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Statius' Young Parthian King (Thebaid 8.286–93)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

A. S. Hollis
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Extract

In the eighth book of Statius' Thebaid the Argives meet to appoint a successor to the dead seer Amphiaraus (275 ff.). Their choice falls on Thiodamas son of Melampus (277–9); he, however, is overwhelmed by the prospect, which he regards with a mixture of joy and apprehension (281–5). There follows an eight-line simile which David Vessey rightly describes as ‘unique in the Thebaid’ Thiodamas is compared to a young Parthian king who succeeds to the throne following his father's death (286–93):

sicut Achaemenius solium gentisque paternas

excepit si forte puer, cui vivere patrem

tutius, incerta formidine gaudia librat,

an fidi proceres, ne pugnet vulgus habenis,

cui latus Euphratae, cui Caspia limina mandet.

sumere tune arcus ipsumque onerare veretur

patris equum, visusque sibi nee sceptra capaci

sustentare manu nee adhuc implere tiaram.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , October 1994 , pp. 205 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

Notes

1. Statius and the Thebaid (Cambridge, 1973), p. 266, n. 2Google Scholar.

2. There is a fairly full, but not exhaustive, list in Debevoise, N. C., A Political History of Parthia (Chicago, 1938)Google Scholar, chapter 9 (‘Parthia in Commerce and Literature’), pp. 208–11. Many of the standard topics can be found in Valerius Flaccus' portrait of a Parthian, transposed back into the mythical age (Argonaulica 6.690ff.).

3. Indeed Debevoise, (A Political History of Parthia, p. 211)Google Scholar ascribes Statius' ‘intimate knowledge of eastern affairs’ to his friendship with Domitian's secretary Abascantus, T. Flavius (Prosopographia Imperil Romani 2, vol. III p. 133 no. 194)Google Scholar, the addressee of Silvae 5.1, in which poem his concerns are said to include the affairs of Parthia (89–90). One should be cautious about this; the dedicatory prose epistle stresses the friendship between the wives of the two men (‘amavit enim uxorem meam Priscilla’). For discussion of the difficult question as to what part imperial officials played in diplomacy, see Millar, Fergus, ‘Government and Diplomacy in the Roman Empire during the First Three Centuries’, International History Review 10.3 (08 1988), 345–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar (especially 362 ff.) and ‘Emperors, Frontiers and Foreign Relations, 31 B.C. to A.D. 378’, Britannia 13 (1982), 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Statius and the Thebaid, p. 55.

5. ‘like a tea cosy in shape’ (Sellwood, David, An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia (London, 1971), p. 7Google Scholar), nearly always ornamented with jewels.

6. From Sellwood, , Coinage of Parthia, p. 230Google Scholar, type 73/1.

7. p. 229.

8. Sellwood, pp. 220, 226.

9. In the Cambridge History of Iran vol. 3(1), ‘The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods’ (ed. Yarshater, Ehsan, Cambridge, 1983), p. 296Google Scholar. Sellwood described this issue as ‘one of the few examples of irony in numismatics. Tyche offering a diadem to the enthroned monarch is the standard reverse type of later Arsacid tetradrachms, but Artabanus III had introduced a variation by showing her holding an untied diadem … Artabanus II [c.A.D. 10–38] provided the prototypes for the coinage of Artabanus III and so may have been related to him. Now the latest of the tetradrachms of Artabanus II have the king on horseback, not enthroned. In mocking commentary, therefore, Pacorus is depicted on horseback, receiving a normal diadem from Tyche and an untied diadem from a male figure, presumably the defeated Artabanus.’

10. (London, 1967), p. 61.

11. For a discussion of the precise spot, see Standish, J. F., ‘The Caspian Gates’, G&R 17 (1970), 17–24Google Scholar.

12. Nisbet, R. G. M., who discussed the gate through the Caucasus in his paper on ‘The Dating of Seneca's Tragedies’ (Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar, Sixth Volume (1990), pp. 95–114)Google Scholar, quotes (pp. 106–7) Encyclopaedia Britannica 11 V (Cambridge, 1910), p. 552Google Scholar, ‘a gorge (8 m. long) of singular beauty, shut in by precipitous mountain walls nearly 600 ft. high, and so narrow that there is only just room for the carriage-road and the brawling river Terek side by side’.

13. Cf. N.H. 6.40 ‘corrigendus est in hoc loco error multorum, etiam qui in Armenia res proxime cum Corbulone gessere. namque ii Caspias appellavere Portas Hiberiae, quas Caucasias diximus vocari’. The same ‘error’ must be recognized in Tacitus, Histories 1.6.2 (troop movements at the end of Nero's reign) ‘electos praemissosque ad claustra Caspiarum’; Chilver ad loc. comments ‘though one cannot confidently ascribe ordinary prudence to Nero in 66, one would expect that Parthia would have reacted had he planned an expedition through Media’. See also Lepper, F. A., Trajan's Parthian War (Oxford, 1948), p. 128, n. 2Google Scholar on Arrian's mention of the ‘Caspian Gates’ in connexion with Trajan's campaign.

14. Compare Chilver's comment on Tacitus, Histories 1.6.2 (quoted in n. 13 above). Kathleen Coleman on Silvae 4.4.63–4 (in her edition of Statius, , Silvae IV (Oxford, 1988, pp. 149–50Google Scholar) takes the Porta Caspiaca to be the pass south of the Caspian Sea, between Media and Parthia, but also refers to an inscription from Böyük Dash in Azerbaijan (on the west side of the Caspian Sea!) which attests (Grosso, F., Epigraphica 16 (1954), 118Google Scholar) that Domitian posted Legio XII Fulminata ‘to the area which could be designated Portae limina Caspiacae’. Yes, indeed – provided that one takes the ‘Caspian Gates’ to be the Pass of Darial. Believe it or not, Valerius Flaccus works an allusion to the posting of this legion into his mythological Argonautica, 6.55–6 ‘nee primus radios, miles Romane, corusci fulminis et rutilas scutis diffuderis alas’ (‘fulminis’ suggests Fulminata).

15. Sanford, Eva M., HSCPh 48 (1937), 98Google Scholar.

16. Tacitus, Hist. 1.6.2, quoted in n. 13 above. The text continues ‘… et bellum quod in Albanos parabat’, which is puzzling. Chilver in his Commentary on Hist. I–II (Oxford, 1979), pp. 55–6Google Scholar, rejects Mommsen's emendation of ‘Albanos’ to ‘Alanos’, and inclines to think that Tacitus has made a mistake. Val. Flacc. (for what this is worth) mentions an ‘Albana… porta’ (3.497), and, in addition to 6.55–6 (see n. 14 above), may elsewhere allude obliquely to near-contemporary conflicts in this region, e.g. 5.558–9 (? Armenians, Iberians, and Parthians cannot resist the invaders), 5.166 ‘Armeniae praetentus Hiber’ (? Iberia is, or should be, a shield to Armenia).

17. Josephus, , B.J. 7.244–51Google Scholar (though this time he seems to have confused the two Caspian Gates).

18. The request was not so unreasonable, since in this respect the interests of Rome and Parthia coincided: ‘both countries would have profited by the prevention of the Alanic invasion of 72 A.D., and even more by the continued security of the pass’ (Sanford, HSCPh 48 (1937), 95Google Scholar).

19. And the Alanic threat is probably the reason why the Caspian Gates are called ‘fearsome’ (meluenda) in Statius, Silvae 4.4.63.

20. Mrs Juliane Kerkhecker draws attention to the parallelism between the insignia of the seer in lines 276–7 (tripod, laurel, and priestly hair-band) and those of the king (291–3). In both cases the insignia represent the legitimation of the young successor.

21. Tacitus, , Annals 2.2Google Scholar ‘diversus a maiorum institutis, raro venatu, segni equorum cura’.

22. Tacitus, , Annals 6.43Google Scholar ‘inluvie obsitus et alimenta arcu expediens’.

23. Of course we may yet find coins dated to the missing years.

24. Arrian, Parthica fr. 32 (from Suidas s.v. ἐπίκλημα), cf. Lepper, , Trajan's Parthian War, p. 173Google Scholar. There is also the tall story in the younger Pliny (Ep. 10.74) about a slave called Callidromus who claimed that he was captured by the Dacians, and sent as a present to Pacorus king of Parthia, whom he served for many years; furthermore that he had been robbed of a jewel which depicted Pacorus in his royal robes. This story, even if false, might be taken as evidence that Pacorus II was still alive about A.D. 110; Pliny in no way commits himself to the reliability of Callidromus' story, and did not hurry to send him on to Trajan. See A. N. Sherwin-White's Commentary (Oxford, 1966), p. 662 on Pliny, Ep. 10.74.1, Longden, R. P., ‘Notes on the Parthian Campaigns of Trajan, JRS 21 (1931), 20–1Google Scholar, Lepper, F. A., Trajan's Parthian War (Oxford, 1948), pp. 168–9Google Scholar.