3 - The discus

Summary

Discus events in epic are not exactly common: with no Virgilian version, the main forerunners for Statius are the Iliad (often rather called ‘throwing the weight’), Odysseus among the Phaeacians and the death of Hyacinthus in Metamorphoses 10. As a noncontact sport, part of the Olympic pentathlon, we might not expect this to be a particularly violent event. However, through an association with the throwing of rocks in battle, it becomes yet another practice for war, and the distinction between practice and reality is very important in Statius' version. Statius makes it even more sinister through dark imagery of magic and destruction. The discus can itself be an image of the world, and here we will begin to think about the hero against the reality of the cosmos, overturning the natural order, competing against divine powers, and the poet following in his footsteps.

Iliad versus Odyssey

Statius' discus event plays with and equivocates between his two Homeric models. Replacement is the intertextual mode of choice for this event: Statius investigates Odysseus' gesture of replacement in the games of Odyssey 8, and himself replaces both of his models. The games in the Odyssey are completely different from Patroclus' funeral games because all sixteen of the competitors are involved in every event: they represent ephebic, intracity games, in which all the young men take part.