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TRANSFORMING ARMA VIRVMQVE: SYNTACTICAL, MORPHOLOGICAL AND METRICAL DIS-MEMBRA-MENT IN STATIUS’ THEBAID

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2020

Helen E.B. Dalton
Helen E.B. Dalton*
Affiliation:
Manchester
*
h.e.dalton@dunelm.org.uk
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Extract

Arma uirumque cano … ‘Je chante les armes et l'homme …’ ainsi commence l’Énéide, ainsi devrait commencer toute poésie.

It is far from an overstatement to make the claim that in the surviving corpus of Latin poetry no phrase is more immediately identifiable than the pronouncement of the Virgilian narrator on the ‘arms and the man’ of his subject matter. The presence of arma uirumque in a particular formation cannot fail to put us in mind of the Aeneid and its concomitant ideological associations. A consequence of the epic's centrality as a canonical text was the emergence in antiquity of arma uirumque as a synecdochic quotation for the work as a whole and, as such, for the figure of the poet himself. This transformation was further actuated by the ancient practice of ascribing titular authority to a poem's incipit, ensuring that arms and the man took on especial resonance. Even within the Aeneid, self-referential intratextual play with the Virgilian utterance can be detected. Furthermore, in post-Augustan verse, Fowler argues that arma alone is always loaded in a metaliterary fashion, serving as an identifying marker for Virgil's epic or, more broadly, for epic in general. This was so marked a phenomenon that the opening word of the poem was recycled and reworked by Ovid around a decade after the compositional beginnings of the Aeneid, in the first book of the Amores, in what formed an announcement of the redeployment of epic arma into the elegiac world of militia amoris (Am. 1.1–2).

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , May 2020 , pp. 286 - 309
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

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References

1 This article is a fuller version of a paper presented at a workshop on Flavian literature organized at the University of Manchester in 2017, to whose audience I am indebted for many useful suggestions and observations. I am especially grateful to Alison Sharrock for her valuable feedback and encouragement in producing this piece. I should also like to thank the anonymous reader for CQ and the editor for a wealth of helpful comments and recommendations. All remaining errors are my own.

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3 I proceed from the widely accepted position that the ille ego qui exordium preceding arma uirumque is spurious. For a cogent examination of the question, see Austin, R.G., ‘Ille ego qui quondam …’, CQ 18 (1968), 107–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Kenney, E.J., ‘That incomparable poem the “ille ego”?’, CR 20 (1970), 290Google Scholar; Conte, G.B., The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets, transl. Segal, C. (Ithaca, NY, 1986), 84–7Google Scholar. For the lines as prefatory epigram, see Kayachev, B., ‘Ille ego qui quondam: genre, date, and authorship’, Vergilius 57 (2011), 75–82Google Scholar. On the pre-proemium's relationship with the Ovidian œuvre, see Farrell, J., ‘Ovid's Virgilian career’, MD 52 (2004), 41–55, at 46–52Google Scholar. The coinage is also afforded considerable intertextual attention in Statius’ own body of work: compare Theb. 8.666, 9.434, 11.165; Achil. 1650; Silu. 4.3.76, 5.5.38, 5.5.40. Markland's ille ego conjecture at Silu. 5.3.10 is explored with reference to further examples in Gibson, B., Statius, Siluae 5 (Oxford, 2006), 272Google Scholar. Note also the illa ego with which Hypsipyle bewails her lot in the Thebaid, as detailed in Gibson, B., ‘The repetitions of Hypsipyle’, in Gale, M. (ed.), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry. Genre, Tradition and Individuality (Swansea, 2004), 149–80, at 158Google Scholar.

4 The bibliography on the latter is vast. For a brief overview with further cited scholarship, see Perkell, C.G., ‘Editor's introduction’, in id., Reading Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide (Norman, OK, 1999), 18–22Google Scholar. See also Farrell, J., ‘The Vergilian century’, Vergilius 47 (2001), 11–28Google Scholar.

5 On the ancient reception of the Aeneid as foundational text, see Tarrant, R.J., ‘Aspects of Virgil's reception in antiquity’, in Martindale, C. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil (Cambridge, 1997²), 43–62Google Scholar. On ‘readings’ of the epic enacted by Virgilian contemporaries, see Thomas, R.F., Virgil and the Augustan Reception (Cambridge, 2001), 55–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For ancient sources utilizing arma uirumque ‘as a tag for the opening of the Aeneid, and therefore for the epic as a whole, or at least as important words’, see Ziolkowski, J.M. and Putnam, M.C.J., The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years (New Haven, 2008), 23–4, at 23Google Scholar. On the metonymic force of arma uirumque, see Bloch, A., ‘Arma uirumque als heroisches Leitmotiv’, MH 27 (1970), 206–11Google Scholar. For epic arma as Ennian designator, see Conte, G.B., Il genere e i suoi confini: cinque studi sulla poesia di Virgilio (Turin, 1984), 48–9Google Scholar. For ‘arms and the man’ as representing an ‘opposition of inside and outside’, see Abbott, J.C. Jr., ‘Arma uirumque’, CJ 108 (2012), 37–63Google Scholar. Góráin, F. Mac, ‘Untitled/Arma uirumque’, CPh 113 (2018), 423–48Google Scholar considers arma uirumque through Genette's Paratexts. On the phrase's metrical idiosyncrasies, see Weber, C., ‘Metrical imitatio in the proem to the Aeneid’, HSPh 91 (1987), 261–71Google Scholar.

6 Kenney (n. 3), 290: ‘… the Aeneid was commonly [and very early: Ov. Tr. ii. 534] referred to as the arma uirumque’. On this appellative practice, see Borgo, A., ‘Quando il libro si presenta da sé: arma uirumque e i titoli delle opere antiche’, Aevum 81 (2007), 133–47Google Scholar.

7 As discussed by Conte (n. 3), 72–3. See further Barchiesi, A., The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse (Berkeley, 1997), 16–23Google Scholar; Oliensis, E., ‘Sibylline syllables: the intratextual Aeneid’, PCPhS 50 (2004), 29–45Google Scholar.

8 Fowler, D., ‘On the shoulders of giants: intertextuality and classical studies’, MD 39 (1997), 13–34, at 20Google Scholar. On the intertextuality between Virgilian arma and Odyssean ἄνδρα, see Higgins, J., ‘Arma uirumque cano: a note’, CW 88 (1994), 41–2Google Scholar.

9 There was undoubtedly awareness of the Aeneid amongst the literati prior to the epic's circulation: see Keith, A., ‘Tandem uenit amor: a Roman woman speaks of love’, in Hallett, J.P. and Skinner, M.B. (edd.), Roman Sexualities (Princeton, 1997), 295–310, at 296Google Scholar, stating: ‘it is clear that the Aeneid provoked a great deal of interest in elite Roman circles long before its official “publication” in 17 b.c.e.’. This must have affected the Ovidian creative process, although a chronological muddiness surrounds the publication of the Amores. See McKeown, J.C., Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and Commentary: Volume 1 (Leeds, 1987), 74–89Google Scholar on such uncertainties. For the Amores as second edition, see Cameron, Alan, ‘The first edition of Ovid's Amores’, CQ 18 (1968), 320–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. With Cameron, I take 15 b.c. as the terminus post quem for the circulation of the first edition.

10 See Conte (n. 3), 85–6 for discussion.

11 All translations are my own, with advice from the editor for CQ.

12 Tarrant, R., ‘Ovid and ancient literary history’, in Hardie, P. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge, 2002), 13–33, at 24Google Scholar.

13 For interpretations of these famous lines, see Ingleheart, J., A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia, Book 2 (Oxford, 2010), 384–5Google Scholar; Barchiesi (n. 7), 27–8; Gibson, B., ‘Ovid on reading: reading Ovid. Reception in Ovid Tristia 2’, JRS 89 (1999), 19–37, at 35–6Google Scholar. For Ovidian interaction with Virgil's epic in general, see e.g. Thomas (n. 5), 74–83; Barnes, W.R., ‘Virgil: the literary impact’, in Horsfall, N. (ed.), A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Leiden, 2001), 257–92, at 257–67Google Scholar.

14 So Nitinski, H., A. Persius Flaccus. Saturae. Commentario atque indice rerum notabilium instruxit (Munich, 2002), 88Google Scholar: ‘mos erat librum omnibus notum atque celebrem iis uerbis significare, a quibus initium cepit.’

15 Leary, T.J. (ed.), Martial. Book XIV: The Apophoreta (Bristol, 1996), 250Google Scholar.

16 See Milnor, K., Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii (Oxford, 2014), 263–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar for collected examples of Roman Pompeian graffiti adapting arma uirumque and the usage of Virgil in general. For the significance of the owl and the fuller, see Corte, M. Della, Case ed abitanti de Pompei (Naples, 1965³), 336Google Scholar; Courtney, E., Lapidaria, Musa: A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions (Atlanta, 1995), 281Google Scholar.

17 For such intertextual redirection, see Ovid's adaptation of arma uirumque during Chiron's catasterism at Fast. 5.379–414, undermining ‘the heroic code’, in Boyd, B. Weiden, ‘Arms and the man: wordplay and the catasterism of Chiron in Ovid Fasti 5’, AJPh 122 (2001), 67–80, at 78Google Scholar.

18 See Hinds, S.E., Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge, 1998), 91–8Google Scholar for the concept of ‘secondariness’ and a paradigmatic discussion reclaiming the successional nature of Neronian and Flavian epic. See also Hardie, P., The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar for a reformative overview of post-Virgilian epic's imitatio and aemulatio as ‘creative imitation’.

19 Earlier analyses took this deference at face value: see Quint, D., Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (Princeton, 1993), 132–3Google Scholar. Further work has brought out the interpretative complications of deliberate narratorial pronouncements of ‘secondariness’. So Dominik, W.J., ‘Following in whose footsteps? The epilogue to Statius’ Thebaid’, in Dominik, W.J. and Basson, A.F. (edd.), Literature, Art, History: Studies on Classical Antiquity and Tradition. In Honour of W.J. Henderson (Frankfurt, 2003), 91–109Google Scholar. See also Pagán, V.E., ‘The mourning after: Statius “Thebaid” 12’, AJPh 121 (2000), 423–52, at 439–46Google Scholar; Nugent, S.G., ‘Statius’ Hypsipyle: following in the footsteps of the Aeneid’, Scholia 5 (1996), 46–71Google Scholar; Gervais, K., ‘Parent-child conflict in the Thebaid’, in Dominik, W.J., Newlands, C.E. and Gervais, K., Brill’s Companion to Statius (Leiden, 2015), 221–39, at 231–7Google Scholar.

20 Ganiban, R.T., Statius and Virgil. The Thebaid and the Reinterpretation of the Aeneid (Cambridge, 2007)Google Scholar is the most important examination of this Virgilian-Statian interaction. See also Pollmann, K., ‘Statius’ Thebaid and the legacy of Virgil's Aeneid’, Mnemosyne 54 (2001), 10–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parkes, R., ‘Hercules and the Centaurs: reading Statius with Virgil and Ovid’, CPh 104 (2009), 476–94Google Scholar.

21 On the metaphor, see further Keith, A., ‘Slender verse: Roman elegy and ancient rhetorical theory’, Mnemosyne 52 (1999), 41–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fantham, E., Comparative Studies in Republican Latin Imagery (Toronto, 1972), 164–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farrell, J., ‘The Ovidian corpus: poetic body and poetic text’, in Hardie, P., Barchiesi, A. and Hinds, S. (edd.), Ovidian Transformations: Essays on Ovid's Metamorphoses and its Reception (Cambridge, 1999), 127–41Google Scholar.

22 Farrell (n. 21), 130–1.

23 So Dinter, M.T., Anatomizing Civil War. Studies in Lucan’s Epic Technique (Ann Arbor, 2013)Google Scholar. See also Most, G.W., ‘Disiecti membra poetae: the rhetoric of dismemberment in Neronian poetry’, in Hexter, R. and Seldon, D. (edd.), Innovations of Antiquity (London, 1992), 391–419Google Scholar on the ‘amputated style’ of Seneca and Lucan. There is growing interest in the dialogue between Statius and Lucan: see Micozzi, L., ‘Aspetti dell'influenza di Lucano nella Tebaide’, in Esposito, P. and Nicastri, L. (edd.), Interpretare Lucano: miscellanea di studi (Quaderni del dipartimento di scienze dell’antichità, Università degli studi di Salerno 22) (Naples, 1999), 343–87Google Scholar; Ganiban, R.T., ‘Crime in Lucan and Statius’, in Asso, P. (ed.), Brill's Companion to Lucan (Leiden, 2011), 327–44Google Scholar; Roche, P., ‘Lucan's De Bello Ciuili in the Thebaid’, in Dominik, W.J., Newlands, C.E. and Gervais, K. (edd.), Brill's Companion to Statius (Leiden, 2015), 393–407Google Scholar.

24 See Beard, M., ‘Did Romans have elbows? Or arms and the Romans’, in Moreau, P. (ed.), Corps romains (Grenoble, 2002), 47–60Google Scholar on animalized armi. The term is used poetically to refer to human anatomy and often ‘there is an ambiguity (or intentional play) with the neuter plural arma (in the sense of “weapons” [54 fn. 13])’. For armi denoting non-animal physiology, see TLL 2.624.10: tantus in arma patet. latos huic hasta per armos | acta tremit (Verg. Aen. 11.644–5); quam protinus ille retecto | ense ferit totoque semel demittit ab armo [manum] (Luc. 9.830–1); pendentesque etiam perstrinxit Tydeos armos (Stat. Theb. 10.401).

25 Landrey, L., ‘Skeletons in armor: Silius Italicus’ Punica and the Aeneid's proem’, AJPh 135 (2014), 599–635, at 599Google Scholar.

26 This is in contrast to Landrey's (n. 25) analysis which lays down no requirement for the terms to be ‘linked by syntax or other sense groupings’ (at 613).

27 The term ‘reader’ is riven with complexities. Difficulties immediately abound as regards the question of the immediate ancient reader, taking into account the prevalence of literacy, the accessibility and transmission of texts in written form, and performative literary consumption. There are further complications still when attempting to define what is meant by the reader of a work. Indeed, this ‘reader’ is no fixed abstraction but an avatar comprising assorted acts of first readings, rereadings and constructed readings, ideologically affected by chronological and socio-cultural positioning, and bound up with levels of addressee, narratee and implied reader. My usage of the term will be situated within the realm of a more conservative reader-response, asserting that the ensuing analysis of arma uirumque in the Thebaid is made available to a particular type of ‘literary/culturally aware’ reader by means of a negotiation between consumer, text and, to a degree, author. I will thus use the nomenclature of ‘Statius’ in the course of the discussion as a convenient shorthand encompassing these theoretical intricacies, not as the marker of an absolute and fixed authorial design.

28 Wills, J., Repetition in Latin Poetry: Figures of Allusion (Oxford, 1996), 33Google Scholar.

29 I have proceeded from a position in which it is necessary for the distributed arma and uir to be involved in the same grammatical construction within the distance parameters identified above. Moreover, I also identify two ‘borderline’ cases in which the arma uirumque quotation is activated through evocation of a discrete intertext drawn from the Aeneid. Including the latter, the single verse percentage-indicator increases to 73.6%. Note also that there are no incidences of the phenomenon in Books 1 and 12, a significant absence given epic's preoccupation with beginnings and endings. I differ here from Landrey's ([n. 25], 614) count, which identifies fifty-five examples within the Thebaid based on the five-lines-apart rule as determined from the Silian proem, a rather anachronistic principle of measurement given that we are dealing with an entirely different epic/text/author.

30 Owing to constraints of space, I will here confine my argument in the following sections to consideration of three such ‘clusterings’, omitting the Catalogue of Argive forces in Book 4, the nocturnal massacre in Book 10, and the fratricidal duel between Eteocles and Polynices in Book 11.

31 Hinds, S.E., ‘Essential epic: genre and gender from Macer to Statius’, in Depew, M. and Obbink, D. (edd.), Matrices of Genre. Authors, Canons, and Society (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 221–44, at 234Google Scholar. This, however, is not to suggest that genre is structurally fixed. Rather, I employ the term as a useful indicator of shared features upon which more nuanced interpretations can be anchored.

32 Adams, J., The Works of John Adams Vol. 2: Diary (Boston, 1850), 223Google Scholar.

33 On the cannibalism of Tydeus, see, inter alia, Ganiban (n. 20), 123–7; McNelis, C., Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War (Cambridge, 2007), 130–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Augoustakis, A., ‘Statius and Senecan drama’, in Dominik, W.J., Newlands, C.E. and Gervais, K. (edd.), Brill’s Companion to Statius (Leiden, 2015), 377–92, at 386–9Google Scholar; Augoustakis, A., Statius, Thebaid 8: Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford, 2016)Google Scholar; McClellan, A.M., Abused Bodies in Roman Epic (Cambridge, 2019), 79–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Tydeus in the Thebaid, see Vessey, D.W.T., Statius & the Thebaid (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar, passim; Lovatt, H.V., Statius and Epic Games: Sport, Politics and Poetics in the Thebaid (Cambridge, 2005), 193–241CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gervais, K., ‘Tydeus the hero? Intertextual confusion in Statius, Thebaid 2’, Phoenix 69 (2015), 56–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 On this generically troped singularity, see Hardie (n. 18), 3–18.

35 See Gervais (n. 33).

36 On the ambush and monomachy, see Legras, L., Étude sur la Thébaïde de Stace (Paris, 1905), 43–7Google Scholar; Vessey (n. 33), 145–7; Ahl, F., ‘“Statius” Thebaid: a reconsideration’, ANRW 2.32.5 (1986), 2803–912Google Scholar, at 2876–8; Gervais (n. 33). For detailed discussion of the episode itself, see Gervais, K., Statius, Thebaid 2. Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford, 2017), 239–333Google Scholar.

37 I follow here Gervais's ([n. 36], 257) suggested usage of W.S. Watt's emendation (‘Notes on the epic poems of Statius’, CQ 50 [2000], 516–25, at 516–17) from occultatis to occulti estis.

38 For this position with respect to Virgil, see Ganiban (n. 20).

39 On the sphinx comparison, see Vessey (n. 33), 146; Coffee, N., The Commerce of War. Exchange and Social Order in Latin Epic (Chicago, 2009), 232–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gervais (n. 33), 72–4.

40 For such equivocation, see Statius’ epicēdion for his father in the Siluae: quantus equum pugnasque uirum decurrere uersu | Maeonides (Silu. 5.3.149–50). For discussion, see Gibson (n. 3 [2006]), 321–2.

41 So Gervais (n. 33), 61.

42 With thanks to Alison Sharrock for this observation.

43 For discussion of the intertext, see Williams, G., Change and Decline (Berkeley, 1978), 200–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roche (n. 23), 396; Gervais (n. 36), 282.

44 For the animalized Tydeus, see Franchet-D'Espèrey, S., Conflit, violence et non-violence dans la Thébaïde de Stace (Paris, 1999), 174–6Google Scholar; Ahl (n. 36), 2876; Taisne, A.-M., L'esthétique de Stace. La peinture des correspondances (Paris, 1994), 137–8Google Scholar. See Hardie (n. 18), 69 for Tydeus’ structuralist incorporation into the spectrum of beast-man-god.

45 On the discursiveness of Tydeus’ return to Adrastus, see Frings, I., Gespräch und Handlung in der Thebais des Statius (Stuttgart, 1991), 39–44Google Scholar.

46 Wills (n. 28), 63.

47 ecce autem antiquam fato Calydona relinquens | Olenius Tydeus (fraterni sanguinis illum | conscius horror agit), Theb. 1.401–3. For an overview of this exilic story and its variants, see Heuvel, H., Publii Papinii Statii Thebaidos liber primus, uersione Bataua commentarioque exegetico instructus (Zutphen, 1932), 200Google Scholar.

48 On Ovid's novel association of the wolf episode with Peleus’ fratricide, see Griffin, A.H.F., ‘The Ceyx episode in Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XI’, CQ 31 (1981), 147–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 For Tydeus as ‘cantore epico’, see L. Micozzi, ‘Ille referre aliter saepe solebat idem: ripetizione e sperimentalismo narrativo nella Tebaide in Stazio’, in R. Ferri, J.M. Seo and K. Volk (edd.), Callida Musa: Papers on Latin Literature in Honor of R. Elaine Fantham (Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 61) (Pisa, 2009), 211–27, at 217–20.

50 Goldsmith, O., ‘Female warriors’, in id., The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, vol. 4 (London, 1812), 363–7, at 367Google Scholar.

51 On the episode, see Vessey (n. 33), 165–91; Ahl (n. 36), 2886–7; Kytzler, B., ‘Sola fida suis. Die Hypsipyle-Erzählung des Statius (Thebais, Buch 5)’, JAC 11 (1996), 43–51Google Scholar; Delarue, F., Stace, poète épique. Originalité et cohérence (Paris, 2000), 120–33, 333–7Google Scholar; Gibson (n. 3 [2004]), 149–80; J. Soerink, ‘Tragic/epic: Statius’ Thebaid and Euripides’ Hypsipyle’, in A. Augoustakis (ed.), Flavian Poetry and its Greek Past (Leiden, 2014), 171–91. Brown, J., ‘Lacrimabile nomen Archemorus: the babe in the woods in Statius’ Thebaid’, in Augoustakis, A. (ed.), Flavian Epic. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies (Oxford, 2016), 195–233Google Scholar.

52 On the other ‘Othernesses’ of Hypsipyle, see Augoustakis, A., Motherhood and the Other. Fashioning Female Power in Flavian Epic (Oxford, 2010), 30–9Google Scholar1.

53 Henderson, J., ‘Form remade: Statius’ Thebaid’, in Boyle, A.J. (ed.), Roman Epic (London, 1993), 162–91, at 183Google Scholar.

54 A prophetic echo noted by Gibson (n. 3 [2004]), 158.

55 On this, see Gruzelier, C., ‘The influence of Virgil's Dido on Statius’ portrayal of Hypsipyle’, Prudentia 26 (1994), 153–65Google Scholar; Nugent (n. 19), 47–52; Ganiban (n. 20), 73–5.

56 For arma uirumque in Hypsipyle's tale, see Henderson (n. 53), 184.

57 Ganiban (n. 20), 10.

58 On the usage elsewhere of this allusion in Hypsipyle's tale, see Ganiban (n. 20), 73.

59 But see Nugent (n. 19), 62–6 on the father's uncertain fate.

60 On the absence of a principal hero in Statius’ epic, see Franchet D'Espèrey (n. 44), 86–8. See also Ahl (n. 36), 2869: ‘The “Thebaid” is not about an individual, it has no “hero”.’ Delarue (n. 51), 242–4 discusses whether a central heroic figure is required at all.

61 A. Okerson, M. Seeley and B. Hannay, ‘The long arm of the law’, Proceedings of the Charleston Library Conference (2011), 63–7, at 63.

62 Seo, J.M., Exemplary Traits: Reading Characterization in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 2013), 165CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 On the Statian novelty of this episode, see Vessey (n. 33), 262.

64 For Amphiaraus’ aristeia, see Smolenaars, J.J.L., Statius Thebaid VII: A Commentary (Leiden, 1994), 321–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Masterson, M., ‘Statius’ Thebaid and the realization of Roman manhood’, Phoenix 59 (2005), 288–315, at 292–8Google Scholar; McNelis (n. 33), 127–30. On the Homeric intertext recalling Diomedes in Book 5 of the Iliad, see Juhnke, H., Homerisches in römischer Epik flavischer Zeit (Munich, 1972), 120–3Google Scholar.

65 Smolenaars (n. 64), 356 refrains from noting such arma uirumque referentiality in favour of drawing out the Statian adaptation of Verg. Aen. 12.688 (siluas armenta uirosque).

66 As noted by Hershkowitz, D., The Madness of Epic: Reading Insanity from Homer to Statius (Oxford, 1998), 271Google Scholar: ‘[t]he landslide carries away with it arua uirosque (746), resounding with the paradigmatic expression of epic subjects, arma uirumque, which are swept by Statius beyond the limes of Vergil, and are being swept, by Statius’ poetic activity, beyond the epic limes to which Statius attempts to adhere.’ On the programmatic limes of the Thebaid's exordium, see Ahl (n. 36), 2817–22; Heinrich, A., ‘Longa retro series: sacrifice and repetition in Statius’ Menoeceus episode’, Arethusa 32 (1999), 165–95, at 170–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Smolenaars (n. 64), 381 notes that ‘the combination arma uirosque also occurs in Th. 8.142, 9.134; cf. 7.746’, but, as above (n. 64), eschews specificities of its significances as regards the Aeneid.

68 See TLL 7.1.947.33: tam paucis diebus magna erat rerum facta commutatio ac se fortuna inclinauerat (Caes. BCiu. 1.52.3); omnia simul inclinante fortuna (Livy 33.18.1); [Demetrius] primus inclinasse eloquentiam dicitur (Quint. Inst. 10.1.80).

69 On the relationship with the topographical opposition of autochthonous Thebes, see Keith, A., Engendering Rome. Women in Latin Epic (Cambridge, 2000), 60–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See McAuley, M., Reproducing Rome: Motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca and Statius (Oxford, 2016), 306–7, at 307Google Scholar, on the intersection of motherhood, death and warfare inherent in the figure of Amphiaraus in a ‘radical literalization of the maternal metaphor’.

70 On this episode, see Vessey (n. 33), 288–9. On the Homeric intertextuality of the martial display, see Juhnke (n. 64), 128–9.

71 As Augoustakis (n. 33 [2016]), 249–50 notes in relation to this Statian exemplum, ‘armus is poetically transferred from an animal's shoulders […] to humans’.

72 For this episode, see Dewar, M., Statius Thebaid IX (Oxford, 1991), 118–65Google Scholar; Newlands, C.E., ‘Statius and Ovid: transforming the landscape’, TAPhA 134 (2004), 133–55, at 146–52Google Scholar; Lovatt (n. 33), 119–28; McNelis (n. 33), 135–7; Juhnke (n. 64), 24–8. For Hippomedon in the Thebaid, see T.C. Klinnert, Capaneus – Hippomedon: Interpretationen zur Heldendarstellung in der Thebais des P. Papinius Statius (Diss., Berlin, 1970).

73 On this pusillanimity, see Dewar (n. 72), 84.

74 For echoes of the death of Priam, see Paschalis, M., Virgil’s Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names (Oxford, 1997), 408Google Scholar.

75 Dewar (n. 72), 85 on Theb. 9.133.

76 Klinnert (n. 72), 104 discusses such reconfiguration of the vengeance-seeking epic hero as the reincarnated form of a deceased comrade.

77 For this effect, see Theb. 2.566–7 in Section 1 above.

78 On the complexities of Hippomedon's gigantomachic identity, see Lovatt (n. 33), 119–28.

79 See e.g. McNelis (n. 33), 135–7.

80 The episode also reworks/anticipates Scipio Maior's challenge to the Trebia in Silius Italicus’ Punica (4.570–703). On this machē parapotamios, see F. Spaltenstein, Commentaire des Punica de Silius Italicus. Livres 1 à 8 (Geneva, 1986), 313–23. On the intricacies of Silian-Statian-Homeric intertextuality, see Chaudhuri, P., The War with God: Theomachy in Roman Imperial Poetry (Oxford, 2014), 195–230CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Soerink, J., ‘Statius, Silius Italicus and the snake pit of intertextuality’, in Manuwald, G. and Voigt, A. (edd.), Flavian Epic Interactions (Berlin, 2013), 361–77Google Scholar.

81 Leonard, E., ‘Arma virumque cano’, in id., Charlie Martz & Other Stories (New York, 2015), 81–90, at 85Google Scholar.