarily due to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tone of which seems to depart from epic norms insofar as the poem itself appears highly idiosyncratic in comparison to its extant brethren. In the third book of the Naturales Quaestiones, Seneca explains the scientific background of apocalyptic deluge. In the midst of his technical discussion, he cannot help but turn to Ovid’s portrayal in the Metamorphoses: ergo insularum modo eminent, “montes, et sparsas Cycladas augent,” ut ait ille poetarum ingeniosissimus egregie. sicut illud pro magnitudine rei dixit, “omnia pontus erat, deerant quoque litora ponto” (“Therefore, they rise up in the manner of islands, ‘the mountains, and they add to the number of the scatter

Cyclades,’ as that most clever of poets says beautifully. Just as he also said that thing about the magnitude of the event, “everything was the sea, and even the shores were missing from the sea,” Sen. NQ. 3.13.1-5).11 Seneca approves of these lines for their ability to capture the importance of the deluge, judging them to be grand and affective.

Nevertheless, Seneca censures Ovid for the very same account of the deluge. The long passage is worth quoting here:

ni tantum impetum ingenii et materiae ad pueriles ineptias reduxisset: nat lupus inter oues, fuluos uehit unda leones. non est res satis sobria lasciuire deuorato orbe terrarum. dixit ingentia et tantae confusionis imaginem cepit, cum dixit: expatiata ruunt per apertos flumina campos… pressaeque labant sub gurgite turres. magnifice haec, si non curauerit quid oues et lupi faciant. natari autem in diluuio et in illa rapina potest? aut non eodem impetu pecus omne quo raptum erat mersum est? concepisti imaginem quantam debebas, obrutis

11 The quotations come from Ov. Met. 2.264 and 1.292, respectively.

omnibus terris caelo ipso in terram ruente. perfer. scies quid deceat, si cogitaueris orbem terrarum natare.

But he reduced the great force of his genius and subject to childish silliness: “A wolf swims among sheep, and the wave carries away yellow lions.” It is not sufficiently serious to make light of the total destruction of the world. He spoke of grand things and began an image of vast confusion when he said: “The wandering rivers rush through the open fields ... the overwhelmed towers crash down under the flood” These things are magnificently said, if he had not taken the care to say what the sheep and wolves were doing. Besides, how can anything swim in the deluge and in that destruction? Was not every animal drowned in that same force which snatched them away? You began an image as great as you ought to have, with all the lands destroyed and with the sky itself rushing onto the land. Keep it up. You know what is appropriate, if you will keep in mind that the whole earth is swimming.

Sen. NQ. 3.27.13.6-15.312

Seneca’s issue with Ovid’s treatment is essentially that it is too light, too humorous, for the grand subject matter of the deluge. Llewelyn Morgan explains that “[t]he core criticism is inappropriateness… [that Ovid] has conceived a picture of epic grandeur, but consistently refuses to match it with appropriate grandeur of epic style.”13 The specific problems are twofold. First, the swimming wolves, sheep, and lions detract from the passage’s dignity.

Their inclusion reduces the scene to pueriles ineptias (“childish silliness”) and lasciuire deuorato orbe terrarum (“makes light of the total destruction of the world”). Seneca does not spell out exactly what makes the inclusion of the animals so unacceptable. The lines he speaks approvingly of he does so in terms of grandiosity (dixit ingentia et tantae confusionis imaginem cepit). By implication, perhaps, the animals’ quotidian nature sullies the deluge’s seriousness since the animals are not of great importance or sufficient gravity; yet it is possible that it is the adynaton’s cliché that accounts for his condemnation of the scene’s tone.

12 The quotations are from Ov. Met. 1.304, 1.285, and 1.290, respectively. 13 Morgan (2003), 70-71.

Second, Seneca argues the idea that the animals would be swimming around is unrealistic anyway; the force of the flood would have killed them (natari autem in diluuio et in illa rapina potest? aut non eodem impetu pecus omne quo raptum erat mersum est?). Here

Seneca locates the issue with the scene’s realism. In addition to the animals’ lack of epic gravity, their inclusion is also unrealistic, which takes away from the deluge’s seriousness and, accordingly, its poetic success.

Other criticisms of Ovid’s poetry run along the same lines. Seneca the Elder records an anecdote in which Ovid’s friends convince him to remove three lines of his poetry they found particularly offensive with the proviso that Ovid could select three lines to be immune.14 Naturally, Ovid’s friends and Ovid select the exact same lines, two of which

Seneca reports: semibouemque uirum semiuirumque bouem (“half-bull man and half-man bull,” Ov. Ars Am. 2.24) and et gelidum Borean egelidumque Notum (“freezing North wind and unfreeze South wind,” Ov. Ars Am. 2.11.10). Ulrike Auhagen has recently argued that, in these lines, “the rhetorical point, which results from chiasmus and paronomasia, takes precedence over the content.”15 Robert Maltby, too, has discussed these lines and argues that they are “a humorous variation” on the versus echoici.16 Whether a commentator wishes to emphasize the rhetorical flavor of the lines or not, it is clear enough that the humorous wordplay is at the heart of the issue that Ovid’s friends see in the lines and, for Ovid, their virtue. Papirius Fabianus concludes of Ovid, ex quo adparet summi ingenii uiro non iudicium defuisse ad compescendam licentiam carminum suorum sed animum, (“It is clear from this

[anecdote] that the great man [Ovid] lacked not the judgment but the will to restrain the

14 Sen. Contr. 2.2.12.4-9. 15 Auhagen (2007), 415. 16 Maltby (1999), 383.

license of his poetry,” Sen. Contr. 2.2.12.16). It is not that Ovid does not have talent; it is simply that he refuses to comply with literary norms.17

Quintilian is perhaps the most famous critic of Ovid’s humor, pithily damning Ovid: lasciuus quidem in herois quoque Ouidius et nimum amator ingenii sui, laudandus tamen partibus (“Ovid was certainly playful even in hexameters and an excessive admirer of his own genius, although, nevertheless, he must be praised in parts,” Quint. Inst. 10.1.88.5-6).

Quintilian also lambasts Ovid in a backhanded compliment: Ouidi Medea uidetur mibi ostendere quantum ille uir praestare potuerit si ingenio suo imperare quam indulgere maluisset, “Ovid’s Medea seems, to me, to show how outstanding he could have been if he had chosen to control his genius rather than indulge it,” Quint. Inst. 10.1.98.2-3). Quintilian does not provide any specific Ovidian language to substantiate his opinion, but that would belabor the point. Quintilian appears to think his criticisms of Ovid are self-evident enough so as to not warrant any substantiation in text. The critical consensus on Ovid’s style is clear; he consistently refuses to match style and subject matter.

As Llewelyn Morgan puts it, “the point of Ovid’s frivolity was spectacularly missed by the many critics of his version of epic … in [no] case should the flippancy be dismissed as such. Rather, it precisely matches the poem’s oppositional relationship with epic, the genre which Aristotle repeatedly defined as poetry of the serious.”18 In other words, the sustained engagement with humor throughout the Metamorphoses is more than merely ornamental comic relief, as Ovid’s ancient critics seem to assert, but rather a subversion of epic as a genre.

17 Seneca the Elder reports the judgement of Aemilius Scaurus, which perhaps best sums up this critique: Ouidius nescit quod bene cessit relinquere, “Ovid does not know when to leave it well enough alone,” Sen. Contr. 9.5.17.9. 18 Morgan (2003), 69, emphasis original.

2: Totalizing vs. Essential Epic

The tension that Ovid draws out and interrogates so well is that between epic’s assimilation of all literary material and its interest in the heroic, between the genre’s totalizing impulse and its essential core. Ovid’s humor is fully in accord with epic’s totalizing sensibility since epic should be able to accommodate humor, but the core of epic is serious heroics, which has little room for humor. Scholarly consensus has long held that one of epic’s key facets is its ability to subsume all other genres.19 Writing about the Aeneid, Stephen Harrison describes the phenomenon as “the way in which this epic poem includes and displays a remarkable range of material from non-epic poetic genres. This systematic ‘deviation’ from its ‘core’ epic genre is paradoxically a key marker of the poem’s identity as an epic in the Homeric tradition.”20 Nevertheless, it is telling that despite the “remarkable range of material from non-epic poetic genres,” Harrison does not consider how epic absorbs humorous genres such as satire, epigram and comedy, even though omissions of such major genres should undermine any claim to totality, especially given the canonicity of past comic playwrights and the contemporaneous success of Horatian satire.21

19 Day (2013), 13, “in generic terms, the totalising, panoptic aspirations of epic exhibit affinities with the sublime’s suprahuman impulses,” Hardie (1998), 57, “the poet who contains multitudes [Homer] will allow the admission of things that seem less than epic, or even non-epic,” Lyne (1987), 217-238, and Hardie (1986), 22-25, “there is a strong suggestion of a striving for comprehensiveness in many aspects of the poem [the Aeneid], particularly in the variety of discernible literary models,” are but a few, but this view underpins much of epic literary criticism of the last half century. See also Hinds (1992a) and Hinds (1992b) for a discussion of the important association between genres and their generic ideology. 20 Harrison (2007), 207. 21 Harrison (2007), 75-103, analyzes Horatian satire, but he does not allow for bidirectional generic enrichment, instead focusing, 103, on that which “enriches the ‘humble’ tradition of sermo through sustained and well-managed contact with ‘higher’ kinds of poetry.” Harrison only mentions humor once as he describes how Horace’s Satires receive Lucretian ideas in a humorous manner. For interaction between Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura and Horace’s Satires, see also Freudenburg (1993), 19-29.

The omission is not unique to Harrison,22 but is likely due humor’s incompatibility with epic’s seriousness, a key aspect of the genre’s essence. This view does not begin with

Bakhtin. Writers as early as Aristotle insist on epic’s seriousness time and again,23 and it remains salient in the genre’s conception amongst Roman writers. The seriousness of epic is manifest in its subject matter; Horace famously defined the genre by its grave content: res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella | quo scribi possent numero, monstrauit Homerus

(“Homer showed in what meter the deeds performed by kings and leaders and sad wars can be written,” Hor. AP. 73-74). Ovid goes further in his overt characterization of the hexameter as matching the content in seriousness: arma graui numero uiolentaque bella parabam | edere, materia conueniente modis (“I was on the verge of relating arms and bloody wars in the serious meter, matter well-suited to the meter,” Ov. Am. 1.1.1-2). What is clear from these brief descriptions of the genre is that epic is imagined, in the Roman context, as about serious matters composed in a serious form.

Despite the ancient consensus that epic has little interest in humorous elements, humor is already present at the genre’s inception in Homer’s Iliad. Long ago E.E. Sikes called the intradivine theomachy in Iliad 20 and 21 a “ridiculous harlequinade”24 while more recent scholarship has treated humor in other parts of the poem, such as the Thersites episode in Book 225 and the footrace during which Ajax trips.26 On the Roman side, Ovid’s

22 For example, Hardie (1986), 24, says, “literary imitation extends to other genres than epic: the influence of tragedy is pervasive, and the poem is not lacking in pastoral and even elegiac elements. Non poetic traditions are also utilized: rhetoric is naturally present, and so are the more specialized departments of historiography and ethnography.” 23 Arist. Poet. 1448a26-27 and 1448b34-35. I will return to Aristotle’s dichotomy of literature into σπουδαῖος and φαῦλος at the beginning of Chapter 1. 24 Sikes (1940), 123. 25 Rosen and Díaz Martínez (2003) and Rosen (2007). 26 The slapstick is obvious: Athena trips Ajax, who falls into a pile of cow dung, some of which gets into his mouth, at Hom. Il. 23.774-777; a little later, at line 784, the Achaean all laugh at him, ἡδὺ γέλασσαν. Vergil imitates the slapstick in his adaptation of the scene in Aeneid 5 in which Nisus slips in a mixture of dung and blood at Verg. Aen. 5.327-330; a few lines later, at 358, Aeneas laughs at Nisus, risit.

Metamorphoses has gained much critical attention for his humor and scholars have even identified isolated incidents of humor in the poetry of Vergil.27 Nevertheless, humor still seems alien to most Greek and Roman epic and ancient conceptions of it. Stephen Hinds explains:

“[certain] ‘unepic’ elements, no matter how frequently they feature in actual epics, continue to be regarded as unepic; as if oblivious to elements of vitality and change with the genre (for which he himself may be in part responsible), each new Roman writer reasserts a stereotype of epic whose endurance is as remarkable as its ultimate incompatibility with the actual plot of any actual epic in the Greek or Latin canon.”28

Hinds is here talking about the representation of women in epic, but the formulation is also applicable to humor.29 Although ancient writers constantly treat playful poetry and serious epic as discrete literary tradition, humor, nonetheless, remains a part of the tradition.

Yet humor does pose problems for a poet embarking on writing an epic. Is it possible for epic to take over the function of comedy while remaining in a suitably epic mode? If a poet incorporates the genre at the wrong moment or hits the wrong note, the seriousness of epic may be peeled away. Yet at the same time, if the epic fails to channel the comic muse, can it really be said to have succeeded in the totalizing ambitions of which critics are so enamored? The poet would seem to be in the unenviable position of having to negotiate not only the Scylla of epic decorum but also the Charybdis of epic capaciousness. The principal aim of this dissertation, then, is to show how epic can indeed have it both ways, what costs are incurred in the process, and what opportunities are created for literary aesthetics and interpretation.

Some humor, of course, is at home in epic. Homeric flyting, for one, often strike a humorous register A consequence of epic humor is that it induces hermeneutic uncertainty in

27 McCarter (2019), Uden (2014), Tabárez (2015), and Anderson (1980). 28 Hinds (2000), 223. 29 For the multiple manifestation of women in epic, see Keith (2000) passim.

a reader. Because epic is supposed to be serious, when readers detect a potentially humorous passage they are left with an interpretative conundrum: are they misreading the passage or is this humor really there? And in either case, is this a good or bad thing? The consequences of this ambiguity are threefold. Once a reader begins to conceive of a scene as humorous, a single, exclusively non-humorous interpretation is closed off. Whether or not the reader pursues it, a humorous line of interpretation exists. Oftentimes a strictly humorous interpretation is unsatisfactory, but, so, too, an exclusively unhumorous interpretation; humor in epic trades on the very ambiguity it generates. The disjunction between expectation and practice permits the reader to take whichever interpretative path he will. In other words, the possibility of humor increases readerly agency. Nevertheless, some critics, as in Seneca’s judgment on Ovid’s deluge, view the ambiguity as ultimately impoverishing epic; humor’s interest in the quotidian enriches the poem through diversifying multiple interpretation.

Moreover, sometimes humor can anticipate and counter negative critical judgement. If a contemporary critic had found fault with such a passage, a poet might simply have responded by saying the passage was meant to be humorous. The poet thereby sidesteps and undercuts the criticism. In fact, the tables are turned on the critic; it is not the epic poet who is lacking poetic skill, but the critic in interpretative acumen.

3: Humor in Classics

Although humor is a relatively understudied aspect of epic poetry, it is the focus of many other areas of classical scholarship. Stephen Halliwell’s and Mary Beard’s cultural histories of Greek and Roman laughter, respectively, have provided an overarching cultural backdrop against which specific writers and trends can be assessed.30 Neither Halliwell nor Beard,

30 Halliwell (2008) and Beard (2014), respectively.

however, make literature the focus of study.31 Much of ancient humor studies is concerned with the genres of satire and comedy, but some even deals with elegy and, to a limited extent, epic. Nick Lowe has recently argued that the very practice of equating comedy with humor in

Classical Studies has been overly determinative in how and where we see ancient humor.32

Greek Old Comedy has, perhaps, attracted the most attention for studies of humor for obvious reasons. There are two main strands of critical evaluation of humor in Aristophanic comedy, one broadly political and the other literary. Contemporary Athenian politics feature heavily in Aristophanic comedy, and comedy served as a means to criticize and lampoon politicians. Accordingly, since comedy was popular, one means of accessing contemporary

Athenian politics and culture is to analyze Aristophanes’ humor; if Aristophanes is making a joke, it was likely comprehensible by his audience and, therefore, betrays some cultural knowledge.33 Cleon, for one, is the object of Aristophanes’ scorn in Knights,34 while

Aristophanes’ mockery of Socrates in Clouds reveals an anxiety about “new currents of critical thought.”35 Along similar lines, scholars have the relationship between law and comedy since most festival goers would have also frequently served as jurors.36 Victoria

Wohl, for example, has recently argued that the theater “functioned as a kind of counter- jurisdiction, where issues of justice and social order could be debated and resolved, all with a

31 Beard (2014), 185-209, comes closest in her analysis of the late antique Philogelos jokebook, although this text perhaps strains the bounds of literature. 32 Lowe (2007), 7, who says, “indifference to the distinction between comedy in particular and humor in general has been the second major impediment to the coherent theory of either.” 33 Konstan (2011), 76, “parody, if it is to be effective, must have some basis in reality.” Lowe (2007), 39, n.38. 34 Rosen (1988), 59-82, discusses how Aristophanes channels the iambographic tradition in the Knights so as to mock Cleon. 35 Konstan (2011), 87, but see 82-88 for discussion of how Aristophanes combines numerous contemporary controversial thinkers into the figure of Socrates. 36 See, e.g., Willi (2003), 72-79, for an analysis of the appropriation of legal language in comedy. Lanni (2006), 31-40, for an overview of the legal system while Harris (1994), 135, argues that an average Athenian would have served on a jury at least once every five years.

wink and a giggle. But the humor in these comic ‘cases’ is not supplementary or superfluous: indeed, laughing at the joke ... is the very essence of ‘comic justice.’”37 In other words, comedy served as a crucial social function in which the citizens, as a group, mediated acceptable social norms.

On the literary side, obscenity has served as the focal point for much scholarly investigation. Jeffrey Henderson established the centrality of obscenity in Aristophanic poetics and humor. Principally employing a Freudian reading, Henderson shows that the

Aristophanic corpus constantly returns to the same themes, which the poet makes comic, of scatology and sexuality.38

Latinists have been preoccupied with similar concerns. J.N. Adams has done invaluable work on obscenity and humor in the Latin language by approaching obscenity within a historical framework, attuned to the variable nuances of sexualized vocabulary that are chronologically dependent.39 However, interest in humor has been of prime interest to reconstruct the social realities of the Republic and, recently, to recover lost and marginalized voices. Another area where humor has been the subject of study is in rhetoric. Anthony

Corbeill, working from Richlin’s ideas about hierarchies and humor, showed how important humor is to Ciceronian oratory. Whatever potency laughter had in satire or epigram, it is magnified when it is a communal affair, as all oratory is perforce. Indeed, Corbeill shows how humor not only policies boundaries of what is morally upstanding or right, but creates those very boundaries: Cicero “simultaneously creat[es] and enforc[es] the community’s ethical values. Jokes become a means of ordering social realities.”40 Humor becomes not

37 Wohl (2014), 322. 38 Henderson (1991). 39 Adams (1982), passim. 40 Corbeill (1996), 5.

simply a superfluous feature, as Roman theorists hold, but a key principle on which

Ciceronian oratory leans.41

Performance studies have greatly helped our understanding of the mechanics of humor as well. In addition to reconstructing the costumes and masks, themselves works of humorous art,42 Ian Ruffell has emphasized the importance of the reciprocal relationship between performers and audience in generating humor through metapoetic nods or cues.

Instead of actors or the playwright generating humor, Ruffell argues that it is, in fact, “It seems clear that comedy of the Aristophanic sort is engaged in abstract and general conceptual work and that this takes place across a range of subjects … Rather than taking place through reflections by a character or the chorus on the events on stage, this takes place through the cognitive processing required by the joke.”43

Michael Fontaine has recently completed a study of humor with a focus on words in the vein of Henderson. He argues that wordplay and puns are a prime means of humor in

Plautine comedy and that textual critical methodology has systematically obliterated them.44

His focus on words has reinvigorated criticism in the vein of Jeffrey Henderson.

In her most recent investigation of Plautine comedy, Richlin has shown that the generic quality of comedy is essential to understanding the slave experience in Republican

Rome. Among other things, she argues that hidden transcripts of slave experience exist in the palliata, a genre whose subversive, low voice is salient. Again relying on a Freudian framework, Richlin argues that it is in the humor that we anxieties and desires of the

41 Corbeill’s approach has proven influential. See, e.g., Connolly (2007), 61-62 and Vasaly (2013), 148-149. 42 Foley (2014), 262, Wiles (2008), and, more comprehensively, Wiles (1991), 43 Ruffell (2008), 53, but see his sophisticated discussion 45-50 in which he links the affect and cognitive processes of laughter. 44 Fontaine (2010).

oppressor (the free) and the oppressed (the enslaved).45 Both anxiety and desire play out in various ways in the plays, including counterfactual revenge narratives and double entendre.

Indeed, the hidden transcripts lurk in plain sight because of humor; the atmosphere of the ludi permit the rich to ignore or discount what they see on stage as mere triflings, nothing to be taken seriously.46

Comedy is not the only genre to have received critical attention for its use of humor.

Scholars have had a great deal of interest in the role humor plays in Roman satire, too.

Building on Henderson’s work, Amy Richlin paved the way for studies of humor can illustrate the social reality of Romans.47 Like Henderson, Richlin principally relies on

Freudian readings, but she focuses her discussion on Roman satire and epigram. She argues that, embedded in invective are hierarchies of power, without which insults and the obscene would not be interpretable. When, for instance, Martial calls an opponent a pathic, he is trading on humor to achieve dominance over him. Accordingly, Richlin reconstructs and argues that humor depends on hierarchies — in this case, sexual —so as to get a laugh. Other studies have focused on how humor works in satire. Maria Plaza asks, “how satiric humour works, not what it is. Humour here is regarded as a process rather than a stable ingredient.”48

Her analysis shows how satire’s generic self-positioning as low or humble helps contributes to its strategy of “mockery from below." That is, satirists elevate, whether by internal or external criteria, objects they wish to ridicule.49 Ralph Rosen picks up and expands these ideas with an eye to one of satire’s most essential qualities, mockery. Rosen argues that “an understanding of what constitutes a poeticized act of mockery or satire — how real mockery

45 Richlin (2018), passim, but see 40-47, for much of the important theoretical underpinning of her argument. 46 Richlin (2018), but this ultimately stems from Segal (1968) 47 Richlin (1992), especially 57-64. 48 Plaza (2006), 5. 49 Plaza (2006), 53-166.

is transformed into fictionalized mockery and represented as a comic form — is essential to all of its specific, historically-bound manifestations.”50

Epic has attracted decidedly smaller amount of humor scholarly interest, most of which clusters around Ovid whose poetry’s obvious irreverence towards the tradition has left few in doubt about his status as master of humor. Ovid has attracted the most academic attention for humor,51 and scholars usually discuss his humor in terms of “wit,”52

“cleverness,”53 or “playfulness.”54 Indeed, Frederick Ahl anticipated Fontaine’s discussion of wordplay and puns in Plautus by illustrating the phenomenon in a wide variety of poets, principally in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.55 For all the work on humor in epic, Ovid’s

Metamorphoses remains an irregularity in the epic tradition, with the possible exception of the Achilleid, a poem whose generic status was the main focus of much of its literary criticism until Peter Heslin’s influential argument solidified its status as an epic.56 I will examine the Achilleid’s comic strategies in more detail below, but suffice it to say that Statius is poet whose humorous strategies deserve sustained examination.

4: Definitions

It is worth spelling out exactly what I mean by humor early on in this study since humor is difficult to access and prove, especially when dealing with ancient texts. I take a broad view

50 Rosen (2007),15. 51 General treatments include Farrell (1992), Tissol (1990), Vessey (1976), and Galinsky (1975), 158-209, and Frécaut (1972). 52 Even in the titles of Cross (2000), Tissol (1997), Gross (1979), and Stirrup (1977). 53 Hardie (2002), 42-43. 54 Holzberg (2002), 14, and Galinsky (1975), 257. See Newlands (1995) for a discussion in a similar vein for the Fasti. 55 Ahl (1985), 17-26. 56 Heslin (2005).

of humor and use it to mean anything that is amusing and has the potential to elicit laughter.57

Accordingly, phenomena as diverse as slapstick, irony, absurdism, parody, puns, indeed, any manifestation of humor are of interest to this study.

Although this approach may seem overly expansive, humor’s subjectivity calls for a less restrictive approach. Nandini Pandey has recently emphasized the multiplicity of audiences in antiquity: “The Palatine surely evoked different reactions from an aristocrat whose family had lost property during the triumviral proscriptions than from a newly prosperous freedman eager to escape the bustling city in the elegant environs of the Danaid portico.”58 It is certainly true that the reaction Augustan monumental architecture elicited would differ between those who gained influence and those who lost it, between the

“winners” and “losers” of the Augustan regime.59 Ultimately Pandey is relying on reader response theory, a concern more generally of Classical reception studies.60 Perhaps even more so than the reception of imperial monuments, humor also elicits varied individual reactions. Accordingly, it is a mistake to be overly rigid and insist on one standard for Roman humor. Instead, it is better to assess each instance on a case by case basis to interpret its potential humorous implications. In practice, however, the scope is limited by the kinds of humor that usually appears in epic poetry. So, while there may be room for invective humor

57 This is largely in accord with modern psychological research standards, discussed below, which use the term to encompass all phenomena related to humor as per Ruch (2001). Martin and Ford (2018), 3, recently offered a more comprehensive definition: “Humor is a broad, multifaceted term that represents anything that people say or do that others perceive as funny and tends to make them laugh, as well as the mental processes that go into both creating and perceiving such an amusing stimulus, and also the emotional response of mirth involved in the enjoyment of it.” 58 Pandey (2018), 11. 59 Pandey derives much of her discussion from Stephen Hinds’ treatment of Ovid’s portrayal of Julius Caesar’s apotheosis at the end of the Metamorphoses. Hinds (1988), 26, makes the point that readerly reception of Ovidian panegyric depends on, say, whether or not an audience member thinks the idea that Julius Caesar was actually deified absurd or not, how a Roman might react to the changes in Roman religious practice. 60 Day (2013), 18-27, Martindale (2004), 8-54 and passim, and Martindale (1993), esp. 2-18.

in epic in the tradition scene of battlefield flyting, there is not as much room in epic for slapstick.

There are two broad categories of humor in literature: humor that occurs inside a literary work’s world (that is, what the work’s characters laugh at) and that which is evoked by the text in the reader (that is, what the work’s readers laugh at). For convenience, we can call these “internal” and “external,” respectively. The two may overlap, but it is not necessary that they do so. An example of internal humor is Odysseus’ rebuke of Thersites in Iliad 2: οἱ

δὲ καὶ ἀχνύμενοί περ ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ ἡδὺ γέλασσαν· (“And then, although troubled at heart, they

[the Achaeans] laughed pleasantly at the man [Thersites],” Hom. Il. 2.270). The narrator clearly indicates that the Achaeans are laughing, ἡδὺ γέλασσαν, as well as at whom, ἐπ᾿

αὐτῷ. This kind of internal humor often occurs in the dialogic genres, such as comedy, where there is scripted laughter.61

Of prime interest in this dissertation, however, is external humor, which leverages the text and relies on readerly knowledge and experience. This can manifest itself as dramatic irony, often as the action complicated by disguised or mistaken identities; one need only think of Plautus’ Pseudolus. It can also be evident in diction. Vergil describes Charon as a portitor in Aeneid 6,62 a profession Cicero is at pains to mark as low and incompatible with gravitas in his autobiographical epic.63 It also can be evoked by readerly knowledge of the literary tradition itself as can occur when the writer frustrates or subverts readerly expectation. The prime example of this in epic is Ovid’s narrative of Aeneas’ journey in

Books 13 and 14 of the Metamorphoses. The preceding list is not exhaustive and this

61 hahae or hahahae at Pl. Poen. 768, Ps. 1052, and Truc. 209; Ter. Ad. 754, Hau. 886, Eu. 426, 497, Ph. 411, and Hec. 862. 62 Verg. Aen. 6.198. 63 Cic. De Rep. 4.7, nolo enim eundem | populum imperatorem et portitorem esse terrarum, “for I do not want to see the same people be the imperator and portitor of the world.”

dissertation aims to demonstrate how the epic tradition evokes these ways and more, but in every case the poem is designed to amuse the audience.

Mary Beard notes that “although the study of laughter and the study of jokes often go together ... most laughter in most cultures has nothing to do with jokes at all.”64 In other words, laughter is by and large evoked in situations or texts whose primary goal is not humor.

Scholars are faced with significant problems in discussing Roman humor. Apart from canned jokes, rarely does humor draw attention to itself as humor. However, if most texts do not draw attention to their humor, how are we to know it is there? Both Cicero and Quintilian provide lengthy accounts of humorous sayings and tropes, but many of their specific examples are obscure and rely on common cultural knowledge no longer available to us.65

The opaqueness of Cicero’s and Quintilian’s discussion emphasizes two major barriers to analyzing ancient humor. The first is that humor is temporally dependent.66 The same humorous situation or joke does not necessarily elicit the same reaction over the years. This is especially true for humor that is inextricably tied to an ephemeral context, such as politics or pop culture. The second barrier is that humor is culturally dependent. Humor is rarely signposted as such, so cultural assumptions are implicit in much humorous discourse; what elicits laughter in one culture does not necessarily elicit laughter in another, even if the cultures have a shared language.

Furthermore, humor varies on a micro-level, from person to person. Even two people living at the same time and in the same cultural milieu do not always laugh at the same thing and, even if they do, they may be laughing at it for different reasons. Indeed, the question of audience is especially vexing for humor studies as humor often has more than one audience, whether intentional or not: those who “get” the joke and those who do not. Thus, jokes can

64 Beard (2014), 6. 65 Cic. De or. Quint. Inst. 6.3.1-112. 66 Beard (2014), 6.

lurk undetected in plain sight. However, this simple dichotomy is made much more complicated by the different audiences intended for different jokes. Humor is highly gendered and classed and is often used as a means of inclusion or exclusion.

Simply put: how can we know what an average Roman would find funny if we cannot even agree about humor within our own cultural context?67 We may never know when a specific Roman laughed or at what, but the obstacles are not insurmountable. Ancient theories about humor survive, and the sources enable us to identify the circumstances that, in their view, would have prompted laughter or a humorous interpretation. Yet we must be careful not to import our own cultural assumptions and ideas of humor where they do not apply. As Beard warns, it is important that we do not simply assume that ancient conceptions of humor neatly map onto or mirror modern conceptions.68 Yet simply because there are complicated issues that have bearing, sometimes significant, on the study of humor does not mean that the subject is beyond scholarly investigation.

5: Statius’ Humor

Statius employs humor throughout his epics to undermine otherwise straightforward characterization and register. An important instance occurs at the beginning of Thebaid 7 when Jupiter orders, for a second time, the outbreak of martial violence at Thebes. It is fitting that Mars, the god of war, appears in horrific guise on the eve of battle, and Statius does not disappoint: a blood covered Mars reenters the narrative on a fearsome war-chariot (Stat.

Theb. 7.64-76) and is eager for war to begin. Nevertheless, the whole scene in which Statius

67 Even the notion of the “average Roman” is flawed. See Richlin (2018), 44-45, for a discussion of the interpretative ramifications of this flattening of the audience. 68 Beard (2014), 18, wisely warns, “[t]here is danger that the question ‘What made the Romans laugh?’ might be converted, by an act of spurious empathy, into the question ‘What do I think would have me laugh, if I were a Roman?’”

explains the Olympian’s motivation for the Theban war is difficult to take seriously. Statius undercuts Mars’ ferocity at key moments through subtle inter- and intratextual engagement as well as misuse of the divine epiphany type scene and suggests that, lurking behind his fearsome exterior, is something frivolous and laughable.

By the beginning of Book 7, Jupiter is rightly frustrated that the war has not yet begun; after all, he ordered Mars to begin the war nearly four books earlier (Stat. Theb.

3.229-252), a delay of which Jupiter reminds the reader: nempe olim accendere iussus |

Inachias acies atque omne quod Isthmius umbo | distinet et raucae circumtonat ira Maleae

(“He was ordered long ago now to light the Argive battle lines and all which the Isthmian boss keeps apart and the wrath of hoarse Malea thunders around,” Stat. Theb. 7.14-16).

Immediately, then, Statius characterizes Jupiter as not in complete control of the cosmos, much less of his own son. Yet Jupiter does not say any of this to Mars directly, as he did when he ordered Mars to war in Book 3, but instead commands Mercury to deliver his message.

Mercury immediately flies to Mars’ palace in the far north, of which Statius gives a lengthy description:

hic steriles delubra notat Mauortia siluas 40 (horrescitque tuens), ubi mille furoribus illi cingitur auerso domus inmansueta sub Haemo. ferrea compago laterum, ferro arta teruntur limina, ferratis incumbunt tecta columnis. laeditur aduersum Phoebi iubar, ipsaque sedem 45 lux timet, et durus contristat sidera fulgor. digna loco statio: primis salit Impetus amens e foribus caecumque Nefas Iraeque rubentes exanguesque Metus, occultisque ensibus astant Insidiae geminumque tenens Discordia ferrum. 50 innumeris strepit aula Minis, tristissima Virtus stat medio, laetusque Furor uultuque cruento Mors armata sedet; bellorum solus in aris sanguis et incensis qui raptus ab urbibus ignis. terrarum exuuiae circum et fastigia templi 55 captae insignibant gentes: caelataque ferro fragmina portarum bellatricesque carinae

et uacui currus protritaque curribus ora, paene etiam gemitus: adeo uis omnis et omne uulnus. ubique ipsum, sed non usquam ore remisso 60 cernere erat: talem diuina Mulciber arte ediderat; nondum radiis monstratus adulter foeda catenato luerat conubia lecto.

Here, he [Mercury] takes note of the barren woods, Mars’ temple (and he shudders as he looks at it), where the savage house under unfriendly Haemus is girded by one thousand furies. The sides of the structure are iron, the thresholds that are walked on are encircled with iron, the roof sits on iron pillars. The opposing light of Phoebus is harmed, and the light itself fears the house, and the harsh shining saddens the stars. The watch is worthy of its location: insane Impulse jumps from the outer gates and blind Outrage and blushing Rage and pale Terror, and Envy is present with hidden daggers and Discord holds a double-edged sword. The hall screeches with countless Threats, and most miserable Valor stands in the middle, and happy Fury and armed Death with its bloody face sit; only blood of war is on the altars and fire snatched from burning cities. The spoils from all over the world and captured peoples mark the side of the temple: there are also fragments of gates wrought with iron and battleships and empty chariots and heads crushed by chariots, almost even groans: truly every kind of violence and every kind of wound. He was seen everywhere, but nowhere with a lenient face: so Vulcan staged him in this way his divine skill; not yet had he been revealed as an adulterer by the sun’s rays and expiated the shameful liaisons with the chained bed.

Stat. Theb. 7.40-63

The ecphrasis is exuberant to the point of excess, combining every trope and cliché to portray a carnivalesque house of horrors. The building itself harms something as intangible as sunlight and its horror affects the universe at large. Moreover, the guards of the palace are various anthropomorphized concepts related to war (Impetus, Nefas, Irae Metus, Insidiae,

Discordia, Minae, Virtus, Furor and Mors). There is also a horrific temple whose altars are full with the blood of war and the fires of burning cities. Yet the temple’s centerpiece is the engraving of all the matters of war which almost seem to replicate the battlefield: everywhere are etched spoils, instruments of war, and bodies — there is even a hint at an auditory experience (paene etiam gemitus) in a classic example of ecphrastic paragone. Mars becomes

an allegory for war writ large; not only is he in every act of violence, he is every act of violence.69

Allegories, of course, highlight duality, how two concepts can coexist in the same figure, which perhaps hints at a richer, and much less straightforward characterization of

Mars and, consequently, allegorized warfare. At the end of the ecphrasis, Statius insists that nowhere is Mars portrayed as anything but fierce (ubique ipsum, sed non usquam ore remisso

| cernere erat). Yet he follows this immediately by revealing that the temple was wrought by none other than Vulcan and that it was completed before he found out about the affair between Venus and Mars. Statius does not explicitly connect the two statements, but a natural connection for a reader to provide is that Mars’ representation as fierce is contingent on

Vulcan’s design; had Vulcan made the temple after he discovered the affair, the viewer would surely be seeing a different side of Mars alongside the bloodthirsty, one which would surely include a representation of Mars and Venus entwined in chains with the gods laughing at them.

The myth appears as early as Homer’s Odyssey 8 in Demodocus’ song.70 Homer emphasizes the hilarity of the event: ἄσβεστος δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἐνῶρτο γέλως μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι |

τέχνας εἰσορόωσι πολύφρονος Ἡφαίστοιο (“Unquenchable laughter arouse among the blessed gods as they saw the crafts of clever Hephaestus,” Hom. Od. 8.326-327). Ovid also produced an account Metamorphoses 4, with which Statius’ brief accounts have some textual overlap: adulter, monstrauit, and lecto.71 Ovid’s hews closely to the standard mythic account.

The Sun sees Venus and Mars committing adultery and informs Vulcan, who schemes to catch them in the act with an unbreakable net. Once caught, Vulcan invites the other gods in

69 See Feeney (1991), 350-355 for his discussion of allegory in the Thebaid. 70 Hom. Od. 8.266 -366. 71 adulter at Ov. 4.182 and Stat. Theb. 7.62, monstrauit at Ov. Met. 4.174 and monstratus at Stat. Theb. 7.62, and lecto at Ov. Met. 4. 181 and at Stat. Theb. 7.63. Admittedly, the parallels are general and would likely occur in nearly any

to view them: Lemnius extemplo ualuas patefecit eburnas | inmisitque deos; illi iacuere ligati

| turpiter … superi risere, diuque | haec fuit in toto notissima fabula caelo (“The Lemnian immediately opened the ivory doors and sent in the gods; they laid they shamefully bound … the gods laughed, and for a long time this was the most talked about story in the sky,” Ov.

Met. 4. 185-189). Mars’ absurdity is highlighted in the mythic accounts, as each account emphasizes the laughter. Moreover, Statius has already conditioned his readers to remember the affair between the two gods as he has briefly mentioned it twice already.72 Consequently, by referring to this story at the end of the ecphrasis in which Mars is portrayed as a terror- inducing figure, Statius evokes a radically different image of the god that works against, rather than underscores, the apparent seriousness of what passed before. Mars is mostly fearsome, but, from a different point of view, laughable and even ridiculous.

Lurking in the background of the characterization of Mars, then, is a story that is treated in the epic tradition with a “rather frivolous tone.”73 The allusion to the affair at the end of the temple’s ecphrasis is deliberate and pointed. Statius suggests that had Vulcan not completed the temple prior to the affair, the ecphrasis might tell a completely different story, one of humiliation and laughter (talem ... nondum …). In fact, the phrase Statius uses to describe how Mars is portrayed on the temple, non usquam ore remisso, recalls the preface to

Silvae 1 where he uses a comparative form of remissus to describe his lower, less serious

72 Statius alleges that the affair between Venus and Mars caused Vulcan to create the cursed Necklace of Harmonia: Lemnius haec, ut prisca fides, Mauortia longum | furta dolens, capto postquam nil obstat amori | poena nec ultrices castigauere catenae, | Harmoniae dotale decus sub luce iugali | struxerat (“The Lemnian, as the old story goes, pained for a long time at the affair with Mars, after the punishment stopped the captured love in no way, nor did the avenging chains punish, he made for Harmonia a bridal gift for her wedding day,” Stat. Theb. 2.269-273) and Venus mentions the affair again in Book 3 when she sways Mars from starting the war immediately: criminis haec merces? hoc fama pudorque relictus, | hoc mihi Lemniacae de te meruere catenae? (“Is this the reward for crimes? For this were my reputation and shame given up, did the Lemnian chains cause me to deserve this from you?” Stat. Theb. 3. 273-274). Valerius Flaccus also briefly touches upon the story at V.Fl.2.98-100 to explain Venus’ motivation to bring harm to Medea, a descendent of the Sun. 73 Smolenaars (1994), 63.

writing style: sed et Culicem legimus et Batrachomachiam etiam agnoscimus, nec quisquam est inlustrium poetarum qui non aliquid operibus suis stilo remissiore praeluserit (“But we read the Culex and also look at the Batrachomachia, nor is there any of the famous poets who did not play around in a more playful style before their serious works,” Stat. Silv. 1.pr.7-10).

In the preface to Silvae 1, Statius acknowledges that there is more than one tone or aspect; there is a remissior stilus, but there is also a more serious style. For the moment, Mars may not appear frivolous, but that is simply because of the scenes inscribed on the temple, not because of his essence.

The portrait of Mars is a show, a posture assumed to fill a specific requirement. The artifice is highlighted by the verb Statius chooses to describe Vulcan’s depiction: ediderat.

The verb seemingly puzzles Smolenaars who says “‘edo’ = ‘to represent’ occurs only here.”74

Yet the verb surely evokes connotations of dramatic staging, which is how Statius uses it elsewhere.75 Mars appears to be aware that he must retain his stage-like persona as a horrendous and terrifying figure:

quaerere templorum regem uix coeperat ales Maenalius, tremit ecce solum et mugire refractis 65 corniger Hebrus aquis; tunc quod pecus utile bello uallem infestabat, trepidas spumare per herbas, signa aduentantis, clausaeque adamante perenni dissiluere fores. Hyrcano in sanguine pulcher ipse subit curru, diraque aspergine latos 70 mutat agros, spolia a tergo flentesque cateruae. dant siluae nixque alta locum; regit atra iugales sanguinea Bellona manu longaque fatigat cuspide. deriguit uisu Cyllenia proles summisitque genas: ipsi reuerentia patri, 75 si prope sit, dematque minas nec talia mandet. 'quod Iouis imperium, magno quid ab aethere portas?' occupat Armipotens, 'neque enim hunc, germane, sub axem

74 Smolenaars (1994), 36. 75 Augoustakis (2016), 94, argues convincingly ede in Dis’ orders to Tisiphone in Book 8 means “it has to be put on like a show.” triste, insuetum, ingens, quod nondum uiderit aether, | ede nefas, quod mirer ego inuideantque sorores, “Stage an outrage--something sad, unusual, massive, which the sky has not yet seen, which I will wonder at and will make your sisters envious,” Stat. Theb. 8.67-68.

sponte uenis hiemesque meas, cui roscida iuxta Maenala et aestiui clementior aura Lycaei.' 80 ille refert consulta patris. nec longa moratus, sicut anhelabant, iuncto sudore uolantes Mars impellit equos, resides in proelia Graios ipse etiam indignans.

Scarcely had the winged Maenalian begun to look for the king of the temples when, look, the earth trembles and the horned Hebrus groans as its waters turn back; then the herd useful in war which infested the valley foamed in the quivering grass, a sign of his arrival, and the closed gates of eternal adamant flew open. He arrived in his chariot, beautiful with Hyrcanian blood, and he dyes the wide fields with a dire spray, and spoils and weeping crowds follow behind. The forests and deep snow give way; black Bellona governs the horses with a bloody hand and tires them out with a long spear. Cyllene’s son froze up at the sight and lowered his face: the father himself would feel awe if he were nearby and he would withdraw his threats nor would he order such things. The Warlike one said, “What order of Jupiter, what from the great sky do you bring? For, brother, not of your own free will do you come here to this sky and my winters, you to whom dewy Maenala and the more lenient breeze of summery Lycaeus is dear.” He reported the orders from the father. Delaying no longer, panting just as they are, Mars strikes his flying horses, himself also angry at the Greeks slow to go to war.

Stat. Theb. 7.64-84.

Mars’ timing for his entrance is impeccable; Mercury had scarcely arrived at the palace

(quaerere templorum regem vix coeperat) before Mars appears as fearsome as he could possibly be, drenched in blood and with the earth trembling before him. It is almost as if

Mars had been waiting around with the goal of making a theatrical entrance.

Smolenaars points out that “Statius incorporates the traditional elements of a description of a divine epiphany … [which] has a triadic structure: (a) the 65-69 reaction of nature, (b) 69-74a the description of the god and his retinue, (c) 74b-76 Mercury’s fearful response to the appearance of the god.”76 Mars’ appearance is in the tradition of divine epiphanies. Based on the shared vocabulary, Statius’ primary model seems to have been

Apollo’s epiphany in Aeneid 3: tremere omnia uisa repente, | liminaque laurusque dei,

76 Smolenaars (1994), 37.

totusque moueri | mons circum et mugire adytis cortina reclusis (“Everything suddenly seemed to shake, the threshold and the laurel of the god, the whole mountain was moved around and the tripod groaned from deep within,” Verg. Aen. 3.90-92).77 What is most striking about Statius framing this scene as a divine epiphany, however, is that Mars is revealing himself to another immortal. Epiphanies are reserved for mortals who, then, in the face of a far superior power tremble in fear; a divine figure appearing to another - especially two Olympians - does not typically feature a power differential sufficient to elicit the appropriate awe-inspired reaction.

Yet Mercury becomes almost human in his reaction to Mars: deriguit visu Cyllenia proles | summisitque genas: ipsi reuerentia patri | si prope sit, dematque minas nec talis mandet (“Cyllene’s son froze up at the sight and lowered his face: the father himself would feel awe if he were nearby and he would withdraw his threats nor would he order such things,” Stat. Theb. 7.74-76). He reacts with fear, deriguit, and lowers his eyes as mortals do in the face of the divine, summisit genas. This reaction is made all the more curious due to its juxtaposition with his lofty, epic name Cyllenius proles, as if Statius is reminding his audience that Mercury is, in fact, a god with good epic pedigree.

Yet the passage becomes truly absurd when Statius asserts that Jupiter would also cower in the face of Mars’ ferocity. While it is conceivable that Mercury could be considered a lesser god than Mars in certain respects, and, consequently, afraid of him, it is implausible that Jupiter would genuinely fear the might of his son. Jupiter, in fact, has just finished making his supremacy over his son clear, as mere lines earlier he threatened to strip him of his powers: (nil equidem crudele minor), sit mite bonumque | numen et effreni laxentur in otia

77 Nevertheless, the language of epiphany scenes in Latin poetry that other scenes are equally convincing candidates, such as Ov. Met. 4.481-488 or Fast. 3.327-332. There is perhaps a case to be made for a Greek model, such as Hom. Il. 13.17-27 or Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.674-689 or 3.1214-1224.

mores, | reddat equos ensemque mihi, nec sanguinis ultra | ius erit: aspiciam terras pacemque iubebo | omnibus (“I threaten nothing cruel; let him be a soft and pleasant god and let his wild manners become soft in relaxation, let him return his horses and sword to me, nor will the realm of blood be his: I will look upon the earth and I will order peace to all,” Stat.

Theb. 7.29-33). Jupiter does not fear Mars because what makes Mars fearsome depends on

Jupiter’s beneficence; Mars’ terrifying nature is, we discover, precarious, removed at

Jupiter’s will. Consequently, Mercury’s terrified reaction to Mars becomes even more out of keeping with reality as Statius described it.

Mars strives to appear as fearsome as possible in the scene. This is understandable, given the imminent outbreak of the war. Yet neither Jupiter nor Mars strikes the reader as fully awe-inspiring. Jupiter fulminates, but his anger only serves to highlight his impotence while Mars is constantly undercut by Statius’ allusions to his affair with Venus, his theatrics, and the misuse of the divine epiphany type scene.

6: Chapter Overview

What follows is an investigation of Statius’ use of humor in his poetry – the Thebaid, the

Achilleid, and the Silvae. In Chapter 1, I begin by investigating humor in the Roman epic tradition. I address some of the theoretical problems that underpin humor in epic, including

Aristotle’s theory of decorum. I end the chapter by returning to Statius’ epics; I analyze numerous examples of humor in both the Thebaid and the Achilleid and argue that Statius makes frequent use of irony and wordplay to imbue his epics with humor writ large so as to destabilize any straightforward reading of the poem.

Statius’ interest in humor is due in no small part to the increasing literary importance and prevalence of humorous genres, such as mock-epic and satire, especially from the way in which both genres manipulate epic language and tropes for their own ends. For this reason, in

Chapters 2 and 3 I turn to satire. In Chapter 2, I lay the groundwork for an investigation into

Statius’ use of satiric strategies of humor, namely parodic literary quotation. To that end, in the first part of Chapter 2, I argue that the satiric and epic traditions are closely related due to because of Lucilian appropriation of the epic hexameter for satire as well as extensive parody. In the second half of the Chapter, I argue that Statius evokes the satiric tradition in his concilium deorum in Thebaid 1 by alluding to distinctly Lucilian elements channeled through Ovid’s Metamorphoses. What emerges in the concilium deorum scene is a rich picture of Statius alluding to both epic and satiric traditions, demonstrating the ease with which Statius can employ satiric strategies for humor. With the intergeneric stage set, in

Chapter 3, I examine how specifically uses parodic quotation, a satiric strategy with a rich literary legacy, in his epics. I argue that he parodies a line from Valerius Flaccus’

Argonautica and Xenophon’s Anabasis. These parodies are powerful intertextual gestures and compel the audience to re-read the originals.

Chapter 4 is concerned with the sublime, an important concept in contemporary aesthetic discourse. I begin by arguing that the sublime is an integral component of epic criticism in the late first century CE. I distil a working definition of the sublime from

Longinus’ Peri Hupsous, an account likely written around the time Statius was active. I then argue that Statius uses humor to undercut the sublime in his portrayals of Tydeus’ monomachy in Book 2, Amphiaraus’ descent in Book 8, and Capaneus’ assault on the heavens in Book 10. Statius’ sublime, suffuse with humor, is an aesthetic challenge to the epic aesthetics, best represented in Roman literature by Vergil’s Aeneid.

By way of conclusion, I take stock of Statius’ aesthetic impact in two different, but complementary ways, by considering the immediate and long-term impact on the tradition.

To accomplish the former task, I turn to Statius’ Silvae, occasional poetry firmly set in

Statius’ present. I show how Statius uses humor as a way to navigate situations freighted with

political danger, particularly interactions with Domitian. Lastly, I consider the longue durée of humor in epic. I reflect on the reasons what makes humor an integral part of Statius’ and briefly assess how the post-Classical tradition reacts to the humor that Statius forces onto the tradition.

Chapter 1: Decorum and Genre in Statian Epic

Introduction: Aristotle and Literary Decorum

Aristotle’s Poetics is a valuable piece of literary criticism to survive from antiquity due in no small part to its influential generic formulations. Of particular import for my purposes is his theorization of the union between literary register and literary subject, which results in the creation of a sense of literary decorum. Aristotle’s dichotomization of literature into the serious, σπουδαῖος, and the foolish, φαῦλος is most pertinent:

ἐπεὶ δὲ μιμοῦνται οἱ μιμούμενοι πράττοντας, ἀνάγκη δὲ τούτους ἢ σπουδαίους ἢ φαύλους εἶναι (τὰ γὰρ ἤθη σχεδὸν ἀεὶ τούτοις ἀκολουθεῖ μόνοις, κακίᾳ γὰρ καὶ ἀρετῇ τὰ ἤθη διαφέρουσι πάντες), ἤτοι βελτίονας ἢ καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς ἢ χείρονας ἢ καὶ τοιούτους, … οἷον Ὅμηρος μὲν βελτίους, Κλεοφῶν δὲ ὁμοίους, Ἡγήμων δὲ ὁ Θάσιος <ὁ> τὰς παρῳδίας ποιήσας πρῶτος καὶ Νικοχάρης ὁ τὴν Δειλιάδα χείρους ... ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ διαφορᾷ καὶ ἡ τραγῳδία πρὸς τὴν κωμῳδίαν διέστηκεν: ἡ μὲν γὰρ χείρους ἡ δὲ βελτίους μιμεῖσθαι βούλεται τῶν νῦν.

Since those who engage in mimesis represent people doing things, it is necessary that they [the characters] are either serious or foolish (for characters almost always only follow these kinds, for through vice and virtue all people vary in character), surely they can make them better than us or worse or even the same as us … for example, Homer makes them better than us, Cleophon the same as us, and Hegemon of Thasos (the first writer of parodies) and Nicochares (writer of the Deiliad) worse than us. It is in this difference that tragedy differs from comedy: the latter usually represents people as worse while the former represents people better than they are now.

Arist. Poet. 1448a1-18

For Aristotle, one of the most important differences between tragedy and comedy is the sorts of people they portray as it dictates the play’s tone. In these, Aristotle concludes, they almost always (σχεδὸν ἀεὶ) are one of two (τούτοις ... μόνοις): good or bad. It is this dichotomy that accounts for the variation between tragedy and comedy. Tragedy’s lofty tone is dictated by its portrayal of lofty and serious people while comedy’s trivial and humorous tone is due to its representation of trivial and humorous people. It is comedy that elicits laughter, not tragedy,

and Aristotle’s rigorous schematization accounts for no middle point. The serio-comic, the so-called spoudaiogeloion,1 occupies no place in Aristotle’s critical framework.

The textual evidence provides a more nuanced picture. In practice, there was not a strict and sustained barrier sealing tragedy and comedy off from each other. When we examine the so-called escape tragedies of Euripides, it becomes clear that Aristotle’s generic prescriptions derive from personal preference or are simply aspirational; they are not reflective of actual practice. At issue are the late Euripidean tragedies, variously labelled as

“comedy,” “tragicomedy,” “melodrama,” and even “anti-tragedy.”2 Whatever the label, a scholarly consensus is that the Euripidean tragedy is deeply influenced by comedy.3 In any case, what emerges is that Aristotle’s strictures cleanly delineating tragedy from comedy are problematic as soon as they are put into practice. Aristotle did not make an error out of ignorance of Euripides — Aristotle quotes Euripides frequently in the Poetics and elsewhere.

Whatever the reason for Aristotle’s simplification — perhaps he deliberately downplayed what he saw as complicating factors, or was simply more interested in the larger dichotomy

— Aristotle misses some interesting nuances of literature.

In an upending of Aristotelian precepts, scholars have begun to see the influence of comedy on late Euripidean tragedy.4 In his hypothesis to Euripides’ Orestes, Aristophanes of

Byzantium says, τὸ δἐ δρᾶμα κωμικωτέραν ἔχει τήν καταστροφήν ("The play has a rather comic denouement," Eur. Or. Argum. 8). The ending of Orestes is unusual. Menelaus is

1 Giangrande (1972) is the most recent systematic study of the serio-comic, in which he is concerned almost exclusively with Greek material. He devotes only twenty pages to Roman literature, in which he only treats the satires of Horace and Juvenal. 2 Respectively, Burnett (1960), in the title of her article, “Euripides’ Helen: a comedy of ideas,” and throughout; Kitto (1966), 311, and 332, and Gellie (1981), 9. 3 Taplin (1986), 165, “It is now orthodox to detect comic touches in later Euripides.” Foley (2008), 28-33, who lists many examples of comedy in Euripides from Ion singing while he sweeps to Pentheus’ cross-dressing scene. Allan (2008), 66-72, and Wright (2005), 6-55, have shown that, although Euripides’ later plays draw on heavily on comic themes, they have firmly tragic roots. 4 Olson (2007), 56, and Rusten (2011), 70.

locked in a standoff with Orestes, Pylades, and Electra, who have kidnapped Hermione. Just before both sides are about to resort to violence, Apollo appears as a deus ex machina and resolves the conflict through marriage: Pylades to Electra and Orestes to Hermione (Eur. Or.

1625-1690). Marriage is the quintessential comic element, and the resolution of a potentially violent conflict without death is atypical of tragedy.5 Scholars are divided as to whether

Aristophanes of Byzantium was recognizing the limitations of the Aristotelian approach to literature or a Euripidean generic innovation.6 Orestes is not the only play in which Euripides relies on marriage to resolve conflicts, and we can see a similar problematization of the genre in Electra, Ion, Iphigenia Among the Taurians, and Helen.

Whatever Aristophanes of Byzantium had identified as κωμικωτέραν, it is unclear whether it would have evoked laughter, although the situation at the end of the Orestes is certainly absurd, possibly to the point of outright humor. However, Euripides certainly appeals to humor in his Electra where he parodies the recognition scene between Orestes and

Electra in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers.7 In Aeschylus’ version, Electra and Orestes recognize each other based on three tokens: the similarity of the pair’s hair color, the identical size of the siblings’ footprints, and a garment woven for baby Orestes by Electra (Aesch.

Cho. 164-245). In Euripides’ version, Electra dismisses each of these tokens with cool logic and exposes the absurdity in Aeschylus’ recognition scene. Electra logically argues that similarity in hair color is meaningless in identifying her brother (Eur. El. 527-529), criticizes

5 See, e.g., Hunter (1985), 83-95, for an extended discussion of marriage as a resolution device in New Comedy. 6 West (1987a), 178, argues that the comment about the denouement acknowledges generic innovation on Euripides’ part while Most (2000), 26-32, sees it as a complication of and reaction to the Aristotelian schema. 7 Traditionally, some scholars did not accept these lines as genuine, such as This view seems to be unfashionable now, but see Fraenkel (1950), 821-826 and Bain (1977), 104-116, both ultimately stemming from Mau (1877), 291-301, but this view is unfashionable now. West (1980), 17-21. Lloyd-Jones (1961), 177-178, Bond (1974), 1-14, and Donzelli (1980), 109- 119 all accept the lines as genuine, as do Roisman and Luschnig (2011), 164 and Cropp (1988), 137-138, the play’s most recent editors.

the idea that footprints can be left on stone and that a brother’s and sister’s footprints should be the same size (Eur. El. 534-537), and ridicules the idea that Orestes, decades later, would still be wearing clothes made for him as a child (Eur. El. 541-545). It is difficult to imagine these lines would not evoke laughter or, at the very least, amusement. Therefore, even from the most cursory look at Euripidean tragedy, it is clear that Aristotle’s strict delineation between high and low, heavy and light, serious and funny is untenable. The serious and humorous can co-exist comfortably within the same work.

In his study of literature in the second degree, Gérard Genette explores the theoretical basis of genres that interact with the σπουδαῖος and the φαῦλος in a more complicated way than Aristotle allows. One of the prime benefits of Genette’s approach to literature is that his theory is founded on secondariness; it prioritizes the hypertextual modes specific to secondary texts and narrative modes. Take his definition of hypertextuality: “by hypertextuality, I mean any relationship uniting a text B (which I shall call the hypertext) to an earlier text A (I shall, of course, call it the hypotext), upon which it is grafted in a manner that is not of the commentary.”8 That he frames the phenomenon in terms of B’s relationship to A, instead of the other way around, is important because it prioritizes secondariness.9 All literature is secondary in some way, but texts that do not attempt to conceal their secondariness, perhaps even self-consciously so, can interact with their hypotexts with by, among other strategies, mismatching subject and tone, treating a tragic subject in comic terms. Accordingly, he provides a nuanced theorization of categories of literature that fall through the cracks of Aristotelian theory. He provides a useful visual:

8 Genette (1997a), 5-6, emphasis original. Genette defines text-commentary relationships as metatextuality, for which see Genette (1997a), 4. 9 A’s chronological and, perhaps, literary critical priority is tacitly acknowledged in its label “A.”

Figure 1: Genette (1997), 22.

The upper left and lower right quadrants are dominant forms of literary discourse and correspond to the Aristotelian σπουδαῖος (epic and tragedy) and the φαῦλος (comedy) where style matches subject. Of the other two quadrants, it is clear enough that such literature existed during Aristotle’s lifetime; he just left it untheorized. A burlesque travesty is something along the lines of a satyr play. In Euripides’ Cyclops, the subject is still lofty men and deeds, but the presence of satyrs lowers the play’s tone from a traditional tragedy.10

For our purposes, the most important quadrant is the middle right: parodies. Genette explains that “‘parody’ ... modifies the subject without altering the style, and that is done in two possible ways: either by preserving the noble text in order to apply it, as literally as possible, to a vulgar subject, real and topical ... or by creating means of stylistic imitation a new noble text too be applied to a vulgar subject.”11 An example of the first possibility is something like Catullus’ ode to a lock of Berenice’s hair because it uses lofty, epic language to describe a lock of hair, a vulgar subject on Genette’s definition while the

Batrachomyomachia, the pseudo-Homeric mock-epic about a war between mice and frogs, is

10 See Seaford (1984), 3-5, for discussion. 11 Genette (1997a), 22, emphasis original.

a good example of the second strategy since it “systematically lifts warlike phrases from the

Iliad and applies them to its battling vermin.”12 Literature of the second degree, the hypertext, must alter a preceding text, the hypotext, in some way.13 When the alteration is antagonistic in some way, Genette describes the interaction as “satirical;” if it is not, it is simply pastiche, which is “a contrario imitation without satirical function.”14 Most acts of parody have some antagonistic impulse, thus making them a “satirical parody,” to use the term in Genette’s idiom.

Prestige genres are more likely to attract literary attention and, consequently, are more easily parodied. Genette has argued that epic is particularly susceptible to parody because

“the epic style, by its formulaic stereotypicality, isn’t simply a designated target for jocular imitation and parodic reversal; it is constantly liable, even exposed, to involuntary self- parody and pastiche.”15 It is easy, in other words, to leverage epic’s (especially, though certainly not exclusively, oral epic’s) tendency towards repetition to create humorous incongruity in context, or to overdo epic bluster to the point of absurdity.

1: Genre and Humor in Roman Poetry

Aristotle’s dichotomization of literature into the serious, σπουδαῖος, and the foolish, φαῦλος, and his concurrent theorization of literary decorum has led to a separation of literature into the “high” and the “low.” In the Roman literary record, however, a strict separation of writers of epic from lower, humorous genres is unwarranted because many of the earliest Roman epicists were also accomplished writers in other, humorous genres. In some cases, it is an

12 Genette (1997a), 22. 13 Genette (1997a), 1-2. 14 Genette (1997a), 23-24, emphasis original. Genette relies heavily on intention to differentiate between pastiche and parody. 15 Genette (1997a), 15.

accident of preservation that accounts for the modern emphasis on epic since most fragments that survive come from epic. Although Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Livy, and Quintilian all credit Livius Andronicus as the founder of Roman literature with his Odusia, every extant source mentions the success of his plays, both comedies and tragedies in the same breath as the translation of Homer — or forego mention of the Odusia altogether and only talk about the plays.16 The Odusia has received the lion’s share of critical attention in studies of Livius

Andronicus, no doubt due to the survival of comparatively more fragments as well as its

Homeric model.17 Yet the survival of the fragments has occluded his role as a comic poet.

In fact, many foundational figures of Latin epic also wrote in literary genres that are broadly designed to be humorous. Although Ennius is best known now, and in antiquity, as the writer of the Annales, his work was multigeneric and encompassed both comedy and satire. Little survives from his comedies. The surviving titles, Caupona and Pancratiastes, both suggest fairly tradition material from comedy.18 Isidorus provides us with our longest

16 Our early extant sources almost unanimously discuss the plays. Only Cic. Brut. 71.10-72 names the Odusia in addition to the plays while Hor. Epist. 2.1.60-62, Cic. Sen. 50, Tusc. 1.1.3; Val. Max. 2.4.4; Liv. 7.2.8 only speak about the plays. Varro Ling. 5.9, Hor. Epist. 2.1.69-71, and Quint. Inst. 10.2.7 are ambiguous, speaking generally of verses, which could come from either the Odusia or the plays. The grammarians, Servius, Festus, Priscian, Gellius, and Nonius, are all very interested in the Odusia and provide us with a wealth of fragments. However, they are quite late. Gellius is the earliest, working sometime in the late second century CE; the other grammarians flourished in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries CE. 17 Biggs (2017), 352, Miller (2015),15-25, Flores (2011), and Leigh (2010), 272-276, are representative. 18 Caupona derives from copa, “landlady,” and Pancrastiastes from a boxer, perhaps to be identified as a comic slave such as Palaestrio in Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus.

passage, seven lines,19 in which wordplay is evident,20 as well as the central comedic concern of policing women’s bodies and sexual behavior. The language also aligns the fragment firmly within the palliata tradition since it echoes not only Naevius’ Tarentilla,21 but also, for example, Plautus’ Asinaria 770-784: dat/det, manus, pedes, anulum, spectandum.

Accordingly, Goldberg and Manuwald, the most recent editors of the Ennian fragments contest that “[t]he similarity of the language probably reflects the uniform diction of the palliata tradition.”22

Ennius was a prolific writer and also produced a work called Satires of which only approximately thirty lines survive.23 The collection’s general humorous character and its affinity to the Roman satirical tradition is evident. He puns with abandon: nam qui lepide postulat alterum frustrari, | quem frustratur, frustra eum dicit frustra esse; | nam qui sese frustrari quem frustra sentit, | qui frustratur is frustrast, si non ille est frustra (“for one who seeks cleverly to deceive another is deceived in saying the one deceived is deceived; for if one is deceived in thinking he is deceiving someone, the one deceiving is deceived, if the other is not deceived,” Enn. fr. 11 trans. Goldberg and Manuwald). His syntax is redolent of comedy: restitant occurrunt obstant obstrigillant obagitant (“they hand back, run up, stand around, stand in the way, harass,” Enn. fr. 4) since this kind of asyndeton is common in

19 quasi in choro pila | ludens datatim dat se et communem facit. | alium tenet, alii adnutat, alibi manus | est occupata, alii pervellit pedem, | alii dat anulum spectandum, a labris | alium invocat, cum alio cantat; adtamen | aliis dat digito litteras, “As if playing with a ball in a group, she offers herself from hand to hand and makes herself common. She holds one, nods to another, elsewhere a hand is busy, one she pinches at the foot, to another she gives a ring to look at, from her lips she summons one, and she stings with yet another; still she makes letters with her finger for others,” Enn. fr. 5. 20 E.g., repetition of alius, playful alliteration, and play with the phonetic similarity between alius and alibi. 21 Naevius. fr. 76. alii adnutat, alii adnictat, alium amat, alium tenet. 22 Goldberg and Manuwald (2018), 215. See Richlin (2017), 186-188, for a discussion of stock formulae in comic fragments and Wright (1974) for a comprehensive study of the close similarity of the palliata’s language. 23 It is unclear whether Ennius himself named it that or that is simply that title it acquired somewhere in transmission.

comedy (see, for example, Plaut. Curc. 291, obstant obsistunt incedunt). The works dealt with low subject matter, like food: neque triste quaeritat sinapi | neque cepe maestum

(“He’s not asking for that grim mustard seed nor the pathetic onion,” Enn. fr. 8). Ennius was clearly a foundational figure of the palliata and satire in addition to epic.

Naevius, too, best known and studied in the epic tradition for his poem Bellum

Punicum, was a prolific and influential writer of dramas, especially comedies.24 Numerous fragments, some substantive, remain, and make it clear that the works are very similar to

Plautine comedy and Greek New Comedy.25 The titles seem to exhibit their resemblance in broad strokes. Two plays Paelex (“The Concubine”) and Colax (“The Flatterer”) show the presence of well-known stock characters while another, Personata (“The Masked Woman”), suggests a play whose plot revolves around mistaken or hidden identity.

It is clear enough that Livius Andronicus, Ennius, and Naevius all were successful poets in genres of humorous narrative mode. While it does not follow that their epics, now largely lost, must have contained a humorous element, it remains that their success in the humorous genres presents this as a possibility. In any case, their poetic interest and talents spanned genres with antithetical tones. The fragmentary state of the evidence makes it difficult to state much about these works with confidence, but, by framing the literary tradition to emphasize the dual or triple talents of the poets, Statius’ remarks in the preface the first book of the Silvae resonate more fully: sed et Culicem legimus et Batrachomachiam etiam agnoscimus, nec quisquam est inlustrium poetarum qui non aliquid operibus suis stilo remissiore praeluserit (“But we read the Culex and also look at the Batrachomachia, nor is

24 Conte (1994), 47. See also von Albrecht (1975), 230, who says Naevius has “Komödiendichter einen guten Namen,” drawing on Fraenkel (1935), 628, who says that “dass erst Naevius die Kräfte der römischen Komödie voll entfaltet hat.” 25 See von Albrecht (1975), 230-231, for an assessment of the poet’s literary success in his lifetime and, briefly, the impact of his comedies and, 232-235, for an overview of the Tarentilla.

there any of the famous poets who did not play around in a more relaxed style before their serious works,” Stat. Silv. 1.pr.7-10). Statius only cites the pseudo-Homeric

Batrachomyomachia and the pseudo-Vergilian Culex as examples, but his point resonates on a broader sense. Vergil and Homer are joined by three key, foundational figures of Latin poetry, Livius Andronicus, Ennius, and Naevius, all of whom wrote works both in a serious, epic style and an apparent stilo remissiore.

However, to press the issue a little further, we might even critique Statius’ conception of low and high poetry. One ancient conception of tragedy and comedy locate both their origins in epic poetry, specifically Homeric epic. Donatus is a late, but eloquent, witness to this: Homerus tamen, qui fere omnis poeticae largissimus fons est, etiam his carminibus exemplae praebuit et uelut quandam suorum operum legem praescipsit: qui Iliadem ad instar tragoediae, Odyssiam ad imaginem comoediae fecisse monstratur (“Homer, however, who is obviously and entirely the most plentiful source of poetry, also provided examples of these kinds of literature [tragedy and comedy] and set a certain law about his works: he is shown to have made the Iliad as the counterpart of tragedy and the Odyssey in the image of comedy,”

Donatus, Euanthius 1.5). A straightforward division between tragedy and comedy, proxies for serious and light poetry, is moot because both were created by Homer in his epics. Epic, then, is not just a genre that can be humorous, but, in the ancient imagination, the genre in which comedy was born.

As early as the Hellenistic period, we can see pushback against the Aristotelian dichotomy. Alexandrian writers both contribute to and resist an Aristotelian schematization of literature. On a practical level, the poet-scholars of the Library at Alexandria faced a problem in how to categorize the vast amount of literature they possessed. Judging from the remains of Callimachus’ Pinakes, he settled on using meter as the prime principle of classification, with the underlying assumption “both that an author composed in only one

poetic form and that all major characteristics of a poetic form — style, diction, subject — are implicit in its meter.”26 This classification method is in firm opposition to Aristotle, who thought that meter had no importance in categorization.27 Nevertheless, the consequences are the same. Since Homer wrote epic poetry in hexameters, hexameters should only reflect epic poetry’s gravitas and elevated diction.

Alexandrian poet-scholars, however, rejected these straightforward generic divisions in their own poetry. James Zetzel demonstrates how the multiple meters of Callimachus

(hexameters in the Hymns, elegiacs in the Aetia, choliambs in the Iambs, and numerous lyric meters besides) results poetry which is unclassifiable according to Callimachus’ own system of classification.28 Based on meter, into what section would a librarian sort the collected works of Callimachus? They belong under elegiacs and yet they have a generic claim to epic, as well as numerous other genres. More importantly, Callimachus and the other Alexandrians dismantled the connections between form and content. Zetzel observes that “the twin ideas that a poet need not be limited to one genre and that a genre need not be limited by classical strictures on the relationship between meter and subject matter ... showed that a great subject need not be dealt with in a grand style ... that the goals of panegyric could be achieved subtly but no less seriously in a smaller voice.”29 The untethering of content and form gave rise to a zeitgeist in which poets regularly pit the two against each other, imploding generic propriety through incongruity and the unexpected. Although the Hellenistic literary picture is highly

26 Zetzel (1983), 99. The other principle that Callimachus used to organize poetry was occasion for which the was written, as is the case with Pindar’s epinician odes. 27 Cf. Arist. Poet. 1451a37-1451b5: ὁ γὰρ ἱστορικὸς καὶ ὁ ποιητὴς οὐ τῷ ἢ ἔμμετρα λέγειν ἢ ἄμετρα διαφέρουσιν (εἴη γὰρ ἂν τὰ Ἡροδότου εἰς μέτρα τεθῆναι καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἂν εἴη ἱστορία τις μετὰ μέτρου ἢ ἄνευ μέτρων): ἀλλὰ τούτῳ διαφέρει, τῷ τὸν μὲν τὰ γενόμεν λέγειν, τὸν δὲ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο, “For the historian and the poet do not differ in writing either in meter or not in meter (for the works of Herodotus could be put into meter and they would be no less historical with or without meter): but they differ in this: one writes the things that have happened, the other in what way things might happen.” 28 Zetzel (1983), 99. 29 Zetzel (1983), 100.

fragmentary, we still possess Herodas’ Mimes, whose choliambs exhibit an ostentatious sexual humor not found in the extant corpus of Hipponax, Theocritus’ Idylls, whose hexameters narrate a pastoral and urban life far removed from traditional epic, and fragments of Callimachus’ Hecale and a portion of the Aetia in which describes Molorchus’ fight with the mice when the audience would expect Heracles’ fight with the Nemean Lion.30 All three of these poets’ works upend readerly expectation generated by their choice in meter.

It is likely in the Hellenistic cultural milieu that the mock heroic epic rises to prominence including its best known representative, the Batrachomyomachia.31 The

Batrachomyomachia is the quintessential mock heroic epic as Genette defines it and he describes it as a “caricature (because its stylistic traits are both exaggerated and depreciated by an “inappropriate” application and are thus doubly satirized).”32 The main source of humor in the Batrachomyomachia derives precisely from an “inappropriate” application of epic tropes and language manifest as the incongruity of epic register being applied to lowly animals, frogs and mice.33

Although the Batrachomyomachia was likely written in the late Hellenistic period, it is not until the Flavian period that we have extant references to it. The second half of the first

30 Hollis (1990), 5-10, for the Hecale. 31 Hosty (2013), 8-18, provides a comprehensive survey of the Batrachomyomachia’s intertextual engagement before sensibly arguing for a date of composition early in the second century BCE. It is possible, if not likely, that this written format was preceded by numerous versions with a longer lineage. Christensen and Robinson (2018), 1-2, West (2003), 229-230, and Glei (1984), 22-33, conclude that a date of the first century BCE or CE, relying on the evidence linguistic amassed by Wackernagel (1916), 188-196. Hosty (2013), 18, argues that this position is overly confident and does not account for reasonable gaps in our linguistic evidence. Moreover, this view fails to consider the time necessary for the text to become canonical and for spurious Homeric authorship to embed itself in the tradition. Previous conjectures about dating, putting the poem in the Archaic or Classical period, such as those Lesky (1971), Dihle (1967), 39 and 11, or Bliquez (1977) are untenable. 32 Genette (1997a), 134. 33 Hosty (2013), 182-183, identifies οὐδ’ ὅσα πρὸς θοίνας μερόπων τεύχουσι μάγειροι, BM 40, as a line that leverages the incongruity between the non-epic θοίνας and the grand, epic μερόπων.

century CE takes a great deal of interest in mock epic and parody. This is not an accident of preservation, but evidence for sustained cultural interest in literary parody and humor.That both Statius and Martial speak of the poem so off handedly suggests widespread knowledge of the poem’s existence. Second, it is this period that gives rise to the Appendix Vergiliana, which Irene Peirano persuasively argued was written to fill the void of Vergilian juvenalia and light works. That a writer would write a mock epic like the Culex and attribute it to

Vergil assumes a cultural desire to read mock epic and to equate Vergil and Homer in all ways. Third, we have a number of works from this period that are parodic, ranging from full- blown mock epic in Juvenal’s fourth satire to local manipulation of lines and words in

Petronius’ Satyricon, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, and some of Juvenal’s other satires.

The early Imperial Roman period is very interested in mock-epic and parody. The earliest reference to the Batrachomyomchia comes from Martial in the early 80s.34 It is entitled Homeri Batrachomyomachia and reads, perlege Maeonio cantatas carmine ranas | et frontem nugis soluere disce meis (“Read about the frogs sung in Maeonian song and learn to relax your brow with my trifles, “ Mart. Ep. 14.183). Two things are immediately apparent when reading this epigram. First, Martial does not hesitate to ascribe the Batrachomyomachia to Homer in the title (Homeri Batrachomyomachia) and in the content (Maeonio carmine).

Second, that he associates the mock epic with a lower tone and he implores his readers to assess his work alongside the Batrachomyomachia so as to gain literary prestige.

Less than a decade later, Statius also mentions the pseudo-Homeric mock epic in such a way that he suggests there is a cultural expectation for poets to write in lower, comic works before turning to serious, weighty poetry.35 In the preface of Silvae 1, he writes, sed et

Culicem legimus et Batrachomachiam etiam agnoscimus, nec quisquam est inlustrium

34 The Saturnalia of 84 CE is the date accepted by modern scholars such as Vioque (2002), 1- 9, Sullivan (1991), 6-55, and Citroni (1989), 201-226. 35 Newlands (2011), 3, Gibson (2006), xxviii-xxx, and Coleman (1988), xvi-xx,

poetarum qui non aliquid operibus suis stilo remissiore praeluserit (“But we read even the

Culex and we also recognize the Batrachomachia, nor is there anyone of the famous poets who did not play around beforehand with something in their works in a more relaxed style,”

Stat. Silv. 1 pr. 7-10). While it must be true that no famous poet produced his or her magnum opus on the first try, Statius’ decision to cite both the Culex and the Batrachomyomachia is telling since both poems engage with the literary tradition humorously and irreverently.

The popularization of the pseudo-Homeric mock epic causes Roman audiences to expect a similar literary output from their equivalent figure, Vergil.36 It is during the first century CE, then, that much of what is now known as the Appendix Vergiliana was first collected. Irene Peirano has persuasively argued that the idea that a poet must ascend the generic hierarchy is widespread in Rome and a desire to see this ascent in a major poet like

Vergil gave rise to the spurious works now in the Appendix Vergiliana.37 It is notable that the most prominent of these works, the Culex, is a mock epic. Ross considers the pseudo-

Vergilian Culex as a parody of epic on stylistic grounds,38 but the self-avowed playfulness of the poem also contributes to its light and mocking tone, such as the programmatic first word lusimus (“I have played,” App. Verg. Cul.1, repeated for emphasis in line initial position in line 3). Moreover, the incongruity created by elevating the gnat’s death to heroic hexameters is an animating tension drawn straight from the parodist’s playbook.

Moreover, numerous literary parodies survive from the second half of the first century

CE suggesting widespread interest in the literary form. Some genres are prone to parody:

Roman satire, for one, began as an anti-epic literary practice when Lucilius parodied a concilium deorum (Lucil. fr. 1-52) as a parodic response to Ennius’ Annales (Skutsch fr. 51-

36 Peirano (2012), 88. Fraenkel (1952), 7-9, also notes the parallelism constructed between Homer and Vergil in their alleged authorship of mock-epic. 37 Peirano (2012), 74-116, for a discussion of how the Catalepton seemingly serve to fill in a gap in Vergil’s youthful literary output. 38 Ross (1975), 242.

55).39 However, the satirical writings of Horace and Persius move away from this parodic relationship, with the exception, perhaps, of the mock epic journey to Brundisium in Horace’s fifth Satire. Nevertheless, we have more evidence dating from the mid-to-late first century

CE of this kind of literary tonal dissonance with the express purpose of mockery than from any other period in the Classical Latin literary record. Juvenal’s Satires, Seneca’s

Apocolocyntosis, and Petronius Satyricon all openly engage with epic poetry. Catherine

Connors has read Eumolpus’ mini-epic Bellum Ciuile as a parody of Lucan’s De Bello

Ciuili,40 while the poetry in the Apocolocyntosis draws a great deal of its poetic language from epic, and the council of the gods scene is very much a parody of an epic trope in the same vein as Lucilius’ concilium deorum.41 In both works, the writers use hyperbole and incongruity to raise a laugh.42

Juvenal creates an epic parody in the vein of its Lucilian roots in his fourth satire.

Susanna Braund comments that the poem “revitalises the relationship between satire and epic which was present virtually from the inception of the genre.”43 The influence of Lucilius is all the more apparent when we consider the object of the consilium: Hadriaci spatium admirabili rhombi (“the amazing built of the Adriatic turbot,” Juv. 4.39). This is a humorous literalization of the object of Lucilius’ concilium deorum, the censor Lupus.44 In addition to meaning “wolf,” a lupus is also a huge fish with a ravenous appetite.45 Lucilius’ concilium deorum was about the man named Lupus while Juvenal’s consilium is about a large ravenous

39 Hardie (1993), 115-116. For the relationship between satire and epic, see chapter 2. 40 Connors (1998), 100-146, and Connors (1994), 225-232. 41 Freudenburg (2015), 98-101. 42 As such, they fit closely into Genette’s typology as mock epic as he describes at Genette (1997a), 134. 43 Braund (1996), 271. 44 Freudenburg (2015), 38, n. 25., Connors (2005), 141-144, and Freudenburg (2001), 261- 262. 45 Connors (2005), 127. See Varro Rust. 3.3.9, Hor. Sat. 2.2.31, Ov. Hal. 23, Col. 8.16.4, Plin. NH. 9.162, and Mart. 10.30.21.

fish, which, if given a species name, could feasibly be a lupus. Yet it is not just any epic that

Juvenal is mocking here, but, according to scholiasts, Statius’ lost De Bello Germanico.

Although only four lines remain of the historical epic, the identification of the parody is likely correct: both discuss, in hexameters, a historical subject involving Domitian, and some names of Domitian’s advisors appear in both Juvenal’s poem and the remains of Statius’ epic.

Juvenal’s fourth satire becomes important evidence for parody in the second half of the first century CE.46 Not only does it provide evidence for active, literary parody in the period, but also shows that parody and laughter are a way to deconstruct political propaganda and epic, in this case in the form of Statius’ De Bello Germanico.

Petronius’ Satyricon also engages in literary parody on multiple levels. The whole novel’s action appears to be driven by the wrath of Priapus, a parody of epic’s conventional impetus of divine anger.47 The poem contains numerous moments of epic parody, such as when Giton hides under a bed from Ascyltus in imitation of the Cyclops episode from the

Odyssey.48 Yet an even more pointed literary parody exists in the form of Eumolpus’ Bellum

Ciuile towards the end of the poem.49 The exact relationship between the two poems is debated, but it is reasonably clear that the two poems are in conversation since the first lines of Eumolpus’ poem strongly recall Lucan.50 Eumolpus’ poem thematizes consumption as a

46 See Ferriss-Hill (2015a) for discussion of the intricacies of Juvenal’s language. 47 See, for example, Connors (1998), 26-27, or Schmeling (2011), xxii-xxiv. The best internal evidence of this comes towards the end of the extant portion when Encolpius complains that he is the victim of Priapus at Petr. Sat. 139.2. 48 Petr. Sat. 97.4. See Schmeling (2011), xxxvii, for a brief discussion. 49 See Rimell (2002), esp. 77-97, for sensible discussions of the relationship between Lucan’s and Petronius’ poems, Courtney (2001), 183, Connors (1998), 100-102, and Soverini (1985), especially 1754-1763. Sullivan (2006) detects a literary feud between Lucan, Petronius, and Seneca. 50 Compare orbem iam totum victor Romanus habebat, | qua mare, qua terrae, qua sidus currit utrumque, Petr. Sat. 119.1, with diuiditur ferro regnum, populique potentis, | quae mare, quae terras, quae totum possidet orbem, | non cepit fortuna duos, Luc. 1.109-111. Connors (1998), 105-106, and Zeitlin (1971), 75, accept this as intertextual engagement contra Slater (1990), 195, and George (1974), 123.

concern of world domination and empire, which Catherine Connors has explained

“mockingly stuffs food into the structures (meter, vocabulary, style) which epic uses in its construction of a coherent world order.”51 In other words, Petronius targets Lucan’s epic and fundamentally lowers its content and style.

2: Humor in Statian Epic: Irony and Wordplay

2.1: Statius’ Achilleid:

Statius’ Achillied is widely acknowledged as humorous; scholars have called it “undoubtedly funny”52and “light-hearted and witty.”53 This derives, in part, from the poem’s abiding interest in the disjunction between expectation and reality, which is so pervasive that Peter

Davis has recently called the whole poem a “paradox.”54 This is partially to be expected, given the pervasive Ovidian influence.55 The poem both embraces and rejects the epic tradition to the extent that some scholars have had difficulty in accepting the poem as a fully- fledged epic, a position which Peter Heslin has thoroughly refuted through his analysis of the

Achilleid’s sustained engagement with the epic tradition.56

Of course, the most significant departure from epic norms is that the Achilleid centers on female actors in the characters of Thetis and Deidamia and that it depicts Achilles, not in a

51 Connors (1998), 112. 52 Moul (2012), 287. 53 Heslin (2005), xviii. 54 Davis (2015), 157. 55 Much work has been done recently on Statius’ use of Ovid in the Achilleid. Barchiesi (1996), 45-62 and Rosati (1994), esp. 25-33. In Anglophone scholarship, work on Ovidian influence was begin in earnest by Hinds (1998), 135-144, Hinds (2000), 237-244, and Feeney (2004), 85-95. More recently, see Chinn (2013) and Fantuzzi (2013) for discussions of how the Metamorphoses and the Ars Amatoria, respectively, informs the Achilleid. 56 Heslin (2005), 57-104, for coherence of the Achilleid, 193-236, for a discussion of ritual transvestitism, and, 237-276, for discussion of Achilles’ rape of Deidameia and masculinity.

martial context, but during his time on Scyros as, to use Heslin’s words, “a cross-dressing draft dodger.”57 In other words, the Achilleid breaks just about every rule that ancient and modern audiences associated with epic. As Peter Heslin puts it, “the contrast with Homer is stark: where Achilles’ temporary withdrawal from the Greek forces in the Iliad results in bitter tragedy, his temporary withdrawal from military service on Scyros is the stuff of slapstick comedy and romantic melodrama.”58 When the poem does interact with the epic tradition, it does so “only to defeat the expectations [it] creates.”59 In the Achilleid, Statius certainly does not go so far as Juvenal, Persius, Seneca, or Petronius in lampooning epic, but nevertheless there is something of an anti-epic impulse in the poem. There are erotic undertones antithetical to ethos of epic and the centering of Thetis as an epic actor destabilizes epic as a fundamentally masculine genre. Recently Mairéad McAuley has read the poem as a “maternal” epic by prioritizing the figure of Thetis as the primary mover of poem’s action.60

The gender/genre dynamic is further undermined by Statius’ presentation of Achilles, the quintessential epic hero, in the most un-epic context available to him in myth: that of a disguised maiden on Scyros. The poem certainly does not constitute a mock heroic epic, which Genette defines as a work which “characteristic formulas of epic themes and diction are applied to a subject that is ‘low.’”61 Nor does the poem qualify as a travesty, which

Genette defines as “preserving [epic] ‘action,’ meaning its fundamental content and movement ... but impressing on it an entirely different elocution, or ‘style,’ in classical sense of the term.”62 Nevertheless, the irony and paradox often evoke a serio-comic aesthetic and

57 Heslin (2005), xi-xii, echoing, perhaps unconsciously, Hinds (2000), 244, “the draft- dodging, emasculating intervention of Thetis, which made Achilles a woman on Scyros.” 58 Heslin (2005), xii. 59 Davis (2015), 163. 60 McAuley (2016), 345-389, and McAuley (2010) as well as Hinds (2000), 241-244. 61 Genette (1997a), 133, with a discussion of mock heroic epic from 133-142. 62 Genette (1997a), 58.

force the humorous and the serious to coexist and is a prime means by which the poem defines itself against the epic tradition. I argue that paradox and incongruity are manifest in the poem on semantic, narrative, and literary critical levels. At its simplest semantic level,

Statius often resorts to oxymoron to complicate straightforward meaning; at its most complex, Statius uses the epic tradition to frustrate readerly expectation in ironic gestures.

The Achilleid is overtly interested in how two different things can exist in the same space. On its simplest level, we can see Statius interrogate the distinction in his presentation of Chiron and Achilles. Early in the poem, Statius takes pains to emphasize the centaur’s physical duality.63 He writes, erumpit siluis — dant gaudia uires — | notaque desueto crepuit senis ungula campo. | tunc blandus dextra atque imos demissus in armos | pauperibus tectis inducit et admonet antri. (“He bursts from the woods — joy gives him strength — and the familiar hoof of the old man sounded on the field, fallen out of use. Then, courteous with his hand, and bending down on his shoulders, he leads he into his poor house and warns about the cavern,” Stat. Ach. 1.122-125). As a centaur, Chiron is obviously half-human, half-horse.

However, Statius takes pains to emphasize the clear duality in his presentation: the hoof, ungula, belong to an old man, senis; when Chiron bows to Thetis, his bow requires him to bend onto his shoulders, imos demissus in armos.64 That Statius insists on using human vocabulary to describe even the equine aspects of Chiron’s anatomy further underscores his duality.

Chiron’s duality sheds light onto Achilles’ own. The poet reminds the readers at the beginning of the poem that Achilles himself is half-human, half-divine: magnanimum

Aeaciden formidatamque Tonanti | progeniem et patrio uetitam succedere caelo, | diua, refer

(“Goddess, tell about the great-souled Aeacides and the offspring feared by the Thunderer

63 Dubois (1982), 31-32, discusses centaurs’ duality in literary and artistic representations. 64 Uccellini (2012), 120-121.

and forbidden to succeed to the paternal sky,” Stat. Ach. 1.1-3). There are numerous gestures towards Achilles half-divine parentage. The patronym Aeaciden firmly establishes Achilles as mortal, but ambiguity about parentage persists. The patrio ... caelo gestures towards

Achilles’ alternative parentage of Jupiter and Thetis.65 The proem, then, creates something of a paradox about Achilles’ parentage and divine status. The patrio ... caelo is no paternal sky at all since Peleus is Achilles’ father as Statius has just established in the second word of the poem. Jupiter becomes the would-be parent of Achilles as well as his real parent as Statius simultaneously asserts Peleus’ paternity. Statius complicates the question of Achilles’ birth, and thereby his mortal or divine status, immediately.

Statius creates paradox, just as he does with Achilles’ parentage. He often accomplishes this through oxymoron, which forces meaning to collapse in on itself due to conflicting meanings or registers. At the beginning of the poem, Statius describes Paris’ abduction of Helen as the precipitating cause of the Trojan War: soluerat Oebalio classem de litore pastor | Dardanus incautas blande populatus Amyclas (“The Trojan shepherd had released the fleet from the Oebalus’ shore having gently laid waste to the unsuspecting

Spartans,” Stat. Ach. 20-21). There are a number of salient features of this passage, but I want to focus on the conflicting registers and paradoxical situation. The most obvious incongruity is the phrase blande populatus. Uccellini says that “l'ossimoro associa con raffinatezza i contrapposti motivi dell'amore e della guerra.”66 The poem often insists on tearing down the distinctions between the erotic and the epic.67 The confusion of tones and genres is amplified by the un-epic pastor beginning the Trojan War. The shepherd more properly belongs to the lower bucolic poetry.

65 Uccellini (2012), 30-31. 66 Uccellini (2012), 56. 67 Heslin (2005), 105-155.

The Achilleid’s confusion of epic tropes is fertile area for analysis with regard to paradox and humor in the poem. Statius draws on tropes from the epic tradition to upset his audience’s expectations. This practice is enabled by the poem’s ostentatious secondariness, but Statius also leverages his secondariness to his advantage for situating his poem in the tradition and advertising its difference from the tradition.68 The readerly expectation for the sea storm is frustrated, as is the expectation for a concilium deorum. Neptune embeds a reference to the decision of a concilium deorum in his speech: ratus ordo deis miscere cruentas | Europamque Asiamque manus, consultaque belli| Iuppiter et tristes edixit caedibus annos (“It was decreed amongst the gods that bloody hands mix up Europe and Asia and

Jupiter has proclaimed war and years of sad slaughter,” Stat. Ach. 1.81-83). It is not so much that the concilium deorum does not appear in the poem’s universe at all. Instead, we are left with the impression that Thetis (and the audience) is late and has missed it.

However, Statius engages in similar upending of tropes on a smaller scale. He frustrates readerly expectation not with absence, as with the sea storm or the concilium deorum, but rather through incongruous and comic engagement. He applies standard epic diction and tropes to thoroughly un-epic situations and, by doing so, evokes humor as a way to engage with his epic past. After Thetis’ discussion with Neptune about raising a sea storm, she decides to go to Thessaly in order to take Achilles away from Chiron’s care: ter conata manu, liquidum ter gressibus aequor | reppulit et niueas feriunt uada Thessala plantas

(“Thrice she tried with her hand, thrice she pushed liquid water with her steps and the

Thessalian waters hit her white feet,” Stat. Ach. 99-100). This is a fairly mundane passage describing Thetis’ travels to Thessaly, but it is wrapped up in highly epic language. The

68 The secondariness of the poem and its tropes is further belied by the fact that we never see Jupiter, the most important god, in the poem as it comes down to us, only Neptune, whom Thetis addresses as if he were Jupiter: O magni genitor rectorque profundi, “Oh father and leader of the great deep,” Stat. Ach. 1.61. The address might be to Jupiter, but it is undercut by the final word which specifies profundi.

formula ter ... ter has a highly epic pedigree dating all the way back to Homer in two distinct but supremely epic ways.

Homer employs a variant of the ter ... ter to describe theomachy as well as highly emotional moments. When Homer describes heroes fighting gods, he resorts to the same attack pattern, which Kirk labelled the “τρίς …| τρίς … | τὸ τέταρτον pattern.”69 Homer uses this attack pattern to describe Diomedes’ attacks on Aphrodite (Hom. Il. 5.436-439),

Patroclus’ assault on Apollo (Hom. Il. 16.702-706), and Achilles’ fight with Hector who is protected by Apollo (Hom. Il. 20.445-449).70 In each case, the number of attacks is central.

Since theomachy represents some of the highest moments the genre deals with, the scene and its set language take on special importance.71 Although the Statian ter ... ter lacks the equivalent of τὸ τέταρτον that each of these moments contains, the scenes of theomachy are so imbued with epic importance that ter … ter is sufficient to recall these scenes.

Homer also employs a variation of this formula, which more closely matches the ter

… ter in the Achilleid, in Odysseus’ katabasis.in the Odyssey. When Odysseus describes his attempts to hug the shade of Anticleia, he says, τρὶς μὲν ἐφωρμήθην, ἑλέειν τέ με θυμὸς

ἀνώγει, | τρὶς δέ μοι ἐκ χειρῶν σκιῇ εἴκελον ἢ καὶ ὀνείρῳ | ἔπτατ᾿. ἐμοὶ δ᾿ ἄχος ὀξὺ γενέσκετο

κηρόθι μᾶλλον (“Three times I went towards her, and my heart told me to clasp her, three times she flitted from my arks like a shadow or a dream. And the pain became even sharper in my chest,” Hom. Od. 11.206-208). Although this moment is clearly not a martial theomachy as the τρίς …| τρίς … | τὸ τέταρτον pattern imply, it is a moment of intense emotionality. The τρίς … τρίς amplifies the futility of the Odysseus’ attempted embrace and heightens the scene’s pathos.

69 Kirk (1990), 106. Fenik (1968), 46-48, notices the similar numbers of attacks, but does not formulate or theorize a pattern. 70 See Beck (2018), 153-160, for analysis of Homeric τρὶς μέν ... τρὶς δέ correlatives in the Diomedes, Achilles, and Patroclus episodes and passim for a systematic analysis. 71 Chaudhuri (2014), 16-39.

Latin literature picks up on both of the theomachic and emotional resonances of the numerical patterns, translated as ter... ter. In the Georgics, Vergil employs it to describe the

Aloidae: ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam| scilicet atque Ossae frondosum inuoluere

Olympum; | ter pater exstructos disiecit fulmine montis (“Thrice they tried to pile Ossa onto

Pelion and to roll leafy Olympus onto Ossa, thrice the father dashed apart their piled-up mountains with a thunderbolt,” Verg. G. 1.281-283). Furthermore, in the Metamorphoses,

Ovid channels the theomachic resonances of the pattern in his description of Hercules wrestling Achelous: ter sine profectu uoluit nitentia contra | reicere Alcides a se mea pectora; quarto | excutit amplexus, adductaque bracchia soluit, | inpulsumque manu — certum est mihi uera fateri — | protinus auertit, tergoque onerosus inhaesit (“Three times

Hercules tried to push my [i.e., Achelous’] opposing chest away from his without success; on the fourth try, he shook off my embrace and released my tight grip and, struck by his hand,

— I am determined to speak the truth — he turned me over straightway and, heavy, sat on my back,” Ov. Met. 9.50-54). The numerical significance of three is not lost on Achelous and

Hercules’ successful theomachic wrestling match seems, in Achelous’ retelling to hinge on the meaning of ter ... quarto.

Latin epic poets more frequently draw on the emotional ter … ter pattern, in no small part due to Vergil’s adaptation in Aeneid 2 and 6 of the Odysseus/Anticleia scene. Twice

Vergil appropriates the Homeric language for powerfully emotional farewells between

Aeneas and Creusa and Dido: ter conatus ibi colo dare bracchia circum; | ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago (“Three times I tried to put my arms around her neck; three times the image, touched by my hand in vain, fled,” Verg. Aen. 2.792-793 = Aen. 6.700-701).

Vergil is drawing on the Homeric meeting between Odysseus and Anticleia; so much is clear based on the situational similarity (both Odysseus and Aeneas are humans trying to embrace

ghosts) as well as linguistic parallels (both rely on ter … ter / τρίς … τρίς).72 Vergil fills out the scene by adding his own elements, namely by focusing on the pathos of the moment by heightening the futility of the act through the addition of conatus.

Statius’ Thetis draws on this complex web of intertextuality in her travels to Thessaly. ter conata manu, liquidum ter gressibus aequor | reppulit et niueas feriunt uada Thessala plantas not only draws on the highly epic theomachic τρίς …| τρίς … | τὸ τέταρτον pattern, but specifically alludes to Vergil’s representation of the scene. In fact, ter and any inflected form of conor only appear in this exact order three times in extant Latin Literature, all of which are moments of heightened emotional intensity and all of which engage with Vergil’s adaptation of Homer.73 Statius’ deployment of the intertext frustrates readerly expectation for a grand moment of emotional or martial intensity. Instead, the mundanity of the actions described by Statius’ ter … ter renders the trope and epic language absurd. The incongruity between what epic poets regularly deploy the trope to describe and what Statius does is immense and creates tension between the tradition of serious intertextual engagement and the playful comic application Statius puts on the text.

The Achilleid puts other tropes under similar pressure. When Thetis is having difficulty convincing Achilles to put on women's clothes at Scyros, Statius resorts to an invocation to ask which of the gods was able to get around the impasse: quis deus attonitae fraudes astumque parenti | contulit? indocilem quae mens detraxit Achillem? (“Which god bestowed tricks and deceit onto the terrified mother? What mood diverted unteachable

Achilles?” Stat. Ach. 1.283-284). The invocation itself is an epic trope that lends itself to grandiosity. In particular, this invocation recalls two from the Aeneid, one in the mouth of

72 Horsfall (2008), 544. 73 Verg. Aen. 10.685, where Turnus is on the verge of suicide only to be stopped by Juno, Ov. Met. 11.419, where Alcyone tries to persuade Ceyx not to go to Delphi, and Ov. Fast. 2.824- 825, where Ovid uses it to describe Lucretia immediately before her suicide.

Numanus Remulus, an Italic soldier fighting against the Trojans, and the other of Juno (quid deus Italian, quae uos dementia adegit? Verg. Aen. 9.601 and quis deus in fraudem, quae dura potentia nostra | egit? Verg. Aen. 10.72-73 respectively).74 Yet all of these invocations involving a pointed rhetorical question perhaps recall the most famous of Greco-Roman antiquity, the first invocation of the Iliad: τίς τ᾽ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;

(“Which of the gods set them to fight in strife?” Hom. Il. 1.8). Homer immediately answers his own question by asserting it was Apollo who drove them apart; in the Achilleid, Statius never directly answers the question. Instead, he introduces the chorus line of Scyrian girls led by Deidamia. That anthropomorphized Amor or Cupid is the deity to change Achilles’ mind is perhaps implied;75 however, the more direct answer is that the god responsible for

Achilles’ stay on Scyros is not a god at all, but rather a girl. The expectations generated by the epic trope are, again, frustrated.

Over the course of the Achilleid, we see Statius resort over and again to this same technique of disappointed expectations prompted by an epic trope or intertext. Tropes are rendered ridiculous or entirely reversed, or both.76 Yet my main point is that multiple registers are often in conflict. An intertext may suggest a serious scene of emotional or martial importance, but Statius uses it to describe a mundane activity. Alternatively, he may use epic tropes to generate expectations that are frustrated. These literary strategies are of a piece with the Achilleid’s overall thematic concerns of duality and paradox.

Thetis neatly sums up the tension between epic seriousness and humor in her exhortation to Achilles to dress as a woman: hasne inter simulare choros et bracchia ludo | nectere, nate, graue est? (“Son, is it so hard to imitate these chorus lines and to join arms in

74 Uccellini (2012), 205, and Harrison (1991), 77. 75 Uccellini (2012), 205, says, “domanda retorica che non prevede una risposta, ma forse il riferimento implicito può essere a Cupido (deus).” 76 The influence of elegy is a factor in the destabilization of epic, for which see Heslin (2005), 105-155, Hinds (1998), 123-144, and Rosati (1994).

play?” Stat. Ach. 1.319-320). The key word here is graue, a polyvalent word which means both “difficult” and “serious.” On a purely functional level, the answer to Thetis’ question is

“no.” It is not difficult, by epic standards, to join the chorus line and dance with the girls; it is simply a matter of donning clothing, not superhuman feats of strength or dire war. Yet, by those same epic standards, it is very difficult for Achilles to put aside his honor and the promise of epic glory to dance with the girls. On this view, graue corresponds to the

Aristotelian σπουδαῖος, which is threatened by Thetis’ explicit admission that Achilles’ participation in the chorus is playful, ludo.

Nevertheless, this duality of playful seriousness (or, conversely, serious playfulness) is not only thematized in the characters of Chiron or Achilles, but in the epic’s very essence.

The poem’s action is unexpected and incongruous, and two registers fight with each other for prominence. It is this duality that renders the poem difficult for literary analysis. Statius frequently uses paradoxical humor and irony to fight against readerly expectation for epic.

However, as often as Statius subverts the epic expectation, he reinforces the epicness of the poem, never quite allowing it to sink to a sub-epic status. Instead, the poem pointedly resists a straightforward reading. This technique is at the very heart of the debate about the poem’s relationship to the epic tradition.

Some view the final two hundred or so lines of the poem as the beginning of a redemptive arc for Achilles’ unepic behavior. While Odysseus, Diomedes, and Achilles are en route to Troy, Odysseus asks Achilles to tell him about his time spent on Scyros. In particular, he asks about the circumstances under which the Ithacan found the young man: callida femineo genetrix uiolauit amictu | commisitque illis tam grandia furta latebris | sperauitque fidem? nimis o suspensa nimisque | mater! (“Did your trickster mother defile you with a womanly cloak? Did she commit a deception so grand with that hiding place and have a hope that it would remain a secret? Oh, she was excessively uncertain and excessively

motherly,” Stat. Ach. 2.35-38).77 Although the reader knows that Achilles was only gently persuaded to don women’s clothing, Odysseus gives Achilles an out: blame Thetis and none of the Achaeans will be any the wiser. But Achilles refuses to tell: heros | Aeacius: ‘longum resides exponere causas | maternumque nefas; hoc excusabitur ense | Scyros et indecores, fatorum crimina, cultus’ (“The Aeacedean hero responded: ‘it would take a long time to explain the causes of my tarrying and the maternal outrage; by this sword Scyros and the shameful clothes, the crimes of the Fates, will be excused,’” Stat. Ach. 2.42-45). McAuley has argued that “Achilles’ vow, on regaining his masculine apparel and arma, to expiate his shameful cross-dressing ‘phase’, might be seen as programmatic for the non-extant remainder of Statius’ epic poem.”78 This part, in other words, marks the turn into true epic, as is evident in Achilles’ declaration that his sword will make up for past offenses. However, if this is the turn toward true epic, it faces serious problems.

First, although Odysseus has given Achilles the opportunity to blame Thetis for the affair and put it behind him once and for all, Achilles demurs. His shame is deeply rooted and, as Heslin notes, could “leave a trace in our minds when we turn to Homer.”79 That

Achilles may be motivated by the shame of cross-dressing when he withdraws from the

Achaean camp alters how we view the Homeric episode. Moreover, although Statius primes the audience for the shift to epic by calling Achilles heros Aeacius, using the epic word par excellence and a patronym, Achilles’ words do not live up to its epic expectations. His speech is laden with irony and rhetorical missteps. He calls the whole sojourn a maternum ... nefas

(“a maternal outrage”) and the clothes Fatorum crimina. These are both certainly overblown

77 Odysseus employs language of non-epic to describe Thetis’ motivation: callida properly belongs to comedy, femineo...amictu is elegiac, tam grandia furta is almost mock-epic as Odysseus uses a highly epic word (grandia) to describe unepic behavior (furta), and nimis o suspensa nimisque | mater, apart from striking a comic register, is derisive. 78 McAuley (2016), 349, and McAuley (2010), 43. 79 Heslin (2005), 297.

and, in a poem where the poet has established his literary credentials on the Theban myth,80 the maternum nefas recalls Jocasta’s incest with Oedipus more powerfully than Thetis’ desperate attempt to save her son — a fact made relevant at all because Statius has composed an epic Thebaid, a fact he reminds the reader at the beginning of the poem (Stat. Ach. 1.13-

14). Furthermore, when Achilles says hoc excusabitur ense | Scyros (“Scyros will be excused by this sword”), he is inadvertently speaking about his penis.81 In context, he is simply speaking about rehabilitating his manhood in combat, but, combined with the strange remark about the maternum nefas, it seems also a possibility that he is referring to the actual phallus.

If this is Achilles’ vow to become a more epic personage, as McAuley contends, he has some way yet to go: he still considers clothes and motherly intrigues to be the stuff of epic and, perhaps unintentionally, gestures towards incest inappropriately. It is impossible to know how Statius would have completed his epic, but, if these words are a programmatic statement about the poem to come, it will certainly contain the same conflicting registers and tones which make the poem so difficult to reconcile with the epic tradition.

2.2: The Thebaid

Scholars have increasingly recognized that Statius does not limit these humorous strategies to the Achilleid. Kyle Gervais has recently argued that “Statius’ similes often do not match their tenor in key details, and thereby contribute to the pervasive irony that undercuts every aspect of the epic’s surface narrative.”82 One particular simile that Gervais identifies as mismatching tenor and vehicle is the comparison of sisters Argia and Deiphyle to Minerva and Diana:

pars uirginibus circum undique fusae

80 Stat. Ach. 1.12-13. 81 Adams (1982), 19-22. 82 Gervais (2017a), xxxiii. See also Micozzi (2015), 327-334, for a discussion of irony within character’s intertextual persona.

foedera conciliant noua solanturque timorem. ibant insignes uultuque habituque uerendo 230 candida purpureum fusae super ora pudorem deiectaeque genas; tacite subit ille supremus uirginitatis amor, primaeque modestia culpae confundit uultus; tunc ora rigantur honestis imbribus, et teneros lacrimae iuuere parentes. 235 non secus ac supero pariter si cardine lapsae Pallas et asperior Phoebi soror, utraque telis, utraque torua genis flauoque in uertice nodo, illa suas Cyntho comites agat, haec Aracyntho; tunc, si fas oculis, non umquam longa tuendo 240 expedias, cui maior honos, cui gratior, aut plus de Ioue; mutatosque uelint transumere cultus, et Pallas deceat pharetras et Delia cristas.

Some, poured out all around, reconcile them to the new unions and allay their fear. They go, distinguished in beauty and reverent dress A red blush suffuses their white faces and their eyes Are downcast; silently the last love of virginity goes away; The bashfulness of the first transgression upsets their faces; Then their faces are moistened with worthy rains And the tears please their tender parents. [They arrived] no differently than Pallas and the harsher Sister of Phoebus came down together from the heavens above, each With her weapons, each fierce in her face and with a blond braid on her head, That one brings her companions from Mt. Cynthus, this one from Aracynthus. Then, if it were permitted, you would never decide which one has greater Grace, who is more pleasing, who had inherited more from Jupiter; And if they should wish to put on each other’s attributes, The quiver would suit Pallas and the helmet Diana.

Stat. Theb. 2.236-243

The tenor, Argia and Deiphyle’s beauty, is out of sync with the vehicle, Minerva and Diana’s beauty. The most obvious point of departure between the two is that Diana and Minerva are virgin goddesses while Argia and Deiphyle are on their way to get married — technically virgins at the moment, to be sure, but with the clear implication that this status is not for long.

The most pointed contrast, however, is the goddess’ fierceness and warlike nature. Statius highlights the goddess’ fearsome aspects and nature: Pallas et asperior Phoebi soror, utraque

telis, | utraque torua genis. Argia and Deiphyle, on the other hand, are terrified (timorem, deiectae genas, ora rigantur).83

The mismatch between vehicle and tenor results in irony, a strategy Statius often exploits elsewhere for humorous effect.84 Irony interrupts and problematizes traditional modes of narrative epic. In the case of similes, irony undercuts their assumed comparative — in particular, assimilating — function, instead bringing into the reader’s awareness an unexpected or discordant image. In the passage above, the second person address (si fas oculis, non umquam longa tuendo | expedias) reminds the reader that he is in charge of interpretation and that he must make a decision about what to take away from the simile.

Irony challenges the reader by refusing to provide a straightforward comparison: are Argia and Deiphyle really like Diana and Minerva? The simile’s irony suggests the comparanda are incommensurate — even a negative comparison can reveal more about the subjects that this simile does — perhaps suggesting that comparisons between the divine and mortals are, in the first place, misguided.

Statius does not limit irony to similes, but uses it in conjunction with wordplay to imbue otherwise horrific or pathetic scenes with humor. Tydeus’ cannibalism is one of the most horrific moments in the Thebaid, no mean feat in a poem which John Henderson has

83 The simile looks back to Vergil’s simile comparing Dido to Diana in Aeneid 1 (Verg. Aen. 1. 494-506), but even that comparison throws the Statian irony into relief. Dido is Diana in that she is a warrior queen founding her own city and, at that point in the Vergilian narrative, has sworn off marriage before she even considers reneging on her oath. The first time we did Dido question her self-imposed chastity is at Verg. Aen. 4.19-20 in a conversation with Anna, after the banquet. 84 Just in Book 2: a simile at 81-88 whose tenor is Theban mothers joyfully celebrating a ritual on Cithaeron, but the vehicle is drunken Bistones who become enraged and kill each other; 128-132, whose tenor is Eteocles, terrified by Laius appearing in his dream and the vehicle is a tigress that has slaughtered a host of soldiers; 558-564, compares Tydeus tearing a boulder off a mountain and hurling it at his ambushers to Pholus smashing a bowl over the heads of the Lapiths.

called an “epic horror-show.”85 The act is so revolting that Minerva, on the verge of bestowing the honor of immortality on Tydeus, flees in horror to cleanse her defiled vision

(Stat. Theb. 8.758-766), and Thebans and Argives unite, perhaps for the only time in the poem, in their repulsion and condemnation of the Aeolian (9.1-4). Given the universal horror evoked, it would be somewhat surprising to see someone treat the incident humorously. Yet that is precisely what Polynices does in his lament for his dear friend when he puns on cannibalism:

tandem ille abiectis, uix quae portauerat, armis nudus in egregii uacuum iam corpus amici procidit et tali lacrimas cum uoce profudit: 'hasne tibi, armorum spes o suprema meorum, Oenide, grates, haec praemia digna rependi, 50 funus ut inuisa Cadmi tellure iaceres sospite me? nunc exul ego aeternumque fugatus, quando alius misero ac melior mihi frater ademptus. nec iam sortitus ueteres regnique nocentis periurum diadema peto: quo gaudia tanti 55 empta mihi aut sceptrum quod non tua dextera tradet? ite, uiri, solumque fero me linquite fratri: nil opus arma ultra temptare et perdere mortes; ite, precor; quid iam dabitis mihi denique maius? Tydea consumpsi! quanam hoc ego morte piabo? 60 o socer, o Argi! et primae bona iurgia noctis alternaeque manus et, longi pignus amoris, ira breuis! non me ense tuo tunc, maxime Tydeu, (et poteras) nostri mactatum in limine Adrasti! quin etiam Thebas me propter et impia fratris 65 tecta libens, unde haud alius remeasset, adisti, ceu tibimet sceptra et proprios laturus honores. iam Telamona pium, iam Thesea fama tacebat. qualis et ecce iaces! quae primum uulnera mirer? quis tuus hic, quis ab hoste cruor? quae te agmina quiue 70 innumeri strauere globi? num fallor, an86 ipse inuidit pater et tota Mars impulit hasta?'

85 Henderson (1992), 30, who also states that “Statius sings us Antiquity’s Killing Fields,” a powerful reference to the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s in which the Khmer Rouge killed millions of political dissidents as well as religious and ethnic minorities. 86 I accept Bentley’s conjecture from the mss. attested et to an along with the requisite punctuation changes. Dewar (1991), 71-72, is persuasive in his defense “The real problem, however, is the et which, if retained, would yield the rather awkward sense, ‘Surely I am not mistaken? Both Jupiter and Mars smote you.” The textual difficulty likely accounts for Lactantius’ misunderstanding pater to modify Mars.

sic ait, et maerens etiamnum lubrica tabo ora uiri terget lacrimis dextraque reponit.

At last he [Polynices], with his arms tossed aside, which he could scarcely carry, throws himself naked onto the now empty corpse of his outstanding friend and he pours out tears with these words: “Is this the thanks, oh son of Oeneus, oh last hope of my arms, I pay to you? Are these the worthy prizes? That you should lie, dead, in the hated land of Cadmus while I am safe? Now I am an exile, always on the run, since another and better brother is taken from miserable me. I do not seek the old lots any longer or the perjured diadem of the guilty kingdom: what do joys bought at such a high price matter to me or a scepter that your hand will not turn over? Go, men, leave me alone with my wild brother: there is no need to try arms further and waste lives; go, I beg; what greater thing will you give to me now? I have eaten/spent Tydeus! With what death will I expiate this loss? Oh father-in-law, oh Argives! Even the good brawl of the first night and the twin blows and the pledge of long love from brief anger. Greatest Tydeus, would that I were sacrificed then by your sword (you were able!) on the threshold of our Adrastus. No — on my account, you willingly went to Thebes and the impious house of my brother, from where no other would have returned, as if about to bring a scepter and your own honors with you. Already fame has nothing to say about pious Telamon or Theseus. Look at how great you are even in death! Which wound should I wonder at first? What blood is yours, what the enemy’s? What battle line or countless masses laid you low? Am I mistaken, or did the father himself envy you and drive Mars at you with his whole spear?” So he spoke, mourning even as he cleaned the man’s face, slippery with gore, with his tears and restores it with his right hand.

Stat. Theb. 9.46-74

The passage is highly emotional and has elegiac overtones, yet the pun in Tydea consumpsi

(“I have eaten/spent Tydeus,” 9.60) threatens to overwhelm the monologue’s pathos.

Polynices plays with the polysemy of consumo, which has a range of meanings, including “to exhaust,” “to spend,” and “to eat.” Obviously, Polynices has not literally eaten Tydeus; in almost any other context in Greco-Roman epic poetry, that very qualification would be unnecessary. Yet, since Polynices’ declaration comes on the heels of actual cannibalism narrated fewer than one hundred lines prior, any metaphorical use of consumo might raise an eyebrow as an ill-judged choice of words; even as a metaphor, it undermines the seriousness of Polynices’ lament as the sheer inappropriateness of the pun threatens to provoke laughter, whether involuntary or suppressed or gleeful.

Scholars have previously recognized the polysemous tension in consumo. Frederick

Ahl long ago pointed out that Tydea consumpsi “recalls Tydeus’ gnawing on Melanippus’ head.”87 Some, however, are not content with the double meaning. Michael Dewar has argued that “the metaphor is surely financial cf. perdere, 58.”88 Dewar’s interpretation is in line with the larger context of the passage, which uses much language of finance and exchange (grates, rependi, ademptus, empta, tradet, perdere). Nevertheless, it seems unjustifiably restrictive to limit the polysemy of consumo to fit in with perdere, as if writer and audience had entered a tacit agreement to set aside multiple meanings — the bedrock of poetry — and, in particular, to turn a blind eye to the act that most defines Tydeus. More recently, Neil Coffee has interpreted both meanings of the word as part of larger thematic concerns:

“Ironically, Polynices rejects the consumption of lives in response to the loss of a friend who was himself the most avid consumer ... Statius draws together both the violent and financial meanings of consumo here to develop a contrast between Polynices’ use of violence and that of his friend. Tydeus consumes— through his ‘drinking down’ of Theban lives and the devouring of Melanippus’ head— from an appetite for the pleasures of violence. In contrast, Polynices shows no strong desire for violence but uses up lives, such as that of his friend Tydeus, as a consequence for his drive for power.”89

Coffee is right to differentiate between the two different approaches of Tydeus and Polynices to violence. Yet the effects of the pun, what Coffee terms irony, on the speech as a whole also deserves investigation.

The lament has traditionally been interpreted with respect to its elegiac undertones.

David Vessey writes that “Polynices ... when he hears of Tydeus’ death is crushed by anguish

(36.ff), and gives voice to a despairing lament.”90 William Dominik argues that “it is only when Tydeus is dead that Polynices comes to appreciate the nobility and unselfishness of his

87 Ahl (1986), 2882. 88 Dewar (1991), 69. 89 Coffee (2009), 263. 90 Vessey (1973), 293.

faithful comrade (cf. 9.32-85, esp. 49-72).”91 Dewar highlights the intertextual engagement with Mezentius’ survivor’s guilt in Aeneid 10 after Lausus’ death.92 Ahl interprets the monologue as “a gesture of [Polynices’] love,”93 an interpretation Henderson appears to agree with when he calls Polynices “another Nisus.”94 Statius does, in fact, evoke elegy through intertextual engagement with Catullus 101, when the poet laments the death of his brother: quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,| heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi

(“Since fortune stole you yourself away from me, oh miserable brother, taken from me so cruelly,” Catull. 101.5-6). The poem has a striking overlap in vocabulary with Polynices’ lament: quando alius misero ac melior mihi frater ademptus (“since another and better brother is taken from miserable me,” Stat. Theb. 9.53). Furthermore, both share an emphasis on travel and exile as a metaphor for bereavement: Catullus has traveled from afar just to bid his brother farewell (multas per gentes et multa per aequora uectus, “Borne through many peoples and many seas,” Catull. 101.1) while Polynices declares himself an eternal exile without Tydeus (nunc exul ego aeternumque fugatus, “Now I am an exile, always on the run,” Stat. Theb. 9.52). As is well-known, the death of his brother has a great impact on

Catullus’ work, and, by channeling a poem that epitomizes brotherly grief, Statius deepens

Polynices’ grief.95

Yet at the same time Polynices’ lament for Tydeus becomes humorous and ironic as the Theban hero repeatedly botches attempts to praise his dear friend.96 In addition to the

91 Dominik (1994), 83. 92 Dewar (1991), 67, “Statius’ real model is Mezentius’ speech at the death of Lausus. Both Mezentius and Polynices are racked with guilt because their life or honour has been bought with a loved one’s blood.” See also Dewar (1988), 261-262, for a philological discussion of the parallels. 93 Ahl (1986), 2883. 94 Henderson (1998), 238. 95 For a recent discussion of Catullus’ grief, see Seider (2016). 96 O’Gorman (2005), 35, has suggested that the lament is not all that meets the eye: “[Polynices’] emphasis on ego and me threatens again to nudge the object of lament out of the spotlight. The loss of Tydeus is a loss precisely insofar as it affects Polynices, whose

poorly timed pun on Tydeus’ cannibalism, Polynices declares that iam Telamona pium, iam

Thesea fama tacebat (“Already fame has nothing to say about pious Telamon or Theseus,”

Stat. Theb. 9.68). Dewar rightly understands this to allude to “exempla of devoted friends” and cites Thebaid 1, where Statius says that siquidem hanc perhibent post uulnera iunctis | esse fidem, quanta partitum extrema proteruo | Thesea Pirithoo, uel inanem mentis Oresten | opposito rabidam Pylade uitasse Megaeram (“in fact they say that, after this brawl, they

[Polynices and Tydeus] were joined in such loyalty that made Theseus share the worse with reckless Pirithous or Pylades face raging Megaera to shield a maddened Orestes,” Stat. Theb.

1.474-477).97 What all these heroes have in common is that they are proverbial exempla of good male friendship.98 Consequently, Polynices magnifies the heroics of Tydeus and probes emotional depths by comparing him to the positive figures. This comparison is a rhetorical misstep, however, that highlights Tydeus’ abominable behavior instead of the positive.

Polynices misunderstands, whether deliberately or not, why fama is silent about Telamon and

Theseus. While Polynices would have us believe it is because Tydeus’ devotion outstripped even those two proverbially devoted friends, the reader knows better: asperat Aonios rabies audita cruenti | Tydeos … culpantque uirum et rupisse queruntur | fas odii … fama per

Aonium rapido uaga murmure campum | spargitur (“Report of the madness of bloody

Tydeus enrages the Thebans … they condemn the man [Tydeus] and complain that the law of hate was broken … wandering rumor spreads through the Theban field on a swift whisper,”

Stat. Theb. 9.1-2, 3-4, and 32-33). Statius has made it clear that all are discussing the outrage

(culpant, rupisse ... fas odii). Polynices’ emphasis on the heroes becomes especially ill-

speech comes across more as a reminder to the reader that he should be the central figure of the poem. 97 Statius also refers to mythic exempla of male friendship at. Silv. 2.6.54-55 (Orestes/Pylades and Theseus/Pirithous), 4.4.102-103 (Hercules/Telamon, Theseus/Pirithous, and Achilles/Patroclus) and 5.2.156-157 (Orestes/Pylades and Achilles/Patroclus). 98 Cic. Amic. 24, Fin. 2.84, Ov. Rem. 589-590, Tr. 1.5.21-22, 1.9.28, 5.4.25, 5.6.25-26, Pont. 3.2.33-34, V. Max. 4.7. Pr., Mart. 6.11, 7.24.3, 7.45.8-11, and 10.11.

conceived when he gives Telamon the epithet pium since the cannibalism can in no way be understood as pious. Whatever truth there is about Tydeus’ devotion to Polynices as a friend, it is eclipsed by cannibalism. Consequently, instead of joining the ranks of Theseus and

Telamon in proverbial praise, he becomes inextricably associated with the barbaric act of overstepping boundaries: Tydeus’ fama is infamia.99

Additionally, Polynices undercuts what heroism Tydeus did display at the end of his lament through further irony. In an attempt to foreground Tydeus’ death in his heroic deeds,

Polynices asks whose blood is whose (quis tuus hic, quis ab hoste cruor?), apparently thinking that the amount of blood is a testament to his martial prowess.100 Although Polynices might be right to point to the amount of blood as a sign of military valor, the cannibalism also undercuts this entirely. Some blood from his slain enemies has surely left its mark, but that can no longer be a token of valor, as the blood from Melanippus’ head has presumably made it impossible to tell what blood comes from heroism and what from barbarism.

Even Polynices’ last few rhetorical questions are heavy with irony. He asserts that multitudes of enemies, or, unless he is mistaken, even the gods themselves intervened to kill

Tydeus (uae te agmina quiue | innumeri strauere globi? num fallor, an ipse | inuidit pater et tota Mars impulit hasta?). Polynices is mistaken; Melanippus threw the deadly spear. It was not hordes of soldiers or the gods who killed Tydeus,101 but a mortal whose heroic status is questionable: ecce secat Zephyros ingentem fraxinus iram | fortunamque ferens; teli non

99 Augoustakis (2016), xxxiii, “Tydeus’ act [cannibalism] equates him with barbaric behaviour.” See xxx-xlii for a wide-ranging discussion of the rich record of representations, both literary and artistic, of Tydeus’ cannibalism. 100 Tydeus does sustain a number of wounds in his aristeia: iam cruor in galea, iam saucia proluit ater | pectora permixtus sudore et sanguine torrens, “now there is blood in his [Tydeus’] helmet, now a black torrent, blood mixed with sweat, washes his wounded chest,” Stat. Theb. 8.711-712. 101 Statius shows that Minerva is beseeching Jupiter at the moment of the throw, suggesting that he did not have anything to do with it: ibat enim magnum lacrimis inflectere patrem, “For she [Minerva] was on her way to bend her great father,” Stat. Theb. 8.715.

eminet auctor: | Astacides Melanippus erat, nec prodidit ipse | et uellet latuisse manum

(“Look! A spear cuts through the Zephyr bearing mighty anger and fortune; the thrower of the spear does not stand out: it was Melanippus, son of Astacus, nor did he give himself away and wished his hand to have remained hidden,” Stat. Theb. 8.716-719). Not only is the spear anonymous and cast from afar, both marks of cowardice, but Melanippus would also have preferred not to be identified as Tydeus’ vanquisher, thus denying himself martial glory.

Accordingly, when Polynices attributes Tydeus’ death to countless foes or the gods — which, had it been true, would have been glorious — he in fact reduces Tydeus by ignorantly highlighting the unexceptional and routine manner of his demise, thereby accomplishing the very opposite of the panegyrical effect he intends.

Polynices’ lament for Tydeus is, therefore, variegated. It is a stirring tribute to his friend, a man he considers to his brother, through certain allusions to elegiac poetry as well as highly emotive language. At the same time, however, the lament is riddled with dark humor and irony. While the unstable tone may betray Polynices’ limited rhetorical skills or the irrepressibility of true consciousness, it also represents a larger aspect of the Thebaid in which the horrific and the humorous are not neatly separated from each other. On one view,

Polynices’ declaration Tydea consumpsi is a financial metaphor. On another view, it is a poorly timed pun whose overt humor causes the speech’s pathos to come apart at the seams.

The two interpretations are at odds; the larger context suggests that elegiac lament should color interpretation, but Statius repeatedly undermines that reading by encouraging alternate meanings through both through irony and puns.

Earlier in the same Book, Statius uses wordplay to render martial combat humorous.

Part way through Tydeus’ aristeia, Statius narrates his murders of two Argive men, a commander, Prothous, and erstwhile seer, Corymbus. In the midst of the rapid slaughter

caused by Tydeus, Statius slows the narrative with a simile, which unravels the scene’s pathos as it heightens it:

ecce ducem turmae certa indignatus in hostem spicula felici Prothoum torquere lacerto, turbidus Oenides una duo corpora pinu, cornipedemque equitemque, ferit: ruit ille ruentem in Prothoum lapsasque manu quaerentis habenas 540 in uultus galeam clipeumque in pectora calcat, saucius extremo donec cum sanguine frenos respuit et iuncta domino ceruice recumbit. sic ulmus uitisque, duplex iactura colenti, Gaurano de monte cadunt, sed maestior ulmus 545 quaerit utrumque nemus, nec tam sua bracchia labens quam gemit adsuetas inuitaque proterit uuas. sumpserat in Danaos Heliconius arma Corymbus, ante comes Musis, Stygii cui conscia pensi ipsa diu positis letum praedixerat astris 550 Vranie. cupit ille tamen pugnasque uirosque, forsitan ut caneret; longa iacet ipse canendus laude, sed amissum mutae fleuere Sorores.

Look, raging Tydeus, indignant that Prothous, leader of the band, should cast a true arrow against the enemy with a prosperous arm, slays two bodies with one pinewood shaft, horse and horseman: then he rushes against the rushing Prothous and crushes the helmet into the rider’s face and shield into his chest as the rider searches for the reins that slipped from his hand, until the wounded horse spits out his bits with his last blood and lies with his neck on top of his master. Just so an elm and vine fall from Mount Gaurus, a double loss to the cultivator, but the elm is sadder and seeks the forest, and, slipping, groans not so much for its own branches as much as it unwillingly crushes its familiar grapes. Heliconian Corymbus has taken up arms against the Danaans, previously a friend to the Muses, who was aware of his Stygian thread since Uranie herself long ago had foretold his death with the placement of the stars. However, he desires fights and men, perhaps so that he might sing of them; he himself lies long to be sung in praise, but the Sisters weep for his loss in silence.

Stat. Theb. 8.536-553.

At first glance, the deaths of Prothous and Corymbus appear unrelated. However, upon closer inspection, they are connected through the Greek etymology of Corymbus’ name, κόρυμβος, which means cluster of grapes. This etymology suggestively links Corymbus to the immediately preceding simile which features grapes and prominently puns on them: uitis is echoed in inuita, and both words have aural similarity with uua.

Corymbus’ status as bard compels the reader to consider Statius’ narrative strategy here. How does the would-be epic poet figure into the epic action? Etymological wordplay is common enough in the epic tradition,102 particularly amongst Alexandrianized poets like

Statius.103 Yet in this case, Statius makes the wordplay integral to the overall interpretation as it is otherwise difficult to establish how Corymbus fits in. Antony Augoustakis notes that

“Tydeus is not even mentioned in the death of Corymbus, nor do the details of his death receive any notice.”104 It is only with the etymological wordplay that we can begin to imagine how Corymbus was killed — perhaps crushed as Prothous previously was.

The pun, therefore, is central to the scene’s interpretation. Instead of narrating martial combat or figuring Tydeus into the scene, Statius relies on a bilingual pun to get his point across. Puns are a means to destabilize language as they play on two different meanings at the same time. In this case, the bilingual nature of the pun speaks further to the pun’s capacity to destabilize language, as it by nature refers to two different languages’ semantic meanings. In

Greek, Corymbus signifies grape while, in Latin, it is simply a name. Which one is the true word’s meaning? This ambiguity is compounded by the poem’s content and language of composition. It is about Greek mythology, so perhaps the Greek semantic meaning should be privileged. Conversely, the Thebaid is written in Latin, so its Latin meaning ought to win out.

In any case, the pun destabilizes the Thebaid’s register as wordplay temporarily takes over for narrative epic action.

102 See O’Hara (1996), 24-41, for the classic account of Hellenistic interest in erudite and allusive naming practices. See also O’Hara (1996), 51-56 and 73-75 for a discussion of Roman adaptation of this practice. 103 Keith (2008), 246-250, has surveyed some of Statius’ use of wordplay. Particularly salient for our purposes is her discussion of the frequent juxtaposition of Tisiphone, deriving from the Greek τίσις, with Latin words for revenge, such as ultrix. For Statius’ Alexandrianism, see McNelis (2007), esp. 15-24. 104 Augoustakis (2016), 265.

3: Conclusions

Although Aristotle’s influential theory of epic and literary decorum allows little room for humor, it nevertheless appears frequently in the literary record. Aristotle neglects to theorize interaction between high style and low subject matter and vice versa, but a close look at the

Roman and Greek literary record shows that such works existed well before Aristotle wrote his Poetics. Statius frequently makes use of humor in the form of irony and wordplay in his epics. He shows a range in what sorts of humor he evokes from ironic undermining of traditional epic type-scenes, such as the invocation in the Achilleid, to tasteless puns about cannibalism in the Thebaid. In each case, Statius’ humor destabilizes the straightforward tone of the piece. Epic’s lofty seriousness remains, but so does the humor; consequently, diverse interpretations are available to readers, which contributes to larger thematic issues of duality pervasive through both the Achilleid and the Thebaid.

Chapter 2: Epic and Satire

Introduction: Hexameter and Humor

Although epic is not broadly humorous in the ancient imagination, humor is an integral component to another hexameter genre: satire. The next two Chapters deal with satire; in this chapter, I aim to show how epic sometimes mystifies strong distinctions between the two hexameter genres so as to set the groundwork for Chapter 3, in which I analyze a specific satiric strategy, parodic quotation, in Statius’ works.

This chapter falls into two parts. In the first, I discuss the undertheorized relationship between epic and satire and, building on the work of Frederick Ahl, Alessandro Barchiesi, and Sandra Romano Martín, I argue that the traditions of satire and epic are closely connected and that epic poets can cross into satiric territory just as satiric poets do with epic. In the second part of this chapter, I turn to Statius’ Thebaid, in particular his concilium deorum in

Book 1, and examine the scene’s interaction with the satirical tradition. Statius is usually viewed as a target of satire — Kirk Freudenburg has recently discussed Statius’ poetry as a

“parodic butt of the joke”1 — but the picture is more nuanced, as Statius seems to align his concilium deorum in the vein of Lucilius’, mediated by Ovid's account in the

Metamorphoses.

1: Epic and Satire: Theory and Practice

Satire and epic are closely related early in the literary record. Lucilius, the founder of Roman verse satire, appropriated the hexameter in the second century BCE for his distinctly non- heroic genre as part of a larger poetic program putting epic and satire in conversation with

1 Freudenburg (2015), 98, n. 25.

each other. Yet due to the vastly different goals and literary statuses of the genres, scholars have discussed satire and epic as oppositional generic traditions. Susanna Braund, for one, writes: “it is perhaps surprising that the metre of epic poetry ... was hijacked for a genre of starkly contrasting mundane content and critical tone ... The inherent conflict between form and content must have been striking to a Roman ear.”2 Braund and other scholars have good grounds for reading an opposition between epic and satire — the satirists and Martial themselves tell us to read their works in this way.3 They figure their poetry as the antithesis of epic, the highest genre in the Roman imagination. Explicit ancient theorization of genre is thin on the ground, but much ancient literary discourse assumes a generic hierarchy.4 The first extant formulations of the hierarchy come down to us from Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century BCE,5 and the paradigms established remain influential in early Imperial

Rome as we can see in Quintilian’s suggested readings for orators. He conscientiously organizes both his Greek and Latin reading lists: idem nobis per Romanos quoque auctores ordo ducendus est (“We must follow the same order through the Roman authors as well,”

Quint. Inst. 10.1.85.1). Quintilian begins with epic before turning to elegy, satire, and iambic and then returns to the top of the dramatic hierarchy with tragedy and then descends to

2 Braund (1996), 8. 3 Cowan (2017), 82, emphasizes the similarity between satire and epigram: “Skoptic epigram in general, and especially that of Martial, has a great deal in common with satura: its self- conscious lowness of generic status, reflected in explicit statements, mundane, sexual and scatological subject-matter, diction even less elevated and even more obscene.” Rimell (2008), 5-6, makes the persuasive case that, at Rome, epigram was part of the satirical tradition beginning with Lucilius’ Book 11. Consequently, throughout her monograph, she treats Martial’s epigrams as a brand of satire. 4 Rosenmeyer (2006) is skeptical that ancient genre theory exists and instead posits models of influence based around single authors, such as Homer for epic, Aeschylus for tragedy, and so on. He is right to point to foundational author figures as particularly important, but genres had become relatively defined abstractions by the late first century CE, as Martial demonstrates. 5 See discussion in Chapter 1.

comedy. As Quintilian puts it, the choice to begin with epic is as obvious as it is for Aratus to begin with Jupiter, since both Jupiter and epic are the most important (Quint. Inst. 46.1).

A hierarchical conception of literature is not limited to the critics, but is also articulated by the poets. It underpins one of Martial’s poems, 12.94, in which he claims a rival poet, Tucca, consistently writes the same kind of poetry Martial writes. Martial tries his hand at epos (1), tragedy (tragicos ... coturnos, 3), lyric (filae lyrae, 5), satire (saturas, 7), elegy (leuis elegos, 8), before finally turning to epigram (epigrammata, 10). The joke, at epigram’s expense, hinges on Martial’s exasperation at finding a genre that Tucca will not lower himself to in order to outshine Martial. In Martial’s mind, no genre is lower than epigram: quid minus esse potest? (“What could be lower?” Mart. 12.94.9). The poem, therefore, is an expression of the Roman generic hierarchy in the late first century CE.6

Martial does not expound on the hierarchy in a technical manner, since an epigram is not the place for dry theorization, but the joke depends on widespread, implicit assumptions that certain genres are higher and more respectable than others. Epic sits at the top, apparently the undisputed sovereign of literature, and it is against the high-status epic that satire and epigram define themselves.7

For all the distinctions that the satirists and Martial create between their genres and epic, the two are intimately related. Satire defined its own tradition through appropriation and parody of epic poetry’s structure and themes. The result is two traditions, independent yet deeply interconnected. The parodic satirical tradition does not exist without an epic tradition to define itself against. As we will see, it is only once Lucilius firmly establishes satire as a parodic genre that the Romans recognize it as a literary category worthy of mention. As for

6 Martial is, of course, at least mildly disingenuous, as he elsewhere, in Ep. 5.16, advocates that epigram to can appropriate epic’s totalizing aspect. See Rimell (2008), 7-14, for discussion. 7 Bessone and Fucecchi (2017), 1-7, argue that the generic hierarchy is in flux in the late first century CE.

epic, the satirical parody is always threatening to take center stage, especially, but not exclusively, in type-scenes that have been previously parodied, and the potential for parody creates tension with epic language itself. An epic poet must pay attention, therefore, to the satirical tradition, since, after Lucilius, it is always possible to read epic as a parody, and hence a joke potentially at the poem’s own expense. As Donka Markus puts it, in the wake of satirical parody of epic “one could not write or perform epic, especially on a civil war theme, without taking the parody, the voice of the satire into account.”8 Markus is speaking specifically about the parody of Lucan’s De Bello Ciuili in Petronius’ Satyricon, but her point is more generally applicable. No tradition, not even the Roman epic tradition, is fully robust to parody. Consequently, to ignore the satirical tradition when discussing epic, and vice versa, is to miss a meaningful part of Roman literary dynamics.

Critics have rightly emphasized the close connections between satire and epic.

Llewelyn Morgan has characterized satire’s relationship with epic as “obsessive self- definition” and labels the two genres “twins”9 while Robert Cowan has described the two genres as siblings.10 But just what is so similar between the two genres? The most salient commonality is the shared meter, of course. The origins of verse satire are murky,11 but

Romans agreed that Lucilius founded the genre. Both Horace and Quintilian refer to him as the primus (“first”) writer,12 but he appears not to have been the first at all. We also know of

8 Markus (2000), 163. 9 Morgan (2004), 8. 10 Cowan (2017), 75. 11 Prosimetric satire, known as Menippean Satire, is also an important part of satire in Imperial Rome, but Romans rarely theorize its origins nor do they claim them as their own likely because of the genre’s obvious roots in Greek invective and diatribe. For discussion, see Relihan (1993), 3-11, Rimell (2005), 162-163, with a discussion of the problems in classifying satire as Menippean, and Weinbrot (2005), 23-39. See Ferriss-Hill (2015b) for consideration of the Greek roots of satire, both Menippean and Roman verse, in Athenian Old Comedy. 12 cum est Lucilius ausus | primus in hunc operis conponere carmina morem, “When Lucilius dared, first of all, to compose poems in the manner of this work, Hor. Sat 2.1.62-63 and primus...Lucilius, “Lucilius, first of all,” Quint. Inst. 10.94.2

a work called Saturae by Ennius, a work which preceded Lucilius’ collection by a matter of decades. Only some thirty lines remain of Ennius’ Satires so it is difficult to assess their general characteristics, but, from what we can tell, Callimachus’ Iambi are a likely influence, and the works appear to be concerned with aristocratic affairs.13 In any case, Ennius’ Saturae appear to contain numerous aspects that are central to the genre such as discourse about ethics, moral censure, animal fables, and the self-conscious narrative presence.14 Ennius’

Saturae differ from later satire in that some are composed in a variety of meters, primarily iambics and trochaics, although the hexameter is also employed.15

It is unclear why later Romans do not consider Ennius’ Saturae as the first of the genre, but, in any case, Roman literary history remembers Lucilius, not Ennius, as the inventor of satire. It appears that satire’s literary history was reimagined because Lucilius established the hexameter as the meter of satire in his humorous and subversive parody of

Ennius’ concilium deorum in Lucilius’ Book 1 in which he shows the gods ridiculing a certain Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Lupus for his debauched behavior while on earth.16

The implications of Lucilius’ appropriation are widespread for both epic and satire.17

The hexameter had been the meter of Greek epic poetry since the Homeric epics were

13 Poláková (2012), 173-174. 14 Muecke (2005), 33-47. 15 Goldberg and Manuwald (2018), 271. 16 Book 1 was not written first chronologically, but the collection was later edited so as to make it the first book. 17 It is unclear exactly when Lucilius adopts the hexameter. A terminus post quem is perhaps 123 BCE because that is the year Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Lupus died, and the gods debate his death in Book 1. His actual death, however, is certainly not a prerequisite for a literary representation of it. It is an attractive view to consider Lucilius’ Book 1 to have been written sometime in the 120s, given that he wrote twenty-five books of hexameter satire before his death at the turn of the century. Of course, Horace famously alleged that Lucilius wrote with extraordinary speed: Hor. Sat. 1.10.56-61. Therefore, it remains a possibility that numerous books of poetry were produced in a single year, although it seems to me that Horace’s comments about speed are derived from the sheer amount of text Lucilius produced and Horace’s perception of its unedited form rather than any knowledge of Lucilius’ speed of poetic composition. In any event, unless new evidence appears the dating of the Lucilian hexameter will remain an open question.

composed some five or six hundred years prior to Lucilius. Moreover, Ennius had naturalized the hexameter as that of Roman epic a century prior with his Annales, successfully supplanting the Saturnian as the Roman heroic meter. The shift to the hexameter was not accidental: Ennius used it to exploit Homeric gravitas for his Roman subject.18 In adopting the hexameter, then, Lucilius destabilized the meaning of the medium through which epic is communicated. No longer was the hexameter singularly or automatically serious and heroic; in the wake of Lucilius, the hexameter could also be humorous, subversive, and even anti- heroic.19

Equally as important, however, is Lucilius’ choice to parody epic in satire. This aspect, too, seems to be a Lucilian innovation — perhaps, though by no means necessarily, coordinated with his importation of the meter — since the Ennian fragments contain nothing identifiable as epic parody.20 In Book 1, Lucilius has a concilium deorum, a parodic reworking of Ennius’ concilium deorum from Annales 1. It is difficult to assess Lucilius’ parody in depth due to textual loss of both Ennius and Lucilius, but the broad strokes are clear.21 In Ennius, the gods had convened in cenacula maxuma caeli (“the greatest dining halls of the sky”, Ennius fr. 51). The general consensus is that at least two major events

18 Goldberg (2010), 176-178, who also highlights how this literary innovation served elite interests in self-representation. 19 Morgan (2004), 8, in taking over the hexameter, Lucilius is “couching the anti-literature of satire in the metre of heroes.” 20 Admittedly, the fragments are so few that it is difficult to be confident that this would remain true with any significantly larger corpus, but there is no indication elsewhere that Ennius parodied epic. 21 Skutsch (1985), 386, following Timpanaro (1978), 642, argues that there was only one concilium deorum in Ennius and, consequently, one in Lucilius. Elliott (2013), 48-49, has recently demonstrated that there is good evidence for more sustained divine engagement in the Annales than Skutsch allowed, pointing, in particular to the Second Punic War narrative, which spanned Books 7 and 8. Moreover, Macrobius is clear that Jupiter has a speech in the sixth book: Ennius in sexto: tum cum corde suo diuom pater atque hominum rex | effatur (“In the sixth book, Ennius wrote, ‘then, from his heart, the father of gods and king of men says,’” Macrob. 6.1.10). It seems likely, though it is not necessary, that a speech from Jupiter occurred in a gathering of the gods.

occurred in the divine council. First, the marriage between the river Anio and Ilia was decreed. We know this in part based on a scholion recorded in Porphyrio which discusses the marriage between Ilia and Anio.22 Additionally, a fragment comes down to us from Servius

Danielis which reads, at Ilia reddita nuptum (“but Ilia, given in marriage,” Enn. fr. 56).

Skutsch argues that, since the expression is so terse, it likely occurs in a speech.23 Given that

Ilia’s role in the Annales is prominent in the very early books and given that the confidence with which the pronouncement of marriage to a river god is made, it makes sense that it occurs in the mouth of a god in the first Book.

The other likely event in the concilium deorum is that Romulus’ future apotheosis is decreed. Varro provides us with the line: unus erit quem tu tolles in caerula caeli | templa,

(“There will be one whom you will raise to the blue temples of the heavens,” Ennius fr. 54-

55). This is one of the rare fragments about which we know a great deal from the line itself and from other citations in the literary record. The context is self-evident; even a critic as skeptical as Elliott can say, “the context is clearly a divine prophecy.”24 While the specific context is not indicated in the fragment, other citations of this line suggest that it was uttered during a concilium deorum. Ovid quotes the line twice, once in Metamorphoses 14 and once in Fasti 2. Both times Mars quotes the line as a reminder of a promise Jupiter made in a council long ago.25 From Ovid’s reuse of the line, it is clear that this prophecy was a centerpiece of Ennius’poem and a marker of Rome’s eventual superiority and supremacy.26

Once Rome has reached the status of world power, Ovid’s Mars reminds Jupiter that it is time to apotheosize Romulus. Ennius’ concilium deorum, then seems to have had a teleological

22 Based on Porphyrio’s statement ad Hor. Carm.1.2.17. Elliott (2013), 501, does not dispute the conclusion Skutsch (1985), 212-213, comes to about the council. 23 Skutsch (1985), 206. 24 Elliott (2013), 145. 25 Ov. Met. 14.814 and Fasti 2.487. 26 Elliott (2013), 45-46, Hinds (1998), 14-16, and Conte (1986), 57-59.

view of Roman greatness: the council decrees marriage for Ilia no doubt due to concerns about her in her role as mother of the founders of Rome and the announcement of Romulus’ apotheosis looks forward to and assumes Roman supremacy and greatness. Ennius’ concilium deorum in Book 1, in other words, was a celebration of Rome, its greatness, and its connection to the divine.

Lucilius’ concilium deorum owes much of its structure to its Ennian counterpart in that it inverts many of its themes for the sake of parody. Servius is an important authority for determining what occurred in the concilium deorum and in what place. While commenting on the concilium deorum in Aeneid 10, he writes, totus hic locus de primo Lucilii translatus est, ubi inducuntur dii habere concilium et agere primo de interitu Lupi cuiusdam ducis in republica, postea sententias dicere (“This whole scene is taken from the first book of

Lucilius where the gods are depicted as having a council and dealing first with the death of

Lupus, a certain leader in the Republic, and afterwards giving their opinions,” Serv. ad Aen.

10.104). From these remarks, we know that the gods held a council, debated the fate of

Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Lupus (a particularly debauched censor of the late second century

BCE), and expressed their opinions on the matter.

Servius tells us that the concilium deorum debates the fate of Lucius Cornelius

Lentulus Lupus, princeps senatus and censor. It appears that the discussion of his fate is caught up in a larger debate about the loss of morality and virility in Rome. Numerous fragments firmly placed in Book 1 mock the influence of Greek culture: porro 'clinopodas'

'lychnos'que ut diximus semnos | anti 'pedes lecti' atque 'lucernas' (“And, further, we say

‘clinipods’ and ‘lustres’ grandiosely instead of ‘bed-feet’ and ‘lamps,’” Lucil. fr. 15-16) and

'arutaenae'que, inquit, aquales (“He says ‘draw-liquids’ instead of ‘water basin,’” Lucil. fr.

17). The context of these remarks is unknown, but it is immediately apparent that Lucilius is lamenting the excessive influence of Greek on the Latin language. Indeed, because the Greek

and Latin words appear synonymous, Lucilius seems to be mocking those who would use a

Greek word where a perfectly good Latin word exists, perhaps casting them as effeminate or pretentious. Moreover, Lucilius also mocks Greek sartorial influence: psilae atque amitapae, uillis ingentibus, molles, (“single-napped and soft double-napped coverlets with huge tufts of hair,” Lucil. 13). Whoever Lucilius is discussing, he is not wearing the correct kind of clothes for a Roman. His clothes are, instead, Eastern, as is evident from their

Greek names, and effeminate, as is evident from the emphasis on molles.

The core of the concilium deorum was the trial of Lupus. It is likely that Lucilius provided a model for Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, so scholars have, accordingly, tentatively reconstructed the concilium deorum’s general outline by comparison to the Senecan satire.

Moreover, Juvenal’s Fourth Satire parodies a Domitianic consilium and, whether or not it directly parodies Statius’ De Bello Germanico, it is clear that it, along with Juvenal’s oeuvre as a whole, is deeply indebted to Lucilius. In a recent article, Kirk Freudenburg has convincingly argued that there is a close relationship between the concilium deorum in

Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis and Lucilius’ predicated on the role of the censor. Freudenburg demonstrates that there is a parallel between the situations in the Apocolocyntosis and the

Satires. In both, one morally upright censor is pitted against a corrupt one: Lucilius’ Romulus is figured as Cato the Elder, a connection suggested by the shared love of turnips,27 against the extravagant censor Lupus, in Seneca, the upright censor Augustus against the corrupt censor Claudius.28 This parallel serves to highlight an aspect of Lucilius’ concilium deorum otherwise not prominent: the role of the censor and the legalistic procedures of the Senate.

The prime purpose of the trial, though, is to ridicule Lupus and make him the object of laughter. It is unclear if the ruminations about the excessive use of Greek language and

27 Freudenburg (2015), 100, and Connors (2005), 125-131. 28 Freudenburg (2015), 98-105.

dress are directly connected to attacks on Lupus, but it is not a far leap to assume that condemnation of Lupus’ excessive luxury would have corollaries in these other foibles too.

Moreover, Lucilius has a direct address to Lupus, which is perhaps identifiable as part of the discussion of his punishment: occidunt, Lupe, saperdae te et iura siluri (“Lupus, the sauce of the smelt and the herring will be the death of you,” Lucil. fr. 46). The joke here hinges on the pun on iura, meaning both “sauce” and “law.” Lupus’ comeuppance will come from the law29

— or, perhaps, the punishment will come from a forced excessive feast, in the vein of

Claudius’ punishment in the Apocolocyntosis. Moreover, there is a pun here on Lupus’ name, which means wolf, but is also the name of a bass renowned in antiquity for its voracity.

Lucilius not only invites the audience to laugh at his prime target, Lupus, but the epic framework of the concilium as well. Lucilius pokes fun at the idea that all the gods are addressed as pater. He says, ut | nemo sit nostrum quin aut pater optimus diuum, | aut

Neptunus pater, Liber Saturnus pater, Mars | Ianus Quirinus pater siet ac dicatur ad unum

(“so that there is not one of us who is not called ‘best father of the gods;’ Neptune is a

‘father,’ Saturn and Liber are ‘father;’ Mars, Janus, Quirinus are ‘father’ and so let each one be called ‘father,’” Lucil. fr. 24-27). These remarks gently mock Roman religious terminology, perhaps deriving from a specific scene in Ennius’ Annales. Even if it is not drawn from the Annales, referring to male gods as pater without reference to their actual status as a father is standard epic practice.30

Lucilius renders the gods laughable. Servius Auctus informs us that pulcher can be a negative quality and that Lucilius’ Apollo objected to being called it: quidam pulcher Apollo epitheton datum Apollini reprehendun: pulchros enim a ueteribus exsoletos dictos; nam et apud Lucilium Apollo pulcher dici non uult (“Indeed, some censure ‘beautiful Apollo’ as an

29 Goh (2018), 129-137. 30 e.g., Vergil refers to both Neptune and Jupiter as pater in the same book of the Aeneid: Neptune at Verg. Aen. 5.14 and Jupiter at 5.358.

epithet given to Apollo: for they say that ‘beautiful’ was applied by the old writers to debauched young men; for even in Lucilius Apollo did not want to be called beautiful,” Serv.

Auct. ad Aen. 3.119). It is not certain that this event occurs during the concilium deorum,31 but it remains the case that in some passage of Lucilius Apollo is reduced to petty quibbling about epithets and nomenclature. The incongruity between what a reader might expect a god to converse about and what Apollo worries about is precisely the source of humor, and the object of laughter is the god Apollo. Although the particulars of the scene may be murky, the general character of the concilium deorum is relatively clear. Lucilius’ concilium deorum is a scene for blame and invective, through the figure of Lupus, and laughter, through parody of the epic type scene, buffoonery of the gods, and amusing wordplay. Implicit in this poetics — whether through direct reference to Ennius or more generic means — is a deflating of epic language and content and a consistent interest in turning epic against its high-minded identity.

Although Lucilius’ and Ennius’ concilia deorum are antitheses of each other, they are tied together in their reception traditions. Servius provides our best evidence for this association. As he discusses Vergil’s concilium deorum in Aeneid 10, he says, totus hic locus de primo Lucilii translatus est libro, (“This whole scene is adapted from the first book of

Lucilius,” Serv. ad Aen. 10.104). For Servius, Vergil’s primary model is Lucilius’ concilium deorum; that is, Servius alleges Vergil is working from a satirical parody of a type scene, not the type scene from Ennius. Servius or Servius Auctus uses the formulation translatus est three other times in the Aeneid to assert Vergilian adaptation of other authors: in Book 1,

Servius Auctus claims Vergil adapts Aeneas first speech to his men from Naevius’ Bellum

31 Warmington (1938), 11, connects the Servius Auctus remark with a fragment that could feasibly be Apollo speaking about beauty: ut contendere possem | Thestiados Ledae atque Ixiones alcheo (“that I might be able to compare my beauty with that of Leda, Thestius’ daughter, and with that of Ixion’s wife,” Lucil. 24-25) and places the fragment in the concilium deorum. That this fragment is Apollo speaking is not impossible, but it would be a remarkable coincidence that we possess Nonius and Servius Auctus discussing the same passage for two different reasons.

Punicum, in Book 4,32 Servius claims the whole book derives from Book 3 of Apollonius’

Argonautica, and in Book 12,33 Servius says the breaking of the truce is adapted from the single combat between Paris and Menelaus in third book of Homer’s Iliad.34 Because the text is lost, it is impossible to verify Servius’ claims about the importance of Naevius’ Bellum

Punicum to the Aeneid. Servius is right, however, to assert the influence of Apollonius’

Argonautica and Homer’s Iliad, both in the specific passages he cites and for the poem as a whole.35

Servius’ identification of Lucilius as the primary intertext for Vergil’s concilium deorum creates something of an interpretative problem. Ennius’ concilium deorum must surely lurk in Vergil’s, especially if Servius is right to identify Lucilius as the main referent

— after all, Lucilius is a parody of Ennius. Given the genre of the Aeneid, Ennius’ concilium deorum seems the most obvious analogue to cite. Servius’ decision to say that Vergil derived his scene from Lucilius suggests that the satirical tradition and the epic tradition are, to a degree, interchangeable. Servius sees an identifiably satirical tradition in epic, and one of the central aims of Lucilius’ parodic concilium deorum was for readers to detect an identifiably epic tradition in satire. Servius’ remarks demonstrate that in the reception history of epic and satire, the distinctions between the two are fuzzy; Servius is perfectly comfortable in seeing

Vergil identifiably borrow from Lucilius instead of or, perhaps simply more obviously than, from Ennius. The two traditions distinct yet depend on each other for certain aspects of the

32 Serv. ad Aen. 1.198. 33 Serv. ad Aen. 4.1. Macrobius agrees with Servius’ assessment at Macrob. Sat. 5.17.4, although it is possible, given the prominence of Servius in his text, that Servius influences Macrobius’ reading. 34 Serv. ad Aen. 12.116. 35 Both Homer and Apollonius are both important models for Vergil. Nelis (2001) and Knauer (1964) are the classic monographs that closely trace textual echoes from Apollonius and Homer, respectively, in the Aeneid.

type scene, one that stems from Ennius’ concilium deorum and one from Lucilius’ satirical parody of Ennius.

Servius likely flattens the difference between Ennius’ Annales and Lucilius’ Saturae again in his commentary. At the beginning of the Trojan deliberations in Aeneid 9, Vergil describes the meeting of the Trojan youth: ductores Teucrum primi, delecta iuuentus, | consilium summis regni de rebus habebant, | quid facerent quisue Aeneae iam nuntius esset

(“The noble leaders of the Trojans, the selected young men, were holding a council about the highest matters of the state: what should they do or who should now be a messenger to

Aeneas,” Verg. Aen. 9.226-228). Servius, again, informs us of the Lucilian quotation: Lucilii uersus uno tantum sermone mutato; nam ille ait "consilium summis hominum de rebus habebant" (“This is a line from Lucilius with only one word changed; for he [Lucilius] said,

‘they were holding a council about the highest affairs of humanity,” Serv. ad Aen. 9.225).

Philip Hardie is likely correct in his assessment that the Vergilian quotation bears, in some way, on Ennius’ Annales.36 It is possible that Vergil is recycling a line already recycled and parodied by Lucilius, and Servius has flattened the distinction between the sources. In any case, what is clear is that Servius, again, see little problem with seeing satiric intertext in epic.

Lucilius’ influence is also felt in Ovid’s concilium deorum in Book 1. Sandra Romano

Martín, Frederick Ahl, and Alessandro Barchiesi have discussed the satirical character stemming from Ovid’s concilium deorum in Book 1.37 The most salient connection is in the etymological play on Lupus’ name, the subject of the Lucilian debate. Ovid’s concilium deorum is about Lycaon, an impious king who doubted Jupiter’s divinity. His name derives from the Greek word for wolf, λύκος, the equivalent of Latin lupus. Thus, Ovid subtly signals his debt to Lucilius by having his concilium deorum discuss the fate of man whose name is

36 Hardie (1995), 116. 37 Romano Martín (2009), 65-79, Ahl (1985), 64-99, esp. 95-99, and Barchiesi (2008), 126- 135.

etymologically linked to Lupus. Additionally, both Ovid and Lucilius use a medical metaphor for rehabilitating the world. Ovid writes, sed inmedicabile curae | ense recidendum, ne pars sincera trahatur (“But what is incurable in treatment must be cut off by the knife lest the healthy part be dragged down,” Ov. Met. 1.190-191) while Lucilius says, nodum in scirpo, in sano facere ulcus (“make a knot in a bulrush, a sore on a sound body,” Lucil. fr. 34). Both metaphors depend on cutting off that which is diseased, suggesting influence.38

Furthermore, we can detect several structural similarities. Most obviously, the concilium deorum occurs in the first book of the poem. While it is true that concilia deorum generally occur in the first book, Vergil’s Aeneid, whose concilium deorum is in Book 10, shows that this is not necessarily the case. Moreover, Ovid’s concilium distinctly recalls

Roman life and the procedures of the Senate. Ovid overtly compares Jupiter to Augustus (nec tibi grata minus pietas, Auguste, tuorum | quam fuit illa Iovi Ov. Met. 1.205-206) and

Olympus to the Palatine (hic locus est, quem, si verbis audacia detur, | haud timeam magni dixisse Palatia caeli Ov. Met. 1.175-176). Furthermore, the scene uses legalistic language and senatorial procedures, such as confremuere omnes studiisque ardentibus ausum | talia deposcunt (Ov. Met. 1. 199-200), qui postquam uoce manuque | murmura conpressi (Ov.

Met. 1. 205-206), and dicta Iouis pars uoce probant stimulosque frementi | adiciunt, alii partes adsensibus inplent (Ov. Met. 1. 244-245). Such language clearly situates the concilium deorum in the Senate, something that Lucilius had a key component of his parody.39

While Ennius’ concilium shares some of these features, namely the placement of the scene in the first book, the general thrust of the concilium is distinctly Lucilian. In the council, Jupiter discusses the awful deeds of humanity and decides on destroying them — a far cry from Ennius’ council which legitimated the Roman state and prophesied Romulus’

38 Romano Martín (2009), 254-255, n.6. 39 Freudenburg (2015), 98-103.

apotheosis. Although the fragments do not tell the whole picture of Lucilius’ concilium, the

Ovidian concilium deorum certainly sounds more like a trial in which Cornelius Lucius

Lentulus Lupus was derided for his lack of morals while being a censor.

The satirical coloring of Ovid’s concilium comes through clearly in its language, consequences, and the suggestive connection between Lupus and Lycaon. Ahl writes, “the boundaries between epic and satire can be easily traversed and not necessarily only in one direction. Juvenal’s response to an overdose of epic was, as he tells us in his first satire, to write satire, but epicists drew on satire and satirical techniques to build epics.”40 Alessandro

Barchiesi also argues that the boundaries between the satirical and epic concilia deorum are fluid:

Le trattazioni moderne hanno spesso distribuito gli esempi del topos in due linee di accrescimento, una consituita dall'epos 'serio' (Ennio, Virgilio, Ovidio, Valerio Flacco e Stazio) e una invece 'parodistica' (Lucilio, Seneca menippeo, Apuleio), ma è preferibile non separare troppo i due filoni: la presenza di Ennio in Lucilio, di Lucilio in Virgilio e Ovidio, di tutti questi modelli simultaneamente in testi di tradizione menippea ο milesia, e il carattere 'liminale' dell'esperimento di Cicerone (che milita tra i poetici epici ma venne presto voltato in parodio), sono tutti indizi di come nella cultura romana gli aspetti solenni e quelli seriocomici del 'senato divino' non possano essere separati nettamente. È utile ricordarlo, dato che gli elementi di commedia e quelli di politica ‘alta’ convivono nel testo ovidiano che stiamo per analizzare.41

It is right to reject any overly simplistic delineation between satire and epic. By prioritizing the Lucilian framework of the concilium deorum over the Ennian, Servius shows the two traditions are tied too tightly together to be separated neatly.

It is important to differentiate between the two kinds of concilia in their literary strategies and inheritance; although the parallel traditions inform each other, they do not represent the same thing. The satirical and epic traditions might be better understood as

40 Ahl (1985), 99. 41 Barchiesi (2008), 125-126.

oppositional. Ennius’ concilium deorum legitimated the Roman state and decreed the apotheosis of Romulus while Lucilius’ predicted doom for the amoral Roman state and meditated on what punishment Lupus deserved in hell. Ennius’ concilium deorum praises masculine Roman heroism (in the figure of Romulus) and celebrates the greatness of Rome in accordance with epic expectations while Lucilius’ renders the genre and its tropes laughable.

It is interested in punishment and the Underworld (in the figure of Lupus), in decrying what is wrong with the Roman state, and in destruction. Ovid’s concilium deorum, which interacts with and channels Lucilius, sets the stage for the rest of the epic’s divine action that often renders the gods laughable or displays them as inept. By the channeling of the satirical concilium deorum, Ovid endorses a playful and humorous interaction with the epic tradition, which is, of course, borne out in the poem.

2: The Thebaid’s Concilium Deorum

Despite Romano Martín’s, Ahl’s, and Barchiesi’s consensus that satire and epic are not neatly separated, scholars have generally neglected a treatment of satire’s influence on Statius’ poetry, despite the fact that satire, as a genre, is in rude health when Statius is writing at the end of the first century CE with recent works by Seneca the Younger, Petronius, Persius, and

Juvenal in the near horizon.42 Ahl, Romano Martín, and Barchiesi analyze the fungible boundary between epic and satire, but their discussions focus primarily on Ovid’s

Metamorphoses primarily.43 I will build on their work to argue that it is necessary to view the

42 Considerations of Statius’ relationship to satire have largely been limited to his reception among early audiences. See Newlands (2012), 36, for a recent discussion with bibliography. 43 Ahl (1985), 98-99, only briefly turns to Statius and offers no definitive conclusion or argument.

concilium deorum in Thebaid 1 through the bifurcated yet parallel traditions of epic and satire.

Understanding satire’s vital role in defining epic tropes opens up new readings, not only of Statius, but the whole epic tradition. Many scholars have approached the epic as a self-standing tradition, robust to or absorbent of external literary influences.44 While there is some truth to this line of inquiry, it is not the full picture. Other, lower literary genres influence the epic tradition without being subsumed completely; satire is prime among these.

Statius thematizes the tension between epic and satire as part of his larger thematization of internecine strife and exploration of paradox.

First, however, I will establish that Statius recognizes and leverages a parallel relationship between satire and epic. I will do this by identifying the parallel traditions in his concilium deorum in Thebaid 1 since we possess the most evidence for this scene in Lucilius and Ennius. To that end, I argue that Statius casts his concilium deorum in the satirical tradition by emphasizing destruction and casts Jupiter himself as a satirist who exaggerates the awful aspects of the world in hyperbolic language. This characterization renders Jupiter hollow and hypocritical, emptying him of his legitimating authority.

In his first appearance in the Thebaid, Jupiter laments the state of the world at length: terrarum delicta nec exaturabile Diris | ingenium mortale queror. quonam usque nocentum | exigar in poenas? taedet saeuire corusco | fulmine, iam pridem Cyclopum operosa fatiscunt | bracchia ... uix lucis spatio, uix noctis abactae | enumerare queam mores gentemque profanam (“I am complaining about the crimes of the earth and the mortal nature, unable to be sated by Furies. For how much longer am I to be forced into giving punishments? It is wearisome to ravage with the shaking thunderbolt and already now for a long time the toiling

44 Harrison (2007), 207, discusses how epic absorbs other genres in what is a literary strategy that makes epic seemingly robust to bidirectional influence.

arms of the Cyclopes are exhausted … Scarcely in the span of a day, scarcely in the span of a night would I be able to list the morals of the unholy people,” Stat. Theb. 1. 214-218 and 231-

232). Jupiter connects local grievances about Polynices and Eteocles to the universal. He does not single out the two brothers, but instead blames humanity wholesale and assigns universal culpability without distinction. The hyperbole in Jupiter’s speech also rests in his posture of weariness — taedet and fatiscunt. Although the readers know the long literary tradition of punishments that Jupiter is alluding to, Jupiter himself only cites Phaethon’s disaster as an example of what he is decrying. 45 The readers know how much more Jupiter has in store to suffer and, as provident king of the gods, so should he. Consequently, the hyperbole, in addition to his apparent ignorance, render the god petty and inept.46

Moreover, Jupiter claims that Eteocles and Polynices stomped on Oedipus’ eyeballs as they fell: at nati (facinus sine more!) cadentes | calcauere oculos, “Oh, but the sons

(wickedness beyond outrage!) they trampled on the falling eyeballs,” Stat. Theb. 1. 238-239),

Donald Hill notes that there is no corroborating evidence, either elsewhere in the text or in mythology, to backup this claim.47 While it is certainly possible that Jupiter’s version has disappeared from the mythological record or Statius is innovating on the myth, it is strange that Oedipus would have omitted this outrage in his initial speech. The main crime that

Polynices and Eteocles are guilty of is not showing pietas by guiding their blinded and shamed father. Jupiter’s distortion of reality is redolent of a satirist, attempting to vilify the objects of his satirical outrage. Oedipus’ requested revenge, and Jupiter’s willful endorsement of it, is out of proportion with Polynices and Eteocles’ crime.

45 Feeney (1991), 340-344, argues that “Statius confronts his belatedness head-on” through such self-conscious metatextuality. 46 Hill (1990), Hill (1996), and Hill (2008); cf. Dominik (1994). 47 Hill (2008), 139-140, who argues passim that Jupiter is a bumbling and inept rhetorician.

Furthermore, Jupiter himself slyly alludes to the fact that we should understand him as a satirist when he says, nec exaturabile Diris | ingenium mortale queror (“I am complaining about the mortal nature, unable to be sated by Furies,” Stat. Theb. 1.214-215). Exaturabilis is an adjectival form of satura plus the preposition ex.48 It is an extremely rare word, attested only once elsewhere in the extant record at Aeneid 5.781.49 With the preposition in, it only appears twice in Cicero at Cic. Sest. 110.13 and Nat. D. 2.64.12. Apart from acknowledging the name of the genre satire, this kind of punning on the etymology of the word is prominent in satire.50 Persius, for example, conspicuously puns on the name in his first satire: ecce inter pocula quaerunt | Romulidae saturi quid dia poemata narrent (“Look, amidst their wine, the

Roman full to bursting ask what the divine poetry is saying,” Pers. 1.30-1). Persius derives the name from its meaning for “full,” the very word Statius deriving it from.51 Jupiter, in addition to acting like a satirist, is punning on the name of the genre, as satirists do.

Statius’ Jupiter clearly recalls the chief god as we see him in Ovid’s concilium deorum in Metamorphoses 1, an episode we have already seen is charged with satirical elements. Statius foregrounds the concilium deorum as an audience before the emperor; all tremble before Jupiter and must wait for permission to be seated.52 Statius also uses legalistic

48 Mozley (1928), Lesuer (1990), and Briguglio (2017) print exsaturabile while Hill (1983), Shackleton-Bailey (2003) print exaturabile. Hall, Ritchie, and Edwards (2007) opt for exuperabile which is also attested in the manuscripts. 49 See Coffee (2009), 205-207, for a discussion of the economic implications of the word. 50 Harrison (2007), 20-30, discusses a wide array of ways to advertise generic filiation. Punning on the name of the genre should perhaps qualify as one of Harrison’s “metageneric signals,” discussed at 27-33. 51 Of course, there were many conflicting etymologies for the name satire. Isid. Orig. 5.16 says satura derives from the name of a kind of law that encompassed many things, while Porph. Hor. Epst. 1.11.12 derives the word from Satyrs, since both satyrs and satire are interested in the ridiculous and shameful. Schol. Pers. Prol. 1 says satire derives from saturitate, quod plena sit conuiviis et reprehensionibus hominum. 52 Feeney (1991), 353, and Williams (1978), 251, who discusses similarities between Statius’ depiction of Jupiter in this scene and his depiction of Domitian in the Silvae, particularly Silv. 1.1 and 4.2.17.

language which Freudenburg argues is a Lucilian innovation later taken up by Ovid:53 imperiis (1.197), nil actum (1.222), iam iam rota uota tulisti (1.239), decretum (1.246), and haec sententia (1.267).54 Moreover, Juno describes Jupiter’s plan as percensere aeui senium

(“to cull the ranks until the beginning of time,” 1.268). Her use of percensere is nearly unprecedented in poetry and ultimately derives from censeo, the verb form of censor.55

Freudenburg has argued that the role of censor was central to Lucilius’ concilium deorum and that it was perceptively mediated through Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis.56 If that is so, then perhaps we can see a nod to Seneca (and, via Seneca, perhaps Lucilius) specifically in the use of the extremely rare word which essentially means “to do the work of a censor thoroughly.”

Additionally, ancient etymologies connect censeo to censor, which strengthen the connection between percensere and the Lucilian tradition.57

Furthermore, the Ovidian intertext strengthens the satirical coloring and the blurring of satire and epic. Whereas Statius’ Jupiter could not contain his complaints in the space of a night and day, Ovid’s Jupiter relates the specific example of Lycaon’s impiety (quod tamen admissum, quae sit uindicata, docebo, “however, that which he [Lycaon] did, and what his punishment was, I will tell,” Ov. Met. 1.210) to illustrate his point that humanity ought to be exterminated (Ov. Met. 1.240-243). Even if Ovid’s reader thinks that Jupiter is going too far in exterminating humanity, she at least follows his reasoning.

Statius’ concilium deorum in Thebaid 1, then, draws on the satirical tradition begun by Lucilius and mediated through Ovid. The Lucilian influence is consequential for a few

53 Freudenburg (2015), 98-103. 54 Briguglio (2017), 305, describes the language of the scene, particularly the haec sententia and use of percensere in Juno’s rebuke, as “ambito politico.” 55 Briguglio (2017), 305, says “percenseo, in poesia sola da Ov. Met 2, 335,” to which I would add Ov. Fast. 3. 109. Nevertheless, the word is highly prosaic and specifically legalistic. 56 Freudenburg (2015), 98-105. 57 E.g., Varro. Ling. 5.81, censor ad cuius censionem, id est arbitrium, censeretur populus or even Liv. 4.8.7 censores ab re (cenu agendo) appellati sunt.

reasons. In keeping with the tradition of Lucilius’ concilium deorum, the council deals with punishment. In this case, Jupiter wishes to punish Thebes and Argos for crimes, just as

Ovid’s Jupiter punished Lycaon and Lucilius Lupus. In keeping with the epic tradition, however, the council should be interested in apotheosis just as the Annales predicted

Romulus’ apotheosis and the Aeneid Aeneas’. The ultimate result, then, is a blending of the two goals manifest in the resurrection of Laius’ ghost. Laius ascends from the underworld to the mortal realm in order to spur Eteocles to battle. On one level, we can think of this as a punishment for Laius and Eteocles. Statius makes it clear that Laius does not wish to travel to

Thebes (uentum erat ad Thebas; gemuit prope limina nati | Laius et notos cunctatus inire penates, “They came to Thebes; Laius groaned as he neared the threshold of his son and hesitated to enter the known household,” Stat. Theb. 2.65-66) and, via an anonymous shade, creatively figures even the brief respite from hell as a punishment: heu dulces uisure polos solemque relictum | et uirides terras et puros fontibus amnes, | tristior has iterum tamen intrature tenebras (“Oh you, about to see the sweet skies and the sun we left behind and the green lands and the pure fountains of rivers, however, sadder you will again enter these darknesses,” Stat. Theb. 2.23-25). Laius’ ascent is an apotheosis in that he rises from one realm to a higher one (superas ... auras), but it is not a true apotheosis in that he is merely ascending to the mortal realm, not the Olympian. Moreover, the apotheosis is not a reward, but a punishment; Laius’ experience in the underworld will be even worse once he has been reminded of all the joys of the mortal realm in addition to his unwilling participation in starting the war.

By using Lucilius as a model, Statius also destabilizes the tone of the scene by imbuing it with contradictory generic goals and registers. At least two general interpretations of the concilium deorum are possible. Hill has argued that Jupiter comes across as a buffoon

who pretends to be in charge of the cosmos but cannot effect any change whatsoever.58 Yet

Statius still claims that Jupiter is all powerful: graue et immutabile sanctis | pondus adest uerbis, et uocem Fata sequuntur, “A serious and unchangeable weight is in his holy words, and the Fates follow his orders,”’ Stat. Theb. 1.212-213). Statius is wading into disputed theological territory by asserting that Jupiter holds sway over the Fates. There is a notoriously murky relationship between Jupiter and the Fates in the Iliad and the Aeneid. Yet, for his epic, Statius settles the debate once and for all. Or does he? Nearly everything that he dictates in his speech is already underway. His decision to be Oedipus’ avenger (Stat. Theb. 1.239-

240) has already been taken up by Tisiphone nearly two hundred lines previously (Stat. Theb.

1.88-113) and he undercuts his declaration that Eteocles should break the treaty and keep

Polynices away from Thebes by admitting that Eteocles was already going to do that (quod sponte cupit, “things he desires of his own free will,” Stat. Theb. 1.330). What decisions exactly is Jupiter making? The engagement with satire primes the readers to view Jupiter as a blowhard and the concilium deorum ineffective.

3: Conclusions

Satire is fundamental to understanding epic. The relationship between the two genres is complex. They are incompatible with each other yet, in some respects, identical. By accounting for satire in Statius’ epic, we get a fuller picture of poetics in the Flavian context.

The epic tradition certainly looms large in the Roman imagination, particularly for a poet who, like Statius, is self-consciously late in the tradition. But the epic tradition is not self- standing. To take such a view occludes the influence that other contemporary and polemical

58 Hill (1990), Hill (1996), and Hill (2008); cf. Gibson (2010).

genres like satire have; this is manifest in Statius’ manipulation of standard epic tropes criticized in satirists.

Moreover, as we have seen in his representation of the concilium deorum, Statius does not sharply delineate between satire and epic. With his invention of satire, Lucilius created two traditions, one epic and one satirical. Subsequent poets and readers did not always cleanly differentiate the two traditions: Servius sees Lucilius as the primary model for

Vergil’s concilium deorum and Ovid cleverly appropriates his equivalent scene from

Lucilius. Statius writes in this tradition. The concilium deorum exhibits deep engagement with the satirical tradition of the type scene and, by relying on distinctly satirical elements, sets the destructive tone and content of the epic. What emerges is an epic tradition that is not solely and universally serious or “high.” Instead, the genre is constantly in flux. The serious and the comic are in a struggle to get in the spotlight.

Chapter 3: Parody and Intertext

Introduction: Intertextual Theory

As Statius blurs the boundaries between satire and epic, it becomes easier for the poet to employ literary strategies usually found in satire in his epic. Prime among these is parodic quotation. Although parody has been the subject of investigation in satire, its role in the dynamics of the epic tradition has been neglected, perhaps due to the difficulty in identifying a difference between parody and standard allusion.1 In this chapter, I will approach parody by investigating lines Statius recycles whose Statian context deviates strongly from its source context. Sometimes commentators label these interactions as simply “playful” with little by way of theorization or analysis because the contexts seem incompatible.2 Nevertheless, contextual gaps are the very essence of parody, and I investigate how Statius recycles exact quotations and places them in a context overtly discordant with its original context so as to render them humorous.

Literary parody is a powerful form of intertextuality, but even in the wake of the influential work on intertextuality in Latin poetry over the past twenty-five years, it has received relatively little attention in Latin poetry.3 This is made all the more striking when we consider that Seneca the Younger articulates a theory of literary relationships that accommodates parody well: multum interest utrum ad consumptam materiam an ad subactam accedas: crescit in dies, et inuenturis inuenta non obstant. praeterea condicio optima est

1 See, e.g., the recent discussion of Lucian’s parody in Haller (2014). 2 See e.g., Gervais (2017a), 67, on the intertext with Valerius Flaccus. 3 Intertextual readings have become so standard in Latin literary study that it is prohibitively difficult to list a full bibliography. Foundational are Conte (1986), Thomas (1986), Hinds (1987), Farrell (1991), Fowler (1997), especially, Hinds (1998), Edmunds (2001), and Baraz and van den Berg (2013), 1-8. More recently, Scianna (2015) provides some theoretical pushback against privileging text over image as well as thoughtful-provoking commentary on hyperreality’s relationship to the theory of intertextuality.

ultimi: parata uerba inuenit, quae aliter instructa nouam faciem habent (“It matters a great deal whether you approach material that is exhausted or material that is recently unearthed: the latter grows each day and inventions do not impede things about to be invented.

Nevertheless, the situation of the last person is best: he finds words already prepared which, when deployed differently, have a new appearance,” Sen. Ep. 79.6.1-2). For Seneca, he who writes last, writes best because the predecessors have prepared the way. All the writer has to do is rearrange the material to give it a novel form; parody offers an especially clear example of such redeployment since it places a premium on recognizable reuse through close echo of the source.

In the extant literary record, literary parody is often manifest as direct quotation with some alteration, whether that be context or a word substitution. Consequently, literary parody necessarily signals its source text whereas other forms of intertextuality, such as the

Alexandrian footnote, tend to obscure their source. Because literary parody often uses direct quotation there is a strong bond between the two textual objects. The very process of intertextuality is strongly transformative since parody has the power “to talk back to more authoritative texts and genres, to recontextualize and pollute their meaning-constructing process, and to offer other, ‘improper,’ and yet more … savvy interpretations.”4 In other words, parody has a particularly potent intertextual capacity for transforming narratives and for destabilizing the meaning of the source text.

1: Centos and Bidirectional Intertextuality

The Vergilian centos of later antiquity illuminate and strain aspects of Latin intertextuality theory that Classical Latin does not for the very reason that their intertextuality is a sine qua

4 Gray (2006), 4.

non; every cento line engages the Vergilian source text and, despite the addition of no new words, they generate novel semantic meaning.5 The deliberate fusion of drastically opposing tones with a direct quotation or exact intertext is a signature characteristic of the cento, a literary form popular in later antiquity because centos recycle lines from one work and repurpose them, often with a drastic change in tone, genre, or context.6 In antiquity, the cento is theorized as humorous based primarily on Ausonius’ preface in the Cento Nuptialis, a poem written at the behest of and in competition with the emperor Valentinian. Ausonius’ self-effacing rhetoric of flattery in the preface must be accounted for, but it remains the case that Ausonius consistently presents the cento, as a literary form, in terms of joking and humor: piget enim Vergiliani carminis dignitatem tam ioculari dehonestasse materia. sed quid facerem? … accipe igitur opusculum de inconexis continuum, de diuersis unum, de seriis ludicrum, de alieno nostrum (“For it is shameful to debase the dignity of Vergil’s song with such jocular material. But what was I to do? … So, take this little work, continuous but from unconnected parts, unified but from many places, a joke but from serious verses, mine but from someone else’s,” Auson. Cent. nupt. pr.). Ausonius situates the whole form of the cento in comic terms as if the practice of direct quotation in a different context is humorous

(ioculari, ludicrum).7 Much of the humor derives from the recontextualization of lines from a grand genre to a lower form; from repurposing a line meaning one thing to another.

5 Scholars of late antique literature discuss different modes of intertextuality and literary interaction in wake of changing social, political, and religious circumstances. Kaufmann (2017), 151-2, argues that late antique intertextuality does not always engage in aemulatio, for example, and Mastrangelo (2016), 25-28, overviews some of the main problems facing late antique writers, summing up by saying, “literary inheritance for Late Latin poets was a double-edged sword that required new approaches to poetics yet furnished a huge store of material to reuse.” 6 Hardie (2007), 172-175, discusses this aspect of the poetics of the cento with reference to Hosidius Geta’s Medea, for which see Rondholz (2012) for further discussion. 7 Cf. Quint. Inst. 6.3.96-98 for a similar discussion of humorous quotation.

In his Cento Nuptialis, Ausonius manipulates Vergilian language to write a graphic sex scene and he is followed by Luxurius in his Epithalamium Fridi.8 Ausonius recycles the

Vergilian line, monstrum horrendum, ingens, cui lumen ademptum (“a horrendous monster, enormous, whose eye was removed,” Verg. Aen. 3.658), with which Vergil describes

Polyphemus, to describe a phallus.9 There are other such Vergilian lines to describe phalluses: both Ausonius and Luxurius appropriate ramum, qui ueste latebat (“the branch, which he was hiding in his clothes,” Verg. Aen. 6.406) to mean a phallus although in Vergil it refers to the Golden Bough needed to enter the Underworld.10 Scott McGill does not detect

“through comic distortion any literary criticism of a specific feature of Virgilian poetry.”

Instead, the centoists “seem intent on demonstrating new kinds of ingenuity, not on expressing hostility toward Virgil.”11

While McGill is right that there is little evidence to suggest anything by way of

Vergilian criticism in Ausonius or Luxurius, nevertheless, the consequences of this kind of

“ingenuity” are profound since it destabilizes epic language at its core. In Ferdinand de

Sassure’s terminology, the centoists exploit ambiguities between parole and langue, signified and signifier, to achieve a new meaning. If the double entendre did not strike the reader upon first perusal of the Vergilian lines, the centoists’ rendering of, for example, the ramum, qui ueste latebat speaks to the possibility that the Golden Bough can be read as a penis. Double entendre need to not be hinted at in the original if the language can be leveraged by later writers to force a different reading onto it. Since intertextual readings are bidirectional and

8 With the exception of McGill (2005), 98-114, there is little recent work on Luxurius’ Epithalamium Fridi. 9 Vergil had already recycled at least part of this line from Catull. 68.93, ei misero fratri iucundum lumen ademptum “oh, dear light of my eye, taken from your miserable brother.” See also Verg. 4.181 where monstrum horrendum, ingens describes Fama. 10 Auson. Cent. nupt. 105 and Luxurius Epithalamium Fridi 64. 11 McGill (2005), 108.

the readerly reception of texts are colored by other textual receptions,12 centos are particularly powerful tools of intertextual re-readings since every line is intertextual, imbuing each word with the potential to destabilize epic language. The double entendre always existed in the

Aeneid; it just needed to be activated.

This is the exact tension that Ausonius is highlighting in his preface. When Ausonius recycles Vergilian language to describe erotic material, he is creating semantic meaning that did not exist in the original. Which tone is right? The sexual context of Ausonius’ Cento

Nuptialis or the monstrous context describing Polyphemus? There is no single correct interpretation; each context tells us something about the other. Centos, as recycled text, resist a straightforward reading through their coexistence of multiple conflicting tones.13

Parodists confront the same interpretative issues, but they ostentatiously create and leverage the tonal dissonance to their advantage. Matro of Pitane, an epic parodist writing near the end of the fourth century BCE, provides us an example in his work which survives as a quotation from Athenaeus: δεῖπνά μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροφα καὶ μάλα πολλά (“Tell,

Muse, of dinners, much nourishing and many,” Ath. 4.134d=fr. 1 Olson-Sens=SH 534). The parody of Homer’s Odyssey is obvious. The substitutions of δεῖπνά for ἄνδρα and of

πολύτροφα for πολύτροπον signals that, although the poem will be in epic, Homeric style and hexameters, its subject matter will be about a dinner party, a highly un-epic trope.14

12 See Edmunds (2001), 159, on “retroactive intertextuality,” as well as the foundational Fowler (1997), 27. 13 Hinds (2014), 171-173, Hardie (2007), 172-175, and McGill (2005), xxi-xxiii. McGill (2005), 8, points out that this resistance occurs on a generic level as well: “No matter how lofty the genre it replicates, a cento is always at the bottom a cento, or a text adapting Virgil to a particular generic setting, and so standing at a remove from that genre.” Hosidius Geta’s Medea presents an instructive case: is it epic because its verses are hexameters from Vergil’s Aeneid or tragedy because the hexameters are redeployed in a dramatic form, sometimes resulting in a new meter altogether? 14 Sens (2017), 386, who says that “much of the humor derives from the obvious application of Homeric language to a quotidian subject matter.”

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Moreover, the parodist Euboeus, writing sometime in the third or fourth century BCE, uses an exact line from battles in the Iliad and Odyssey and applies it to combat between bathers: βάλλον δ᾿ ἀλλήλους χαλκήρεσιν ἐγχείῃσιν (Hom. Il. 18.534 = Hom. Od. 9.55 = Ath.

15. 699b = SH 411). While in Homer, the line should be translated as “they tossed bronze- tipped spears at each other,” within the context of Euboeus’ parody, Olson and Sens argue that it should be translated as “they tossed bronze-tipped bowls at each other.”15 The very words which, in Homer, strike an epic chord, in Euboeus’ parody are rendered ridiculous with the change context.16 Both Matro and Euboeus recycle epic language — in Matro’s case, few enough words have been altered to leave the source patently obvious. Yet they perhaps differ from centoists in that they strive for incongruity to create a parody. While a centoist can leverage humorous incongruity, it necessary for the parodist’s genre to do.

Both centoists and the Greek parodists are far removed from Statius’ cultural context, but there is a similar interest in humorous text recycling in the early Imperial period as is evidenced by Juvenal’s Satires, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, and Petronius’ Satyricon. In

Juvenal’s ninth satire, he parodies the Odyssey through direct quotation and substitution of a single word: nam si tibi sidera cessant, | nil faciet longi mensura incognita nerui, | quamuis te nudum spumanti Virro labello | uiderit et blandae adsidue densaeque tabellae | sollicitent,

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐφέλκεται ἄνδρα κίναιδoς (“For, if the stars abandon you, the unheard of length of your long penis will do nothing for you, although Virro, with his spittle-drenched lip, has seen you naked and bombards you with flattering letters all the time, ‘for the pathic himself attracts the man,’” Juv. 9. 33-37). In this satire, Juvenal’s interlocutor Naevolus is decrying

15 Olson and Sens (1999), 10. 16 Euboeus does this elsewhere: μήτε σὺ τόνδ᾿ ἀγαθός περ ἐὼν ἀποαίρεο, κουρεῦ, | μήτε σύ, Πηλεΐδη (“Neither do you, although you are brave, rob this man, barber, nor do you, son of Mud,” Ath. 15.699b = SH 412), modifying Hom. Il. 1.275 and 277 and punning on the name of Peleus as Olson and Sens (1999), 10 discuss. The pseudo-Homeric Batrachomyomachia makes a similar pun on Peleus’ name, for which see Christensen and Robinson (2018), 76, and Hosty (2013), 167.

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the stinginess of his patron and, in this specific section, calls him a pathic. He does so by quoting Homer and changing a single word. The line he quotes appears twice in the Odyssey:

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐφέλκεται ἄνδρα σίδηρος (“The sword itself attracts the man,” Hom Od. 16.294 =

19.13). The substitution of σίδηρος for κίναιδoς is humorous and pointed. This Homeric line occurs in a context specifically about masculinity and heroism. In Odyssey 19, for example,

Odysseus himself utters the words while encouraging Telemachus for the assault on the suitors. By transforming the sword into a pathic, Juvenal undermines not only Naevolus’ patron’s masculinity, but masculinity itself. The sword is replaced by, or literalized into, a phallus. The more the reader knows about the original context, the more pointed and apt the joke becomes.

Petronius and Seneca engage in a similar practice. Petronius’ Trimalchio quotes from

Aeneid 2 in order to cast his meal as a sort of Trojan war17 while the widow of Ephesus’ nurse quotes from Aeneid 4 to portray her mistress as Dido.18 In the Apocolocyntosis, Seneca appropriates the description of Ascanius lagging behind Aeneas non passibus aequis from

Aeneid 2 and applies it to Claudius.19 When applied to Claudius, however, instead of indicating the smaller step of the young boy, it pokes fun at the emperor’s limp. In all three cases, the disjunction between original context and the cited context is striking, as all three come from especially serious moments of the Aeneid — two from the sack of Troy and one from the Underworld.

A more sophisticated example comes from the Satyricon’s narrator, Encolpius, as he describes a sexual encounter with his lover, Giton, during which Encolpius is unable to get an erection: illa solo fixos oculos auersa tenebat, | nec magis incepto uultum sermone mouetur |

17 Verg. 2.44, sic notus Ulixes?, “Is this the Ulysses you know?” = Petron. Sat. 39.3.3. 18 Verg. 4. 34, id cinerem aut manes credis curare sepultos?, “Do you think the dust or buried shades care about that?” = Petron. Sat. 11.12.1 and 4.38, placitone etiam pugnabis amori?, “Will you even fight with a pleasing love?” = Petron. Sat. 112.2.4. 19 Verg. 2. 724, non passibus aequis, “with unequal footsteps” = Sen. Apocol. 1.2.5.

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quam lentae salices lassoue papauera collo (“But, turned away, it kept its eyes fixed on the ground and nor did it move its face more at any spoken word than the lazy willows or the poppies with the tired neck,” Petr. 132.11.2-4). The lines quoted come from Aeneid 6.469-

470 and 9.436 as well as Eclogues 3.83 = 5.16. The humor is derived from the mismatch of tone. In the Aeneid, the lines describe Dido’s refusal to speak to Aeneas in the Underworld and Nisus’ death — the incongruity with Encolpius’ situation could not be starker. But the humor is much more deeply rooted in the context. Petronius replaces the second line of

Vergil’s description of Dido in which he compares her to a dura silex and Marpesia cautes.

Catherine Connors explains that “the more a reader knows of the contexts in the Virgilian underworld and beyond, the sharper, funnier, and more impudent the quotations become.”20

The quotation is humorous when the reader realizes Encolpius is using Vergilian hexameters to address his penis, but the context of the specific hexameters sharpens the joke. They are not simply any hexameters, but ones whose incongruity underscores the joke; the hardness of the willow or the cliffs highlight the flaccidity of Encolpius’ penis.

Literary parody is not simply a strategy for self-consciously secondary writers to leverage their secondariness. It can destabilize the source texts at a core level by exploiting latent humor. Alternatively, de- and recontextualization provide further opportunities to undermine straightforward interpretation. Each parody opens up a new meaning of the source text. Consequently, parody projects that meaning backwards onto the source text with the result that a straightforward reading of the source text is destabilized.

20 Connors (1998), 33. Cf. Schmeling (2011), 508.

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2: Parodic Intertext in Statius

It is well known that Statius makes complex use of intertext. Statius’ intertextual strategies are highly complex.21 Kyle Gervais has recently summed up the poet’s technique well when he says, “Statian allusivity rarely comprises a simple link between his text and a single passage in a source text, but instead multiple resonances with several passages in a source, or several different sources.”22 Scholars recognized this long ago; twenty-five years ago

Smolenaars was among the first to theorize Statius’ complex practice, calling his habit of pitting one allusion against another “multiple imitation.”23 However, the complexity of his technique is becoming increasingly apparent due to computational approaches to intertextual detection, such as those developed by the Tesserae Project.24

Yet even when Statius does allude principally to a single author, he does not do so in a straightforward manner. Gervais has recently argued that in Thebaid 12 Statius uses

“abridging allusions” in which the poet makes multiple allusion in quick succession to Aeneid

12, but joins together intertexts from different places in the Book to abbreviate the action.

Furthermore, in a practice she has termed “failed intertext,” Debra Hershkowitz has shown that Statius alludes multiple times to the well-known parce metu scene in the Aeneid, but that, in each case, he undercuts the original because he “set[s] up the situation found in the Aeneid in contexts and in ways in which it does not and cannot work.”25 By putting pressure on

21 Statius is not alone among the Flavians in the complexity of his intertextual strategies. For the allusive technique of Valerius Flaccus, see Zissos (2008), xxxvii, and of Silius, see Chaudhuri et al. (2015). 22 Gervais (2017a), xxxv. 23 Smolenaars (1994), xxvi-xxxv. 24 See Coffee et al. (2012) for a discussion of how computation affects traditional approaches to intertextual detection. 25 Hershkowitz (1997), 52.

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traditional strategies of intertextuality at work in Roman literature, he undercuts the Aeneid or exposes contradictions latent in the poem.

This innovative aspect of Statian intertextuality relies on subverting expectation.

Gervais has remarked that “pervasive irony ... undercuts every aspect of the epic’s surface narrative.”26 Within the realm specifically of intertextuality, Laura Micozzi has recently investigated the “intertextual irony implicit in so many scenes,” particularly ones in which characters, aware of their literary pasts, depart from their expected roles.27 Micozzi is interested in a similar phenomenon, but her definition of irony focuses on a different aspect of literary dynamics. She writes, “[l]et us agree on the notion of irony: nothing further from the comic, nothing closer to a canny smile of disguised coexistence. Irony, which does not come from aggression but from complicity, has always to do with the awareness of the artist who challenges his audience: it is a ‘knowledge of more’ than what is objectively allowed by the explicit horizon of the text.”28 Although Micozzi insists that there is nothing comic about irony, the incongruity, which is sometimes vast, that irony generates is an operating principle of Roman humor as we have seen.

Micozzi’s analyses are perceptive, but are more interested in the coexistence or repudiation of mythic variants. For example, Atalanta says, nec mihi secretis culpam occultare sub antris | cura, sed ostendi prolem posuique trementem |ante tuos confessa pedes

(“I did not care to hide my son in a secret cave, but I showed him to you [Diana] and, confessing, I placed him before your feet,” Stat. Theb. 9.617-619). What is curious about these lines is that they are unprompted. No one has accused Atalanta of any sort of wrongdoing but, nonetheless, she seems preoccupied with showing herself not to be

26 Gervais (2017a), xxxiii. 27 Micozzi (2015), 329-336, quote from 329. 28 Micozzi (2015), 329.

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secretive, perhaps like Callisto whose secrecy Diana punishes in the Metamorphoses.29 It is as if Atalanta has read the Metamorphoses and knows what happens to those who do not remain chaste. However, she is also slyly alluding to, and denying, a mythic variant in which the goddess does, in fact, banish Atalanta.30 In sum, it is clear even from this brief overview that Statius’ intertextual strategies are complex, nuanced, and a potent source of the poet’s innovation — even, as Micozzi has put it, his “challenge to the literary past.”31

Kyle Gervais’ study of “abridging allusions” is a recent and provocative study of

Statian intertextuality. This class of allusion, he writes, “joins together two (modified)

Vergilian half-lines into a new, composite verse” or “places several key Vergilian words at the beginning of successive verses, and a final abridgement compresses a protracted

Vergilian focus.”32 This kind of allusion trades on much of the same technique that centos do.33 Given his sophisticated use of recycled half-lines from Aeneid 12, it is perhaps unsurprising to see Statius employ recycled lines in a parodic manner.

A sustained text recycling, comprising nearly a whole hexameter, comes at the beginning of Book 2. As Laius makes his way out of the Underworld at the beginning of

Thebaid 2, Statius shifts narrative focus to the shades gathered to watch the dead Theban king’s departure. In particular, Statius focuses on a single, unnamed shade: unus ibi ante alios, cui laeua uoluntas | semper et ad superos (hinc et grauis exitus aeui) | insultare malis rebusque aegrescere laetis (“One was there before the others, whose evil desire it was, even while he was alive (hence, the awful end of his life) to laugh at ills and to begrudge prosperity,” Stat. Theb. 2.16-18). This is an exact echo of a line in the Argonautica in which

29 Ov. Met 2.465, Cynthia deque suo iussit secedere coetu, “Diana ordered her [Callisto] to leave the group.” 30 Micozzi (2002), 275. 31 In the title of Micozzi (2015). 32 Gervais (2017b), 307. 33 Gervais (2017b), 307, n.9, terms the material from Petronius and Ovid’s cento of Macer “inchoate centos.”

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Venus describes Jason to Medea: unus ibi ante alios qui tum mihi pulchrior omnes | uisus erat, longeque ducem mirabar et ipsa, | aduolat atque unam comitum ratus esse tuarum

(“One was there who, before others, then, seemed to me more beautiful than everyone, and even I myself wondered at the leader from afar, and he hurried up, thinking that I was one of your companions,” V. Fl. 7.263-265). The intertext is unmistakable, as both passages share five consecutive words, and the final qui/cui are phonetically identical, suggesting that, although both phrases serve different grammatical functions (the Statius passage has a possessive dative relative clause while the Valerius Flaccus phrase is nominative relative clause), they are put directly into conversation.34

While it is fairly clear that the language is shared, it is difficult to tell who is appropriating whom. The relative dating of the Thebaid and Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica is contentious; there is a dense array of allusions between the poems but, since there is little firm evidence for the dating of the Argonautica, it is difficult to know which poem preceded which or, put slightly differently, which poem served as a source for intertext and which one manipulates the language.35 Ruth Parkes has recently argued that “in spite of some chronological uncertainty over the relative dates of composition, the Thebaid and Achilleid may fruitfully be studied in terms of their engagement with Valerius Flaccus’ epic.”36 Helen

Lovatt agrees and has recently traced Argonautic imagery in the Thebaid, which presupposes the, at least slight, priority of Valerius Flaccus’ epic.37

Current scholarly consensus is that there is a fluid relationship between the two poems and that there was likely some overlap in their composition.38 Denis Feeney voiced this view

34 Gervais (2017a), 67, notes the parallel to the Argonautica, but simply calls it a “playful link.” 35 Stover (2008) argues for a composition date for the Argonautica in the reign of Vespasian, although the orthodox date is a decade or so later, under Domitian. 36 Parkes (2014), 339. 37 Lovatt (2015). 38 Zissos (2008), xiv-xviii, Fucecchi (2007), 22, Smolenaars (1994), xvii.

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nearly three decades ago when he stated that “the works have an interrelationship which looks like a matter of reciprocal influence over a number of years rather than a one-way dependence.”39 In the case of unus ibi ante alios cui/qui, I contend that interpretation makes it more likely that the Thebaid appropriates language from the Argonautica so as to mock a scene from Valerius Flaccus’ epic. Nevertheless, this argument need not indicate that the

Argonautica was composed completely before the Thebaid, simply that Statius had access to

Valerius Flaccus’ text in some way, perhaps through a recitatio performance. While my interpretation of the intertext suggests that Statius is appropriating language from the

Argonautica, I will point out that some of my claims could be reversed so as to account for the priority of the Thebaid. The following will enrich our understanding of the nuanced relationship between the Thebaid and the Argonautica and paint a fuller picture of real-time literary dynamics between contemporaries.

On the surface, neither instance of unus ibi ante alios cui/qui has much to do with each other. In Statius, the narrator is speaking as Laius exits the underworld at Tisiphone’s behest. The referent is an unnamed shade who expresses bitter jealousy at Laius’ opportunity to see the upper world. In Valerius Flaccus, Venus is describing the beauty of Jason to

Medea. Yet despite the discordant contexts and the unremarkably nature of the shared language, the concatenation of five exact words shows us that it is not simply a matter of unconscious recycling, but a strong intertextual engagement.

How do the unnamed shade and Jason relate to each other? Statius declines to name the shade, but scholars have connected the shade to the anonymous Theban in Book 1, who makes complains about the nature of tyranny and alternating between two kings (1.171-196).

Legras long ago noted that the two have much in common, Vessey says that “The Theban spokesman poured out a bitter complaint about the destiny and suffering of his people, but his

39 Feeney (1991), 313.

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voice has no weight in the march of events. The envious ghost has no more intrinsic importance.”40 Frederick Ahl suggested that the two may be one in the same.41 Gervais fleshes out Ahl’s suggestion and argues that we should “see the two anonymous speakers not merely as a thematic pair, but as the same person, whose political complaints have earned him a 17 grauis exitus from life.”42 That the two characters are one and the same is certainly possible. Nevertheless, Statius’ characterization of the anonymous shade evokes the Homeric

Thersites rather than his anonymous Theban from the first book.

The two anonymous figures are more linked through their anonymity than the content of their speeches or Statius’ description of their characteristics. Statius describes the anonymous Theban as aliquis, cui mens humili laesisse ueneno | summa nec impositos umquam ceruice uolenti | ferre duces (“someone, whose disposition it was to harm the highest with humble poison and nor even bear leaders placed on him with a willing neck,”

Stat. Theb. 1.171-173). He then proceeds to rail at monarchy by complaining about servitude

(semperne uicissim | exsulibus seruire dabor? “Am I always to be given to be a slave to exiles in turn?” Stat. Theb. 1. 177-178) as well as the vicissitudes of fortune (nos uilis in omnes | prompta manus casus, domino cuicumque parati “We, a cheap band, ready for whatever thing and whatever master,” Stat. Theb. 1. 191-192). The anonymous Theban’s complaints seem justified; he really is at the mercy of fortune and the would-be power sharing agreement is to the detriment of the Theban plebeians. He comes off as a dissident who speaks truth to power.

Book 2’s anonymous shade, however, appears as a petty malcontent and is much more vindictive: cui laeua uoluntas | semper et ad superos (hinc et grauis exitus aeui) |

40 Vessey (1973), 231. 41 Ahl (1986), 2842, n.38, says, “it might be more challenging to ask if this is the ghost of the anonymous critic [from Thebaid 1].” 42 Gervais (2017a), 66-67.

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insultare malis rebusque aegrescere laetis (“whose evil desire it was, even while he was alive

(hence, the awful end of his life) to laugh at ills and to begrudge prosperity,” Stat. Theb. 2.16-

18). His nature is expressly malicious (laeua) and his actions undoubtedly spiteful (insultare malis rebusque aegrescere laetis). Statius shows his nature in action as he expresses jealous of Laius’ ascent to the upper world: uade ... o felix | … heu dulces uisuere polos solemque relictum | et uirides terras et puros fontibus amnes, | tristior has iterum tamen intrature tenebras (“Go, oh blessed one … oh, you are about to see the sweet skies and the sun left behind and the green lands and the pure rivers for fountains, sadder, however, you will enter again these shades,” Stat. Theb. 2. 19, 23-25). The shade makes his envy of Laius clear, calling him felix and describing the upper world in idyllic terms, dulces ... polos, uirides terras, puros fontibus amnes. Yet he maliciously colors even what he views as a positive experience negatively: tristior has iterum tamen intrature tenebras. The shade’s rhetoric focuses on the ultimate futility of the excursion to the upper world: the visit is temporary and any sight of the joys of the upper world will only serve to increase Laius’ unhappiness, as the

Underworld will seem sadder (tristior) once he has experienced the upper world again.

Consequently, it is difficult to agree with Gervais when he says “his words as a shade do not seem to indicate indiscriminate malice ... but rather envy of Laius’ release from the underworld.” Envy and malice are not easily separated; although his words may derive from envy, they are still malicious.43

A closer analogue for the anonymous shade is Homer’s Thersites who Gervais expressly rejects as a comparison.44 The Homeric description is similar: Θερσίτης δ᾿ ἔτι

μοῦνος ἀμετροεπὴς ἐκολῴα, | ὃς ἔπεα φρεσὶ ᾗσιν ἄκοσμά τε πολλά τε ᾔδη, | μάψ, ἀτὰρ οὐ

κατὰ κόσμον, ἐριζέμεναι βασιλεῦσιν, | ἀλλ᾿ ὅ τί οἱ εἴσαιτο γελοίιον Ἀργείοισιν | ἔμμεναι

43 Gervais (2017a), 67. 44 contra Gervais (2017a), 46, who says the shade “is no simple, abusive Thersites.”

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(“But still Thersites of measureless speech alone heckled, Thersites whose mind was full of disordered words and who in no order quarreled with kings recklessly, but whatever he thought would be funny to the Argives,” Hom. Il. 2.212-216). There is little semantic overlap, but their general shared characteristics are clear: both Thersites and the shade engage in malicious criticism (μάψ… ἐριζέμεναι, insultare malis rebusque aegrescere laetis) and do so consistently and often (ἔτι μοῦνος ἀμετροεπὴς, semper et ad superos). While the shade of course, cannot be Thersites because he has not yet died in mythic time, ghosts in Statius’

Thebaid evoke the literary past.45

The standard mythic account of Thersites’ death accords with Statius’ description of the shade’s death as resulting from his malicious bend, his laeua uoluntas. The anonymous’

Theban’s complaints in Book 1 are certainly not derived from laeua uoluntas; they are justifiable criticisms of power, which Ahl notes the poem’s narrator himself airs earlier (Stat.

Theb. 1.123-164).46 This identification seems a stretch, as the remarks are standard criticisms of tyranny.47 However, Thersites’ death much more closely aligns to deriving from laeua uoluntas. Proclus informs us of Thersites’ death in his summary of the Aethiopis: καὶ

Ἀχιλλεὺς Θερσίτην ἀναιρεῖ λοιδορηθεὶς πρὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ὀνειδισθεὶς τὸν ἐπὶ τῆι Πενθεσιλείαι

λεγόμενον ἔρωτα (“And Achilles kills Thersites, since he [Achilles] was mocked by him and was reproached for reported loving Penthesilea,” Proc. Chreso. 178-182). Other accounts of

Thersites death, such as pseudo-Apollodorus’ Epitome and Quintus Smyrnaeus’

Posthomerica confirm that this version still had currency in the Roman imperial period.48

45 Parkes (2010), 20, “Statius is ‘haunted’ by the ghosts of texts past,” and Currie (2006), 21. 46 Ahl (1986), 2829. 47 It is difficult to agree with Gervais (2017a), 67, when he says “His words as a shade do not seem to indicate indiscriminate malice ... but rather envy of Laius’ release from the underworld.” Envy and malice are not easily separated; although his words may derive from envy, they are still malicious. 48 Quintus Smyrnaeus 1.722-747, traditionally dated to the third or fourth century CE, and Apollodorus Epitome 5, traditionally dated to the first century CE.

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It is plausible, then, to view the anonymous shade, described by Statius as unus ibi ante alios cui, in Thebaid 2 as an incarnation of the Homeric Thersites. This is important for the intertextual relationship with Valerius Flaccus because Thersites is notoriously ugly:

αἴσχιστος δὲ ἀνὴρ ὑπὸ Ἴλιον ἦλθε· | φολκὸς ἔην, χωλὸς δ᾿ ἕτερον πόδα· τὼ δέ οἱ ὤμω |

κυρτώ, ἐπὶ στῆθος συνοχωκότε· αὐτὰρ ὕπερθε | φοξὸς ἔην κεφαλήν, ψεδνὴ δ᾿ ἐπενήνοθε

λάχνη (“he [Thersites] was the ugliest man who came to Troy; he was bandy-legged, and lame in one foot; his shoulders were rounded, and bunched over his chest; above them, he had a pointy head, and sparse hair grew on it,” Hom. Il. 2. 216-219). This description stands in stark opposition to Venus’ description of Jason in the Argonautica as unus ibi ante alios qui tum mihi pulchrior omnes | uisus erat, longeque ducem mirabar et ipsa (“There was one who seemed to me more beautiful than all others, and even I myself wondered at the leader from afar,” V. Fl. 7.263-264). In appropriating the language from the Argonautica, Statius turns Valerius Flaccus’ beautiful Jason into Homer’s ugly Thersites. Thersites is ugly; Jason is beautiful. Statius “misuses” the intertext. Instead of using it to enrich a portrait of beauty, he incongruously applies it to someone he has primed the reader to view as the paradigmatically ugly Thersites.

Counterintuitively, the disjunction in the intertext’s subjects serves as a tantalizing suggestion that we should view the anonymous shade is Thersites. It is clear enough that the point of the intertext is to throw Jason’s beauty into question by using the same language to describe a vindictive shade. The undermining is all the more persuasive if Jason’s Statian counterpart is the ugliest figure in mythology. The language of beauty throws the ugliness into relief. Moreover, his intertextual positioning offers a tendentious reading of Valerius

Flaccus’ Jason. He is not beautiful, as Venus declares, but rather much more like a Thersites figure. In addition to his physical ugliness, Odysseus famously shames him in the Achaean’s

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full council, showing his rhetoric to be based in nothing (Hom. Il. 2.265-278). Consequently,

Jason is tainted with the distinctly unheroic characteristics of the anonymous shade/Thersites.

To press the interpretation of Jason as Thersites further, we can view them as merging into one figure. As Bakhtin reminds us, parody is a very strong form of intertext that defamiliarizes an object: “[parody] rips the word away from its object, disunifies the two, shows that a given straightforward generic word — epic or tragic — is one-sided, bounded, incapable of exhausting the object.”49 In this case, we see Statius gesture towards Valerius

Flaccus’ portrayal of Jason as insufficient. This is explicitly the case in Argonautica 7 from where the text is recycled. Medea falls in love with Jason at first sight but begins to doubt her passion’s practicality (V. Fl. 7.101-152). Consequently, Juno enjoins Venus to intervene so as to persuade Medea to pursue the love affair (7.153-192). Venus resorts to disguising herself as Circe, Medea’s aunt, to make Medea more amenable to the love affair. It is in this context, with the goal of coaxing Medea into falling in love with Jason, that Venus tells Medea that

Jason is the most beautiful man she has seen. Venus’ rhetoric is, accordingly, suspect;

Statius’ appropriation of the line reveals that Jason is deep down a much more complicated hero than his appearance would suggest.

On a larger level, however, the text recycling is also part of the epic dynamics. Statius chooses to appropriate a line from Valerius Flaccus that describes the poem’s hero, Jason, and pervert it by intertextually coloring him as Thersites, the Homeric anti-hero. The

Thebaid, with its poetic program interested in de-elevating heroics, infects Valerius Flaccus’

Argonautica. All of this puts a great deal of interpretative weight on five recycled words: unus ibi ante alios cui/qui. Since recycled texts ostentatiously draw attention to their source text, a thorough analysis is required. It is no accident that the Thebaid recycles the

49 Bakhtin (1981), 55.

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Argonautica’s lines; although the intertext seems innocuous or inconsequential at first glance, sustained attention reveals many important facets of the recycled text.

It is not only contemporaries that Statius takes aim at, but the canon at large. At the beginning of the Nemea episode, Statius parodically quotes the climax of Xenophon’s

Anabasis, θάλαττα! θάλαττα! This not only renders the Argive’s journey ridiculous, but also subverts Xenophon’s original text by calling the Greek heroism into question. Clearly the engagement with Xenophon is not a direct quote because Statius translates the Greek to

Latin. Nevertheless, the parodic dynamics of text recycling are plain to see.

At the end of Thebaid 4, Bacchus besets Nemea with a drought that causes all of the sources of water in the vicinity to dry up with the goal of delaying the Argive army’s passage

(Stat. Theb. 4.677). Immediately upon realizing there is a drought, the Argives are struck with a desperate and apparently life-threatening thirst. They encounter Hypsipyle, who leads the army to the river Langia, the only source of water left in the region. Statius describes the

Argive reaction upon finding the water:

iamque amne propinquo rauca sonat uallis, saxosumque impulit aures murmur: ibi exultans conclamat ab agmine primus, sicut erat leuibus tollens uexilla maniplis, 810 Argus, “aquae!”50 longusque uirum super ora cucurrit clamor, “aquae!”

And now the harsh valley sounds with the nearby stream, and the stony roar bashes the ears: there, rejoicing, Argus first in the line shouts, just as if he were Raising the standards for the light maniples, “Water!” and the shout ran over the mouths of the men, “Water!”

Stat. Theb. 4.807-812

50 I accept the emendation of Parkes (2012), 320, that the first shout of aquae is an exclamation pace Hill, who punctuates the first shout with a question mark.

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This scene recalls Xenophon’s Anabasis, when the Greeks, desperate and hounded by enemy

Persians, reach the shores of the Black Sea: καὶ τάχα δὴ ἀκούουσι βοώντων τῶν στρατιωτῶν

θάλαττα θάλαττα καὶ παρεγγυώντων. ἔνθα δὴ ἔθεον πάντες καὶ οἱ ὀπισθοφύλακες, καὶ τὰ

ὑποζύγια ἠλαύνετο καὶ οἱ ἵπποι (“And indeed swiftly they hear the soldiers shouting and passing the word along: ‘The sea! The sea!’ Then everyone, the whole rearguard, ran, and the pack animals were racing ahead and the horses,” Xen. Anab. 4.7.24.). The repetition of aquae close together, in addition to the salvific potential of the water suggests strong intertextual engagement. Furthermore, Rhiannon Ash has argued that the shared emphasis on passing along the shout (longusque uirum super ora cucurrit | clamor and παρεγγυώντων) is more evidence for intertextual engagement with Xenophon.51

The intertext urges the reader to assess these two episodes together and such an examination reveals a striking incongruity between the two.52 In the Anabasis, the Greeks utter their shout after combat and a long, dangerous journey through enemy territory; in the

Thebaid, the army has barely set out from Argos a few hundred lines previously and has only covered a distance of some twenty-five kilometers. In other words, Statius’ unaccomplished and untested Argives take the words from Xenophon’s beleaguered and battle-hardened

Greeks. The difference between the two groups is further highlighted by the anonymous

Argive leader’s prayer to Nemea immediately after drinking the water: siluarum, Nemea, longe regina uirentum, | lecta Iouis sedes, quam tu non Herculis actis| dura magis, rabidi cum colla comantia monstri | angeret et tumidos animam angustaret in artus! (“Nemea, queen by far of the green woods, chosen seat of Jupiter, you who were not harsher to

Herculean deeds when he strangled the hairy neck of that beast and squeezed the breath out

51 Ash (2015), 210-212. 52 Ash (2015), 211, ”military language is transposed into an unexpected new context,” and Parkes (2012), 320, “the soldiers’ cry for the sea, sighted after a long and arduous march, in contrast to the brief journey from Argos.”

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of its swollen limbs,” Stat. Theb. 4.832-835). The leader is claiming that the drought has been more difficult to deal with than the Nemean Lion, a claim which strikes the reader as disingenuous or patently absurd. However, the comparison is apt in a way, since it reveals the lack of action that the army has seen yet. Entreating Hypsipyle to lead them to the Langia is, in fact, the most difficult thing that they have done so far; finding water has been their

Herculean labor. Although the task was not dangerous, nothing has been more difficult for the army.

The references to Xenophon and to Hercules’ labors are hyperbolic; both distort the reality of the Argives’ situation.53 The comparisons, evoked by the allusion to the Anabasis and the leader’s simile, would elevate the Argives’ situation by placing their woes next to those of hardened fighters. The situational incongruity, however, de-elevates the epic action by reminding the reader that the Argives have completed no significant actions yet. The reader will have to wait until Thebaid 7 to see the poem’s primary martial action begin. These two hyperbolic utterances color the beginning of the Nemean episode as faux-heroic, which is further underlined by the mock-battle Statius shows the Argives engaging in while they drink from the Langia.54

The battle is not a real hydromachy, and Statius makes this clear in the hypothetical with which he frames the scene: agmina bello | decertare putes iustumque in gurgite Martem

| perfurere aut captam tolli uictoribus urbem (“You would think they were battle lines fighting in war and that a just clash was raging in the stream or a captured city was being razed by conquerors,” Stat. Theb. 4.828-80). A reader might think they are viewing a

53 superlatio est oratio superans ueritatem alicuius augendi minuendiue causa, “hyperbole is speech exceeding the truth either for the sake of aggrandizing or debase something,” Rhet. Her. 4.33.44. I discuss hyperbole at length in Chapter 4. 54 Ash (2015), 207-212.

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spectacular hydromachy,55 perhaps even Achilles’ mache parapotamios in Iliad 21. But they would be wrong: the army is merely drinking from the river and, as Ash points out, “no enemy is in sight.”56 Statius even de-elevates the language in translation, choosing the more common aqua instead of the many poetic alternatives — mare, pontus, or altum — all of which are more direct translations of θάλαττα than aqua. Of course, it is less about diction in translation than about the fundamental difference between a sea and a spring. That Statius would allude to the triumphant moment that the Greeks glimpse the sea in Xenophon at all is a hyperbolic gesture, and the intertext exposes the hollowness of the Argive struggle at

Nemea. The scene and its moment of reference to the Anabasis primes the reader to view the

Argives as unepic, or even incapable, heroes.

Additionally, the intertextual relationship forces the reader to reassess and reevaluate the original intertext, in this case Xenophon’s Anabasis. We can see a combative poetic posture in these instances where Statius uses an intertext for distortion. The incongruity does not only render the situation ridiculous in the Thebaid, but it also infects the original text with absurdity. In the context of Xenophon’s Anabasis, therefore, Statius takes a canonical and well-known moment from the Greek writer’s magnum opus and renders it ridiculous by placing it in a context in which it does not fit.57

Such a stark distinction between the Ten Thousand and the Argives is facile; the two groups are more similar than is immediately apparent. The Ten Thousand are mercenaries by one brother, Cyrus, to usurp another bother, Artaxerxes. Xenophon describes the crux of the conflict: ὁ δ᾿ ὡς ἀπῆλθε κινδυνεύσας καὶ ἀτιμασθείς, βουλεύεται ὅπως μήποτε ἔτι ἔσται ἐπὶ

55 See recently Cowan (2018) and Cowan (2019) for a discussion of second person address in the Georgics. 56 Ash (2015), 211. 57 Rood (2005), 11-12, tracks the ebb and flow of Xenophon’s popularity. Although direct ancient allusions to this moment are few, the cry and its significance do seem to have been well-known.

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τῷ ἀδελφῷ, ἀλλ᾿, ἢν δύνηται, βασιλεύσει ἀντ᾿ ἐκείνου (“He [Cyrus], when he came back from exile after being in danger and being disgraced, plotted so that he would never be under the power of his brother again, but, if it were possible, to rule in place of him,” Xen. An. 1.4.)

Cyrus then amasses support by flattering other Persians and by spreading a rumor that

Artaxerxes was on the verge of invading Greece to entice mercenaries to enlist (Xen. An. 1.5-

11). The situation is redolent of that with Polynices and Eteocles. At the center of both is a conflict between brothers for sole rule of a throne; in both, an exiled and disgraced brother

(κινδυνεύσας καὶ ἀτιμασθείς) leads an armed rebellion against his homeland with the express purpose of seizing power from the brother (βασιλεύσει ἀντ᾿ ἐκείνου); and both expeditions are famous for their failure.

The Argives’ shout of aquae ... aquae acknowledges these similarities and is an attempt at appropriating the journey of the Ten Thousand and its attendant associations. Yet the Argives, while they understand that the Greek cry θάλαττα θάλαττα is the climax of the

Anabasis, have fundamentally missed the point of the Anabasis. Whereas θάλαττα θάλαττα is emblematic of Greek perseverance, leadership, and the will to survive, aquae ... aquae is meaningless. The Argives have not faced any military action yet, nor are their leaders particularly adept at controlling the army. By uttering aquae ... aquae, the Argives unwittingly place themselves in a tradition of military failure. θάλαττα θάλαττα is certainly triumphant, but it is the victory of the defeated, a triumphant shout signalling a successful retreat. The Argives are absurd in their confident, or unwitting, citation of Xenophon since they do not fully realize what it means to cast one’s expedition as that of the Ten Thousand.

The bathetic treatment of the Anabasis’ climax, the Argive’s “misreading” of the

Anabasis, in the Thebaid is reflected back onto the Greek text; Xenophon’s Anabasis illuminates Thebaid 4 just as much as Thebaid 4 retrojects interpretive light onto the

Anabasis. Once a reader has registered the bathetic treatment of the Anabasis’ climax in

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Thebaid 4, the original becomes more difficult to take seriously for the very reason that the

Argives really are not so far off base in their “reading” of the Anabasis. As I argued above, there really is a provocative similarity between the two. However, while Xenophon’s

Anabasis encourages readers to view θάλαττα θάλαττα as emblematizing Greek perseverance and successful leadership, aquae ... aquae forces readers to re-assess that view’s validity.

How successful was Greek leadership if it led to the desperate march through enemy territory? Why is θάλαττα θάλαττα regarded as a triumphant shout when, in context, it is really a cry of desperation? Xenophon makes the march of Ten Thousand heroic, but Statius’ decontextualized intertextual engagement interrogates that presentation.

The whole episode serves to miniaturize the Anabasis’ climax and creates a tension between the serious and the light. This focus on miniaturization is particularly germane to

Statius’ Nemea, a place which Charles McNelis has argued embodies the Callimachean aesthetic and hampers the poem’s progress towards full-blown martial epic.58 Jörn Soerink has argued against McNelis, suggesting instead that the Nemea episode is not a respite from epic action, but shows the infectious power of civil war to invade all walks of life, even the pastoral, as occurs in Vergil’s Eclogues.59 However, I suggest that choosing between

McNelis’ Callimachean respite from epic and Soerink’s pernicious epic is a false dichotomy;

Statius is trying to have it both ways, serious and light, Callimachean and epic of the grand style; to insist on one too forcefully undermines the subtle balance Statius has created.

58 McNelis (2007), 76-96. 59 Soerink (2015).

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3: Conclusions

While parody is a powerful intertextual tool, it never usurps the source text’s original meaning. Instead, it provides alternate possibilities for understanding the text’s meaning, whether that be through double entendre or an absurd recontextualization. Interpretations coexist, sometimes uncomfortably with each other. Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the potency of parodic intertext; not only does parody bring out meanings hidden or latent in the source text, it can even superimpose that onto the source text through bidirectional intertextuality.

Earlier, we saw Mikhail Bakhtin theorizes this aspect of parody: “mimicry rips the word away from its object, disunifies the two, shows that a given straightforward generic word — epic or tragic — is one-sided, bounded, incapable of exhausting the object; the process of parodying forces us to experience those sides of the object that are not otherwise included in a given genre or given style.”60 As we have seen in this Chapter, Statius uses parodic intertext to offer tendentious re-readings of contemporary literary rivals as well as the canon writ large with Xenophon as a representative. In each case, Statius exploits de- and recontextualization to render the intertext humorous.

60 Bakhtin (1981), 55, emphasis original.

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Chapter 4: The Sublime

Introduction: Literary Taste in the Early Imperial Period

Much of the discussions about epic’s essential aspects have assumed something about literary taste. As we turn to address aesthetic discourse directly, it is useful to outline the terms of

Roman discourse about literary success or failure and what is at stake in distinguishing between them in the early Imperial period. Pliny the Younger confronts the question of taste in a letter to Lupercus, a peer who has criticized some work Pliny had sent along for comment. Pliny begins the letter by extolling the virtues of poetic audacity:

dixi de quodam oratore saeculi nostri recto quidem et sano, sed parum grandi et ornato, ut opinor, apte: “nihil peccat, nisi quod nihil peccat.” debet enim orator erigi attolli, interdum etiam efferuescere ecferri, ac saepe accedere ad praeceps; nam plerumque altis et excelsis adiacent abrupta. tutius per plana sed humilius et depressius iter; frequentior currentibus quam reptantibus lapsus, sed his non labentibus nulla, illis non nulla laus etiamsi labantur. nam ut quasdam artes ita eloquentiam nihil magis quam ancipitia commendant. uides qui per funem in summa nituntur, quantos soleant excitare clamores, cum iam iamque casuri uidentur. sunt enim maxime mirabilia quae maxime insperata, maxime periculosa...

I said, I think, rightly, about an orator of our age, an orator who is certainly sound and sober, but with little by way of grandeur or adornment: “His only fault is that he is faultless.” For an orator ought to be excited and aroused, sometimes carried to the boiling point, and often to let himself approach the edge since, for the most part, sheer descents are near the heights and peaks. A safer journey is through the plains, but they are more humble and low-lying; someone running trips more frequently than someone walking, but while there is no honor for someone walking without tripping, the runner gains praise even if he slips. For, just as certain skills, eloquence gains from nothing more than risk-taking. You have seen those tightrope walkers — how massive is the applause when they appear as if they are about to fall! For the particularly marvelous things are those which are particularly unexpected and particularly dangerous...

Plin. Ep. 9.26.1-4.3.

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Here we see Pliny advocates for a literary style that is impassioned and whose loftiness opens itself to potential failure or criticism. The point of oratory, in Pliny’s view, is to awe the audience with virtuoso skill; to do otherwise is safe, but bland. It is forgivable if a passage overshoots the mark since such heights are a noble goal.

After outlining his own position on aesthetics and style of oratory, he turns to the reason for his letter, Lupercus’ verdict on some material he had sent over to him:

cur haec? quia uisus es mihi in scriptis meis adnotasse quaedam ut tumida quae ego sublimia, ut improba quae ego audentia, ut nimia quae ego plena arbitrabar. plurimum autem refert, reprehendenda adnotes an insignia. omnis enim aduertit, quod eminet et exstat; sed acri intentione diiudicandum est, immodicum sit an grande, altum an enorme.

“Why am I saying these things to you? Because you seem to me to have called things in my writings turgid which I thought were sublime, wicked what I thought was daring, and excessive what I thought was satisfactory However, it makes a big difference if you criticize things which are blameworthy or outstanding. For everyone notices that which is prominent and stands out, but it must be decided with wise judgment what is beyond measure or grand and what is lofty or disproportionate.”

Plin. 9.26.5-6.3.

It is clear that what is at issue is a debate about taste. Both men read the same works but come away with radically different assessments: “just as Pliny has offered that certain orator the backhanded compliment of dubbing him sane and upright, so an Atticist would surely dismiss the grand effects which he admires as positively insane.”1 Lupercus favors an Atticist style which is at odds with Pliny’s preference for grand effects.2

However, as much as matters of taste are socially conditioned personal responses to aesthetics, they can also reveal fundamentally differing conceptions. Lupercus’ issues with

1 Leigh (2006), 237. 2 Quintilian describes the Atticist style: pressa demum et tenuia et quae minimum ab usu cotidiano recedant sana et vere Attica putant, “Atticists think [the right style consists of] concise, plain language, removed as little as possible from every day usage,” Quint. Inst. 10.1.44. For similar descriptions, see Cic. Brut. 51, 202, 276, 278, 279, 284, Opt. Gen. 8, Orat. 90, Quint. Inst.12.10.5, and Tac. Dial. 23.

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Pliny’s writings is less about the specific lines than it is about views of oratory writ large; the debate about taste is merely symptomatic of a deeper-seated disagreement. It is difficult to tell why Lupercus thinks an Atticist style is the proper style for oratory since neither his work nor his response to Pliny survives, but Pliny makes oblique gestures to their disagreement throughout his letter. He uses Demosthenes’ forceful and affective speeches to substantiate his position and calls him ille norma oratoris et regula (“the standard and paradigm of an orator,” Plin. Ep. 9.26.8.3-4). Nevertheless, he predicts that Lupercus will disagree even on that: dices hunc quoque ob ista culpari (“You will say that he [Demonsthenes] is guilty on account of those things [the grand effects Pliny described],” Plin. Ep. 9.26.10.1). Pliny insists that they must meet in person to go over these matters. However, there will be no room for two different ways to view oratory: aut enim tu me timidum aut ego te temerarium faciam

(“For either you will make me timid or I will make you bold,” Plin. Ep. 9.26.13.7-8). Yet the very reason that both men can have such divergent opinions is because oratory is capacious enough for the drastically different styles, but the same style need not appeal to all.

Pliny’s letter illustrates important aspects of literary reception and the intellectual climate of the early Imperial period: the multiplicity of readerly responses to literature. Pliny acknowledges that some writing is truly worthy of censure (plurimum autem refert, reprehendenda adnotes an insignia), but the issue is telling the two apart. There is a thin line between the grand (grande, altum) and the bloated (immodicum, enorme) and perception as one or the other depends on judgment (acri intentione diiudicandum). These remarks are clearly not only pertinent to oratory but are generalizable to numerous other literary genres.

No genre receives more critical attention in the late first and early second centuries CE than epic since it is a touchstone for much Roman literary discourse. Just as with Pliny and

Lupercus, there are broadly two judgments about epic’s consistent use of the high: those who see epic’s loftiness, manifest in diction and subject matter, as essential to its status at the top

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of the hierarchy of literary genres and those who view it as a symptom of the genre’s increasing obsolescence. As we have seen above from Pliny’s letter, the first camp uses terms like sublimia, audentia, plena, grande, or altum to describe literature while the other calls the same matter tumida, improba, nimia, immodicum, or enorme. What is at stake is epic’s identity: should the paradigm of Roman literature remain in the Homeric epic tradition, or, some eight hundred years after its inception, does heroic verse need an update in form, content, and tone?

This chapter falls into two parts. In the first part, I explore Longinus’ conception of the sublime and its literary critical context, including the risks involved in approaching sublime topics. After fleshing out what Longinus does and does not consider sublime, I consider alternative visions of the sublime. In the second part, I turn to investigate how uses the sublime. However, I argue that he also complicates key ideas of excess by illustrating many of its risks or pitfalls the theorists lay out, including humor and bathos. What emerges is a nuanced picture of Statius’ poetic program which consistently subverts epic’s loftiness as it simultaneously insists on its seriousness.

1: The Longinian Sublime

Pliny’s literary taste, which emphasizes grand effects, is closely related to the sublime, an important ancient aesthetic concept. The sublime, which is aligned with the grand style, informs much literary critical debate in the ancient world, but its most thorough treatment comes down to us in Longinus’ treatise, Peri Hupsous.3 As we will see, because the sublime

3 I use the name Longinus for convenience. We do not know the author of the text was. Neither of the two prime candidates for the author of the text, Dionysius of Halicarnassus or Cassius Longinus, are particularly convincing. Porter (2016), 1-5, is a recent and clear summary of the evidence, problems, and recent debate. Russell (1964), xxii-xxx, lays out the arguments for authorship of both Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Cassius Longinus and

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is intrinsically affiliated with the lofty and the grand, it can be closely associated with epic as a genre. Henry Day has argued that “in generic terms, the totalising, panoptic aspirations of epic exhibit affinities with the sublime’s superhuman impulses.”4 Helen Lovatt agrees that the sublime and epic, particularly epic warfare, are natural allies: “the sublime is another key concept when thinking about the aesthetics of war (and the aesthetics of epic battle in particular).”5 Since the sublime is so closely identifiable with epic and has interests in breaking boundaries, it is a good concept with which to think about epic’s limits.

Longinus attributes seemingly all literary success to the sublime: γράφων δὲ πρὸς δέ,

φίλτατε, τὸν παιδείας ἐπιστήμονα, σχεδὸν ἀπήλλαγμαι καὶ τοῦ διὰ πλειόνων προϋποτίθεσθαι,

ὡς ἀκρότης καὶ ἐξοχή τις λόγων ἐστὶ τὰ ὕψη, καὶ ποιητῶν τε οἱ μέγιστοι καὶ συγγραφέων οὐκ

ἄλλοθεν ἢ ἐνθένδε ποθὲν ἐπρώτευσαν καὶ ταῖς ἑαυτῶν περιέβαλον εὐκλείαις τὸν αἰῶνα

(“writing for a man of such education as yourself, dear friend, I almost feel freed from the need of a lengthy preface showing how the sublime consists in a consummate excellence and a certain distinction of language, and that this alone gave to the greatest poets and prose writers their preeminence and clothed them with immortal fame”, Longin.1.3.1-4, trans.

Russell adapted.). From the beginning of the treatise, Longinus makes it clear that the exceptional language, ἐξοχή τις λόγων, is a prerequisite to evoke the sublime. If a poet can successfully evoke the sublime in writing, he is all but guaranteed admission to the canon:

καὶ ποιητῶν τε οἱ μέγιστοι καὶ συγγραφέων οὐκ ἄλλοθεν ἢ ἐνθένδε ποθὲν ἐπρώτευσαν καὶ

ταῖς ἑαυτῶν περιέβαλον εὐκλείαις τὸν αἰῶνα. By saying ποιητῶν … οἱ μέγιστοι, it is clear that Longinus is talking about the canon. In any case, the vigor and confidence with which

Longinus states that it is the sublime alone (οὐκ ἄλλοθεν ἢ ἐνθένδε) is striking. It seems that

ultimately rejects both. Heath (1999) and Heath (2012), 11 and 15-16, has argued for Cassius Longinus, countered by Mazzucchi (2010), xxxiii, and Porter (2016), 1-2. 4 Day (2013), 13. 5 Lovatt (2017), 232.

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Longinus’ conception of the canon comes solely on aesthetic grounds and, within the realm of aesthetics, solely from successful literary executions of sublime.

There are difficulties in extracting Longinus’ conception of the sublime from Peri

Hupsous. Instead of providing a straightforward definition of the sublime, Longinus repeatedly touches upon aspects in a non-systematic manner, sometimes even inserting a quotation he declares sublime writing without explaining why. Yet it is not so much that he omits a definition of the sublime, but rather that he leaves clues for the reader to piece together himself; what the sublime is should be so obvious to every reader, Longinus seems to be saying, that he need not define it.6 To complicate matters further, he uses terminology loosely and interchangeably, sometimes referring to ὕψος (Longin. 1.1.1 or 1.4.8) or τὰ ὕψη

(Longin. 1.3.3 or 5.1.6), other times to τὰ ὑπερφυᾶ (Longin. 1.4.2 or 9.4.1), still other times to ὑψηγορία (Longin. 8.1.2 or 14.1.1) with little to no obvious distinction between them.

Furthermore, Longinus is openly polemical. He attacks a certain Caecilius of Caleacte in the very first section (Longin. 1.1.9-12), and his argumentation often assumes his reader's knowledge which, due to the loss of discussions he refers to, sometimes renders his logic difficult to follow.7

Nevertheless, a picture of what Longinus considers the sublime emerges:

Ἐπεὶ δὲ πέντε, ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις, πηγαί τινές εἰσιν αἱ τῆς ὑψηγορίας γονιμώταται, προϋποκειμένης ὥσπερ ἐδάφους τινὸς κοινοῦ ταῖς πέντε ταύταις ἰδέαις τῆς ἐν τῷ λέγειν δυνάμεως, ἧς ὅλως χωρὶς οὐδέν, πρῶτον μὲν καὶ κράτιστον τὸ περὶ τὰς νοήσεις ἁδρεπήβολον, ὡς κἀν τοῖς περὶ Ξενοφῶντος ὡρισάμεθα· δεύτερον δὲ τὸ σφοδρὸν καὶ ἐνθουσιαστικὸν πάθος· ἀλλ᾿ αἱ μὲν δύο αὗται τοῦ ὕψους κατὰ τὸ πλέον αὐθιγενεῖς συστάσεις, αἱ λοιπαὶ δ᾿ ἤδη καὶ διὰ τέχνης, ἥ τε ποιὰ τῶν σχημάτων πλάσις — δισσὰ δέ που ταῦτα, τὰ μὲν νοήσεως, θάτερα δὲ λέξεως — ἐπὶ δὲ τούτοις ἡ γενναία φράσις, ἧς μέρη πάλιν ὀνομάτων τε

6 Porter (2016), 58, notes that “what ancient readers could be expected to understand by the concept [of the sublime] … has to be inferred, or rather divined.” 7 It is precisely from these assumptions that James Porter has recently been able to piece together the various guises under which sublime criticism lurks from the pre-Socratic naturalist philosophers to the Christian philosophers. See Porter (2016) 178-282 for the sublime in the critical tradition and 283-381 for the sublime in the literary tradition.

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ἐκλογὴ καὶ ἡ τροπικὴ καὶ πεποιημένη λέξις· πέμπτη δὲ μεγέθους αἰτία καὶ συγκλείουσα τὰ πρὸ ἑαυτῆς ἅπαντα, ἡ ἐν ἀξιώματι καὶ διάρσει σύνθεσις·

There are, one may say, some five most productive sources of the sublime in literature, the common groundwork, as it were, of all give being competence in speaking, without which nothing can be done. The first and most powerful is the power of grand subjects of thought — I have defined this in my book on Xenophon — and the second is the inspiration of vehement emotion. These two constituents of the sublime are for the most part occur together naturally. But the other three come partly from skill, namely the proper construction of figures — these being of course of two kinds, figures of thought and figures of speech — and, over and above these, nobility of language, which again may be resolved into choice of words and the use of metaphor and elaborated diction. The fifth cause of grandeur, which gives form to all those already mentioned, is dignified and elevated word arrangement.

Longin. 8.1. Trans. adapted from Russell

The Longinian sublime relies on grandeur — this much is evident from the name τό ὕψος and

ὑψηγορία — but that τό ὕψος comes to mean sublimity, as in superb writing, metaphorically speaks to the concept’s close relationship to elevated vertical heights. For our purposes, the two key components are that the sublime is evoked by grand subjects (κράτιστον τὸ περὶ τὰς

νοήσεις ἁδρεπήβολον) and loftiness of poetic idiom (ἡ γενναία φράσις).

Longinus’ sublime becomes most clear in the examples he cites to illustrate his sublime: Ὄσσαν ἐπ᾿ Οὐλύμπῳ μέμασαν θέμεν· αὐτὰρ ἐπ᾿Ὄσσῃ | Πήλιον εἰνοσίφυλλον, ἵν᾿

οὐρανὸς ἄμβατος εἴη· καί νύ κεν ἐξετέλεσσαν (“They [they Aloidae] desired to pile Mount

Ossa on top of Mount Olympus and Mount Pelion, with its quivering forests, on top of Mount

Ossa so that they could scale the heavens; and indeed they might have done so,” Longin. 8.2

= Hom. Od. 11.315-316). The Aloidae’s assault on the heavens typifies much of what

Longinus had previously suggested was sublime: the upwards verticality in the Aloidae’s would-be ascent to the heavens, the grand subject in the upheaval of nature generated by piling mountain upon mountain, and the challenge to the gods for dominion over the cosmos.

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Grand subjects make for sublime writing. Longinus also cites the Homeric intradivine theomachy in Books 20 and 21 as sublime.8 He explains why the passages are sublime in some detail: ἐπιβλέπεις, ἑταῖρε, ὡς ἀναρρηγνυμένης μὲν ἐκ βάθρων γῆς, αὐτοῦ δὲ

γυμνουμένου ταρτάρου, ἀνατροπὴν δὲ ὅλου καὶ διάστασιν τοῦ κόσμου λαμβάνοντος, πάνθ᾿

ἅμα, οὐρανὸς ᾅδης, τὰ θνητὰ τὰ ἀθάνατα, ἅμα τῇ τότε συμπολεμεῖ καὶ συγκινδυνεύει μάχῃ;

(“Do you see, friend, how the earth is split from its depths, how Tartarus itself is laid bare, how the whole universe is turned upside down and split open, while at the same time everything, from heaven to hell, mortal and immortal, shares in the battle and the danger?”

Longin. 8.6). This particular passage is sublime because it depicts the loftiest subject imagination: the gods at war with one another. The gods are lofty enough on their own, but by putting them in conflict with each other, Homer evokes the grandeur of war, too. The battle’s grandeur is reinforced by its wide-ranging effects: it involves literally everyone, human and god, and, if Poseidon had really broken the earth open, it would have thoroughly confused the distinction between death and life by blurring the lines between the upper and lower realms. Major disruptions of nature are important for Longinus’ conception of the sublime, as he returns to them with some frequency.9

The sublime is not only important for its evocation of grand matters, but also because it triggers a transcendent experience during which audience members are elevated beyond the normal bounds of readerly experience: φύσει γάρ πως ὑπὸ τἀληθοῦς ὕψους ἐπαίρεταί τε

8 Longinus conflates two separate passages about the intradivine theomachy: ἀμφὶ δὲ σάλπιγξεν μέγας οὐρανὸς Οὔλυμπός τε. | ἔδδεισεν δ᾿ ὑπένερθεν ἄναξ ἐνέρων Ἀϊδωνεύς, | δείσας δ᾿ ἐκ θρόνου ἆλτο καὶ ἴαχε, μή οἱ ἔπειτα | γαῖαν ἀναρρήξειε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων, | οἰκία δὲ θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισι φανείη, | σμερδαλέ᾿ εὐρώεντα, τά τε στυγέουσι θεοί περ, “Trumpets blared around the great heavens and Olympus. Hades, lord of the dead below, was afraid, and, in fear, he jumped from his high throne and cried aloud lest Poseidon, the earth shaker, split open the earth, and bear the houses to the mortals and immortals alike, the dread and dark houses which even the gods despise,” (Longin. 8.6 = Hom. Il. 21.388 and 20.61-65). 9 The Aloidae piling mountains on top of one another at Longin. 8.1 (=Hom. Od. 11.315- 316), the whole earth trembling when Poseidon walks at Longin. 8.8 (= Hom. Il. 13.18, 20.60, 13.19 and 29-27), and a massive storm at Longin. 10.5 (=Hom. Il. 15.624-628).

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ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ γαῦρόν τι ἀνάστημα λαμβάνουσα πληροῦται χαρᾶς καὶ μεγαλαυχίας, ὡς

αὐτὴ γεννήσασα ὅπερ ἤκουσεν (“For the soul is naturally lifted up by the true sublime, raised aloft by proud exaltation it is filled with joy and pride, as the soul itself had made the very thing it heard,” Longin. 7.2.1-3). The reader has a transcendent experience in which he experiences and identifies as both himself and the author.10 From this brief description of the sublime’s machinations, we can see that the sublime’s importance is multilayered. First, it strikes at the reader’s core since it affects the ψυχὴ. Second, the importance of the sublime is underscored by the upwards directionality of the feeling experienced as is indicated by

ἐπαίρεταί whose passive form underscores the sublime’s overwhelming force. The soul is acted upon, seemingly out of control of its experience. Third, the sublime is of great importance, as is shown by the feelings of μεγαλαυχίας (“exaltation”) it engenders. The experience of the sublime Longinus outlines here is clearly framed positively and the reader is liberated from the bonds of conventional human experience.

However, when Longinus delves into the mechanics of sublime a little later in the treatise, it is less clear that it is a positive force of liberation: κατακιρναμένη μέντοι ταῖς

πραγματικαῖς ἐπιχειρήσεσιν οὐ πείθει τὸν ἀκροατὴν μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ δουλοῦται, (“combined with factual arguments, it [the sublime] does not just convince the audience, but also enslaves them,” Longin. 15.9.3-4). No more does Longinus speak in terms of liberty and awe-inspiring magnificence, but of slavery and force. He reveals the sublime to be a means of control since it renders the audience powerless when they come to face it. Consequently, the sublime can force the audience to do something against its better judgment. However, this aspect of the sublime has been lurking in the background all along: πάντη δέ γε σὺν ἐκπλήξει τοῦ πιθανοῦ

καὶ τοῦ πρὸς χάριν ἀεὶ κρατεῖ τὸ θαυμάσιον, εἴγε τὸ μὲν πιθανὸν ὡς τὰ πολλὰ ἐφ̓ ἡμῖν, ταῦτα

δὲ δυναστείαν καὶ βίαν ἄμαχον προσφέροντα παντὸς ἐπάνω τοῦ ἀκροωμένου καθίσταται

10 See Guerlac (1985), 275-284, for a discussion of the double identification.

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(“Invariably what inspires wonder, with its power of amazing us, always prevails over what is convincing and pleasing. For our persuasions are usually under our own control, while these things [the sublime] exercise an irresistible power and mastery, and get the better of every listener,” Longin. 1.4, trans. Russell adapted). The sublime is so powerful that it can overcome the well-reasoned faculties of the mind (τοῦ πιθανοῦ) by force. The terms

Longinus uses, ἐκπλήξει, κρατεῖ, δυναστείαν καὶ βίαν ἄμαχον, are all violent. In other words, the sublime can force the audience to that which it does not want to do or would not do under ordinary circumstances.

The sublime draws its coercive power from fear and terror. Longinus does not directly state that the sublime is terrifying, but terror is a central aspect of his conception. The important role that terror plays is best illustrated in the examples of the sublime that Longinus cites. Fear holds a central place in the Homeric simile comparing Hector to a sea storm, which Longinus holds to be sublime. He quotes, ὥς ὅτε κῦμα θοῇ ἐν νηῒ πέσῃσι | λάβρον ὑπαὶ

νεφέων ἀνεμοτρεφές, ἡ δέ τε πᾶσα | ἄχνῃ ὑπεκρύφθη, ἀνέμοιο δὲ δεινὸς ἀήτης | ἱστίῳ

ἐμβρέμεται, τρομέουσι δέ τε φρένα ναῦται | δειδιότες: τυτθὸν γὰρ ὑπὲκ θανάτοιο φέρονται

(“Just as when a wave, swelling under the clouds, lashes swift ships, and it is entirely hidden by foam, and the terrible gale of wind roars against the said, and the terrified minds of the sailors tremble: for they are borne along near death”, Hom. Il. 15.624-628 = Longin. 10.5).

The focus of the simile is fear; Hector’s onslaught of the Greeks elicits fear in the same manner as a deadly sea storm. The gust of wind is fearsome and the terrifying prospect of death weighs heavily on the sailors. Moreover, the simile showcases an experiential reaction to the sublime. The sailors, as they behold the sublime sea storm, are terrified, δειδιότες, whose enjambed position draws attention to itself.

Other examples, too, showcase the terror that the sublime conjures. In the Iliadic theomachy, Homer twice characterizes Hades as terrified: he shakes, ἔδδεισεν, because he is

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afraid, δείσας, that Poseidon might destroy the earth and lay bare the underworld (Longin.

9.6). Moreover, Longinus’ comparison of Demosthenes to Cicero reveals a similar emphasis on the terrifying. He says, ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἐν ὕψει τὸ πλέον ἀποτόμῳ, ὁ δὲ Κικέρων ἐν χύσει, καὶ ὁ

μὲν ἡμέτερος διὰ τὸ μετὰ βίας ἕκαστα, ἔτι δὲ τάχους ῥώμης δεινότητος οἷον καίειν τε ἅμα καὶ

διαρπάζειν, σκηπτῷ τινι παρεικάζοιτ̓ ἂν ἢ κεραυνῷ… (“He [Demosthenes], for the most part, is sublime in his ruggedness, and Cicero in his abundance: our Demosthenes, through his force, speed, and terrible power of oratory is able to burn and scatter everything and so might be compared to lightning or a thunderbolt…,” Longin. 12.4). The imagery of thunder and lightning is perfectly suitable for Demosthenes: he is violent and unpredictable, but it is the terror that his oratorical prowess instills in his audience that makes Demosthenes the orator that embodies sublimity for Longinus.

Moreover, Longinus censures a passage from Aratus’ Phaenomena because γλαφυρὸν

ἐποίησεν ἀντὶ φοβεροῦ: ἔτι δὲ παρώρισε τὸν κίνδυνον (“he made it [the passage] pretty instead of fear-inducing; further, he limits the danger,” Longin. 10.6). Furthermore, when

Longinus laments the lack of sublimity of line from Shield of Heracles, he says Hesiod οὐ

γὰρ δεινὸν ἐποίησε τὸ εἴδωλον (“He did not make the image fearful,” Longin. 9.5). The passage does not evoke the sublime, it seems, because it does not conjure up fear. Moreover, after discussing two sublime passages (Hera’s divine horses at Iliad 5.770-772 and the theomachy, conflating Iliad 21.388 and 20.61-65), he sees their fear-inducing capacity as one of their signature characteristics, calling the passages φοβερὰ (“fear-inducing,” Longin. 9.7).

It speaks to the importance of the terrifying in Longinus’ conception of the sublime that the first adjective Longinus employs to describe the passages he has identified as supremely sublime is φοβερός.

It is worth pausing here for a moment to consider the circular logic that underpins

Longinus’ ideas about sublimity and canonicity. Although he asserts a direct relationship

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between poets that write sublime things and poets that are famous, nearly every example of a sublime text that Longinus gives is from the canon. He frequently cites Homer, the Athenian tragedians, and many of the Alexandrian orators. The aesthetics of the Longinian sublime, then, is derived from the aesthetics of the canon. Not only is Longinus’ sublime political, as all canons are, but it is normative and traditional; it is the sublime of Homer and the literary tradition at large. This interpretation is supported when Quintilian employs the terminology of the sublime as he lists the literary canon. He describes Aeschylus as sublimis et grauis

(“sublime and serious,” Quint. Inst. 10.66.1) and denies that anyone approaches Homer in magnis rebus sublimitate (“the sublimity in grand affairs,” Quint. Inst. 10.46.5). These are but two examples, but they demonstrate that Longinus is not alone in conceptualizing a symbiotic relationship between the sublime and the canon. Consequently, Longinus’ sublime is not apolitical, but is simply an interpretation of aesthetic success.

2: The Sublime and Hyperbole

While successful execution of the sublime results in literature of consummate excellence, there are numerous risks in attempting to evoke the sublime: ὅλως δ᾿ ἔοικεν εἶναι τὸ οἰδεῖν ἐν

τοῖς μάλιστα δυσφυλακτότατον. φύσει γὰρ ἅπαντες οἱ μεγέθους ἐφιέμενοι, φεύγοντες

ἀσθενείας καὶ ξηρότητος κατάγνωσιν, οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅπως ἐπὶ τοῦθ᾿ ὑποφέρονται, πειθόμενοι τῷ

“μεγάλων ἀπολισθαίνειν ὅμως εὐγενὲς ἁμάρτημα” (“For the most part, it appears that tumidity must be especially guarded against. For everyone aiming at grandeur, in trying to avoid criticisms of weakness and staleness, somehow fall into this fault, trusting in the proverb, ‘falling short of great things is a noble error,’” Longin. 3.3.1-5). The defects

Longinus is discussing here are very similar to how he describes the risks inherent in using hyperbole later in the treatise: εἰδέναι χρὴ τὸ μέχρι ποῦ παροριστέον ἕκαστον: τὸ γὰρ ἐνίοτε

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περαιτέρω προεκπίπτειν ἀναιρεῖ τὴν ὑπερβολὴν… ὁ γοῦν Ἰσοκράτης οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅπως παιδὸς

πρᾶγμα ἔπαθεν διὰ τὴν τοῦ πάντα αὐξητικῶς ἐθέλειν λέγειν φιλοτιμίαν. (“One must know, then, where to draw the line in each case [of hyperbole]. The hyperbole is sometimes ruined by overshooting the mark … Isocrates, for instance, suffered from unaccountable childishness through an ambition to amplify everything,” Longin. 38.1.2-2.2, trans. adapted from Russell). Hyperbole, a strategy which achieves τὸ οἰδεῖν, can ruin sublimity.

Nor is Longinus idiosyncratic in his conception of hyperbole, but many theorists of rhetoric express similar views. There is explicit discussion of hyperbole in four other works,

Aristotle’s Rhetoric,11 Demetrius’ On Style,12 the Rhetorica ad Herennium,13 and Quintilian’s

Institutio Oratoria,14 and each discuss the topic with a similar emphasis on magnificence as

Longinus’ sublime. Although their precise definitional terminology varies, each theorist understands hyperbole to have something to do with exaggeration or distortion of the truth.

For Aristotle, hyperbole is understood to consist of τὸ πολὺ σφόδρα (“the very excessive,”

Arist. Rh.3.11.15). Hyperbole’s necessary excess often forces the writer or speaker to resort to the impossible (πᾶσα μὲν οὖν ὑπερβολὴ ἀδύνατός ἐστιν, “therefore, every hyperbole is an impossibility,” Demetr. 125) or simply stretching something beyond belief (κοινὸν ... ἡ

ἐπίτασις, “the common thing … is the strain on the truth,” Longin. 38.6). The Rhetorica ad

Herennium pithily sums up hyperbole as superlatio est oratio superans ueritatem alicuius augendi minuendiue causa (“hyperbole is speech exceeding the truth either for the sake of augmenting or debasing something,” Rhet. Her. 4.33.44.). Hyperbole can never be strictly true; it is always a distortion of the truth for the sake of praise or blame, elevation or de- elevation, panegyrical epic or invective satire.

11 Arist. Rh. 3.11. (1413a). 12 Discussion at Demetr. Eloc. 114-127 for the “frigid style” of which hyperbole is an integral part which he treats at 124-127. 13 Rhet. Her. 4.33.44. 14 Quint. Inst. 8.6.67.2-76.

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When hyperbolic language elevates, it does so by imbuing modest material with a substantially larger degree of importance. Philip Hardie has well demonstrated how Vergilian hyperbole in the Aeneid evokes the universal and gives the epic a cosmic importance.15

Augmenting importance is exactly what hyperbole is doing in Lucan’s encomium of Nero at the beginning of De Bello Civili,16 and, at least on the surface, the goal of hyperbole in imperial panegyric like many of the poems in Statius’ Silvae, Pliny’s Panegyricus, or, later, some of Aelius Aristides’ orations, such as his Roman Oration. Nevertheless, many of these works which are so filled with panegyrical hyperbole are highly concerned about their sincerity, thus betraying an awareness of a thin line between praise and mockery.17

Rhetorical theorists make clear that hyperbole is double-edged sword. When a poet uses hyperbole, he runs the risk that it fall flat. Demetrius calls unrelatable hyperbole frigid:

πᾶσα μὲν οὖν ὑπερβολὴ ἀδύνατός ἐστιν ... διὸ δὴ καὶ μάλιστα ψυχρὰ δοκεῖ πᾶσα ὑπερβολή,

διότι ἀδυνάτῳ ἔοικεν (“Therefore, there is something impossible in every hyperbole ... and so every hyperbole seems especially frigid is for the very reason that it smacks of the impossible,” Demetr. Eloc. 125). Since every hyperbole is impossible — Demetrius gives the example that nothing is whiter than snow — they come across as unrelatable. Because it is impossible to imagine something whiter than snow, the hyperbole is unhelpful. If the hyperbole is too extreme, it falls flat. Even though all hyperbole is impossible, some hyperbole is more unrealistic than others. Overly excessive hyperbole falls in on itself, ruining any potential literary effect.

Yet the riskiest aspect of hyperbole is its potential to elicit unintentional laughter.

Most extant theorists explicitly mention the comic potential in hyperbole. Demetrius says that

15 Hardie (1986), esp. 241-292. 16 Dewar (1994), 201-202. 17 See Bartsch (1994), 148-187, for an analysis of the anxiety of sincerity in Pliny’s Panegyricus.

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many comic poets turn to hyperbole because of its humorous potential (διὰ τοῦτο δὲ μάλιστα

καὶ οἱ κωμῳδοποιοὶ χρῶνται αὐτῇ, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ ἀδυνάτου ἐφέλκονται τὸ γελοῖον, “Therefore, the comic poets especially make use of it [hyperbole], since they create laughable things from impossibility,” Demetr. Eloc. 126). Since, hyperbolic impossibility can be humorous, it is an asset to the comic poet or anyone intending to make a joke.18 However, that also means there is a danger for non-comic writers who use hyperbole, but do not want to raise a laugh. The trope may still induce laughter if the circumstances are right (or, as it were, wrong).

Quintilian explains at some length:

quamuis enim est omnis hyperbole ultra fidem, non tamen esse debet ultra modum, nec alia uia magis in cacozelian itur. piget referre plurima hinc orta uitia, cum praesertim minime sint ignota et obscura. monere satis est mentiri hyperbolen, nec ita ut mendacio fallere uelit. quo magis intuendum est quo usque deceat extollere quod nobis non creditur. peruenit haec res frequentissime ad risum: qui si captatus est, urbanitatis, sin aliter, stultitiae nomen adsequitur.

For although all hyperbole surpasses belief, it ought not, however, be beyond reason, nor is there a surer way to cacozelia. It is distasteful to discuss the many faults arising from this trope, especially because they are by no means unknown or obscure. It is enough to warn that hyperbole lies, but it does not lie in order to deceive. Therefore, we must consider all the more carefully how far it is appropriate to exaggerate a thing which is not believed. The attempt very often raises a laugh. If that is what is aimed at, it comes to be called wit; if not, folly.

Quint. Inst. 8.6.73.6-74.7. Trans. adapted from Russell.

In other words, there is a fine line between “good” and “bad” hyperbole, between hyperbole that imbues its subject with greater importance and that which undercuts its grandeur. The more excessive hyperbole is, the more likely it is to elicit laughter, to undercut seriousness.

“Bad” hyperbole comes from a misguided judgement of proportions; the laughter that these

18 Longin. 38.5-6 makes a similar point to Demetrius, but the text is badly damaged here and it makes some of his argument difficult to follow.

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theorists are so concerned about arises because of incongruity between subject and the manner they are being described in.19

3: The Non-Sublime

For his whole treatise, Longinus’ working assumption is that every poet prefers the sublime to non-sublime writing. Not every writer, however, will agree with Longinus’ conception of the sublime and they may aim for something different; Longinus’ theorization of and directions on how to achieve the sublime is but one way to achieve it. Embedded within

Longinus’ treatise is acknowledgement of other literary aesthetics which, although not sublime, clearly have currency in Longinus’ cultural milieu. The Longinian sublime is one aesthetic, one that trades on lofty poetics, but it is not the only one. When Longinus identifies the effects generated by the τἀληθοῦς ὕψους (“the true sublime,” Longin. 7.2), he implicitly assumes the existence of a multiplicity of sublimes — in this case, a false sublime, a sublime that does not quite achieve sublimity. Throughout the text, Longinus tacitly acknowledges the existence of other aesthetics that are intimately related to the sublime. In fact, the picture of the sublime that emerges in Longinus’ text emerges, in part, because of passages Longinus says are not sublime.

The first is a passage from a lost play, possibly the Orithyia of either Aeschylus or

Sophocles whose speaker is Boreas, the wind god.20 Longinus quotes, ...καὶ καμίνου σχῶσι

μάκιστον σέλας. | εἰ γάρ τιν᾿ ἑστιοῦχον ὄψομαι μόνον, | μίαν παρείρας πλεκτάνην

19 Beard (2014),117-118, discusses more generally how incongruity elicits laughter in a Roman context as Cicero theorizes in De or. 2.255 and 260. Beard’s discussion focuses primarily on the courtroom. 20 Russell (1964), 68, sensibly says, “There is not enough here [in the text] to determine the authorship in favour of Aeschylus. Nor do we know that Sophocles could not have written in this style.” Ultimately, correct authorial attribution has no bearing on this discussion.

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χειμάρροον, | στέγην πυρώσω καὶ κατανθρακώσομαι· | νῦν δ᾿ οὐ κέκραγά πω τὸ γενναῖον

μέλος (“...and they hold back the huge blaze of the chimney. For if I see one guardian alone, I will weave one torrential coronal of flame and I will burn and burn house to ashes: but now I have not yet blown the noble melody,” Longin. 3.1). Longinus uses this passage to illustrate the sublime gone wrong — he goes so far as to call the passage παρατράγῳδα (“paratragic,”

Longin. 3.1). By way of explanation, Longinus says, αἱ πλεκτάναι καὶ τὸ πρὸς οὐρανὸν

ἐξεμεῖν καὶ τὸ τὸν Βορέαν αὐλητὴν ποιεῖν, καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ἑξῆς· τεθόλωται γὰρ τῇ φράσει καὶ

τεθορύβηται ταῖς φαντασίαις μᾶλλον ἢ δεδείνωται, κἂν ἕκαστον αὐτῶν πρὸς αὐγὰς

ἀνασκοπῇς, ἐκ τοῦ φοβεροῦ κατ᾿ ὀλίγον ὑπονοστεῖ πρὸς τὸ εὐκαταφρόνητον (“The wreaths, the spewing to the heavens, making Boreas into a flute plays, and the rest of it: the phrasing is turbid and the images confusing rather than fearsome, and if you examine each of them in daylight, little by little the passage sinks from terror-inducing to ridiculousness,” Longin.

3.1.). The diction is too overblown for its subject matter — wreaths are absurd, as is speaking of the chimney blowing smoke into the sky. However, the clearest image of the passage’s ridiculousness is that of Boreas as a flute player. It is easy to see why. Instead of elevating the wind god, it reduces him to a mundane, human actor; Russell argues that the inappropriateness of the passage is because “playing the flute [is] a patently undignified occupation.”21 While this view is perhaps untenable as a universal, it is certainly true that it renders Boreas absurd, lowering him from the god of the wind to a mere flute player.

However, another passage that Longinus identifies as lackluster is the image of

Gloom Hesiod’s Shield. After a brief lacuna in Peri Hupsous, the text picks up immediately after what appears to have been a quotation from a text that Longinus considered sublime.

Longinus juxtaposes this image with one from Hesiod’s Shield of Heracles. He writes, ᾧ

ἀνόμοιόν γε τὸ Ἡσιόδειον ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀχλύος, εἴγε Ἡσιόδου καὶ τὴν Ἀσπίδα θετέον: τῆς ἐκ μὲν

21 Russell (1964), 68.

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ῥινῶν μύξαι ῥέον: οὐ γὰρ δεινὸν ἐποίησε τὸ εἴδωλον, ἀλλὰ μισητόν (“Unlike this image is the Hesiodic one of Gloom, if we are right in ascribing the Shield to Hesiod: ‘mucus was running from her nostrils.’ He made the image not terrible, but hateful,” Longin. 9.5).

Although Longinus discusses many examples of the sublime gone awry, this specific line is the target of Longinus’ most dismissive ire in what Porter calls “an anti-sublime moment.”22

But while it is clear enough that Longinus does not consider this image of Gloom sublime, just what makes it an exemplar of non-sublimity — or anti-sublimity, to use Porter’s term — is not straightforward.

I suggest that its anti-sublimity resides in two factors: its revolting imagery and its corporeal ordinariness. Longinus himself is silent on the reason why he does not consider this passage sublime — the only thing he says is that Gloom is μισητόν, “hateful.” At first glance, the meaning is clear enough: the mucus is clearly the image’s most salient, so Gloom is made a revolting, non-sublime figure because of the mucus running down her nose.23 Russell’s translation of μισητόν as “repulsive” suggests this as an interpretation.24 It seems that a major reason that Longinus cites this passage is to disqualify the disgusting from any sort of sublimity. However, the larger context of the passage suggests another factor in Gloom’s non-sublimity: Hesiod did not elevate the image of Gloom, but, instead, lowered her to the mundane vis-à-vis her runny nose.

22 Porter (2016), 170. 23 Russell (1964), for example, only discusses, 90, the debate in antiquity about the authorship of the Shield, offering no interpretation as to why Longinus considers the image μισητόν. 24 Russell (1956), 10, and reprinted in the Loeb as Russell (1999), 187. West (1987), 17-19, attempts to redeem this image by arguing that the original passage from the Shield read ἀχνύς, “grief,” instead of ἀχλύς, “mist. He reasons that grief fits the context better, as there is no reason why mist should have a runny nose. West notes that the passage must have been corrupted early after Longinus; otherwise, the manuscripts must have independently suffered from the same scribal error.

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This anti-sublime factor comes into sharper focus when we consider how he discusses the Homeric description of divine horses, Iliad 5.770-772,25 which he juxtaposes with the

Hesiodic Gloom: ὁ δὲ πῶς μεγεθύνει τὰ δαιμόνια; τὴν ὁρμὴν αὐτῶν κοσμικῷ διαστήματι

καταμετρεῖ. τίς οὖν οὐκ ἂν εἰκότως διὰ τὴν ὑπερβολὴν τοῦ μεγέθους ἐπιφθέγξαιτο, ὅτι ἂν δὶς

ἐξῆς ἐφορμήσωσιν οἱ τῶν θεῶν ἵπποι, οὐκέθ̓ εὑρήσουσιν ἐν κόσμῳ τόπον; (“But see how he

[Homer] increases the gods?. He measures their movement with a cosmic interval. Given such grandeur, why would one not reasonably say that, after the horses of the goes make two such movements, they might not find a place in the cosmos?” Longin. 9.5.). Homer focuses on making the gods huge and so elevated that they almost do not fit into the cosmos — the universe is almost unable to contain even their horses. Hesiod’s Gloom, however, has been lowered to the level of someone with a runny nose, an image that is disgusting and common.

Gloom’s relatability ruins her potential sublimity.

However, here we see another symptom of the limits of the Longinian sublime, as

Longinus has missed the point of Gloom’s runny nose. The anthropomorphized figure has a runny nose because she has been weeping at the prospect of death. The full Hesiodic passage reads: πὰρ δ᾽ Ἀχλὺς εἱστήκει ἐπισμυγερή τε καὶ αἰνή, | χλωρὴ ἀυσταλέη λιμῷ καταπεπτηυῖα, |

γουνοπαχής, μακροὶ δ᾽ ὄνυχες χείρεσσιν ὑπῆσαν· | τῆς ἐκ μὲν ῥινῶν μύξαι ῥέον, ἐκ δὲ

παρειῶν | αἷμ᾽ ἀπελείβετ᾽ ἔραζ᾽· ἣ δ᾽ ἄπλητον σεσαρυῖα | εἱστήκει, πολλὴ δὲ κόνις

κατενήνοθεν ὤμους, | δάκρυσι μυδαλέη (“And next to them [the Moirai] stood Gloom, sad and dire, pale, parched, tripping in hunger, cramping at the knees, she had long nails on her hands; and mucus was running from her nose and blood flowed from her cheeks to the ground; and she stood there, unapproachable and with her mouth gaping, and much dust,

25 ὅσσον δ᾿ ἠεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν | ἥμενος ἐν σκοπιῇ, λεύσσων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον, | τόσσον ἐπιθρῴσκουσι θεῶν ὑψηχέες ἵπποι, “As far as a man sees into the distance with his eyes sitting on a peak, looking upon the wine-dark sea, so far do the loudly sounding horses of the gods leap,” Hom. Il. 5.770-772. Note the inclusion of τό ὕψος in ὑψηχέες.

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many tears covered her shoulders,” Hes. [Sc.] 264-270). Gloom is grief personified; in

Hesiod’s description, she has ritually scratched her face and rolled on the ground. Hesiod’s description is apt, thorough, and draws on realism; for Longinus to reject her runny nose is to miss the larger point of the description. Grief is a bodily phenomenon with physiological effects. Longinus appears to be objecting to the fact that Hesiod would apply such a description to a god. Hesiod’s Gloom, therefore, provides two criteria which Longinus sees antithetical to the sublime: bodily disgust and the de-evelvation of the potentially sublime to the mundane.

Longinus also makes clear, however, that an author must not forgo realism altogether.

If a work becomes too unrealistic, it loses its potential to be sublime. Longinus illustrates this idea using Homer’s Odyssey. Although the author praises the Odyssey as a great work of literature, he insists that it is less forceful and less sublime than the Iliad. To make his point, he compares the Odyssey to a setting sun — grand, but with limited and waxing intensity.26

Longinus traces the loss of intensity to the increased use of fabulous and unrealistic material, saying that he brings up the Odyssey ἵνα δείξαιμι, ὡς εἰς λῆρον ἐνίοτε ῥᾷστον κατὰ τὴν

ἀπακμὴν τὰ μεγαλοφυῆ παρατρέπεται οἷα τὰ περὶ τὸν ἀσκὸν καὶ τοὺς ἐκ Κίρκης

συοφορβουμένους, οὓς ὁ Ζώϊλος ἔφη χοιρίδια κλαίοντα, καὶ τὸν ὑπὸ τῶν πελειάδων ὡς

νεοσσὸν παρατρεφόμενον Δία καὶ τὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ ναυαγίου δέχ̓ ἡμέρας ἄσιτον τά τε περὶ τὴν

μνηστηροφονίαν ἀπίθανα (“so that I can show how sublime genius sometimes easily slips to pure garbage: for example, the story about the wineskin, the one about the men turned into pigs by Circe, whom Zoïlus called “wailing porkers,” the story about Zeus nourished by doves as if he were a nestling, the story about how Odysseus, shipwrecked, went without food for ten days, and the one about the slaying of the suitors — all of them are

26 ὅθεν ἐν τῇ Ὀδυσσείᾳ παρεικάσαι τις ἂν καταδυομένῳ τὸν Ὅμηρον ἡλίῳ, οὗ δίχα τῆς σφοδρότητος παραμένει τὸ μέγεθος. “So, in the Odyssey, one might liken Homer to the setting sun, since the grandeur remains without the vehemence,” Longin. 9.13.

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unbelievable,” Longin. 9.14). Longinus cites these specific parts of the Odyssey because he considers them absurd and unrealistic, which disqualifies them from sublimity. The winds cannot be contained in a bag, humans cannot be turned into pigs, no one can live for ten days without food, and Odysseus was so outnumbered by the suitors in Book 22 that his triumph over them is unrealistic. If an image is unrealistic or excessively fanciful, it fails to be sublime; aesthetics and truth value merge.

Longinus’ focus on realism channels and relies on Cynic critiques of epic practice and decorum which focus on realism.27 Longinus himself signals this debt when he cites Zoïlus, a

Cynic philosopher and Homeric critic writing in the fourth century BCE nicknamed

Ὁμηρομάστιξ (“Homer whipper”),28 as a source for one of his examples of unrealistic

Homeric narrative: οὓς ὁ Ζωΐλος ἔφη χοιρίδια κλαίοντα (“whom [Odysseus’ crew] Zoïlus called porkers,” Longin. 9.14). While it is true that Aristotle uses this type of language to criticize literary practices when he says, προαιρεῖσθαί τε δεῖ ἀδύνατα εἰκότα μᾶλλον ἢ

δυνατὰ ἀπίθανα (“That which is convincing but impossible ought to be chosen before that which is possible but unbelievable,” Arist. Poet. 1460a28), the practice of pointing out and finding fault with unbelievable is most associated with Zoïlus.29

Apart from this clear indication of his intellectual debt, the evidence is apparent in the examples Longinus chooses to cite since he often uses the very same ones that Cynics do suggesting that Longinus got other parts of his discussion of Homeric realism from Zoïlus directly or the Cynic tradition more generally. The Homeric scholiasts are generally dismissive of Zoïlus, but his criticisms underpin many of their scholia, some of which treat the very same passages that Longinus raises. For example, a scholiast comments on

27 Mazzucchi (2010), 183-186. 28 Russell (1964), 98. For Zoïlus more generally, see the brief comments of Feeney (1991), 30, and Hexter (2010), 33, a brief discussion of Zoïlus’ large intellectual milieu. 29 Feeney (1991), 30.

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Odysseus’ ten-day raft journey that οὐ δεῖ ζητεῖν πῶς διακαρτερεῖ ὁ ἥρως εἰπούσης τῆς

Ἀθηνᾶς “αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ θεός εἰμι διαμπερὲς ἥ σε φυλάσσω ἐν πάντεσσι πόνοισι” (“it is not necessary to ask how the hero endured the journey since Athena said, ‘But I am a god, and I will keep on guarding you amidst all the toils,’” ad Hom. Od. 12.447, quoting Hom. Od.

20.47). The scholiast dismisses the complaint out of hand, but the very fact that the scholiast felt the need to respond to such a criticism is evidence of an ongoing debate about how

Odysseus survived the ten-day raft journey. Longinus clarifies that the contentious point is

Odysseus’ lack of food for ten days (ἄσιτος, Longin. 9.14) and ultimately disagrees with the scholiast in his verdict that it is, in fact, unbelievable. Yet even scholiasts occasionally admit that some criticisms have their merit. One scholiasts remarks, ἤτοι μυθικῶς φησι τὰς

περιστερὰς διὰ τῶν Πλαγκτῶν πετομένας ἀποκομίζειν Διὶ ἀμβροσίαν (“Indeed, he [Homer] absurdly says that birds flying through the Planctae bring ambrosia to Zeus” ad Hom. Od. 12.

62).

Furthermore, Longinus mentions the slaying of the suitors in Odyssey 22 in the same breath as these incidents, calling the scene ἀπίθανα (“unbelievable,” Longin. 9.14). He never explains exactly why the scene is unrealistic, apparently assuming his readers will know why he cites the episode as unbelievable. However, judging from the other scenes cited nearby, it seems likely that Longinus thought it unlikely that Odysseus could defeat so many men when he was so drastically outnumbered. Longinus is entering in a longstanding debate when he cites these passages in order to argue that outrageously unrealistic scenes cannot evoke the sublime. In the case of the slaying of the suitors, we might identify the flaw Longinus points out as a kind of exaggeration or hyper-epic aesthetic — a flaw that Longinus criticizes elsewhere in the treatise as common and incompatible with sublimity.30 Since it is absurd, the

30 Longin. 3.3 discusses “swelling,” οἰδεῖν, as one of the major problems that would-be sublime writers encounter. Many writers make the mistake of swelling, or exaggeration: ὅλως δ̓ ἔοικεν εἶναι τὸ οἰδεῖν ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα δυσφυλακτότατον ... τὸ μὲν οἰδοῦν ὑπεραίρειν

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scene does not evoke the sublime. Evoking the sublime is a tight-rope walk for any poet, even

Homer. It must involve a degree of realism — but not so much realism that the subjects are rendered too mundane — while simultaneously not rendering an object too fantastical or unrealistic. If it is too mundane, like the tragic portrayal of Boreas a flute player or Gloom’s runny nose, the sublime rendered ridiculous undercut; if it is too fantastical, like the slaying of the suitors, any potential sublimity is similarly undercut.

The non-sublime or anti-sublime is antithetical to acceptable construction of the

Longinian sublime. Suzanne Guerlac has summed up this poetic ethos well, saying that what

Longinus singles out in non-sublime texts are “theatrical attraction” and a “display of unseemly triviality.”31 It stands to reason that the strategies Longinus singles out as deflating or antithetical to the sublime could be invoked for the very purpose of achieving non-sublime status, for imploding ideas of orthodox views of sublimity.

4: The Construction of the Sublime in Statius’ Thebaid

4.1: Tydeus: An Aesthetic Challenge

At the onset of the night ambush in Thebaid 2, the band of fifty Thebans encircles Tydeus and presses him back against the cliff that the Sphinx had occupied when she terrorized

Thebes. It is this cliff that Tydeus scales so as to gain a strategic advantage against the

Thebans and go on the offensive. The passage is worth quoting at length:

quae sola medendi turbata ratione uia est, petit ardua dirae 555 Sphingos et abscisis infringens cautibus uncas exuperat iuga dura manus, scopuloque potitus, unde procul tergo metus et uia prona nocendi,

βούλεται τὰ ὕψη. “Among these [flaws], swelling seems to be the one that should be guarded against entirely … for to swell is to wish to outdo the sublime.” Longin. 3.3-3.4. 31 Guerlac (1985), 284. Cf. Jarratt (2016).

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saxum ingens, quod uix sena32 ceruice gementes uertere humo et murisque queant inferre iuuenci, 560 rupibus auellit; dein toto sanguine nixus sustinet, inmanem quaerens librare ruinam, qualis in aduersos Lapithas erexit inanem magnanimus cratera Pholus. stupet obuia leto turba superstantem atque emissi turbine montis 565 obruitur; simul arma uirum, simul ora33 manusque fractaque commixto sederunt pectora ferro. … neque enim temnenda iacebant 570 funera: fulmineus Dorylas, quem regibus ardens aequabat uirtus, Martisque e semine Theron terrigenas confisus auos, nec uertere cuiquam frena secundus Halys, sed tunc pedes occubat aruis, Pentheumque trahens nondum te Phaedimus aequo, 575 Bacche, genus.

His plans are foiled and there is only one means to remedy things: He seeks the heights of the awful Sphinx and, cutting his claw-like hands On the sheer cliffs, he surpasses the cruel ridge, becoming the master Of the peak, from where fear is far away and the path of harm is downwards, He plucks a huge boulder, which groaning bulls with six necks Could scarcely tear from the earth to bring inside the walls, From the cliffs; then, struggling with all his might, he hoists it Intending to hurl a huge disaster, Just as when heroic Pholus raised an empty wine glass Against the enemy Lapiths. The crowd stood stunned, in the path Of death, at him standing above and is destroyed by the swirl of The torn up mountain; simultaneously, the weapons of the men, their faces and hands, their chests are broken and sit combined with iron. … Nor were those lying dead to be despised: Lightning-like Dorylas, whose burning virtue made him equal to Kings, and Theron, from the stock of Mars, trusting in his earthborn Grandfathers, Halys, second to no one in horsemanship, but, then, he died A footsoldier on the fields, and Phaedimus, tracing his lineage From Pentheus, although you were not yet propitious, Bacchus.

32 The passage has some limited textual corruption. I accept the solution proposed by Gervais (2017a), 266-267, to emend from the mss. attested plena to sena, an easy enough corruption, first proposed by Daumius. The mss. attested ualent in the following line is rejected by most modern editors. I accept Gervais’ emendation to queant. Although the emendation produces a cacemphaton (-que queant), Fletcher (1938), 165, long ago demonstrated there are parallels of -que queant at Lucr. 1.586, 2.1073, 3.484, 5.545, and V. Fl. 1.831. Statius elsewhere does not shy away from similar cacemphaton, such at obliqua quantum at Theb. 6.509 and sequi qui at Theb. 7.707. I would add a further parallel, sequi. quid, at Ach. 1.38. 33 I follow Gervais, Hall, Garrod, and Kohlman. Hall contends that arma … ora is the mss. reading in all manuscripts except P.

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Stat. Theb. 2.254-267 and 570-576

This is an important passage for the Thebaid for a number of reasons, not least because, as

Ruth Parkes points out, it is “the first engagement with the enemy in the epic,”34 and the ambush arguably hastens along the inevitable martial conflict. Nevertheless, I argue that the scene is also important because of its overt interest in the sublime.

In recent years, this passage has received much critical attention.35 However, what has remained uncommented on is the scene’s overt interest in the sublime.36 Tydeus is a sublime figure in the most Longinian sense. Most simply, Tydeus evokes the sublime because of the sheer upward direction of his ascent. He climbs to great heights (ardua, iuga), and Statius later reveals the cliff to be none other than a mountain (montis). Tydeus reaches the peak

(scopuloque potitus) in what appears to be a matter of no time at all. One moment he is backed up against the cliff and the next he is on top of it; it is all done so quickly that the

Thebans did not have the opportunity to attack him. From the Theban perspective, too, he towers over them (superstantem).37

Tydeus also evokes the sublime in his actions. Statius uses the word exuperat to describe Tydeus’ actions as he reaches the ridge. The primary meaning of the word is

“overcome” in a straightforward sense — Tydeus has reached the summit and has, therefore,

34 Parkes (2009), 490. 35 Parkes (2009), 489-492, has analyzed how Statius channels Ovid’s Centauromachy while Gervais (2015), passim, investigates the dizzying number of intertextual engagements occurring in the passage, not only with Ovid, but also Vergil’s Aeneid. 36 Lagière (2017), 245-247, in her wider discussion of how the tragic affects the sublimity of Statian heroes very briefly discusses how Tydeus represents “l’ambivalence du monstre tragique.” Her discussion, however, only touches on Tydeus in Book 1. 37 We should not discount the irony in presenting Tydeus as towering over all else. Tydeus is famed for his short stature: Τυδεύς τοι μικρὸς μὲν ἔην δέμας, ἀλλὰ μαχητής, “Tydeus was short in his built, but a fighter,” Hom. Il. 5.801. Statius shows he is alive to the irony in his first description of Tydeus as he juxtaposes maior and exiguus: sed non et uiribus infra | Tydea fert animus, totosque infusa per artus | maior in exiguo regnabat corpore uirtus, “But a spirit no less in strength bore Tydeus, and a greater manliness, spread through all his limbs, ruled in his small body,” Stat. Theb. 1.415-417.

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physically overcome the mountain. Additionally, however, the word also suggests that

Tydeus has somehow conquered the mountain in a metaphysical sense. He has not breached the plane between the divine and humans as Capaneus will later do in Book 10, but his rapid ascent suggests that he exists beyond mortal limits. His position at the top of the mountain is redolent of Epicurus’ extra-divine status in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura in that he has nothing to fear: unde procul tergo metus et uia prona nocendi. Fear is far off, again emphasizing the height (procul) and, in a reversal from the situation mere lines earlier, he is in a position to deal out harm from above (uia prona nocendi).

The sublime is also evoked by upheavals of nature, such as a massive storm or the firmament of the earth cracking. Here, Statius hyperbolically casts the boulder Tydeus throws as a mountain uprooted and tossed (emissi … montis), a thorough upending of natural processes. The band of Thebans, looking up at Tydeus, stupet — they cannot comprehend the vision they are witnessing, another symptom of the Longinian sublime. This aspect is further underscored by Tydeus representation as a Gigantomachic figure. Moving whole mountains is closely associated with the Aloidae, Otus and Ephialtes, who sought to pile Mount Pelion upon Mount Ossa in an effort to assault the heavens. The revolt of the Aloidae began its mythic life as a separate tale of rebellion, but was conflated with the various uprisings of the

Giants, Titans, Hundred-Handers, and Typhoeus in Rome as early as the third century BCE.38

By presenting Tydeus’ boulder tossing as in the tradition of the Aloidae, Statius implicitly compares it to Gigantomachy, an image that conveys Tydeus’ excess, ambition, and impiety.

Nevertheless, the presentation also appropriates the Gigantomachy’s sublime associations as it conflates the combat narrated here to that between gods. This Gigantomachic identity is

38 Lowe (2015), 192.

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confirmed scarcely thirty lines later when Statius compares Tydeus facing the Thebans to

Briareus fighting against Phoebus, Minerva, Mars, and Jupiter.39

The sublimity is underscored by the sheer epic quality of the situation. Throwing a massive rock at one’s enemies is a trope with a distinguished literary pedigree. In the Iliad, for instance, both Diomedes and Aeneas hurl massive boulders that would be impossible, nowadays, for two men to lift: ὁ δὲ χερμάδιον λάβε χειρὶ | Τυδεΐδης, μέγα ἔργον, ὅ οὐ δύο γ᾿

ἄνδρε φέροιεν, | οἷοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσ᾿· ὁ δέ μιν ῥέα πάλλε καὶ οἶος (“Diomedes picked up a boulder with his hands, a great deed, a boulder which two men could not lift, such as mortals are now; but easily he lifted it--and alone,” Hom. Il. 5.302-304 = 20.285-287, with the sole substitution of Αἰνείας for Τυδεΐδης). The scene has a Roman pedigree as well. Vergil imitates and amplifies it at the end of the duel between Turnus and Aeneas in Aeneid 12, an obviously important moment in his epic: saxum circumspicit ingens, | saxum antiquum ingens

... | uix illud lecti bis sex ceruice subirent, | qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus, | ille manu raptum trepida torquebat in hostem | altior insurgens et cursu concitus heros (“He

[Turnus] sees a huge rock, a huge ancient rock … scarcely could twelve chosen men lift it on their shoulders, the kind of men’s bodies that the earth produces now, but the hero [Turnus] tossed it at his enemy [Aeneas] with a hurried hand as he was getting up and rising to his swift speed,” Verg. Aen. 12.896-897, 899-902). Vergil one-ups Homer by increasing the number of men who could lift the boulder, and thus the difficulty, and the scene is imbued

39 non aliter Getica (si fas est credere) Phlegra | armatum inmensus Briareus stetit aethera contra,| hinc Phoebi pharetras, hinc toruae Pallados angues, | inde Pelethroniam praefixa cuspide pinum | Martis, at hinc lasso mutata Pyracmoni temnens | fulmina, cum toto nequiquam obsessus Olympo | tot queritur cessare manus, “No differently did massive Briareus stand on against the armed heavens on Getic Phlegra (if it is right to believe), the quiver on Phoebus here, the fierce snakes of Pallas there, there Mars’ Pelethronian pine tipped with steel, here scorning the thunderbolts resupplied by a weary Pyracmon; besieged by all Olympus in vain, he complains that so many hands are idle,” Stat. Theb. 2.595-601. See Gervais (2015), 71, for a brief discussion of the intertextual links with Vergil, Lucan, and Valerius Flaccus.

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with even greater importance because the choice to throw the boulder results in Turnus stumbling and falling, effectively ending the duel and the epic. Statius channels this tradition and, like Vergil, breaks the mold: six bulls could scarcely move the boulder Tydeus lifts— inferior to Turnus' boulder numerically, but, perhaps, still grander, as bulls are stronger than humans.40

The passage’s intertexts also point to its sublime characteristics. Kyle Gervais has noted that the beginning of the simile, qualis in aduersos, recalls talis in aduersos, the comparison that introduces Aeneas as he leads the Trojan army into the final confrontation with the Rutulians.41 Moreover, Statius employs the relatively rare poetic word librare in the same metrical sedes as Lucan does when he describes Caesar emboldening his men by taking the first swing to cut down the sacred grove at Massilia.42 Additionally, the passage contains numerous words that are characteristic of epic’s importance and grandeur. The rock that

Tydeus tears out of the mountain is described as ingens, a byword for epic action and substance, and the destruction it wreaks is inmanem which also speaks to the grand aspirations of epic. Furthermore, the passage contains the word magnanimus, a key heroic epithet for Aeneas and, in its Greek instantiation μεγάθυμος, an important epithet for all

Homeric heroes.43

All the sublimity, however, is challenged at the key moment in the middle of the passage when Statius compares the boulder that Tydeus throws to the bowl the centaur

40 Gervais (2015), 62, is right to connect the alteration from human to animal to Tydeus’ “degeneration from superhuman to subhuman.” 41 Gervais (2017a), 267-268. These are the only two instances in the extant corpus where a comparative adjective appears near to in aduersos. 42 inplicitas magno Caesar torpore cohortes | ut uidit, primus raptam librare bipennem | ausus et aeriam ferro proscindere quercum, “As Caesar sees his troops entangled with a great sluggishness, he first dates to grab the axe and chop the majestic oak with iron,” Luc. 3.432- 434. See Leigh (1999) for an analysis of the religious impiety involved in the act. 43 magnanimus is used to describe Aeneas at Verg. Aen. 1.260, 5.17, 5.407, and 9.204 while Homer uses μεγάθυμος to describe, among others, Hector at Hom. Il. 15.440 and Achilles at 23.168.

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Pholus smashes on the heads of the Lapiths.44 The tradition establishes the boulder as a weapon of epic caliber, made so epic by the feats of strength required to wield it properly.

The wine-bowl is indeed used in the tradition as a weapon, but in a way that is distinctly colored as a humorous variation on traditionally epic heroic combat, the most famous extant account of which Ovid’s Centauromachy in Metamorphoses 12.45

Ovid presents the warfare between the Centaurs and the Lapiths as absurd, the incompetent boorish action of drunken men and half-humans. The battle begins when

Theseus slays the centaur, Eurytus, who had kidnapped Hippodame, Pirithous’ new wife.

After Eurytus rushes off with Hippodame, Theseus confronts him with taunts and demands an explanation for the centaur’s actions:

ille nihil contra, (neque enim defendere uerbis talia facta potest) sed uindicis ora proteruis insequitur manibus generosaque pectora pulsat. forte fuit iuxta signis exstantibus asper 235 antiquus crater; quem uastum uastior ipse sustulit Aegides aduersaque misit in ora...

He [Eurytus] said nothing in response (for it is impossible to defend such deeds with words) but he rushes upon the face of the avenger [Theseus] and beats his head and noble chest. By chance, an ancient mixing bowl stood nearby, rough with protruding figures; this huge crater the son of Aegeus, himself huger, took up and threw it into the enemy’s face...

Ov. Met. 12.232-237

Ovid uses highly epic language alongside the mundane and unheroic. On the one hand, he elevates the tone by employing Theseus’ patronym and underscores the loftiness of the scene by focusing on the massive size of Theseus and the mixing bowl (uastum uastior ipse) as well

44 Pholus is proverbial drunkard: urnae cratera capacem | et dignum sitiente Pholo (“a wine- bowl big enough for thirteen liters and worthy of thirsty Pholus,” Juv. Sat. 12.44-45. 45 There is additional intertextual engagement with Ovid’s Perseus, who also uses a wine- bowl to kill an enemy at Ov. Met. 5.79-84. Anderson (1997), 507, notes that the two Ovidian scenes are intratextually linked by two characters with very similar names, Eurytus and Erytus. See Lake (2010), 75-86, for discussion of the Perseus scene as a parody of Augustan political appropriation of the Perseus myth.

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as its intricate ornamentation (signis exstantibus asper). On the other hand, the tone is undercut.46 The polyptoton in uastum uastior is excessive and humorous. Apart from the wordplay, the very description of Theseus as larger than a bowl strikes an absurd chord because the Athenian hero is, of course, larger than a bowl. Furthermore, Theseus grabs whatever is close by (forte iuxta) and the enjambment draws attention to the highly unepic nature of Theseus’ makeshift weapon, especially after raising the audience’s expectations that the weapon would be something epic by using the adjective asper, an adjective commonly associated with war.47

The emphasis on the mundanity is reinforced a few lines later in this passage when the other centaurs react to Eurytus’ murder: ardescunt germani caede bimembres | certatimque omnes uno ore ‘arma, arma’ loquuntur. | uina dabant animos, et prima pocula pugna | missa uolant fragilesque cadi curuique lebetes, | res epulis quondam, tum bello et caedibus aptae (“The two-formed brothers grow angry at the slaughter and all, vying with one another, shout, “Arms, arms!” with one mouth. Wine gives them spirits, and in the first fight tossed wine cups and fragile flasks and deep basins fly through the air, matters once for feasting, then used for war and slaughter,” Ov. Met. 12.240-244). The centaurs react in epic fashion, not only burning to fight (ardescunt), but also specifically alluding to the first word of Vergil’s epic, arma, to alert the readers that the episode’s register is becoming loftier. Ovid demystifies epic warfare by describing the dining implements as arma and presenting the combat as it actually is. Whatever grand heroics the Centaurs’ rhetoric suggests, the ensuing

46 Fantham (2004), 109, says that “Ovid draws his humor from the improvised weapons (goblets, lampstands, altars, torches, even whole oak trees) hurled by the combatants.” 47 Cf. urbs antiqua fuit (Tyrii tenuere coloni) | Karthago, Italiam contra Tiberinaque longe | ostia, diues opum studiisque asperrima belli, “There was an ancient city (the Tyrian colonists held it), Carthage, against Italy and the mouths of the Tiber far away, rich in wealth and most fierce in the pursuits of war,” Verg. Aen. 1.12-14.

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battle is haphazard and a straightforward conception of heroism is absent from the fight. The men and Centaurs simply grab whatever they can to inflict as much damage as they can.

The Centauromachy myth mediates on the implicit tensions in how to navigate duality. Page DuBois argues that “the myth [the Centauromachy] is an ideal one for reflection on the nature of human and animal, male and female.”48 Alison Keith has argued that the

Centauromachy is “a confrontation between culture and nature, man and beast,”49 and this framework underpins other analyses of the myth.50 Yet beyond this traditional interpretation of the mythical episode, Ovid’s particular treatment also creates a confrontation between high and low literary registers. A number of these themes are manifest in Tydeus, namely the poorly defined distinction between man/beast and nature/culture. Analogously, Tydeus’ sublimity thematizes a destabilization of tone: he is heroic and ridiculous, sublime and absurd; just as the Centauromachy illustrates the thin line between barbarism and civilization, as a centaur participant in the Centauromachy, Tydeus shows that literary registers he evokes cannot be easily isolated from one another.

The Centauromachy in the Metamorphoses shows a sustained engagement with the absurd and mock-heroic, and it is no accident that Statius recalls Ovid’s account here. Statius does so to undercut the heroic sublimity that he had built up in the previous lines. In comparing Tydeus’ boulder and Pholus’ wine-bowl, Statius highlights the difference between them: the first is a supposedly straight-faced presentation of warfare while Ovid’s

Centauromachy ostentatiously evokes humor. The wordplay between inmanem and inanem is

48 DuBois (1982), 32. 49 Keith (1999), 235. DuBois (1982), 67, “Through the Amazonomachies and the Centauromachies, the barbarians were defined through analogy as paradoxically bestial, controlled by appetite rather than by reason, enslaved like the Centaurs to desire, and as females garbed in armor, a grotesque, often seductive parody of an army.” See also her discussions at DuBois (1982), 49-71 and 95-106, for wide-ranging and learned discussions of how their status as half-animal contributes to Centaur’s categorization as “other” and the potential of analogy generated therein. 50 Gervais (2015), 62-65, and Lowe (2015), 164-188, are two notable recent discussions.

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striking and represents the thin line Statius has constructed between the sublime and the absurd. The heroic and epic is represented by inmanen and the absurd by inanem; simply remove a single character and that what is grand and heroic becomes empty and absurd.

At this moment in the night ambush, Statius’ Tydeus represents a rejection of a sharp differentiation between the high and the low, between epic and all other genres, since the high and the low coexist in the figure. Yet the tonal shift subverts readerly expectation and, accordingly, brings ambiguity to the fore. As combat erupts with Thebans for the first time in the epic, Tydeus’ characterization is of the utmost importance since it is programmatic for the rest of the poem’s martial action. The contrast between Tydeus’ sublime terms and the simile put the reader in an uncomfortable position. Is Tydeus a sublime hero meant to elevate us through his own prodigious ascent or is he a cartoonish figure whose preposterous action is designed to satirize the hyperbolic conventions typical of epic? Both interpretations are viable, but the sheer inappropriateness of the simile causes the reader to hesitate. The irony also puts pressure on the very function of similes. While a mismatch between tenor and vehicle can illuminate as much as matching tenor and vehicle, in this case, the simile’s disjunction only serves to illustrate the difference between Pholus and Tydeus. Even tradition epic devices have a different place in Statius’ epic sensibility.

Mere lines after the simile, Statius describes how the boulder crushes four Thebans: simul arma uirum, simul ora manusque | fractaque commixto sederunt pectora ferro

(“simultaneously, the weapons of the men, simultaneously, their faces and hands, their chests are broken and sank down riddled with iron,” Stat. Theb. 2. 566-567). The arma uirum is a clear allusion to the Aeneid’s incipit — even the alteration of case from the Vergilian accusative to the syncopated genitive is a gesture to the Aeneid, as Vergil also favors the

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archaizing form.51 In an ostentatious metapoetic gesture, Statius declares Vergil’s epic broken. Consequently, Gervais proposes that “Tydeus’ prodigious throw surpasses all

Vergilian feats it evokes [viz. Turnus’ failure to throw the boulder in Aeneid 12], and so the rock crushes not only arma uirum [of the Theban men]…but also…the Aeneid itself.”52

Gervais’ interpretation is fully in line with Harold Bloom’s literary models which read

Oedipal struggle into poetic relationships. I argue that it is not simply the Aeneid that is subject to breakage, but the epic’s associated aesthetic values.

While arma uirumque cano is obviously not the title of the epic,53 the incipit is still firmly associated with the poem. Fiachra Mac Góráin explains that “Vergil will have expected readers to identify the Aeneid with arma uirumque. This is not quite the same as a title in the formal sense, but … the distinction [between incipit and title] is not fixed in antiquity.”54 Accordingly, the incipit performs a function of a title in that it helps readers identify the poem. However, titles and other paratextual material are meaningful: “a title may identify or describe the work, carry stylistic connotations, indicate the genre, and tempt or repel the reader.”55 A title, or even incipit, conditions readerly expectations about the works because they illustrate or preview certain aspects of the work. This is exactly how arma

51 For example, Vergil uses deum 22 times as opposed to deorum’s 13 and uirum 19 times opposed to uirorum’s 9. 52 Gervais (2017), 269, who cites Austin (1968), 107-108, who, in turn, cites Servius: sciendum praeterea est quod, sicut nunc dicturi thema proponimus, ita veteres incipiebant carmen a titulo carminis sui, ut puta "arma virumque cano", Lucanus "Bella per Emathios", Statius "Fraternas acies alternaque regna, “It must be known that, just as we now announce the themes of what we are going to say, so the ancients began the song from the title of their song, think “Arms and the man I sing,” or Lucan’s “Wars across Emathian plains, or Statius’ “Fraternal battle lines and the alternating kingdom,” Serv. ad Aen.1.pr87-91. 53 We need look no further than Statius’ envoi for evidence: nec tu diuinam Aeneida tempta, “Do not make an attempt on the divine Aeneid,” Stat. Theb. 12.816. Mac Góráin (2018) and Austin (1968) surprisingly omit the Thebaid’s ending in their discussions of the title(s) of the Vergilian epic. 54 Mac Góráin (2018), 427. 55 Mac Góráin (2018), 426. See also Genette (1997b), 55-64, for a more theoretical discussion of titles’ paratextual importance.

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uirumque is used when alluded to in Roman literature: “it becomes a game for epic poets to allude to arma uirumque, often to evoke the Sturm und Drang of the battle.”56 In the wake of the Aeneid, Ovid modifies Horace’s famous dictum about epic’s essence (res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella | quo scribi possent numero, monstrauit Homerus,

“Homer showed in what meter the deeds performed by kings and leaders and devastating wars can be written,” Hor. AP. 73-74) to include Vergil’s arma: Arma graui numero uiolentaque bella parabam | edere, materia conueniente modis (“I was getting ready to write about arms and violent wars in the serious meter, material that matches the meter,” Ov. Am

1.1.1-2). Consequently, arma uirumque comes to stand for more than simply the Aeneid; the incipit indicates martial epic in the Vergilian vein.57

Therefore, when Statius says that Tydeus’ boulder smashes arma virum he is indicating that Tydeus challenges Vergil’s epic; Tydeus is iconoclastic inasmuch as he takes an epic aesthetic to an extreme, an extreme that threatens not to raise or intensify the genre, but to explode — or to crush — it. Intertextual engagement with Ovidian mock-epic combines with Tydeus’ mock-heroic presentation as Pholus to confuse any straightforward reading of the sublime. The Thebaid is not simply victorious over the Aeneid, as Gervais puts it, but advertises an epic sensibility that combines the serious and the humorous, the sublime and the non-sublime, the inanem and the inmanem.

56 Mac Góráin (2018), 430. For interaction with the Vergilian incipit in other Silver Latin epicists, see Littlewood (2011), 5, connects arma uirosque at Pun. 7.8 to ordior arma at Pun. 1.1, itself clearly indebted to Vergil and Landrey (2014), 600, who argues that “by coopting arma uirumque as his own theme, Silius endows a diverse set of characters with a similar poetic pedigree.” for discussions of Silius’ adaptation of arma uirumque. Both generally adopt Bloomian approaches, for which, see Bloom (1997) and (2003). 57 Silius, accordingly, is enthusiastic in adapting arma uirumque in his works.

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4.2: Amphiaraus and the Underworld: The Sublime Frustrated

The earth’s firmament falling away is an essential image in the Longinian conception of the sublime. As we saw above, Longinus cites the Homeric intradivine theomachy specifically to show Hades’ fears about the deterioration of the earth’s firmament.58 Statius alludes to this very Homeric scene, channeling the Longinian sublime along with it, as he describes

Amphiaraus and his horses falling to the Underworld:

iamque recessurae paulatim horrescere terrae summaque terga quati grauiorque efferuere puluis 795 coeperat; inferno mugit iam murmure campus. bella putant trepidi bellique hunc esse fragorem hortanturque gradus; alius tremor arma uirosque mirantesque inclinat equos; iam frondea nutant culmina, iam muri, ripisque Ismenos apertis 800 effugit; exciderunt irae, nutantia figunt tela solo, dubiasque uagi nituntur in hastas comminus inque uicem uiso pallore recedunt. ... ecce alte praeceps humus ore profundo dissilit, inque uicem timuerunt sidera et umbrae. illum ingens haurit specus et transire parentes mergit equos; non arma manu, non frena remisit: sicut erat, rectos defert in Tartara currus, 820 respexitque cadens caelum, campumque coire ingemuit, donec leuior distantia rursus miscuit arua tremor lucemque exclusit Auerno.

And now the earth, on the verge of slipping away, gradually began to tremble And the surface quaked and heavier dust boiled up; Now the field groans with a hellish rumble. The alarmed soldiers think that it is the battle, that crash is from the war, And hurry their steps; another quake makes arms and the men And the amazed horses stumble; now the leafy peaks are shaking, Now the walls, and Ismenos flees through opening banks; Anger falls away, they fix their trembling weapon in the ground,

58 Hom. Il. 21.388 and 20.61-65 = Longin. 9.6 ἀμφὶ δ̓ ἐσάλπιγξεν μέγας οὐρανὸς Οὔλυμπός τε. | ἔδδεισεν δ̓ ὑπένερθεν ἄναξ ἐνέρων Ἀϊδωνεύς, | δείσας δ̓ ἐκ θρόνου ἆλτο καὶ ἴαχε, μή οἱ ἔπειτα | γαῖαν ἀναρρήξειε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων, | οἰκία δὲ θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισι φανείη, | σμερδαλἔ, εὐρώεντα, τά τε στυγέουσι θεοί περ. See above for discussion of Longinus’ use of the passage. The image apparently remains evocative, as Claudian will later allude to this Statian passage. For discussion of Claudian’s intertextual engagement, see Wheeler (1995), 117-121, and Parkes (2015b), 477-479.

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And they, wandering around, they lean on their unsteady spears, And, face to face, they draw back once they see each other’s pallor. .. Behold, the high earth bursts open, a precipice to the deep chasm, And the stars and the shades fear in turn. A huge abyss swallows him [Amphiaraus] and overwhelms his horses On the verge of crossing; he did not release the arms nor reigns: Just as he was, he brings down the upright chariot to Tartarus, And, falling, he looked back up at the sky and groaned that the Field came back together, until a lighter quake mingled back together The torn-up field and shut out the light from Avernus.

Stat. Theb. 7.794-803 and 815-823

The chasm’s opening is a sublime event: the whole earth shakes and groans (iamque recessurae paulatim horrescere terrae and inferno mugit iam murmure campis), the trees tremble (iam frondea nutant | culmina), the Theban walls move (iam muri), and the Ismenos river itself takes flight (ripisque Ismenos apertis | effugit). These are all aspects of the

Longinian sublime since they are all symptomatic of an upheaval of nature. Later, while talking to Dis in the underworld, Amphiaraus will magnify the scale of the event even further, saying that there was a turbine mundi (“a twisting of the world”, Stat. Theb. 8.107).

Statius is describing a destructive event on a cosmic scale.

Just as important to the sublime is the reaction it elicits. It seems that everyone had the same reaction of wonder, amazement, and fear, the potent combination of emotions that

Longinus attributes to the sublime. The first to react are the soldiers on the battlefield. At first mistaking the tremor for the background noise of war, they are, nevertheless, alarmed

(trepidi) and channel their energies into the fight (hortanturque gradus). However, a second tremor quickly renders their alarm and urge to fight irrelevant (alius tremor arma uirosque |

… inclinat); fixation on the sublime tremor overcomes other emotions (exciderunt irae) and the combat, which has been foreshadowed and avoided for nearly eight whole books, even ceases (nutantia figunt | tela solo, dubiasque uagi nituntur in hastas. | comminus inque uicem uiso pallore recedunt).

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The wonder inspired by the tremors transcends human experience; Statius says that even the horses are in awe (mirantes ... equos). As soon as the chasm opens up fully, Statius makes it clear that the reaction to it is universal: inque uicem timuerunt sidera et umbrae. Not only are figures on the human plane affected, but objects from all three, as the sidera and umbrae join the humans in their terror at the chasm. Statius later expands on the reaction in the Underworld to Amphiaraus’ descent. The inhabitants of the Underworld view

Amphiaraus as a sublime subject as he falls into the Underworld: horror habet cunctos,

Stygiis mirantur in oris | tela et equos corpusque nouum; … quin comminus ipsa | Fatorum deprensa colus, uisoque pauentes | augure tunc demum rumpebant stamina Parcae (“Awe seizes them all, and, on the Stygian shores, they marvel at his weapons, his horses, and his strange body … in fact, the very distaff of the Fates was taken aback, and as soon as they saw the seer, then at last did the terrified Parcae break his thread,” Stat. Theb. 8.4-5 and 11-13).

Statius’ details in the Underworld’s reaction to Amphiaraus correspond closely to the reaction on the mortal plane: they are terrified (horror, paventes) and in awe (mirantur). His descent is so shocking that he takes even the Parcae by surprise, as they have to hurriedly cut his thread as soon as they see that he has descended to the Underworld.59

The opening of the abyss in Thebaid 7 is the realization of Hades’/Dis’ fears from very early on in the epic tradition. The cracking of the earth’s firmament is exactly what

Hades fears as a result of the Homeric theomachy of Iliad 20 and 21.60 In Ovid’s account of

59 The implications of Amphiaraus catching the Parcae unawares are immense in that it suggests they, like Jupiter, are simply reacting to events rather than dictating them. Consequently, perhaps even the chthonic powers that seemingly rule the poem should also be questioned. 60 ἔδδεισεν δ̓ ὑπένερθεν ἄναξ ἐνέρων Ἀϊδωνεύς, | δείσας δ̓ ἐκ θρόνου ἆλτο καὶ ἴαχε, μή οἱ ἔπειτα | γαῖαν ἀναρρήξειε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων, | οἰκία δὲ θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισι φανείη, | σμερδαλἔ, εὐρώεντα, τά τε στυγέουσι θεοί περ, “Hades, lord of the dead below, was afraid, and, in fear, he jumped from his high throne and cried aloud lest Poseidon, the earth shaker, split open the earth, and bear the houses to the mortals and immortals alike, the dread and dark houses which even the gods despise,” Hom. Il. 20.61-65.

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the Proserpina’s kidnapping, Dis first catches sight of Proserpina while on an expedition to inspect the structural integrity of the Underworld’s walls following Typhoeus’ revolt: inde tremit tellus, et rex pauet ipse silentum, | ne pateat latoque solum retegatur hiatu | inmissusque dies trepidantes terreat umbras (“Because of this [Typhoeus’ burial under Etna], the earth trembles, and the king of the silent realm himself is afraid lest the earth be split and, in a wide chasm, the admitted light of day terrify the fearful shades,” Ov. Met. 5.356-358).

Ovid is strongly channeling Homer here: rex ... silentum recalls ἄναξ ἐνέρων Ἀϊδωνεύς, pateat … solum retegatur recalls γαῖαν ἀναρρήξειε, and pauet is almost a direct translation of

ἔδδεισεν. Intertextual engagement aside, the situations are very similar as they both arise due to an intradivine theomachy. Homer’s Hades fears for the firmament’s integrity during a theomachy among the Olympians while Ovid’s Dis fears for it in the aftermath of Jupiter’s subjugation of Typhoeus, the last major intradivine theomachic battle in the mythological record (Ov. Met. 5.318-331).61

Crucially, however, in both the Homeric and Ovidian cases, Hades’/Dis’ fears prove unjustified; the earth’s firmament holds. Hades/Dis is, of course, right to be afraid as a rupture resulting in the collapse of the boundaries between the upper and lower realms would effectively render any difference between life and death moot. An absence of a firm demarcation between the realms would, perhaps, even announce the return of chaos; without the earth, the natural world, comprised of the heavens, earth, ocean, and underworld, would

61 Vergil’s Cacus and Hercules scene is another intertext where Vergil employs a simile (Verg. Aen. 8.243-246) comparing the depth of Cacus’ cave to that of the cracked firmament that exposes the Underworld to the upper. Vergil uses this oblique allusion to Homer to color the Cacus episode in grander terms and to make Cacus seem more powerful per Fratantuono and Smith (2018), 357-358, who cite Macrobius 1.16.16-18. Kaster (2011), 195, notes that these days are July 24, October 5, and November 8. Moreover, Hardie (1986), 110-118, has analyzed how the fight between Hercules and Cacus is cast as a sort of Gigantomachy, where Hercules, representing Olympian civilizing order, overcomes Cacus who stands in for chaos.

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crash in on itself. It is this potential of disorder and violence on a universal scale is where the

Homeric scene derives much of its sublime power, as does the Gigantomachy.

Against this epic background, Statius sets the expectations high for the consequences of the earth ripping open and merging with the Underworld. The event should be of cosmic proportions, either naturalistic or theological, or both, which is why Longinus cites the

Homeric scene as sublime. Statius, however, frustrates the great expectations. The earth opens up and almost immediately closes again. Moreover, the object that causes such wonder and turmoil in the Underworld is simply Amphiaraus’ living body: corpus nouum. Lactantius takes nouum to indicate that Statius simply means that Amphiaraus is not yet dead.62 There is nothing particularly miraculous or sublime about Amphiaraus except that he is still alive.

Part of the gap between expectation and reality comes from misinterpretation. Dis expects that Amphiaraus is the first wave of an assault on his kingdom when he is really a victim of circumstance. Dis interprets the light pouring in as a sign of an Olympian assault on his kingdom and immediately threatens a cosmic civil war with his brothers: quae superum labes inimicum impegit Auerno | aethera? quis rupit tenebras uitaeque silentes | admonet? unde minae? uter haec mihi proelia fratrum? | congredior, pereant agedum discrimina rerum

(“What disaster of the enemy Olympians pushes the heavens onto Avernus? Who broke the darkness and tells the silent shades about life? Where are these threats from? Which of my brothers wages war against me? I join - come now: let the boundaries of nature collapse,”

Stat. Theb. 8.34-37). Dis immediately interprets the crack in the earth as an enemy action, minae, calling the Olympians inimicum and declaring that it must be an act of war, proelia, of one of his brothers. For Dis, this is enough to reenact the Gigantomachy, which he makes clear when he threatens to release the Giants, Titans, and Saturn: habeo iam quassa Gigantum

| uincula et aetherium cupidos exire sub axem | Titanas miserumque patrem (“I have the

62 Lact. ad Theb. 8.5, id est uiuum, “that is, alive.”

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already shaking chains of the Giants, the Titans, our wretched father yearning to go out under the airy heavens,” Stat. Theb. 8.42-44).63 Dis is essentially threatening Jupiter and Neptune with a Gigantomachy, Titanomachy, and a battle with their father all rolled into one.

The threat of cosmic warfare accords with how Dis views Amphiaraus’ descent into the Underworld. In his lengthy speech that opens Book 8, Dis makes clear that he orders

Tisiphone to arrange it so that Eteocles and Polynices die at each other’s hand, Tydeus cannibalize Melanippus’ head, Capaneus assault the heavens, and Creon forbid burial as retribution for Amphiaraus’ descent into his kingdom (Stat. Theb. 8.69-77). Dis effectively claims to mastermind the poem’s remaining martial action, which itself contributes to the cosmic importance of the Theban war.64 A prime reason why Dis ascribes so much importance to Amphiaraus’ descent is that he sees it as theomachic attack.65 This is most clear when he equates it with the Aloidae’s assault on the heavens: faxo haud sit cunctis leuior metus atra mouere | Tartara frondenti quam iungere Pelion Ossae (“I will make it so that there be no less fear to meddle with black Tartarus than there is to pile Pelion on top of leafy Ossa,” Stat. Theb. 8.78-79). As the reader knows, the two are not remotely compatible:

Otus and Ephialtes were proverbially enormous and intended to overthrow the Olympian regime whereas Amphiaraus is one of the two members of the Seven who have a claim to piety and he certainly did not intend to fall into the Underworld, much less with a view to theomachic assault.66 It seems clear enough that Dis views Amphiaraus descent as a real threat posed to his sovereignty. However, the fact that he colors the attack as a kind of

63 Augoustakis (2016), 82, notes the position ambiguity of the iam, either to be taken with the verb or the participle: “[if taken with the verb] Dis stresses the fact that though the Gigantomachy has long ended, it could begin anew. [if taken with the participle] this threat is further emphasized as Dis invites Jupiter to indirectly consider the power of his kingdom.” I have chosen to translate it translate the latter, as it more clearly draws out Dis’ threat. 64 Ganiban (2007), 182, and McNelis (2007), 125-126, who says, “Dis suggests that the battles in Thebaid 8-11 will affect the cosmic arrangement.” 65 Ahl (1986), 2860, “Pluto, like Jupiter, is prone to overreaction.” 66 Adrastus, of course, also has a claim to piety.

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Aloidae-style assault on the gods is also telling because it betrays a view that Amphiaraus falling into the Underworld is sublime, an expectation that Amphiaraus cannot live up to.

None of the action is actually sublime; it simply has the veneer of the sublime. Marco

Fucecchi has argued that this threat means “a new cosmic war is about to follow. However, despite his [Dis’] proclamations, … the old Titans and Giants will not be employed in this attack. Rather, the two major Furies — Tisiphone and Megaera — will arrange the duel.”67 In other words, the cosmic war that Dis promises never comes to fruition; instead, we simply see the Furies engaging with the humans. The conflict, potentially a theomachy of truly epic proportions, is reduced to interaction between humans and two minor deities. However, while

Fucecchi is right to point out that Dis’ rhetoric is overblown, he perhaps overemphasizes how integral Tisiphone and Megaera are in accomplishing Dis’ ultimate goal of fraternal slaughter. In fact, when Eteocles and Polynices are on the verge of combat, Statius declares the Furies useless: nec iam opus est Furiis; tantum mirantur et astant | laudantes, hominumque dolent plus posse furores (“This is not the job for Furies; the only wonder and stand aside, praising, and they are pained that the fury of men are able to do more than they,”

Stat. Theb. 11.337-338). The Furies are not necessary in accomplishing the curse of Dis; for all the threats of cosmic upheaval and violence, it is human hatred that accomplishes the most horrific aspect of Dis’ retribution.

Statius continually frustrates readerly expectation with regard to the sublime. When

Amphiaraus falls into the Underworld, the poet is at pains to portray the scene as sublime. He intertextually engages with an episode that Longinus specifically discusses as an excellent example of the sublime and the subsequent description of characters’ reactions to the descent all accord with the sublime. Whatever else Statius is doing with the sublime, it diverges from the mode theorized by Longinus.

67 Fucecchi (2013), 116.

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4.3: Capaneus: Literalization of Sublimity

It is not only through Tydeus and Amphiaraus that Statius imbues the sublime with humor; he also does so with Capaneus’ assault on the heavens in Thebaid 10. Capaneus’ theomachy is perhaps the best studied instantiation of the sublime in the Thebaid. Scholars have investigated how Statius interrogates the limits of epic through Capaneus’ hyper-epic grandiosity with which he seems to burst out of the genre’s fixed boundaries.68 Statius aligns his poetic ambition with Capaneus. Just prior to Capaneus’ assault, Statius declares common poetic inspiration insufficient to describe the event: hactenus arma, tubae, ferrumque et uulnera: sed nunc | comminus astrigeros Capaneus tollendus in axes. | non mihi iam solito uatum de more canendum; | maior ab Aoniis poscenda amentia lucis (“To this point, arms, trumpets, swords and wounds: but now Capaneus must be raised into the star-bearing poles. I must sing in a style unusual for poets; a greater madness must be sought from the Aonian groves,” Stat. Theb. 10.827-831). In order to give voice to Capaneus, Statius must summon inspiration not usually granted to poets.

Scholars have often interpreted these lines metapoetically. Helen Lovatt reads them as uniting poet and hero: “Capaneus’ madness must be matched by the madness of the poet and the specifically Theban muses: for Statius the poet and his hero are equally mad in their attempts.”69 Charles McNelis takes them to signal the imminent destruction of epic boundaries.70 With an emphasis on arma, Matthew Leigh views them as expressing the insufficiency of the prior tradition, particularly the Aeneid: “what has come before is

68 Delarue (2000) 18-35, 83-85, and 195-197, Lovatt (2001),107-110, Leigh (2006), 236-239, and Chaudhuri (2014), esp. 283-291. 69 Lovatt (2001), 113. 70 McNelis (2007), 142, “the words hactenus arma, the first two words of the invocation, seemingly call attention to the destruction of generic boundaries, as if to say that so far the poem has handled the material of epic (i.e. arma), but now Capaneus’ novel fight demands something more.”

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effectively on the level with the arma uirumque of Virgil; and the bid no longer to sing in the conventional manner of poets … will therefore lead Statius into realms which even the

Aeneid could not reach.”71 Pramit Chaudhuri has argued that these lines represent a potential moment of crisis for the genre: “if Capaneus succeeds, epic must give way to some new genre where human actors can defy all constraints.”72

Statius marks out Capaneus’ sublimity as special, then — a sublimity so grand that it might burst the bounds of epic; the sublimity is made all the more important by the identification of Capaneus with the poet. Yet Statius has designated Capaneus as a figure who strains at the very limits of epic from the beginning of his poem:

quem prius heroum, Clio, dabis? inmodicum irae Tydea? laurigeri subitos an uatis hiatus? urguet et hostilem propellens caedibus amnem turbidus Hippomedon, plorandaque bella proterui Arcados atque alio Capaneus horrore canendus. 45

Which hero will you give first, Clio? Tydeus, beyond measure in his rage? Or the sudden chasm of the laurel-wearing seer? Swirling Hippomedon compels me, fighting off the enemy river with slaughter, and the wars of the harsh Arcadian must be lamented and Capaneus must be sung with a different kind of awe.

Stat. Theb. 1.41-45.

Despite the impressive and grisly deeds that Tydeus, Hippomedon, and Parthenopaeus accomplish in the course of the war, Capaneus’ theomachy is the event that Statius singles out as requiring a qualitatively different sort of poetic composition, alio ... horrere, as if traditional epic norms are not sufficient for narrating Capaneus’ assault.

71 Leigh (2006), 235, 72 Chaudhuri (2014), 2, who bolsters his interpretation of these lines as a comment on the genre by citing Barchiesi (2001), 343-334, who shows that tubae represent the kind of music specifically associated with epic.

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There has been comparatively little analysis of what the internal reaction to the assault on the heavens means for Statius’ sublime.73 There are, in fact, two drastically different responses to Capaneus: laughter and terror. Immediately prior to Capaneus’ assault on the heavens, some of the Olympians try to persuade Jupiter to take action in the Theban war

(Stat. Theb. 10.883-897). Jupiter does not respond to any party and the dispute is only silenced when they hear Capaneus nearby: ecce quierant | iurgia, cum mediis Capaneus auditus in astris (“Look how the quarrels die down when Capaneus is heard amidst the stars,”

Stat. Theb. 10.897-898). They hear Capaneus taunting them because of their inaction (nullane pro trepedis … numina Thebis | statis? ubi infandae segnes telluris alumni | Bacchus et

Alcides? “Do no gods stand for terrified Thebes? Where are the tardy nurslings of the abominable land, Bacchus and Hercules? Stat. Theb. 10. 899-901).74 Capaneus elicits two divergent reactions from the Olympians:

ingemuit dictis superum dolor; ipse furentem risit et incussa sanctarum mole comarum, 'quaenam spes hominum tumidae post proelia Phlegrae? tune etiam feriendus?' ait. premit undique lentum 910 turba deum frendens et tela ultricia poscit, nec iam audet fatis turbata obsistere coniunx. ipsa dato nondum caelestis regia signo sponte tonat, coeunt ipsae sine flamine nubes accurruntque imbres: Stygias rupisse catenas 915 Iapetum aut uictam supera ad conuexa leuari Inarimen Aetnamue putes. pudet ista timere caelicolas; sed cum in media uertigine mundi stare uirum insanasque uident deposcere pugnas, mirantur taciti et dubio pro fulmine pallent.

73 Ripoll (2006), 254-255 discusses the divergent divine reactions to Capaneus’ theomachy: “Dévalués par leur attitude geignarde, les dieux le sont donc aussi par rapport à la figure du héros titanesque. D'autre part, l'attitude plaintive ou hargneuse des divinités olympiennes fait mieux ressortir, par contraste, le toutepuissance sereine de Jupiter, dont l'impassibilité et la transcendance le rapprochent assez (du moins dan ce passage précis) du Dieu Supreme des Stoïciens.” 74 Ironically, the complaint of divine inaction is similar to that Bacchus just aired against Jupiter: nunc ubi saeva manus, meaque heu cunabula flammae? | fulmen, io ubi fulmen?, “Where is your savage hand now? And the flames, oh, that were my cradle? The lightning bolt, oh, where is the lightning bolt?” Stat. Theb. 10.888-889.

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The gods groan in pain at his words; Jupiter himself laughs at the raging one and, with his mass of holy hair shaking, says, ‘What hope do men have after the battles of swollen Phlegra? Must you, too, be struck down?’ From all over the crowd of gods, with chattering teeth, urge the slow one [Jupiter] and seek avenging darts, nor now does the disturbed wife [Juno] dare to stand in the way. With the signal not yet given, the celestial region thunders of its own accord, and the clouds themselves come together without a breeze and the rains rush in: you would think that Iapetus has broken his Stygian chain or that conquered Typhoeus or Enceladus were rising to the upper airs. It shames the gods to fear these things, but when they see that the man stands in the middle space of the world and demands insane battles, they silently wonder and become pale at an uncertain thunderbolt.

Stat. Theb. 10.907-920.

The Olympians take Capaneus’ threat seriously. They are disturbed as soon as they hear his voice amidst the heavens (ingemuit … superum dolor) and their anxiety escalates to outright fear when Jupiter appears moved to no response (timere, mirantur, pallent). The gods’ anxiety is so great that they apparently begin to doubt Jupiter’s power (dubio … fulmine) as if they have forgotten their firsthand knowledge of his victory in the Gigantomachy, mentioned twice in a short space, and not noticed the storm’s supernatural flavor, which Statius is at pains to highlight through its lack of winds.75

Jupiter, however, responds with laughter. This is a sharp divergence from his otherwise disinterest in the affairs unfolding around him — until this point, despite much chaos amidst the Olympians both prior to and because of Capaneus’ assault, Jupiter has done nothing but look around.76 While risit can simply designate a smile, Statius makes it clear that Jupiter is shaking with laughter (incussa sanctarum mole comarum). Lovatt sees

75 Chaudhuri (2014), “the detail of the absence of winds marks the storm’s cause as unequivocally supernatural, especially as it follows the thundering of Jupiter’s palace.” 76 iamque Iouem circa studiis diuersa fremebant | Argolici Tyriique dei; pater, aequus utrisque, | aspicit ingentes ardentum comminus iras | seque obstare uidet | … non tamen haec turbant pacem Iouis, “And now the gods, partisans of the Argives and the Thebans, were clamoring around Jupiter passionately; the father, impartial to both, sees the intense anger of those blazing near him and sees that he himself stands in the way ... but none of these things disturb Jupiter’s peace” Stat. Theb. 10.883-886 and 897. His inaction, perhaps bordering on apathy, is highlighted by the fervent emotions of the other gods (studiis, fremebant, ingentes ... iras, ardentum).

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Jupiter’s laughter as fundamentally altering the character of the episode: Capaneus’ assault is

“sublime, yet at the same time ridiculous.”77 Statius makes it perhaps even more obvious in the figure of Capaneus than he does in Tydeus that the sublime can be serious and humorous:

Capaneus terrifies the Olympians and humans, but simply amuses Jupiter.

Lovatt is right to see Capaneus as a quasi-ridiculous figure. He is not only ridiculous from the perspective of the king of the gods, but from the reader too; the source of his fearsomeness and the source of his ridiculousness are one and the same. At the height of his assault, Capaneus muses about using the thunderbolt himself:

...tenet ille tamen, quas non uidet, arces, fulguraque attritis quotiens micuere procellis, 'his' ait 'in Thebas, his iam decet ignibus uti, 925 hinc renouare faces lassamque accendere quercum.' talia dicentem toto Ioue fulmen adactum corripuit: primae fugere in nubila cristae, et clipei niger umbo cadit, iamque omnia lucent membra uiri. cedunt acies, et terror utrimque, 930 quo ruat, ardenti feriat quas corpore turmas. … stat tamen, extremumque in sidera uersus anhelat, 935 pectoraque inuisis obicit fumantia muris; nec caderet, sed membra uirum terrena relinquunt, exuiturque animus; paulum si tardius artus cessissent, potuit fulmen sperare secundum.

However, he [Capaneus] attains citadels which he does not see and as often as lightning flashes from colliding clouds he says, ‘It is fitting to use these, yes, these fires against Thebes, to renew my torches and to light my tired oak.’ A thunderbolt, hurled with all Jupiter’s might, seizes him saying such things: at first, his plumes turn to powder and the black boss of his shield falls, and now each the man’s limbs shine bright. The battle lines draw back, and there is terror on both sides. Where might he fall? Which troops might he strike with his burning body? … Nevertheless, he stands, and he gasps his last turned towards the stars, and hurls his smoking chest at the hated walls; nor could he fall, but the earthly limbs leave the man, and his spirit is taken off; had his body had held out a little longer, he could have been able to hope for a second lightning bolt.

Stat. Theb. 10.923-932 and 935-939.

77 Lovatt (2001), 114.

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Perhaps emboldened by his sublime ascent, Capaneus’ muses about using the thunderbolts he sees around him casts, seemingly ascribing to a Euhemerist view of the divine in which his grand deeds make him able to wield Jupiter’s weapons.78 Instead of becoming a Jupiter figure, Capaneus becomes a humorous literalization of his own desire to use the lightning bolt and, ironically, emblematic of the very power he was challenging. Just like a lightning bolt, he burns bright (iamque omnia lucent | membra uiri, ardenti corpore, pectora ... fumantia) in the aether. Moreover, the terror that the battling men feel is due to uncertainty over where he will fall, potentially doing harm, just as they might fear a lightning bolt.

Statius uses the same verb to describe the potential destruction Capaneus could wreak, feriat, as Jupiter did when he threatened to kill Capaneus, feriendus, coloring Capaneus’ actions as those of a lightning bolt.79 Capaneus’ final action of aiming his body towards Thebes’ walls, obicit, shows that even in death he still retains some autonomy.

Capaneus is rendered sublime and ridiculous, to use Lovatt’s terms. On the one hand, he becomes lightning, an almost emblematic manifestation of the Longinian sublime. For a moment, Capaneus retains the awe and dread of a lightning bolt as he hovers above the city on the verge of striking down his hated Thebes. He even moves to strike Thebes (pectoraque inuisis obicit fumantia muris), accomplishing his avowed goal of striking down the walls (in

Thebas, his iam decet ignibus uti). From a strictly allegorical interpretation of the divine,

Capaneus does usurp Jupiter’s place as he becomes the very lightning that Jupiter is identified

78Juno famously complains that Pallas was permitted to wield the thunderbolt, but that she, wife and sister of Jupiter, was not (Verg. Aen. 1.39-49). In Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, Typhon, mightiest of Jupiter’s opponents, steals Zeus’ thunderbolts (καὶ παλάμας τανύσας ὑπὸ νεύματι μητρὸς Ἀρούρης | ὅπλα Διὸς νιφόεντα Κίλιξ ἔκλεψε Τυφωεύς, | ὅπλα πυρός, “And, at the sign of his mother, the Earth, Cilician Typhoeus stretches out his hands and steals the snowy arms of Zeus, the arms of fire, Nonnus Dion. 1.154-156), but fails to wield them properly (1.304-309). See Hardie (2005), 117, who identifies Typhon’s use of the thunderbolt as a metapoetic synecdoche for writing “monstrous epic,” and Shorrock (2001), 121-125 for a wider discussion. 79 Cf. Hor. Carm. 2.10.11 and Ov. Pont. 3.2.9 where both poets use ferio to describe lightning strikes

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with; Statius’ interest in allegory elsewhere in the Thebaid makes this interpretation all the more provocative.80 On the other hand, Capaneus’ assault utterly fails in upending the cosmic order. By becoming the lightning bolt he wished to appropriate from Jupiter, he becomes the proof of Jupiter’s supremacy; he is humorously literalized as the very thing he strove to co- opt. In light of Capaneus’ spectacular failure, the reader can join in Jupiter’s laughter. Just as

Tydeus showed the coexistence of contradictory seriousness and levity, so too does

Capaneus; he is simultaneously sublime and absurd.

Just how successful is Jupiter in dispelling any notion of Jovian weakness? Leigh concludes that Capaneus’ attempt is “futile but not ignoble.”81 Lovatt states that “if it is possible to fail in a heroic and admirable fashion, Capaneus does it here.”82 Moreover,

Chaudhuri sees the death of Capaneus as a firm end to speculation about a new kind of epic:

“When Statius explicitly describes Capaneus struck by a thunderbolt ‘driven by the full force of Jupiter’ (toto Ioue fulmen adactum, Theb. 10.927), we see in a single action the god demonstrate his power and refute the hero’s claims… Despite all the hero’s provocations, and despite all of the philosophical allusions, Statius’ Jupiter asserts his authority within the world of the Thebaid. However radical Capaneus’ threat, this epic is not, after all, to be an adventure in a post-divine world.”83

The Olympians and Thebans agree: gratantur superi, Phlegrae ceu fessus anhelet | proelia et

Encelado fumanti impresserit Aetnen | … respirant Thebae, templisque iacentia surgunt | agmina; iam finis uotis finisque supremis | planctibus, et natos ausae deponere matres (“The gods rejoice as if Jupiter were wearily panting after the battles of Phlegra and he had put Etna on top of burning Enceladus ... Thebes breathes a sigh of relief, and the multitudes prostrate in temples rise; now there is an end to prayers and end to despondent wailing, and mothers dare to put their children down” Stat. Theb. 11.7-8 and 18-20). Given their panicked reaction

80 See Feeney (1991), 364-391, for his influential account of Statian allegory. 81 Leigh (2006), 241. 82 Lovatt (2001), 115. 83 Chaudhuri (2014), 291.

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to Capaneus’ assault, it is unsurprising to see Olympians and Thebans rejoicing at Capaneus’ defeat, even if the comparison to the Gigantomachy seems overblown.

Yet relief is not the only reaction to Capaneus’ death in the Thebaid. The Underworld has a different perspective: coetu Capaneus laudatur ab omni | Ditis et insignem Stygiis fouet amnibus umbram (“Capaneus is praised by the whole congregation of Dis and he warms his noble shade in the Stygian rivers,”’ Stat. Theb. 11.70-71). A large portion of the Underworld rejoices to see Capaneus as they give him a hero’s welcome, clearly approving of his brand of epic and poetics. This should come as no surprise, given the hostility that Dis showed towards the Olympians at the beginning of Book 8. He threatens to release the Titans, Giants, and Saturn from their imprisonment so as to return the world to a state of Gigantomachic war in addition to hoping for the boundaries of the world to disappear, which would ensure the return of Chaos.84 Perhaps Jupiter’s interpretation that Capaneus is ridiculous is unfounded because, even in death, he has his supporters — those who found his assault on the heavens admirable instead of risible.

Capaneus’ theomachy is ambivalent. It is awe-inspiring and daring for Capaneus to challenge Jupiter’s rule. The inhabitants of the Underworld, whom the reader is preconditioned by Dis in Book 8 to view as anti-Jovian partisans, certainly think his assault laudable. Yet it is also absurd. Jupiter shakes with laughter after Capaneus’ vaunting because he trusts in his superior status as divine to allow him to strike Capaneus down easily. Even as he does so, Statius makes Capaneus laughable to the readers as well, transforming him into a thunderbolt, the very weapon he sought to use himself. Consequently, he becomes truly sublime as he becomes a thunderbolt, the literal manifestation of sublimity. He also, however, becomes ridiculous, as his very status as human is incompatible with his theomachic

84 Stat. Theb. 8.42-43 for his threat to release the prisoners and 8.37 for his wish for the boundaries of the world to fall away.

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aspirations. Capaneus has fundamentally confused the limits of his human capacity and misunderstanding is broadcast for all to see as he dies.

5. Conclusions

In the Longinian view of the sublime, there is no room for laughter. A humorous chord, to take the view of the rhetorical theorists, would mean that the poet has failed in evoking the sublime through hyperbole. Yet, as we have seen from the three preceding examples, Statius ostentatiously imbues sublimity with humor. Each of the examples examined are significant moments in the Thebaid. It is not the case that Statius is unable to evoke the Longinian sublime; he deftly colors each scene with such grandeur that it is difficult to dispute that he aims for the sublime. Instead, Statius ostentatiously and repeatedly demonstrates a qualitatively different conception of the sublime, one that is infused with a humor that is difficult to disentangle from the very objects of sublimity.

Longinus does not theorize the impact of laughter on the sublime. Accordingly, let us return to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of polyglossia to assess laughter’s effects. In his discussion of the novel’s narrative differences with epic, Bakhtin discusses the role of humor:

“It is precisely laughter that destroys the epic, and in general any hierarchical (distancing and valorized) distance. As a distanced image a subject cannot be comical; to be made comical, it must be brought close… Laughter has the remarkable power of making an object come up close, of drawing it into a zone of crude contact where one can finger it familiarly on all sides, turn it upside down, inside out, peer at it from above and below, break open its external shell, look into its center, doubt it, take it apart, dismember it, lay it bare and expose it, examine it freely and experiment with it. Laughter demolishes fear and piety before an object, before a world, making of it an object of familiar contact and thus clearing the ground for an absolutely free investigation of it. Laughter is a vital factor in laying down that prerequisite for fearlessness without which it would be impossible to approach the world realistically.”85

85 Bakhtin (1981), 23.

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For Bakhtin, epic creates distance because “it is both monochronic and valorized

(hierarchical) … it is walled off absolutely from all subsequent times … This boundary, consequently, is immanent in the form of epic itself and is felt and heard in every word. To destroy this boundary is to destroy the form of epic as a genre.”86 In other words, epic is unrelatable due to its grandiosity and its temporal remove from the audience, and it is precisely these aspects that define epic. The genre’s tendency for distancing is compounded by the sublime which, on the Longinian view, by definition describes something unapproachable and ineffably grand. However, Bakhtin is right that laughter challenges these very “distancing” and “valorizing” aspects.

When Statius evokes the sublime in his poetry, it is decidedly ambivalent, beyond what Longinus or modern scholars have allowed. The Statian sublime is not simply lofty and grand, but also, importantly, humorous. Status’ sublime, therefore, becomes a paradox, simultaneously lofty and absurd. Moreover, because the sublime and epic are tightly connected in ancient theorization, we can read Statius’ refusal to commit to a traditional account of it as a broader rejection of traditional epic poetics. Like his sublime, Statius’ epic sensibility declines to fall into a Vergilian, or even more broadly traditionally epic, paradigm.

86 Bakhtin (1981), 15-16.

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Appendix: Roman Vocabulary of the Sublime

The ancient vocabulary for speaking about the sublime is varied and fluid. Although

Longinus often uses the term ὕψος to indicate the sublime, he frequently employs vocabulary with similar associations to refer to the concept without distinction.87 The terminology varies considerably, and he uses multiple words to refer to the same concept. Porter has compiled a list of no fewer than ninety-four different words that Longinus uses to describe the sublime.

He groups them into seven clusters: 1.) hupsos-related words, 2.) meg-related words, containing words deriving mostly from μέγεθος or μέγας, 3.) dein-related words, with words coming mostly from the adjective δεινός, 4.) words with the prefix huper, all of which suppose overstepping, 5.) words with the prefix ek, such as ekstasis or ekpatheia, 6.) ogk- derived words derived from ὄγκος, and 7.) words that do not fall into one of the above categories, such as kallos, semnos, sphodros, or phob-related words.88

Longinus’ conception of the sublime is multifaceted, so it is unsurprising that he employs numerous words to discuss it. That is not to say that hupsos is a meaningless or even arbitrary word to describe the aesthetic phenomenon. Porter explains: “there is no reason to conclude that hupsos and its immediate congeners are worthless indices to the meaning of sublimity in Longinus or to its possible occurrences before him. They simply fail to tell the whole story.”89 Each of Porter’s seven clusters approximate a slightly different aspect of the complicated concept. While hupsos, literally meaning “aloft,” captures the verticality of the sublime, the meg-words, literally meaning “large,” capture the larger-than-life aspect of the

87 The title of the work, Peri Hupsous, would suggest that ὕψος is the predominant critical term for the sublime, but, given that the title and erroneous author are universally transmitted together, there is reason to wonder if the title is even correct given that there are no other attestations of the treatise in antiquity per Russell (1964), xxvi-xxviii, and Wilson (1983), 150, against Boyd (1957). 88 See Porter (2016), 179-182, for the full list. 89 Porter (2016), 32 and 182.

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sublime. Furthermore, the deino- words, literally meaning “terrible” or “awful,” speak to the terrifying aspect of the sublime while the huper- words speak to the sublime’s tendency for overstepping boundaries and excess. For Longinus, any of these words, either on their own or in combination, can be used to refer to the sublime. Porter’s work has been invaluable for amassing the ancient critical idiom for the sublime, yet, understandably, his work focuses almost solely on Greek terminology for the concept.

We are on only slightly better footing when it comes to the dating: current critical consensus puts the text in the first century CE, based primarily on the discussion of moral decline and the lament for the recent loss of liberty that occur towards the end of the treatise.90 Finally, the cultural context in which the treatise was composed is a mystery. The text is written in Greek, suggesting an origin in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire (if, indeed, it was written during a period during Roman rule), and the textual references are overwhelmingly from the Classical Greek canon — references to Cicero and Genesis, if genuine,91 are exceptions — further suggesting a place of composition in Greece. Yet, in the cosmopolitan, multilingual world of the Roman Empire, it is also possible that it was composed much closer to Rome. Magna Graecia, for example, had a flourishing literary scene in Naples and the Greek cultural roots would ensure a cultural context that could easily produce this Greco-centric document. The name of the addressee, Terentianus, provides no real clues, either to location or time period, as numerous men by the name of Terentianus are attested in multiple time periods in locations as varied as Italy and North Africa.92

90 Russell (1964), xxii and xxviii-xxx, Häussler (1995), and Innes (2002), 259. Richards (1938), Goold (1961), and de Jonge (2014) assign the text to the first century BCE. 91 Critical consensus has shifted towards accepting the Genesis quotation as genuine. Usher (2007) has argued that the passage is genuine based on thematic and linguistic similarity to surrounding passages. Mazzuchhi (2010), 175, agrees, saying “La citzione della Genesi, lungi dall'essere un elemento erratico nel contesto del capitolo, è intimamente connessa col precente guidizio sugli dei d'Omero.” See Russell (1964), 92-94, for a summary of the arguments in favor and against interpolation. 92 Russell (1964), 59. Martial mentions a certain Terentianus stationed in Egypt at Ep. 1.86.7

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However, similar conversations about the sublime and other aesthetic phenomena were occurring at Rome. Despite scholarly interest in the Latin sublime, the evidence for the critical idiom is poor. Scholars have tended to avoid this methodological complication.93 The fact that the modern English word for the sublime comes directly from the Latin sublimis engenders a sense of familiarity, but, lacking a treatise that directly theorizes about or attempts to define the sublime, it is difficult to say with confidence that this was the preferred critical term. Like hupsos, it is certainly one of the terms used to describe the lofty and grand, but to insist on sublimis as the sole term to denote the sublime misses a significant part of the conversation.

However, by examining the instances in which Latin theorists employ the vocabulary of sublimis/sublimitas, we can investigate other terms that they use almost interchangeably or nearby. This survey is not exhaustive and is intended solely as a means to approximate a working idiom of sublimity in Latin. Quintilian is an excellent candidate for discussions of sublimity for numerous reasons. Chief among these are that Quintilian is writing either contemporaneous with or immediately after Longinus and, so, is likely to be immersed in literary critical discussions of the sublime. Furthermore, Quintilian applies the language of sublimis/sublimitas to Homer, which Longinus also did. Given the semantic overlap between hupsos and sublimis/sublimitas, we can be reasonably sure, then, that Quintilian and

Longinus are discussing the same aesthetic phenomenon.

Quintilian resorts to the vocabulary of sublimis/sublimitas to describe three writers,

Homer, just as Longinus had done, as well as Aeschylus and Domitian. We will survey each in turn. Quintilian writes, hunc [Homerum] nemo in magnis rebus sublimitate, in paruis proprietate superauerit (“No one has surpassed him [Homer] in the sublimity he puts in great

93 Leigh (2006), 236-239, is an exception in that he connects Capaneus’ sublime to larger critical literary discourse, although he assumes, perhaps with reason, that Latin vocabulary translates relatively smoothly from the Greek.

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deeds, nor in the decency he puts in the small”, Quint. Inst. 10.46.5). It is immediately apparent that Quintilian relies on some connection between sublimity and great deeds, magnis. In fact, magnus corresponds well to Porter’s second cluster of Longinian sublime vocabulary, meg-related words focusing on size.

The other two examples are more instructive. Regarding Aeschylus, Quintilian writes, tragoedias primus in lucem Aeschylus protulit, sublimis et grauis et grandilocus saepe usque ad uitium, sed rudis in plerisque et incompositus (“Aeschylus first brought tragedy into the spotlight. He was sublime, serious, and grandiose almost to a fault, but, in many places, unadorned and rough,” Quint. Inst. 10.66.1). Here, Quintilian employs sublimis alongside grauis and grandilocus as apparent synonyms. Compound grandi- words are also a reasonable analog to the meg- compound words that Porter identifies as sublime vocabulary in Longinus. 94 Additionally, grauis is a word well-established in the Latin critical idiom for serious moments, which the sublime certainly is.

Moreover, Quintilian uses sublimis to describe Domitian’s poetry: quid tamen his ipsis eius operibus in quae donato imperio iuuenis secesserat sublimius, doctius, omnibus denique numeris praestantius? (“Yet what is more sublime, more learned, more outstanding in all ways than those works he devoted himself after he gave away his power as a youth?”,

Quint. Inst. 10.91.1). doctius and praestantius do not have the same aesthetic force. doctius is more indicative of an Alexandrian aesthetic, but praestantius is perhaps a good analogue to

Porter’s fourth cluster which identifies words relying on the prefix huper to indicate overstepping. In Latin, the prefix prae often serves a similar function and, at least in this case, seems to be used almost synonymously.

94 Quintilian uses another form of a grandi-word to describe Ennius, another giant of Latin literature: Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora iam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem (“Let us worship Ennius as groves sacred by age, whose grand and ancient trunks have not so much beauty as sanctity,” Quint. Inst. 10.1.88).

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Nevertheless, Quintilian deploys a number of other adjectives, not in close proximity to sublimis/sublimitas vocabulary, to describe a lofty style: quid ille cuius modo fecimus mentionem Aeschines? nonne his latior et audentior et excelsior? (“What about Aeschines, whom I just now made mention of? Isn’t his style fuller, bolder, and loftier?” Quint. Inst.

12.23.1). He describes the ideal audience for an orator as noble and lofty: is porro quo generosior celsiorque est, hoc maioribus uelut organis commouetur, ideoque et laude crescit et impetu augetur et aliquid magnum agere gaudet (“The nobler and more elevated the mind, the more powerful the mechanisms, as it were, it stirs up, and this is why it grows with praise and is augmented by effort and delights in doing something great,” Quint. Inst. 1.2.30). In the realm of visual arts, Quintilian praises the artist Phidias’ works, saying that maiestas operis deum aequauit (“...the majesty of his works equals that of the gods,” Quint. Inst. 12.10.9), showing that maiestas is yet another term that can denote exceedingly wonderful and unrivalled artistic production

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Conclusion

1: A Synchronic Conclusion: Humor as a Political Strategy in the Silvae

One of the problems with mythological epic, Juvenal alleges, is that it has nothing to do with the lived experience of Romans: haec ego non agitem? sed quid magis? Heracleas | aut

Diomedeas aut mugitum labyrinthi | et mare percussum puero fabrumque uolantem (“Can’t I have a go at these outrages [of contemporary morality]? What would be better? Stories of

Heracles or Diomedes or the mooing of the labyrinth and the sea hit by the boy and the flying workman?” Juv. 1.52-54, trans. adapted from Braund). What point is there in reading about fanciful mythological epic when there are real instances of outrageous immorality at Rome?

In the face of these issues, Juvenal famously declares that it is difficile est saturam non scribere (“it is difficult not to write satire,” Juv. 1.30) because it is satire that speaks to the everyday lived experience of Romans, even if the behavior under scrutiny seems grossly excessive. Juvenal’s representation of epic is, of course, tendentious. If we take him at his word, he reads epic overly literally, not accounting for allegorical or metaphorical readings: if the subject superficially has nothing to do with Rome, then it cannot possibly be interpreted as such.

Maternus and Julius Secundus, two of Tacitus’ interlocutors in the Dialogus, would likely take issue with Juvenal’s representation of mythological epic. In Tacitus’ treatise,

Secundus calls on his friend Maternus, whose tragedy, the Cato, has just premiered. Yet

Secundus visits not to congratulate Maternus on his literary success, but to warn him about the adverse attention his Cato is receiving due to its perceived political commentary on the then-emperor Vespasian. Accordingly, he advises him to edit the offending content out of the play so as to remain safe:

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“nihilne te’” ait “Materne, fabulae malignorum terrent quo minus offensas Catonis tui ames? an ideo librum istum adprehendisti ut diligentius retractares et, sublatis si qua prauae interpretationi materiam dederunt, emitteres Catonem non quidem meliorem, sed tamen securiorem?” tum ille “leges” inquit “quid Maternus sibi debuerit, et adgnosces quae audisti. quod si qua omisit Cato, sequenti recitatione Thyestes dicet...”

Secundus said, “Do the stories of your detractors not terrify you or make you love the offenses of your Cato less? Or, surely, you have picked up this damned book so that you might edit it diligently and, with the passages which gave detractors material removed, send out your Cato, not better, but safer?” Maternus responded, “You will read what Maternus considered to owe himself, and you will find it just as you heard it. That which Cato omitted, Thyestes will say in the following recitation...”

Tac. Dial. 3.2-3.3.3.

Secundus fears for his friend’s safety because certain people have interpreted the tragedy to be a negative commentary on Vespasian. Maternus not only admits that his play is political criticism of Vespasian, but also refuses to edit out offending passages. In fact, Maternus doubles down; his next play, the Thyestes, will continue his anti-Vespasianic rhetoric and,

Maternus seems to say, in an even more overt manner. Although the Cato is on a historical subject, Maternus sees no issue with using his Thyestes to air his political commentary, presumably not through overt anachronism, which Roman poets generally avoided, but political allegory.1 Secundus’ fears may not have proven unfounded, as Cassius Dio reports that Domitian had a man named Maternus executed for anti-dynastic rhetoric.2

We need not put too much faith in Cassius Dio’s report to appreciate the precarious situation of poets; it had long been known at Rome that writing poetry was a dangerous job.

Augustus, of course, banished Ovid and, although the details are unknown, the poet famously attributes the exile to carmen et error (“a song and a mistake,” Ov Tr. 2.1.207). Ovid is taken

1 There are, of course, glaring exceptions to this general rule, such as the panegyrical passages of Luc.1.33-66, Stat. Theb. 1.17-31, Ach. 1.14-19, and V.Fl. 1.5-21. 2 Cass. Dio. 67.12.5.

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aback at his exile, and it fundamentally alters his poetic program, but Patricia Johnson has recently argued “it must have been the alacrity of his [Ovid’s] punishment, not its possibility, that stunned him. The reduced ranks of literary figures in this period suggests to me that

Augustus’s willingness to use political muscle to banish a well-known literary figure did not surface overnight, and that a shift toward autocracy must have had a chilling effect on aspiring poets well before Ovid’s relegation.”3 Even Ovid’s poetic fame and widespread popularity were no guarantee against political retribution.

Whatever Ovid’s offense actually was, his posture that it was a mistake (error) makes the Augustan backlash all the more worrisome for would-be poets. It is one thing for an unrepentant figure like Maternus to face retribution, but another thing entirely to punish a poet who has acknowledged his mistake. Poets in the late first century CE, then, had sufficient reason to be wary of what they were writing about and how it would come across so as not to offend imperial powers with the power for relegation. If a poet is going to criticize an emperor or air political views unpopular with imperial powers, he ought to be careful in how he expresses them. Shadi Bartsch has argued that this is an animating tension of literature in the late first and early second centuries CE leading to a rise in doublespeak:

“praise and criticism thus coexist in a volatile alliance, ready to emerge from the crucible of reception as pure panegyric or pure irony, depending on the nature of the audience texts … critical response … show the difficulty of distinguishing real praise from coerced praise even as those categories become untenable in their pure state.”4 How do poets strike the fine balance between praise and criticism? Or, more precisely, imperial perception of criticism, for, as we have seen with Ovid, poetic intention seems to matter little.

3 Johnson (2008), 20. 4 Bartsch (1994), 145.

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Poets begin to exploit ambiguity to their advantage, especially in poems dealing with overtly political matters. One would think that poets writing in invective genres, such as

Persius, Juvenal, or Martial, are particularly at risk, given their generic predisposition to write in an unflattering way about contemporary figures. Yet we do not hear of any political retribution against them. It is not because they are exempt, but because they are deft political agents. One reason for this, of course, is that Juvenal’s targets are from the previous regime as he explicitly tells the audience towards the end of his first satire: experiar quid concedatur in illos | quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina (“Let me see what is permitted against those whose ashes are covered by the Flaminian and Latin ways,” Juv. 1.171-172).

Consequently, he avoids any potential for political missteps by only obliquely alluding to contemporary society.5 James Uden has recently argued that Juvenal leverages his anonymity for his own safety: “Juvenal assumes a deliberate inscrutability, animating instead a babble of critical voices from Roman history and contemporary life, unanchored from chronology, and endlessly engaged in a cycle of allusion and allegation.”6 Juvenal hides in plain sight, both through obscuring his own identity and destabilizing his poetic voice.

Martial, however, tells us that he associates with elites like Silius Italicus (Mart. Ep.

4.14, 6.64, and 7.63). Yet, although he does not obscure his real identity, he seems largely unscathed by the turbulent political landscape due to his deft political maneuvering, which

Victoria Rimell explains:

“Martial’s brave play with paradox and inconsistency within the frame of the libellus entertains by sustaining a tightrope-walking sense of political risk and transformability. Complex, multiple interactions between poems, so many that the critic is never really satisfied he or she has ‘read’ a book, create an environment of split perspectives and theatrical posing, while Martial’s emphasis that it is readers (and there are many different kinds of readers) who

5 See, e.g., Geue (2017), 37, and Braund (1996), 119-120, for discussion. 6 Uden (2015), 85. See Geue (2017), 10, for a compatible view: “anonymous/invisible satire … is not only a quasi-postmodern performance of identity through its erasure or complication. This dark mode is also about raising the stakes of literature to a matter of life and death.”

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make this poetry is the ultimate device for sliding loose of incrimination. This is a context designed to make it very difficult to judge when encomium is double-edged, when a spiky joke is or isn’t harmless, even flattering, when we (or other readers) might be foolish to get offended, or foolish not to be ... Martial chooses subtle ways, often via the model of Ovidian license and exile, to evoke the perils and unpredictability of the poet’s relationship with the emperor, and the vulnerability of the poet to malicious interpretation. But he is also a suave operator who makes political advantage, and a political game, out of an aesthetic of insubstantiality and incoherence. As he sees it, there is no other way to survive in Flavian Rome.”7

For Rimell, Martial’s paradox and contradiction between poems render his poetry less politically risky because his poetry resists uncomplicated readings. A reading of one poem can be contradicted by another resulting in a flattering, if inconsistent, picture.

Rimell illustrates this strategy in two of Martial’s most obviously political poems in

Book 11, both written in the immediate aftermath of Nerva’s accession to the principate.8 In one characterization, Nerva is a breath of fresh air, a complete break from the past: triste supercilium durique seuera Catonis | frons et aratoris filia Fabricii | et personati fastus et regula morum | quidquid et in tenebris non sumus, ite foras. | clamant ecce mei 'Io

Saturnalia' uersus: | et licet et sub te praeside, Nerua, libet (“Go away, sad frown and severe expression of harsh Cato and daughter of the ploughman Fabricius and the scornful contempt of the mask and the rules of the moral code and whatever we are not in the darkness. Look, my verses shout ‘Oh Saturnalia!’ and, under your rule, Nerva, it is permitted and enjoyed,”

Mart. Ep. 11.2.1-6). In another characterization, a mere six poems later, he is the guardian of conservative morality: iam certe stupido non dices, Paula, marito, | ad moechum quotiens longius ire uoles, | 'Caesar in Albanum iussit me mane uenire, | Caesar Circeios.' iam stropha talis abît. | Penelopae licet esse tibi sub principe Nerua (“Paula, now, you will not say to your stupid husband that whenever you with to go to your far distant lover, ‘Caesar

7 Rimell (2008), 14. 8 Rimell (2008), 164.

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orders me to go to Alba in the morning, Caesar orders me to go to Cerceii.’ Such a trick is gone now; in Nerva’s principate, it is possible for you to be Penelope,” Mart. Ep. 11.7.1-5).

Inconsistency allows Martial to have it both ways; Nerva is a defender of traditional morality while simultaneously totally independent of the tradition.

Book 11 was published in December of 96, a mere two months after Domitian’s assassination.9 Consequently, Nerva’s recent accession to the principate is important to consider here: Martial must balance legitimation from the tradition of the principate with sufficient distance from Domitian, assassinated two months prior. N.M. Kay considers 11.2

“an implicit contrast with Domitian: freedom has arrived.”10 Yet that freedom has its limits;

11.7 “suggests that the old regime condoned and exploited moral laxity while the new one does not.”11 Elsewhere, however, Martial praises Domitian’s renewed prosecution of the Lex

Julia de adulteriis12 in addition to proclamations of unprecedented Roman freedom.13

Martial’s poetry refuses to endorse a solitary point of view and, in his multiplicity of contradicting statements, he successfully accounts for political considerations while still producing poetry that can be viewed as speaking truth to power.

9 Kay (1985), 1, “Book XI can be precisely dated. Martial makes great play with the fact that it appeared in December, around the time of the festival of the Saturnalia; and the year must be 96: Domitian is dead and Martial welcomes the accession of Nerva.; 11.1 is addressed to Parthenius, who was murdered in the middle of 97; and 11.4 celebrates the forthcoming consulship (the third one) of Nerva, which began on 1 January 97.” 10 Kay (1985), 61. 11 Kay (1985), 77. 12 Mart. Ep. 5.75, 6.2, 6.4, 6.7, 6.22, and 6.91 all praise Domitian for successfully enforcing the law. For discussion of the revival of the Lex Julia de adulteriis under Domitian, see Leberl (2004), 285-287 for a recent discussion of Domitian’s reenactment of the Augustan laws and Galinsky (1996), 128-132 for a thorough overview of the goals of the Augustan legislation. 13 pulchrior et maior quo sub duce Martia Roma? | sub quo libertas principe tanta fuit? “Under what leader was Mars’ Rome more beautiful and greater? Under what princeps was there so much freedom?” Mart. Ep. 5.19.5-6. See Bartsch (1994), 162-180, for the complications of praising past emperors.

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Statius is naturally alive to difficulties of writing about contemporary issues. The stakes are high for poets writ large, but, in the wake of Ovid’s exile, perhaps particularly epic poets in general because of the expected seriousness of their works; after all, it is a lofty tragedy, not epigram, that Secundus worries will be the ruin of Maternus. Perhaps Secundus would have been more concerned about Maternus writing epic, given the tendency to speak directly of contemporary affairs, albeit often in circumscribed yet highly prominent passages.

Evidence for sustained pressure survives from the epics themselves. Statius begins each of his epics with recusationes, in which Statius defers the task of writing about Domitian’s life.14

Among extant authors, epic poets use the recusatio to account for their decision to write mythological epic instead of epic dealing with contemporary matters which could serve as a panegyric for the emperor.15 Practical considerations about praise put other genres, such as oratory, under pressure,16 but the problem is acute for epic poets due to the genre’s cultural status and associations. As the highest genre with a natural focus on heroes, kings, and great deeds, especially martial exploits, epic is a natural medium for poetic panegyric. In an apparent attempt to satisfy this need, Statius wrote an epic about contemporary politics and

14 Stat. Theb. 1.16-33 and Ach. 1.14-19. Valerius Flaccus also employs a recusatio at VF. 1.7- 21 in which he takes a different approach by claiming that Domitian is better equipped to write the panegyrical epic about Vespasian and Titus than Valerius Flaccus himself. See Coleman (1986), 3088-3095 and Penwill (2000) for discussions of Domitian’s poetry which seems to, in fact, be about contemporary historical matters. 15 Marks (2010), 185-186, perceives a tension between mythological epic and historical epic in the vein of Ennius and Naevius (and which Silius will later choose as the subject for his epic Punica). There is, however, a further complication because there is a difference between contemporary historical epic, which has a much greater capacity for panegyric, and historical epic which focuses on an event that is truly in the past. Marks (2005) argues that Silius chooses the Punic Wars as a subject because it displays the difficulties with communal rule and the advantages of one-man leadership in Scipio. Although this view of heroism accords with the principate and may even be flattering to Domitian, it is hardly panegyrical in the sense that it celebrates and memorializes Domitian’s martial deeds, a role largely restricted to the end of Jupiter’s prophecy in Book 3. 16 Bartsch (1997),148-187, is an excellent account of the pressures and politics of praise with respect to Pliny’s Panegyricus.

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warfare, his De Bello Germanico, a poem whose political ramifications he could not but consider during composition.

I argue that Statius uses the same volatile combination of serious and humorous we have seen in his epics to navigate the more overtly dangerous political environment in his

Silvae. Statius’ tone allows him, like Martial, to have it both ways. He provides enough material to make the Silvae appear overtly panegyrical, but enough interpretive latitude — often created by humor — to leave him room for renegotiation. As with Martial, Statius exploits this ambiguity for his own ends, allowing his poetry to assume multiple meanings, many different ones for his diverse audiences.

Like his lost De Bello Germanico, the Silvae are deeply entangled in issues of contemporary politics. Five poems directly address Domitian (1.1, 2.5, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3), but other poems obliquely mention him (1.4.4-5), thus ensuring that the emperor is a presence that lurks in the Silvae’s background even in the poems not ostensibly related to him: the world represented in the Silvae is one whose character is largely determined by imperial power and by the Zeitgeist associated with Domitian. Poems that address figures other than

Domitian ought to be considered political in some respect, as the patron/client relationship as well as notions of elite friendship underlie them all. As occasional poetry, the Silvae are designed to confer socio-political status by leveraging the power of literature. Noelle Zeiner explains that “the economics of personal capital … play a formative role in both the inspiration and construction of the poems. In their desire to accumulate symbolic capital …

Statius and his addressees have not only sought various forms of material and non-material wealth but have also exploited the social institution of literature as the most powerful vehicle

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in the quest.”17 Consequently, Statius must strike a balance in his poetry that will satisfy a patron with sufficient grandeur whilst remaining “good” literature.

The poet speaks in his own voice in the prefaces that begin each book and many of them are filled with anxiety about his poetry’s success. One of the first things Statius talks about in the preface to Silvae 1, for example, is his fear about the Thebaid’s literary success

(Stat. Silv. 1.pr.5-7) and he ends the prefaces to Books 2 and 4 by openly worrying and wondering about the reactions the poetry will elicit from each book’s respective patron (Stat.

Silv. 2.pr.28-30 and 4.pr.36-37). It is difficult to know whether Statius is concerned with the potential political repercussions of the poems or their general literary success, but it seems difficult to disentangle the two anyway.

Statius’ main self-styling posture in the Silvae is that of rapid production of raw poetic material — hence the title of the collection, a term whose usage Quintilian illuminates: diuersum est huic eorum uitium qui primo decurrere per materiam stilo quam uelocissimo uolunt, et sequentes calorem atque impetum ex tempore scribunt: hanc siluam uocant,

(“people who rush through a subject as rapidly as possibly with the swiftest speed commit the opposite problem of this [excessive drafting]; they write following inspiration and a fury at the moment: they call this silua,” Quint. Inst. 10.3.17).18 Statius chooses the title with a view

17 Zeiner (2005), 227, “The economics of personal capital ... play a formative role in both the inspiration and construction of the poems. In their desire to accumulate symbolic capital ... Statius and his addressees have not only sought various forms of material and non-material wealth but have also exploited the social institution of literature as the most powerful vehicle in the quest.” 18 Wray (2007) argues that silua is a play on the Greek ὕλη, a term of some literary sophistication. However, I disagree with his conclusion, 142, that title glorifies the Thebaid at the expense of the Silvae: “[Statius] seems to be saying something like this: If you want to see the painstaking, formally intricate cura of my poetic ars, then read my Thebaid, the work of twelve years. But if you want to see the underlying (silvan) matter of my native poetic ingenium, the fine woody pith of which my craft is hewn, read my Silvae.” The delineation is too strict for both the Thebaid and the Silvae as both exhibit characteristics of both aesthetics. Even in the collection’s title, therefore, Statius pits one incompatible aesthetic against another.

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to precondition his readers’ expectations to two effects. First, extemporaneous composition makes Statius appear all the more talented if the poems strike the reader as well-written. By purporting to have written the poems without any preparation, Statius attributes any success to his natural poetic prowess, not to painstaking revision. Second, it gives Statius an excuse to fall back on if his poetry does not live up to the standards of the patron. It is not that Statius is incapable of writing great poetry; he simply needs more time to perfect it.

Yet wedded to this defensive strategy of extemporaneous composition is the fusion of humor and seriousness, the same aesthetic strategy we have seen employed often in the

Thebaid and Achilleid as it encourages different interpretations for different audiences.

Because Statius’ poetry strikes drastically different registers simultaneously, it is especially difficult for readers to agree on a single interpretation. What one perceives as serious another views as humorous. The interpretative aporia is beneficial not simply to the aesthetic program, but is a powerful political tool. Just as Martial’s inconsistency seemingly staves off detractors, Statius’ refusal to commit his poetry to one singular tone similarly heads off detractors.

Many of the poems in Silvae 2, in particular, illustrate his multitonal strategy well because of the book’s thematization of fusing together disparate literary forms and, consequently, tones. Lucan’s Genethliacon is well-known for its paradoxical status as a birthday poem for a dead man.19 Yet 2.7 is not the only poem which is innovative — of prime interest for our purposes are 2.3, 2.4, and, especially, 2.5. Statius discusses these poems’ composition directly in the Book’s preface:

et familiaritas nostra qua gaudeo, Melior, uir optime nec minus in iudicio litterarum quam in omni uitae colore tersissime, et ipsa opusculorum quae tibi trado condicio sic posita est ut totus hic ad te liber meus etiam sine epistola

19 Newlands (2011), “2.7 is a new poetic form, the posthumous birthday poem…combining the joy attendant on a birthday with commemoration of the deceased.”

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spectet… in arborem certe tuam, Melior, et psittacum scis a me leues libellos quasi epigrammatis loco scriptos. eandem exigebat stili facilitatem leo mansuetus, quem in amphitheatro prostratum frigidum erat sacratissimo Imperatori, ni statim traderem … haec qualiacumque sunt, Melior carissime, si tibi non displicuerint, a te publicum accipiant; si minus, ad me reuertantur.

Melior, best man, nor less acute in judgment of literature than in the whole gamut of life, such is our friendship in which I take joy and the very state of the works which I give to you that this whole book of mine would look to you even without a prefatory letter ... Certainly you know, Melior, that I wrote light poems about your tree [Silvae 2.3.] and parrot [Silvae 2.4], written as if they were epigrams. The tamed lion [Silvae 2.5] demanded the same malleability of style, which, if I had not presented it immediately to our most sacred Emperor as the lion lay in the amphitheater, would have fallen flat … Whatever kind of poems these are, dearest Melior, if they do not displease you, let them accept you publicly; otherwise, let them come back to me.

Stat. Silv.2.pr.1-5, 15-19, and 29-31.

Of particular interest is Statius’ insistence on the stili facilitatem, “malleability of style,” which was crucial for the success of all three poems. Carole Newlands comments that this phrase means “ease or fluency of style [which] is a virtue both of mature oratory and of swift, improvisational verse.”20 She is right to point to its importance in ancient conceptions of improvisation. For Quintilian, a speaker must be adept in quickly adapting language to suit the present needs.21

Nevertheless, the other important word is stili, “literary style.” What exactly does

Statius mean by this admittedly vague, but apparently important, term? He gives us a clue when he discusses the poem’s generic status. They were written as if they were epigrams, quasi epigrammatis loco scriptos. Yet this claim is puzzling. While “the poems are short, witty and influenced by funerary and amphitheatrical epigram,”22 the poems are not in the

20 Newlands (2011), 62. 21 Cf. Quint. Inst. 10.1.111 and 10.7.18. 22 Newlands (2011), 61.

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epigram’s usual elegiac meter23 and 2.5, in particular, ostentatiously evokes epic. I suggest that Statius is indicating his appropriation of epigram’s literary tone and application to quasi- epigrammatic material. The facilitas stili, then, refers not only to Statius’ ability to extemporize poetry, but also his ability to include differing tones, the humorous and serious.

An examination of 2.5 is germane, which is worth quoting in full:

quid tibi monstrata mansuescere profuit ira? 1 quid scelus humanasque animo dediscere caedes imperiumque pati et domino parere minori? quid, quod abire domo rursusque in claustra reuerti suetus et a capta iam sponte recedere praeda 5 insertasque manus laxo dimittere morsu? occidis, altarum uastator docte ferarum, non grege Massylo curuaque indagine clausus, non formidato supra uenabula saltu incitus aut caeco foueae deceptus hiatu, 10 sed uictus fugiente fera. stat cardine aperto infelix cauea, et clausas circum undique portas hoc licuisse nefas placidi tumuere leones. tum cunctis cecidere iubae, puduitque relatum aspicere, et totas duxere in lumina frontes. 15 at non te primo fusum nouus obruit ictu ille pudor: mansere animi, uirtusque cadenti a media iam morte redit, nec protinus omnes terga dedere minae. sicut sibi conscius alti uulneris aduersum moriens it miles in hostem 20 attollitque manum et ferro labente minatur, sic piger ille gradu solitoque exutus honore firmat hians oculos animamque hostemque requirit. magna tamen subiti tecum solacia leti, uicte, feres, quod te maesti populusque patresque, 25 ceu notus caderes tristi gladiator harena, ingemuere mori; magni quod Caesaris ora inter tot Scythicas Libycasque, e litore Rheni et Pharia de gente feras, quas perdere uile est, unius amissi tetigit iactura leonis. 30

What use was it for you to have grown tame once your anger was soothed? What use was it to forget crime and human slaughter and to suffer power and

23 Morgan (2010), 284-286, expanding upon Morgan (2004) where he states, 4-5, “the dactylic hexameter was ... associated with the poetry of the highest aspirations, epic, and as such came to be considered the ‘highest’ metre, intrinsically (so it was thought) endowed with the characteristics of the poetic themes for which it conventionally constituted the vehicle.”

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to yield to a lesser master? What use was it to have grown accustomed to leaving your home and coming back into the cage to leave of your own free will the captured prize and to permit hands in your mouth with a relaxed jaw? You die, learned slaughterer of high beasts, not enclosed by a Massylian band and a tricky net, nor rushing headlong over hunting spears in a terrifying jump or tricked by the hidden cavity of a pit, but, instead, conquered by a retreating beast. The unfortunate cage stands with its door open and all around the tamed lions are angry that such an outrage was permitted. Then all lowered their manes and it shamed them to see you brought back and they covered their eyes. But a strange shame did not overcome you, pierced by the first blow: your spirits remained and manliness returned from the midst of death as you fell, not right away did all your threats run away. Just as when a dying soldier, aware of his deep wound, raises his hand against the enemy and threatens with a slipping sword, so he, slow in step and bereft of his usual dignity, gasping he locks eyes and seeks courage and the enemy. Conquered one, you will bear great solaces with you for your sudden death because the sad people and fathers groaned for your death, just as if you died a well-known gladiator in the sad sand and because, amid so many beasts from Scythia, Libya, the shore of the Rhine, and the Egyptian people, the loss of just one lion touched the face of great Caesar.

Stat. Silv. 2.5.1-30.

Newlands comments that “the tone of the 2.5 is thus hard to gauge; partly an epicising jeu d’espirit, it also conveys sympathy for the lion through its consistent anthropomorphism.”24

Newlands is right to point out that Statius portrays the lion as sympathetic while humorous, but yet another integral component of the poem writ large is the pervasive irony. Statius begins in a grand fashion with an ascending tricolon of rhetorical questions and the increasing importance of the questions is mirrored in the increase in number of lines the questions occupy, increasing from one to three. Consequently, the tricolon dictates the poem’s lofty register and conditions the reader to expect a grand narrative.

Yet the addressee of the tricolon is simply a lion. While elsewhere in Greco-Roman literature the lion is the epitome of fierceness and worthy of epic, this lion is tamed. Statius plays on the lion’s fierceness, or, more precisely, lack thereof, through punning on monstrata, which recalls monstrum, elsewhere attested to denote a lion25 and ancient etymologies

24 Newlands (2011), 193. 25 E.g., Mart. Ep. 4.57.5 or 5.65.9.

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frequently connected monstrum and monstrare.26 By punning on monstrum, Statius highlights the ferocity that the lion is not a monstrum anymore, but simply an object to behold, monstrare. Moreover, Statius gives the impression that the lion’s tameness came about through resignation on the lion’s part, not through concerted human effort to tame him. The lion became accustomed, suetus, to coming and going from his cage, which Statius refers to as domus, giving the impression of comfort not usually available to a wild animal.

Consequently, the lion comes across as lazy, too reliant on human beings and luxurious trappings to be fierce.

Statius characterizes the lion with heavy irony. He declares that the lion has forgotten, dediscere, the ways of nature. The word translated literally is “unlearned,” which stands in pointed contrast to Statius’ address to the lion mere lines later as a uastator docte, “a learned slaughterer.” The irony only increases when Statius valorizes the lion’s uirtus, a word whose etymology was widely believed to derive from the word uir.27 By celebrating the lion’s

“manliness,” Statius creates a humorous contradiction in terms; a lion’s “manliness” must be qualitatively different from a human’s, and the odd use of the term draws attention to this paradox.

Yet superimposed onto this light-hearted depiction of the lion is a highly epic portrait.

Statius employs two similes in quick succession, one of which is an extended Homeric simile, to describe the lion’s valor in its final moments, comparing him first to a wounded miles who uses the last ounce of his strength to fight the enemy and then a well-known, and consequently successful, gladiator who has at last fought his last battle. Both strike an epic register with their dignified diction (alti, uulneris, moriens, honore, caderes, tristi).

Nevertheless, as Newlands points out, it is striking that “the lion is compared to a wounded

26 Cic. Nat. D. 2.7, Div. 1.93, Fest. 138, and Isid. 1.459. 27 Varro Ling. 5.73, Cic. Tusc. 2.43, Lact. Opif. 12.16, and Isid. Orig. 18.22.

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soldier rather than vice versa.”28 The lion recalls not just any epic hero, but precisely Statius’ own Polynices because he wears a lion skin with which he is closely identified. In fact, when

Adrastus sees the lion skin, he rejoices because he has realized that the prophecy commanding him to wed his daughter to a lion and a boar are metaphorical, not literal (Stat.

Theb. 1.483-487). Here, Statius uses a simile to humorously reenact Adrastus’ recognition.

This time, the lion is simply a lion, even if it is acting with such courage that befits an epic hero.

Furthermore, Anthony Augoustakis has convincingly argued that Statius intertextually twice links the lion with the Thebaid’s Eteocles. Augoustakis points to Eteocles’ reaction to his dream of Laius in Thebaid 2, arguing that animamque hostemque requirit recalls horret auum fratremque requirit (“he shudders at his grandfather and seeks his brother,” Stat. Theb.

2.127). The intertext hinges on the shared vocabulary in requirit as well as the parallel syntax in the two accusatives separated by the enclitic -que. Moreover, Eteocles in the next few lines is compared to a tiger (Stat. Theb. 2. 128-133), thus additionally connecting the passages on a thematic level. The second intertext is heavily thematic: “even while dying, the animal is willing to strike back and kill its enemy, an act that recalls Eteocles’ last desperate act in the

Thebaid (11.552-57) ... the lion strives to raise himself a media morte (18) and fight back, just as Eteocles does before the surreptitious murder of Polynices. After pretending to have fallen down and given up, in iam media morte, Eteocles revives.”29 There is no overlap in vocabulary, but the thematic overlap is sufficient. Statius ostentatiously frames the tamed lion as an epic hero — his own epic heroes from his Thebaid.

Newlands is right to acknowledge that the poem’s tones clash with each other, but, as we have seen, even her terms do not capture the full range of tones that Statius is evoking in

28 Newlands (2011), 199. 29 Augoustakis (2007), 217.

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the poem. The “epicising jeu d’espirit” is solemnizing and serious even as the “sympathy … through its consistent anthropomorphism” is humorous. The poem’s varied tones resist a straightforward interpretation; the lion is heroic, but is he bathetic in his heroism, or is his glorification meant to be taken seriously? It is difficult to tell for certain.

This poem’s tone is of particular interest because it is the only one in Silvae 2 that

Statius mentions is directly recited in front of Domitian: eandem exigebat stili facilitatem leo mansuetus, quem in amphitheatro prostratum frigidum erat sacratissimo Imperatori, ni statim traderem (“The tamed lion [Silvae 2.5] demanded the same malleability of style, which, if I had not presented it immediately to our most sacred Emperor as the lion lay in the amphitheater, would have fallen flat,” Silv. 2.pr.17-19). Its semi-humorous tone, then, can be read as a Statian strategy for speaking to power and can even be detected in Statius’ wordplay in frigidum, here meant to convey the poems’ falling flat as well as punning on the lion’s death. While it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which Statius would offend Domitian or any other high ranking political figure in a poem about a lion, it nonetheless evidences a distinct strategy Statius employs to hedge his bets; it is better, Statius seems to think, to encourage diverse — humorous and simultaneously serious — interpretations rather than rely on one that might displease the emperor or just fail.

2: A Diachronic Perspective: The Legacy of Genre and Humor Beyond Statius

This dissertation has attempted to illustrate the role of humor in the dynamics of the epic tradition. I have argued that humor constitutes a salient aspect of Statius’ Thebaid, Achilleid, and Silvae. More broadly, humor is an underappreciated aspect of Silver Latin Epic writ large. Certain ancient critics, such as Aristotle and other proponents of essentialized epic, which include the likes of Horace, might have us think that Statius’ injection of humor into

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the epic tradition is anomalous. Epic, after all, is serious business, with no room for humor or levity. This, however, is only part of the story.

In the Introduction, I argued that Statius makes a particularly good case-study for studying humor in Latin epic because of special circumstances such as the preservation and diverse array of his works, extant reflections on his style in his own voice, and the availability of many of his major epic influences. Yet, while I hope I have shown that Statius certainly is a good case-study, he is by no means the only poet writing in the early empire whose poetry is infused with humor. Ovid’s Metamorphoses has attracted a great deal of critical attention for its humor, but Lucan’s De Bello Ciuili and Senecan tragedy also have their own serio- comic stories to tell. This dissertation could have had extensive, independent chapters on any or each of these three writers, and any broader consideration of humor in the Latin literary tradition certainly must reckon with them head on.

What accounts for the relative obscurity of humor in epic studies outside of the

Metamorphoses is not a lack of its presence in Silver Latin Epic or sophisticated literary analysis to detect it, but, instead, a scholarly barrier of our own creation: the persistent

Vergiliocentrism of Roman literary studies. This is, of course, partially for good reason;

Vergil’s Aeneid was the mastertext of Latin literature and, accordingly, every poet was deeply familiar with the poem. Nevertheless, there remains an expectation, sometimes implicit, but sometimes not, that all epic poetry aspires to Vergil’s status — and, in aspiring, becomes like Vergil. Many of the most influential of these studies since the 1980s operate on the precepts of Bloomian criticism — one need look no further than Philip Hardie’s Epic

Successors of Virgil — and many have yielded great insight into the dynamics of the Latin epic tradition. Privileging a Bloomian model with Vergil as mastertext, however, has also put blinders on literary critics because it obscures facets of Latin literature that Vergil does not prioritize. The Aeneid does have humorous moments: Aeneas' sexually charged interaction

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with Venus, whose disguise is redolent of the virginal Diana, in Book 1 and Nisus' fall during the footrace in Book 5 readily suggest themselves. While these moments are crucial for the poem's success, they pose no hermeneutic puzzles; they are not aesthetic challenges, but light relief. By investigating an aspect of epic such as humor that Vergil largely avoids in his

Aeneid, we can connect the strands of the epic tradition in new and exciting ways.

It is now, perhaps, passé to mention that Statius was a very popular literary figure in the Renaissance and that his obscurity is a relatively modern phenomenon. The best-known manifestation of his popularity is, of course, Statius’ presence as Dante’s guide in the

Purgatorio. Statius’ popularity through the Renaissance and onward is more important than it appears on the surface, particularly with respect to humor. Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando

Furioso, Luigi Pulci’s Morgante, and Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata in particular are well-known for their breaking down of the barrier between romance and epic. Yet, as we have seen from the widespread use of humor in the Thebaid and Achilleid, boundary between the two genres may not be as firm as we once suspected it was. Even in a poem as late and as

Vergilian as John Milton’s Paradise Lost, we see the humorous and the serious vying for attention, particularly in the War in Heaven in Book 3. A conclusion is, of course, not the place to make a full scholarly case for the impact of Statius’ humor on these later writers — any investigation would certainly need to account for Ovid, Lucan, and Seneca at the very least — but the general point is that by centering an aspect of epic that seems out of step with

Vergilian, or even epic, practice, we can produce a different literary history of epic, one that is more capacious, robust, and reaches well beyond the traditional remit of Classical literature.

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