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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2015
The recent edition of the Thebaid by Hall, Ritchie, and Edwards launched a successful attack on the communis opinio of a bipartite manuscript tradition, with one clearly superior family (represented by the ninth-century P [Puteanus] manuscript), and relatively few textual problems. In doing so, they underscored the need for renewed editorial work on the poem. Here I discuss five passages from Thebaid 2 that have not received adequate attention from editors.
I wish to thank the anonymous reader for helpful and stimulating comments.
1 Hall, J.B., Ritchie, A.L. and Edwards, M.J. (edd. and trans.), P. Papinius Statius: Thebaid and Achilleid, 3 vols. (Newcastle, 2007–8)Google Scholar.
2 Before this new edition, the most notable recent work on the text were articles by P.Eden, T., ‘Problems of text and interpretation in Statius, Thebaid I–VI’, CQ 48 (1998), 320–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Adnotationes in P. Papini Stati “Thebaida”’, Mnemosyne 51 (1998), 78–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Watt, W.S., ‘Notes on the epic poems of Statius’, CQ 50 (2000), 516–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the edition of Bailey, D.R. Shackleton (ed. and tr.), Statius. 2–3: Thebaid, Achilleid (Cambridge, MA and London, 2003)Google Scholar, whose readiness to print conjectures (e.g. 21 in Thebaid 2) was criticized by e.g. P. Asso, BMCRev 2004.11.02. Hall et al. emend the text even more frequently (65 conjectures in Thebaid 2).
3 I am preparing an edition with commentary of Thebaid 2. For this article, I print the text of Hill, D.E. (ed.), P. Papini Stati Thebaidos libri XII (Leiden, 1996 2)Google Scholar, by now nearly standard, but use the fuller manuscript evidence of Hall et al. They cite the readings of ten ‘primary’ manuscripts at all times (B, D, G, M, O, P, Q, R, S, T), supplemented with nearly one hundred ‘secondary’ witnesses cited passim, and indicate variant readings (ul) and readings before and after correction (ac and pc).
4 Mueller, O. (ed.), P. Papini Stati Thebais et Achilleis cum scholiis (Leipzig, 1870)Google Scholar.
5 Hall et al. (n. 1), 3.137, who nevertheless also adopt the reading of P here.
6 Statius ‘corrects’ Lucan's assertion that divine omens are a cura for mortals: Polynices has recently seen a divine omen of disaster (the fall of the shield from Pallas Athena's temple at Theb. 2.249–61) but any cura it has caused is overwhelmed by an even heavier cura, Polynices' long-frustrated hope.
7 Printing curis would not only weaken the allusion to Lucan but also produce the unusual construction [cura] addita curis: of the 44 occurrences of addere in Statius I find no instances of a thing being ‘added’ to the same thing (as would be the case here). The construction would be less unusual if the implied subject of addita were spes: ‘and long-deferred hope, than which there is none more oppressive added to human worries’. But this interpretation would further weaken the allusion to Lucan: in order for Statius' ‘correction’ of Lucan to make sense, it must advance ‘long-deferred hope’ as a graver cura than divine omens, not long-deferred hope as a graver cura than other kinds of hope.
8 E.g. Theb. 1.672, hora est; 1.706, ultra est; 5.400, supra est; 6.571, aperta est; 7.543, morata est; 9.583, uisa est; 11.250, ira est. In each case, the est is lost in at least one manuscript.
9 Hall et al. (n. 1), 3.167–73, list 177 true readings found only in the secondary witnesses for the Thebaid (although they are perhaps more willing than other scholars to accept such readings).
10 In the whole of the Thebaid I find 83 instances of a single word repeated at line endings five or fewer lines apart (thus siluae and siluis three lines apart, latenti and latendi five lines apart), but I find no other instances of repetition (within this five-line limit) involving chiasmus, synchysis, or any other patterning of multiple repeated words. Expanding the limit to ten lines, I find only 9.867–73, with a chiastic pattern of line endings: cuspis, sonori, remissis, cornu, remisit, dextri, cuspis.
11 Watt (n. 2), 517.
12 Ov. Fast. 5.126: inuicto nil Ioue maius erat (cf. Hor. Carm. 1.12.17: unde nil maius generatur ipso); Ov. Tr. 5.2.38: Caesare nil ingens mitius orbis habet, 5.8.25–6: nil ingens | illo [Caesare], cui paret, mitius orbis habet; Mart. 1.10.3: adeone pulchra est [femina]? immo foedius nil est, 2.54.5: nil nasutius hac maligniusque, 4.86.4–5: nil exactius eruditiusque est [Apollinari], | sed nec candidius benigniusque, 6.24.1: nil lasciuius est Charisiano; Cic. Div. 2.66: nam quod haruspices responderint nihil illo clarius, nihil nobilius fore …; Cic. Fam. 13.1.5: nihil est illo mihi nec carius nec iucundius, 16.5.2: nihil potest illo fieri humanius, nihil nostri amantius; Sen. Controv. 10 praef. 2: nihil erat illo uenustius, nihil paratius.
13 As I discuss in the commentary I am preparing, this allusion is part of a meditation on the differences between Virgilian and Statian pietas in this passage.
14 Mulder, H.M. (comm.), Publii Papinii Statii Thebaidos liber secundus (Groningen, 1954), 344Google Scholar.
15 A blow to the head (Theb. 6.510), fear (10.735), ambiguous prophecy (Sil. 11.122), or uncertain historical records (8.45).
16 Cf. a similar double paradox between cold and hot, fire and liquid, a dozen lines earlier, at 672–4: gelidus cadit imber anhelo | pectore, tum crines ardentiaque ora cruentis | roribus et taetra morientum aspergine manant.
17 Theb. 3.525; Silv. 4.2.25. In both places all the manuscripts attest the Greek genitive. Statius never uses the Latin genitive aetheris.
18 The lemma in Lactantius' manuscripts is aeros, which would be a hapax legomenon in extant Latin (furthermore, Hall et al. [n. 1], 3.3, remind us that the lemmata of this commentary ‘are always liable to alteration to suit the manuscript to which they are newly attached … and only the body of the notes can tell us, explicitly or by implication, what the original commentator, or for that matter a successor, was commenting on’). Statius uses the Latin genitive aeris only once, at Theb. 11.591 (in a context unrelated to our passage), where it is attested in all the manuscripts.
19 Cf. Theb. 8.204–5 (on the death of the augur Amphiaraus): ipse nihil certum sagis clangoribus aether | praecinet; and aether to describe the location of flying birds at Theb. 5.14, 9.30.