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1. Statius and the Muses The pose of an oral poet comes naturally in the context of epic: it is one of the conventions of the genre, in much the same way that the epigram is closely associated with writing. A poet can start an epic with cano or canam without ever having "sung" the poem. Callimachus in the prologue to the Aitia draws attention to the fiction of the singing posture when Apollo urges the poet to sing, 'aoide' (Aitia 1.21-4), even though the poet holds writing tablets on his knees. One can even "sing" to the parchment: Horace's imaginary critic and interlocutor Damasippus complains that he rarely calls for the parchment and does not sing anything worth talking about (Sat. 2.3.4). So the fictive oral pose frequently serves as a trope for the process of composition itself. The poet might choose to modify the traditional invocation to the Muses and include the emperor among the sources of his inspiration; this is a regular panegyrical feature in the Hellenistic period as well as in imperial Rome. Callimachus refers to Arsinoe as the tenth Muse he encounters on Helicon; Lucan invokes Nero as his only source of inspiration, rejecting Apollo and Bacchus (1. 63-66). Likewise, Valerius Flaccus invokes both Apollo and Vespasian as his sources of inspiration (1.7ff.). For Statius, of course, there was an actual performative context - or contexts: the narrow circle of his friends and fans (5.3.233ff; ,4.7.25-8), the recitation hall, the poetry contest at festivals. He boasts of his performances before senators (Silv. 5.3.215; 5.2.161ff.), of his victories at the Alban games (3.5.28-33; 4.2.65, 4.5.22; 5.3.227), of his participation at the Augustalia in Naples (2.2.6), of the popularity of his epic among the youth of Italy (Theb. 12.815), of the emperor's familiarity with his Thebaid (Theb. 12. 814). Likewise, Statius suffers deeply because of his failure to win a prize at the Capitoline games, founded by Domitian (Silv. 3.5.31-3). This self-image as a poet-performer inevitably stands in stark contrast to Juvenal's satirical representation of Statius' recitals:
Precisely because of his proclaimed distaste for epic recitals - in Sat. 3.9 his fictional character Umbricius decides to leave Rome, among other reasons, in order to escape from this social nuisance - Juvenal is our most credible witness for the popularity of Statius as a live performer. To match this performative context, Statius creates a very lively performative situation in the opening lines of his Thebaid. He starts abruptly stating the theme of the epic (fraternas acies) as Virgil had done (arma virumque). He then announces that the poem is a result of a flash of inspiration. The verb incidit grounds the audience much more forcefully into the present than the timeless cano (Aen. 1.1) or canimus (Luc. 1.2). Incidit has also an impersonal quality, the quality of self-effacement. The phraseology (Pierius menti calor incidit, 1.3) conveys not just the accidental nature of the divine inspiration, as Ahl had pointed out, but also the lack of control over it. Unlike Homer's poetic persona, which invokes the Muse to sing or to help with the song, Statius' persona declares itself a recipient of inspiration and, it seems, an unwilling recipient at that. The choice of language suggests that he is not the beneficiary of the Muses, as in the case of Hesiod (Th. 31-2), but rather, that he is a servant who takes and obeys their orders (unde iubetis ire deae? Theb. 1.3). Later in the proem the verb urget and the gerundive canendus (1.43-5) emphasize the idea of compulsion and the attitude of unwillingness. So, improvisation is linked to the lack of poetic control and to a subjection to the power of the Muses. In Statius' proem the emperor does not share with the Muse the role of an inspiring agent for the composition of the epic. The implication is, that the poet is not writing at the emperor's bidding, but as a helpless recipient of divine inspiration. The poet from the start of the Thebaid is a servant only to the Muses and, unlike Lucan and Valerius, relies only on their power. The pose of the inspired bard at the opening of the Thebaid is even more significant, if it is contrasted to the persona of the emperor's humble servant at the opening of the Achilleid (da veniam ac trepidum patere hoc sudare parumper/ pulvere, Ach. I.17-8). Unlike the poem that he wrote late in his life and later in the reign of Domitian, in the Thebaid Statius appropriates the authority and dignity of the traditional bardic figure. The atmosphere of inspired, improvised performance is further strengthened by the choice of the word calor which links the beginning of the Thebaid to the opening of the Silvae. From the Silvae we know the pride which the poet took in his skill at producing poems in the heat of the moment: libellos, qui mihi subito calore et quadam festinandi voluptate fluxerunt (Praef. 3). The association of calor with improvisation and performance is a natural assumption for Quintilian:
In Pliny calor describes the difference between a speech delivered from memory and a speech recited, i.e. read from a text: actiones quae recitantur, impetum omnemque calorem ac prope nomen suum perdere (Ep. 2.19.2). Therefore, the use of calor in the beginning lines of the Thebaid achieves an association with live performance from memory and the choice of language is designed to convey a notion of spontaneity, even if in Statius' case it is pseudo-spontaneity. The extempore virtuoso performance was certainly valued and widespread in Statius' life-time, so much so that most references to individual poetic display in the first and second centuries CE contain suggestions of virtuoso performances. In fact, Statius considered himself master of improvised epideixis as well. It was immaterial that the so-called "extempore" productions might have been carefully prepared ahead of time; the important thing was to impart an impression of improvisation and spontaneity. The poet wanted to add this popular and prestigious feature even to his Thebaid, which was, admittedly, multa cruciata lima (Silv. 4.7.25-28) and could be associated with a book that was unrolled to be read (cf. evolvere, 1.2). To enhance the impression of spontaneity, Statius introduces his relationship with the Muses in a dialogic way and acts out this dialogue through a series of rhetorical questions: unde iubetis /ire deae? gentisne canam primordia dirae? (1.4); quo carmine muris/ iusserit Amphion montes Tyrios accedere montes, / unde graves irae cognata in moenia Baccho, quod Saevae Iunonis opus, cui sumpserit arcus/ infelix Athamas, cur non expaverit ingens/ Ionium socio casura Palaemone mater (1.9-14); quem prius heroum Clio dabis? (1.41), etc. We find a similar series of rhapsodic questions in lines 207-15 of the Hymn to Delian Apollo, the oldest of the Homeric Hymns. Rhapsodic hymns are primarily encomiastic and always presuppose the presence of an audience in a public performance setting. By choosing a form similar to such a hymn, Statius appropriates these performative connotations for his epic. The same types of aporetic rhapsodic questions are greatly favored by Callimachus as well: this is how he starts his Hymn to Delos, and Aitia 1 and 2 are composed as a continuous dialogue between the poet and the Muses. The simulated dialogue creates the illusion of the Muse's presence for the performing poet, suggesting that the poem is in the making before the very ears of the audience. The effect of immediacy is achieved with a technique that has migrated from the oral rhapsodic culture into text-oriented literature. For the reader, the author is a ghost, a fictional construct; for the poet performing in person, there is the problem of his own physical presence which he must somehow erase from the minds of the audience for the performance to be successful. Hence he contrives various devices to force the audience to focus on the content rather than the fact of performance, to mesmerize it with the virtual reality of his unfolding composition. To achieve this, he does not share the enjoyment of the story with the audience. Instead, he pretends to be forced into composing and performing under the divine power of the Muses, acting out a dialogue with the goddesses and also creating associations with the poetry of the moment. In addition, he chooses self-effacing language so as to create an impression that the story unfolds without his agency. The self-effacement through language is part of the stock-in trade of the epic genre, aimed at achieving so-called epic "objectivity," even though this is an illusory objectivity, as DeJong has demonstrated. This device was forcefully deployed by Vergil; Statius seems to turn back the clock somewhat in making use of a similarly impersonal epic voice. Statius prefers to create an illusion of distance from the narrative by avoiding the first person singular. By contrast, Horace juggles social deference with self-assertiveness by proudly singing of his immortality (C. 2.20, 3.30, 4.8.25ff.), Ovid also asserts his presence in his poetry quite forcefully and asks the audience to think of Ovid himself as narrator. Lucan is proud of the power of his poetry to confer immortality and juxtposes himself with the object of his song (venturi me teque legent, 9.981); he also liberally imposes his personality on the audience through the frequent use of the first person singular. Statius' self-effacement might be a deceptive facade, but the poet is so methodical in pursuing it that it must have served his purposes well. In contrast to Vergil's cano (Aen. 1.1) or the emphatic repetition of dicam ... dicam (dicam horrida bella, / dicam acies actosque animis in funera reges..../ maius opus moveo, 7.41-4) in the transition to the second half of the Aeneid, in contrast to Lucan's canimus (1.2), Statius does not announce the object of his song in the first person singular in the proem. He encloses his canam (1.4) in a question, one in a series of aporetic apostrophes addressed to the Muses. The poet conspicuously avoids a strong first-person presence by giving preference to conditional, interrogative and negative statements where his poetic program is concerned: si ... expediam penitusque sequar (1.9); praeteriisse sinam (1.16) gentisne canam primordia dirae? (1.4) or non mihi iam solito vatum de more canendum (10.829); non ego, centena si quis mea pectora laxet /voce deus, tot busta simul vulgique ducumque,/ tot pariter gemitus dignis conatibus aequem (12.797-9). The dialogue with the Muses goes on as the narrative progresses (quem prius, heroum, Clio, dabis? 1.41). He asks the Muses to give him an eye-witness account of the Aeonian battles (7.627), requests them to allow him to know how Hippomedon perished (9.316) and deliberates with them on the origins of Capaneus' madness: mecum omnes audete, deae! sive ille profunda missus nocte furor, Capaneaque signa secutae.... seu.... seu... (10.831-36). Later the poet appeals to the higher authority of Apollo in order to start describing the fratricidal war: alias mihi suggere vires,/ Calliope, maiorque chelyn mihi tendat Apollo (8.373-4). The unwilling submission to Pierian furor and the constant reminders of the poet's communication with the divine carries the implication that the poet should not be directly identified with his poetry. The impersonal mask is necessary for the poet who performs in person. 2. The triple priamel format and the praise to the emperorStatius seeks to strengthen the performance associations of his opening by structuring the proem as a priamel. The rhapsodic questions addressed to the Muses at 1.4-14 have an additional function as a foil to the statement of the theme (limes mihi carminis esto / Oedipodae confusa domus, 1.16) and thus form part of a priamel, the first in a series of three (4-17; 17-40; 41-45) which make up the entire proem. [1] Each consists of a foil-part and a statement of theme. The first priamel is a typical one even though its foil-component functions at the same time as an address to the Muses. Perhaps it is due to this double function that W. H. Race has not referred to it in his comprehensive compendium of priamels from Homer to Boethius. A similar praeteritio has been called a priamel by R. Janko. Priamels are frequently used as introductions, a function for which they are especially suitable, but they are not attested in the introduction of any extant epic. So the first priamel, through the choice of a form unusual for epic proper, associates the Thebaid with lyric, with the kind of poetry that Pindar, the undisputed master of the priamel incorporated in his odes that were meant for public performance. Pindar occupies a special place in Statius' literary world which admits three main types of poetry, i.e. Pindaric (praise), heroic, and satire (Silv. 1.3.100). He feels a special closeness to Pindar because he is writing a poem about his Thebes: si tuae cantu Latio sacravi, / Pindare, Thebas (4.7.7-8). Later I shall elaborate on the paradox that Statius uses the priamel form, so often used in praise poetry to define his epic endeavor as non-panegyrical. The second priamel starts with quando Itala nondum /signa nec Arctoos ausim spirare triumphos etc. (1.17), i.e. with a praise to the emperor embedded in a recusatio to write a panegyrical epic. Statius rejects praise through a form typical of praise poetry. At the same time, the second priamel with the praise and with the poet's self-deprecation is detachable, its position is problematic both structurally and textually. From the point of view of content, the praise is part of the recusatio to write praise poetry, encomiastic epic, i.e. the praise is there to be rejected. It ends with an announcement of the theme of the epic for a second time: tempus erit, cum Pierio tua fortior oestro / facta canam, nunc tendo chelyn satis arma referre / Aeonia (1.32-3), a quite unusual redundancy. From the point of view of textual strategy, its position is also ambivalent. Line 33, where the praise ends, has confounded textual critics with semantic and syntactical difficulties for centuries: the combination of tendo satis with the infinitive referre is highly unusual, and many editors put a diacritical mark after chelyn in order to separate tendo from referre. The most recent edition by D. E. Hill prints the line with a diacritical mark before satis:
Earlier critics have tried to resolve the difficulty in different ways:
If one goes back to line 17, however, where the praise starts, and if one joins up the ill-fitting satis arma referre with the first half of line 17, the result is a syntactically and semantically smoother line:
Here satis continues the line of thought introduced by limes. There exists a long-standing philological debate between scholars like B. Kytzler, who insist that the praise was inserted into the proem for the purpose of a recital in the presence of the emperor, and scholars like W. Schetter, who try to dismiss the detachable nature of the praise. The latter school admits the grammatical plausibility of B. Kytzler's reconstruction of the proem, but raises a logical objection, i.e. that fortior oestro in the previous line (32) ties in with satis and that, if 17-33 are taken out, satis remains hanging in the air:
But the dependence of satis on fortior oestro represents philological hairsplitting, because in the version omitting the praise satis can be logically explained as linked to limes, i.e. as an effort to specify the aspect of Oedipus' turbulent household to which the poet is going to devote his song (arma Aeonia). There is indeed some redundancy in the lines (with both satis and limes), but this redundancy does not speak against the logical cohesion of the version that cuts out the praise to the emperor. Thus, the two conflicting views need not be mutually exclusive. Instead, they can be viewed as pointing toward a remarkable feature of Statius' proem, namely, that the praise of the emperor is detachable. The text reads perfectly well without it, and despite a slight syntactical difficulty, can be read smoothly with it as well. Its inclusion or omission could be determined on the spur of the moment, depending on the composition of the audience. The moment and the expectations of the specific audience on a particular occasion had to be taken into consideration by the recitator, as indicated by Pliny (Ep. 8.21.4) according to whom it was common to leave out passages at the discretion of the recitator at the time of recitation. Pliny himself takes pride in not doing this despite others who are proud of their ability to skip passages skillfully. The omission or inclusion of the praise is an important component of the poet's politics of entertainment and exemplifies the clever negotiation of poetic authority and political power in a highly controlled literary environment. This strategy allows Statius to give the emperor his due according to the standard requirements for epic proems at the time (cf. Lucan's reference to Nero in the Bellum Civile, Valerius Flaccus' praise of Domitian in the Argonautica), and at the same time to avoid reference to a highly unpopular emperor in the proem of a work with which he strives to attain glory and fame for eternity (meriti post me ... honores, 12.819). In effect, the detachable nature of the praise amounts to a subtle damnatio memoriae. The deliberate tension between form and content, with the skillful deployment of an encomiastic facade which hides a sophisticated mechanism for the frustration of the expectations of praise, continues beyond the second priamel to a point where the Muses are subjected to a second round of rhapsodic questions. The Pindaric connection here is clearly evident:
The lines closely echo the beginning of Horace, C. 1.12:
which in turn evokes the opening of Pindar, Olympian 2. Statius imitates the elevated tone of the Horatian introduction without investing it with solemn heroic characterizations:
The negative adjectives clearly frustrate the expectation of praise. By exhibiting this tension between form and content, the ending lines fit perfectly into the large scheme of the proem. In addition, their Pindaric ring represents a learned transition to the narrative. From the point of view of form, the proem constitutes a closed unit with no transition to the narrative part. There is no connection between the end of the proem and the beginning of the action. The appearance of Oedipus on the imaginary stage is abrupt and has a parallel to the appearance of the actor on the stage, which signal the beginning of the performance. The action of the epic starts with the curse of Oedipus (lines 46-87) with no logical connection to the proem. By contrast, in Vergil's Aeneid, Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso (1.8), functions as a smooth transition to the story beginning with Juno's wrath and deeds. The detachable and independent nature of introductions and proemia seems to have become a routine feature of oral performances, for Pliny complains that impolite listeners often wait outside the recitation hall arranging for someone to notify them when the performer has finished the preface (Ep. 1.13.2). Dialogue with the epic traditionProems always contain statements about the position of the work within literary production. As we saw, Statius adopts multiple verbal techinques to sustain an illusion of a performative context. He also goes to great lengths to create a persona of a performing bard before a live audience. Nunc tendo chelyn in line 33 invites the reader to imagine the poet as a singer who pitches his lyre in preparation to start his song. On the death of Statius' father his inspiration ceases and the Muses fall silent (nil dulce sonantes / nec digitis nec voce deae, Silv. 5.3.14-5). He associates his self-image with that of the ancient bards (priscorum exordia vatum 5.3.24), presumably with Homer. However, by writing a Thebaid, Statius labors in the shadow of Antimachus' Thebaid. It is impossible to ascertain with certainty whether he had read the Thebaid of the fourth-century BCE poet, but in either case he would have been familiar with the criticisms of his lack of unity, verbosity and redundant style. Therefore, Statius is very careful to set out from the start the boundaries of his epic. The emphasis, for example, on limes (1.16), is significant as a reassurance of focused composition. Statius will avoid the mistakes of his ill-famed predecessor Antimachus by putting a limes on his narrative, i.e. by avoiding unnecessary detail. Live audiences should not be kept in suspense as to the content of a composition as long as epic (Arist. Rhet. 1459b), especially since works intended for piecemeal recitation should help the audience situate the recited excerpt in the context of the whole work. The proem is expected to provide a summary and Statius fulfills this expectation in a more elaborate way than his predecessors. In fact, as we have already discussed, his proem is an entirely separate unit that does not provide a transition to the beginning of the narrative and therefore can be used to preface a recital based on any selection of the work. The verses 11.34-40 encapsulate the events in books 11 and 12, while 7.41-45 encapsulate the events in books 7-10. This design nicely accommodates the needs of a live performance. Perhaps it also counters existing criticisms of Antimachus' proem which blame the poet for not even mentioning the Argives in the proem of his Thebaid. Statius, by contrast, mentions only heroes on the side of the Arigves (Tydeus, Amphiareus, Hippomedon, Capaneus) in the order in which they appear in the narrative. At the same time, Statius carefully excludes those themes that had previously been tackled in Ovid's well-known version of the Theban story in Metamorphoses 3 and 4. His song with its well-defined limes will not include the entire story, but only the domus of Oedipus. Ovid's carmen perpetuum (Met. 1.4) stands in contrast to Statius' song with imposed limes. In a praeteritio at 1.4-14, Statius encapsulates the episodes covered by the Ovidian account and promises not to repeat them in his own version. In this way, the proem assumes an audience that is familiar with Ovid's Theban story. In choosing to write on Thebes Statius continues an already existing tradition in civil-war discourse. Ovid and Lucan had exploited the connection between Thebes and Rome earlier. Ovid had worked Roman concerns into the Theban saga by associating Thebe's violent beginnings with the theme of civil war in the description of the sowing of the dragon's teeth:
Similarly, Lucan includes the Theban fratricidal war in an extended simile that compares the battle of Pharsalus to that of the warriors sprung from the seeds sown by Cadmus:
One of the omens foreshadowing the civil war between Caesar and Pompey (the splitting of the flame marking the end of the Latin festival) reminds Lucan of Eteocles' and Polynices' funeral pyre: scinditur in partes geminoque cacumine surgit / Thebanos imitata rogos (1.551-2). While exploiting the established connection between Thebes and Rome, Statius also develops an innovative voice in making reges the target of his rhetoric rather than cives. Nevertheless, he keeps the theme of the citizens' guilt. The doctrine of guilt is presented to us in the very first lines of the epic (sontes Thebas, 1.2). The curse of civil strife originating from the first fratricide coupled with a notion of guilt (scelus), is prominent in Horace (acerba fata Romanos agunt/ scelusque fraternae necis, Ep. 8.17-8), for whom scelus is synonymous with civil strife. The same notion appears in the Georgics (quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas, 1.505) as well. Lucan in the Bellum Civile evokes those few lines in the Georgics that hint at the horror of fratricidal war. He is explicit in linking Rome's civil war to the first fratricide (fraterno primi maduerunt sanguine muri, 1.95), emphasizing the idea of hereditary guilt. Statius begins his epic with Thebes' foundation, the sowing of the dragon's teeth. This is an opportunity to establish a link with Vergil and Lucan, his two major epic predecessors in the poetic representation of civil war:
The connection with Lucan's cognatas acies (1.4) has already been mentioned. Cadmus' sea journey in search of his sister Europa (1.6) corresponds to Aeneas' journey over sea; Juno's wrath, saevae Iunonis opus, 1.12 -- to saevae Iunonis ob iram (Aen. I.4). Statius was a master of double imitation, as well as a master of exploiting the full semantic range of words which had a meaningful place in the poetic vocabulary of his predecessors, e.g. the verb condo which here evokes the Vergilian dum conderet urbem (Aen. 1.5). The peculiarity of Vergil's use of condere is that he had applied the verb to violent acts of war for the first time. He conspicuously places condo at the beginning and end of the Aeneid (dum conderet urbem, 1.5; ferrum adverso sub pectore condit, 12.950) to show the cultural progenitor of Rome in a violent act that concludes a civil conflict and leads to the city's foundation. Statius uses the verb in a similar fashion, conflating the ideas of foundation and destruction. Statius talks about "founding battles" and the association with Vergil's proem (multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, Aen. 1.5) is easy to make. The metaphor exploits all the ambiguity with which Vergil had loaded condere. The horror of all future fratricidal wars accompanies the foundation as conveyed through the adjectives trepidus .... infandis (Theb. 1.7-8). The aim of Statius' epic endeavor is not the idealization of the mythical past, but its deheroization, the demonstration that even through a Greek myth the poet can speak to a Roman audience, can join a Roman literary discourse and can manipulate the tradition in accordance with an artistic vision that will prove influential in the Middle Ages. The recusatio The recusatio incorporated into the praise to the emperor deserves a separate discussion because it defies traditional recusationes. It also looks forward to the "outdoing" topos, so well attested in Renaissance literature. Its importance is heightened by the fact that it invites reconsideration of what should be perceived as the most important aspect of a recusatio. Further, it exemplifies a feature of Flavian encomiastic rhetoric: the depreciation of the past in favor of the present. Statius uses the traditional recusatio in a very surprising way: not to justify his refusal to write epic and encomiastic poetry in favor of love poetry, but to justify his refusal to write a panegyric epic on the exploits of the emperor in favor of mythological epic. The typical recusatio contrasts epic and love or bucolic poetry, not one type of epic and another. The first poet to use a recusatio was Bion of Smyrna in proclaiming his inability to undertake encomiastic or mythological epos because only Eros flows freely from his mouth. The topos became widespread amongst Augustan poets, most famously in Vergil's sixth Eclogue where he declines to write a panegyric for Varo because the Muses forbade him to write on reges and proelia and ordered him to produce refined poetry (deductum carmen). This is how Vergil paraphrases the "deeds of kings and heroes" in Callimachus' Aetia prologue. Vergil changes the deeds of kings and heroes to kings and battles. I shall not go into the debate whether with kings and heroes Callimachus represents a reference to epic or not. I am interested in the fact that Vergil places an emphasis on battles. Battles figure prominently also in Statius' paraphrase of the famous Callimachean Aitia-prologue:
The passage comes from a scene in the Teichoskopia where the old paidagogos of Antigone points out to her the warriors and their ancestries. The old man in this typically epic scene embodies the spirit of epic with its main mission, the heroization and glorification of warriors. In his naive and ignorant infatuation with war's glamour the old man mixes Callimachean (deducunt) and non-Callimachean (perpetuo carmine) song in the choir that should perpetuate the warriors' fame, perhaps a deliberate allusion to Ovid who did the same (ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen, Met. 1.3-4). I argue that the Homeric old man embodies a vision of epic that is unlike that of Statius. Vergil contrasts his bucolic deductum carmen not with epic in general, but with encomiastic poetry (epic or shorter hexameter panegyric). And, as Clausen notes, in order to write on reges and proelia or on Varro's military exploits, "the poet had to celebrate war; he had to accept war as heroic. Vergil could not, at least not then; and his refusal to write about it -- tristia condere bella -- was not merely esthetic, it was also moral." Statius writes precisely on reges and proelia, i.e. fraternas acies, agricolam condentem proelia sulcis. He sees the epic poet's craft as the ability to tell the stories of heroes, describe well battles and provide believable settings (pandere facta heroum bellique modos positusque locorum, 5.3.235-6). In the recusatio he places the divide not between epic and light poetry, but between encomiastic epic which glorifies war and epic which does not. Now, epic that does not glorify war and does not profess to glorify it falls into a difficult category. Elegy and bucolic are traditionally conceived as poetry that defies martial values. But nevertheless, in the recusatio, Statius places his mythological epic in a place where one would expect bucolic or love poetry. I think that this is a tendentious innovation. Perhaps he was unaware of the divide between epic on one hand, and elegy and bucolic, on the other, a divide that scholarship has constructed in the past century. Perhaps he was inventing a new type of recusatio despite the contradictions inherent in contrasting one type of epic with another. In any case, the central issue seems to be that in his proem the divide is between epic, which glorifies war and epic, which does not. Epic that does not glorify war and the heroic past is a surprising outcome of the recusatio, but the rest of the proem and the entire epic accommodate this programmatic distinction well. The recusatio, unusual as it might be due to the fact that it contrasts epic with epic, falls neatly into the category of topoi of outdoing. As in the case of Varro, to whom Vergil pays a compliment in the form of a recusatio, Statius pays a compliment to Domitian by claiming that his deeds require a higher style and a stronger inspiration than the more modest song for which he has presently pitched his lyre (tua fortior oestro / facta canam: nunc tendo chelyn satis ..., 1.32). The use of nunc is topical. The poet now offers a second-rate work while promising a more ambitious oevre for later:
The Georgics is also a poem, written "meanwhile", in the short interval (mox tamen ardentis accingar dicere pugnas / Caesaris, G. 3.56) before he girds up to write the praises of Caesar. So, a didactic poem can also fill an interlude and, as I shall argue later, the Thebaid fits most precisely into the category of a didactic poem. The recusatio is also strange because fortior here refers to panegyrical epic while the present composition lacks fortitude. Poetic vigor is usually associated with epic. That the description of battles of any kind requires poetic vigor is a topos, e.g. Vergil starts the Iliadic part of the Aeneid with it: maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo, / maius opus moveo, 7.43-4). Statius in the Silvae (2.7.48-53) compliments Lucan precisely for unveiling a bolder song (carmen fortior exeris togatum). Statius associates vigor with panegyrical epic and not with his mythological epic. Satis at l.33 also implies the deficiency of Statius' Muse: for the present capacity of his inspiration the Theban fratricidal war is enough. To claim that the poet has sufficient inspiration only for an epic about a mythological fratricidal conflict is a strange adaptation of earlier recusationes introducing lighter poetry. It amounts to a self-deprecatory statement representing an abdication from poetic authority before the more worthwhile subject of the emperor's praise. What is involved here is simply another topos, in this case the topos of outdoing which can be applied to any pair of two comparanda: Statius sets Lucan above Ennius, Lucretius and even Vergil (Silv. 2.7.75ff.) for whom he shows respect elsewhere (Theb. 12.816). The topos of out-doing is at work also when Statius' praised patrons in the Silvae rank higher than famous figures in myth. As Taisne (1996) has recently shown, epic characters are always used as a foil to the greatness of the living individual, they must bow before the qualities of the praised patron. Epic in the Silvae functions as nothing more than a cultivated and polite code of praise. The hero Parthenopeus from the Thebaid enhances the image of the deceased slave of Flavius Ursus:
Similarly, Parthenopaeus, Ascanius and Achilles are foils to the praise of Crispinus' horsmanship skills (5.2.122-4). This topos becomes exteremely widespread in the middle ages. The topos of outdoing applied to the eulogy of contemporaries is related to a topos that, as Curtius notes, among the Romans first appears in the Flavian period. In Greek it is already to be found in Isocrates (Paneg. 5ff.). It says, "Not only the past deserves praise; later men and the very latest should be praised too." With the proem to the Thebaid and with the Thebaid itself Statius seems to state that there is nothing heroic about the past heroes and you should not look for heroic exempla in my epic. It is about the horrible aspects of war, the destructiveness of power (sceptrum exitiale), about hatered that extends beyond death (nec furiis post fata modum), about men deprived of burial (tumulisque carentia regum / funera) and cities emptied(literally carried out, egestas) by reciprocal deaths, about the transgression of boundaries and the violation of the natural order, as the river Ismenos gets cluttered with corpses:
Although Statius posits Thetis as an internal spectator whose reaction is that of horror (horruit), he expects to evoke the same reaction from his historical audience as well. In a lament for the death of his father Statius represents himself in the way in which his father wanted to see him: as composer of panegyric epic and raising to the occasion of glorifying martial exploits (certe ego magnanimum qui facta extollere regum / ibam altum spirans Martemque aequare canendo, 5.3.10-11). Statius opens the Achilleid with a reference to Achilles as magnanimus (Ach. 1.1). However, magnanimi reges is a description that does not chime well with the actual description of the characters in the Thebaid (immodicus irae Tydeus, turbidus Hippomedon, Capaneus horrore canendus). The discrepancy between idealized image and actuality, between expectation and reality explains the paradox embedded in the recusatio. In the proem Statius signals that his Thebaid is not a celebration of war, but a representation of its horrors, it is about ploranda bella or Vergil's tristia bella, (Ecl. 6.7) and horrida bella (Aen. 7.41). It is an epic that distances itself from straightforward and uncritical conferral of fame. Although Vergil had turned briefly to the Ennian tradition, he does not offer a straight heroic account. Statius moves further away from heroic simplicity. In other words, with his proem, Statius aligns himself with the in-the-middle proem that introduces the second half of the Aeneid. Anchises seduces Aeneas into participating in the second half of the epic by commemorating the battles that must be fought (bella viro memorat quae deinde gerenda 6.890) and inciting a love for future fame in Aeneis' heart (incenditque animum famae venientis amore, 6.889). From the perspective of the narrator, however, this idealistic interpretation of the events in the second half of the epic is reformulated and modified. According to this new interpretation, the story will tell about horrida bella and of kings driven to the grave by passion: dicam horrida bella, / dicam acies actosque animis in funera reges (7.41-2). This shift of perspective in the middle of the Aeneid between war as a road to fame and war as horror, plays a crucial part in Statius' programmatic proem. For Statius, the glorification of military exploits can be postponed or even lifted out (as the case with 17-33 shows). This is so, because his epic promises to represent in graphic details the horrors of war. And Statius lives up in full to this promise. The beginning of the action: the curse of Oedipus ( 46-87)The beginning of the action is thematically not connected to the proem, but it is linked to it through the more subtle ties of Pindaric allusion. The proem ended with a Pindaric priamel. The action starts with Oedipus' curse, a theme from tragedy, but while in tragedy tragedy the death of the sons comes from their father's curse (Soph. O.C. 421ff.) only, in Statius' version the curse is structured as a prayer and invocation of the fury Tisiphone. Similarly, in Pindar, who uses the Oedipus myth in Olympian 2, the punishment of the sons comes from the the Erinys (41ff.). The opening words of Oedipus were compared long ago to a prologue of an Euripidean tragedy because they summarize the story of Oedipus and introduce the main characters in the plot. They contain the famous curse which brings the action of the epic into motion. The curse a performative function within the narrative, because it precipitates the movement towards the fratricidal war. But besides this performative function, the curse also serves an informative function. It relates the whole story of Oedipus, the wounds in his feet as a child (traiectum vulnere plantas), the consultation of the oracle in Delphi (stagna petivi Cirrhea), his stepfather (falsus Polybus), the patricide (secui trementis ora senis), his search for his father, the riddles of the unjust Sphinx (Sphingos iniquae ambages), the marriage to his mother (lamentabile matris conubium), his sons born for Tisiphone (natos tibi, scis ipsa, paravi), his self-blinding above the corpse of his mother (miseraque oculos in matre reliqui). All the episodes are there to help the audience to reconstruct the events in its memory. The curse gives the entire background to the story just as prologues in Euripidean drama do. The description of Oedipus resembles that of an actor appearing on the stage whose every gesture is full of meaning: he ostentatiously lifts his empty orbs towards the sky while pounding with blood-stained hands on the earth, thus symbolically manifesting his liminal position between the two realms, the upper and the netherworld (tunc vacuos orbes, crudum ac miserabile vitae / supplicium, ostentat caelo manibusque cruentis / pulsat inane solum, 1.53-5). The curse is not a straightforward damnation of Oedipus' impious sons. Oedipus acts as if he were on a stage before two audiences. First, he addresses the netherworld whose vengeful spirit he enlists (1.80) and with which he has visual contact and constant communications (tuque umbrifero Styx livida fundo / quam video, multumque mihi consueta vocari / adnue, Tisiphone, 1.58-60). The speech also projects a second audience, that of the divine realm, an audience which is negligent and only watches the events in Oedipus' family, but does not take action: Et videt ista deorum / ignavus genitor? (1.79), asks Oedipus. This rhetorical question changes the direction of Oedipus' appeal. It brings the gods into the action by ostentatiously revealing their inadequacy, which remains their characteristic throughout the rest of the poem. Furthermore, the rhetorical question implies that the gods of the upper world are not available to men and do not see what is going on, or if they do, are slow to react. In his opening speech Oedipus has encapsulated the characterization of the gods as they act throughout the epic. Before the duel between Eteocles and Polynices, Jupiter, as D.C. Feeney notes, "forbids his fellow-celestials to play their traditional part of divine audience (auferte oculos! 11.126) and then declares that he will act out the obliviousness which human characters have from the start feared, or suspected, of him: absentibus ausint / ista deis lateantque Iovem (11.126-7); from 11.520-1, it appears that it is the norm for this Jupiter not to be watching the action". The prayer engages two audiences, the netherworld directly and the divine indirectly. As a prayer directed to Tissiphone and the gods that have betrayed Oedipus, this first speech illustrates a recurring paradigm, i.e. implying more than one addressee (imagined or really present) in a given speech. Speeches with multiple addressees and a change of interlocutor in mid-speech, similar to Oedipus' first speech number 56 out of the 248 speeches in the entire epic. By comparison, in Vergil multiple addressees hardly occur outside councils (11.243, 9.232) and laments (11.198); in Lucan only once do as many as three speakers occur in a given scene and in Valerius Flaccus there are also three occasions with more than two speakers involved (1.211; 3.617; 5.624). The frequent change of interlocutor and of emotion in mid-speech is a strongly expressed feature of the Thebaid. While in Vergil, as Heinze has observed, the speeches are governed by the principle of concentration (the speech is an expression of a single purpose, emotion or trend of thought), in Statius one can notice a principle of diffusion - often speeches are expressions of multiple purposes, emotions and trends of thought. (August 2, 1999). Footnotes [1] The triple priamel format:
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