Mangled Epic Statius Thebaid Historical context 68CE Nero hounded out of power and driven to suicide 6869 year of the four emperors Galba Otho Vitellius Vespasian ID: 544323
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Slide1
Politics and Poetics
Mangled Epic: Statius’
ThebaidSlide2
Historical context
68CE
: Nero hounded out of power and driven to suicide
68-69
: ‘year of the four emperors’ – Galba,
Otho
,
Vitellius
, Vespasian
69-79
: Vespasian rules as emperor
79-81
: Vespasian’s son Titus is emperor (dies unexpectedly)
81-96
: Domitian, Titus’ younger brother, rules as emperor
96
: Domitian assassinated, followed by
damnatio
memoriae
. Slide3
Rome: a Flavian
citySlide4
‘The
Thebaid
is one of the profoundest works of Latin literature and one of the most successfully executed’
(
Ahl
1982, 938)Slide5
‘The
Thebaid
is not a Roman epic, it has no national or patriotic motive
’ (
Vessey
, 1973)
‘
Statius in the
Thebaid
creates a mythic cosmos that repeatedly reflects his contemporary
Rome’
(McGuire, 1997) Slide6
The politics of the Thebaid
POSITIVE /PRO-DOMITIANIC
NEGATIVE /SUBVERSIVE
OPTIMISTIC
PESSIMISTIC
------------
-POLYPHONY
-CONTRADICTION
-INTERTEXTUALITY IN 3 DIMENSIONS
-
----------Slide7
Themes in criticism of
Thebaid
Power (
Dominik
)
Pietas (
Kytzler
)
Anti-pietas (
P
ollman
)
Fury (
Hershkowitz,Franchet
d’Espèrey
)
The anger of Jupiter (
Rieks
)
Roman civil war
(
Ahl
)
Allegory (Feeney)
Dynastic succession (
Hardie
)
Literature as political escapism (
Fuhrmann
, Williams,
Pollman
)Slide8
Doublespeak
?
S.Bartsch
, 1992,
Actors in the Audience.Slide9
The new, 12-book
Aen
Thebaid
?
Virgil’s structure/form, yet no teleology, no movement
ad mea
tempora
?
The
Thebaid
, like Lucan’s
BC
, is obsessed with DELAY and LIMITSlide10
The politics of form
Virgil’s 12-book structure, but…
Horror conveyed in elegant, fluid Latin (contrast with Lucan)
Style + thematic emphasis on LIMIT = political conservatism?
Does the re-
monumentalisation
of the epic tradition offer a
literary
optimism in contrast to notes of
political
pessimism?Slide11
Literary
optimism-
political
pessimism
?
Oedipus against Eteocles &
Polynices
:
patrilinearity
poisoned.
Statius pays homage to Virgil but does not aim to rival the
Aeneid
(
Theb
.12.816-17):
proper father-son relationships revived? Slide12
The final duel: both dieSlide13
Political ‘issues’ in the
Thebaid
Civil war (
nb
recent civil war of 69)
Succession, the problem of…
Brotherly rivalry (see Suetonius 2.3 on Domitian and Titus)